Tuesday, December 10, 2024
This devotion is the written accompaniment to a video Advent message that can be viewed on our YouTube Channel by clicking HERE.
A Reading from the Continuing Testament
We are all here, struggling to live up to the values we share, so join the crowd. Join the band of everyday folks falling down and getting up again, failing, trying, often shining with compassion and kindness, sometimes backsliding into pettiness and fear. Welcome to being human. Do your best, right where you are, to love someone into healing. When you are off your game, someone else on the team will step up and do the work.
Fierce Love, p. 136 (print version), by Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis [2021]
It’s always such a blessing to gather with friends and loved ones in a spirit of community and togetherness, particularly around the holidays. There’s nothing like the gift of presence, whether of friends, family, church members, or even new people! At this joyful time of year, no amount of gathering is too much.
No amount is too much? Really??
I know someone is reading this, thinking, ‘It’s not always such a blessing to gather with other people. I guess you could say there’s “nothing like it” when my siblings argue about politics and ruin Christmas dinner, or I get invited to a Christmas party I don’t want to attend, or there are so many gatherings on the calendar I can’t think straight.’
I’ll say it if no one else will: gathering takes energy, gathering takes investment, gathering can be exhausting. At this time of year, sometimes any gathering at all can start to feel like too much!
Perhaps a year ago, I was at my desk, trying to get 6 hours’ worth of work done in 60 minutes, and the office phone rang. My wonderful, gracious administrator appeared in the doorway looking stricken. “I’m sorry, Joy, I know you’re having a really busy week, but that was a local rehab facility. They need a pastor to visit someone in crisis.” She saw the look on my face, and her next words were, “You know what, it’s okay. I’ll call back and say you’re not available.”
“No, no,” I said, halfheartedly. “Let me think about it for a minute, and I’ll call back.” I did think about it… for more than a minute. It probably took fifteen minutes to summon the energy to call back and begrudgingly commit to the visit. But I did call back… begrudgingly.
And then I went. I gathered. I met a woman and her adult son—two people from a culture different than my own—and you know what? They ministered to my spirit that day. After a morning absorbed in my own priorities, it was a gift to get out of my own head and hear someone else’s story. It was an unexpected “manger moment:” showing up in an unfamiliar place—stress, ambivalent attitude, and all—and hearing a fresh story I hadn’t anticipated. It didn’t happen because I’m an awesome person or because my heart was in the right place. It happened because God is gracious enough to meet us right in the midst of our real, unglamorous lives.
I wonder if, sometimes, we expect a bit too much of ourselves. Perhaps we don’t need a perfect day or a perfect holiday dinner or even a perfect attitude to gather. Sometimes, we bring our limitations to a particular moment and realize God has an unexpected glimmer of grace waiting for us when we get there. I pray we might be on the lookout for our own “manger moments” this season… the times God will meet us in the stressful, imperfect, unexpected, perhaps even begrudging moments of this Advent journey.
With gratitude for God’s abundant goodness, amen.
Rev. Joy Fenton-Jones
Pastor, First Christian Church, Cuyahoga Falls