A couple of years ago, I was talking to some friends at a seminary, and they started discussing an ancient Christology that eventually was declared heresy. According to the understanding of the nature of Jesus that was developed in Adoptionism, he was born as an ordinary human and then “adopted” by God at his baptism as God’s spirit, shaped like a dove, descended on him; God’s nature and God’s power did not enter into Jesus until this moment. Two of my friends argued that they believed this to be true, that God’s nature and God’s power could not possibly have rested in an infant’s body.

There was something very disturbing about this idea to me. I want to believe that incarnation means that God understands what it is like to live with the fragility and limitation that being human entails. I want to believe that God knows what it is like to be poor, hungry, tired, unable to communicate clearly, and dependent on people for life itself. When I need God and can’t even put words to my prayer, I want to believe that God “remembers” what it was like.

The scripture in the lectionary for today, the second Sunday of Advent, is Isaiah 11:1-10. It begins, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” This image speaks to me of fragility, of the seedling that needs protection, of the green life that needs care to thrive. This Advent, I am keeping watch for fragile things, the green shoot bursting into my life from some dark corner, the infant idea that needs my help to hold up its head, the emergence of God in delicate and breakable moments. Oh come, oh come Emanuel.

Tonight is also the sixth night of Advent, the season of anticipating the birth of a true king, worthy of homage, during the reign of a client king of an occupying power who claimed its political leaders to be divine.

We pay particular attention to joyfulness and giving this season. Giving usually means spending money somehow. And Americans are well practiced money spenders, so there should be no surprise at the level of commercialization during this season, though it’s sometimes overwhelming to see so many demands to buy products you haven’t heard before and promises that true joy and happiness follow their owning the new 5Gen WidGet!(tm) or that those who love you don’t really love you unless you get a Baloney MyBox, the bigger version of the MyKick you already have.

So between the historical roots of this time of year of enforced false gods and the contemporary sensation bombardment of chocolate jesuses and soda-pop saints, I think it would be a good idea to reflect on Idolatry.

Before we make a differentiation between a true and false deity, let’s ask what a deity is. Here’s my best answer right now: the principal foundation of a human’s heart by which all other perspectives and behaviors will defer and accommodate. Kind of an abstract definition, but I can demonstrate:

That priest held the Lord so dear that even under threat of death he could not show worship to anything else, and murdered another out of distress that his victim was about to do what he risked death to refrain from. This man would become Maccabee, or Hammer, leading a rebel army and winning political freedom and the beloved temple back.

The unseen father of the friend in “Ferris Beuler’s Day Off” made the car the center of his life, with consequences on his troubled and terrified son, who ultimately took violent action against it

So a deity does not have to be a supernatural force, or have an inherently spiritual connotation. Well, an Idol doesn’t, at least. All an idol needs to be an idol is to seduce you thoroughly enough for you to act foolishly and dangerously for its sake, even so far as to alienate those who love you the most. Terrifyingly, this is the price of the true deity too: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother… he cannot be my disciple.” (l14:25-27) But fortunately, we can find the Lord in our neighbors.

An Idol, though, has no power. Or more accurately, it could have a lot of power, but only the power humans grant it. The car, no matter how cool it is, is only responsible for the family’s misery by the dad’s devotion to it.

We should all be for acting foolishly and dangerously for the sake of the Lord, and we naturally find it commendable and reasonable to act foolishly and dangerously for our family. But I (try) to draw the line at judo-throwing someone for the sake of a video game. Or mooning a live television camera for money (though a buttload of money might be tempting…) Or killing someone because a General said it was Okay.

Now WidGet!(tm)s are nice things. I have quite a few myself. And they actually could make nice gifts. But they are made by the hands of humans, to serve humans and to be dismissed by humans. Worshiping such a thing (whether it’s recognized as such or not) is not only stupidity, it is deadly. It either means that another human, who is a weakling sinner bag of flesh living in just as much uncertainty as you, is imagining themself your master, or you are ultimately worshiping yourself, which you can do until the horse you ride on gives you a good buck off a cliff and you realize you are subject to physics, not the other way around, and even the horse you think you controlled is stronger than you and decided it didn’t like your attitude.

Now next week I’ll write about the act of giving, the act of gratitude, and how to do them both properly (even when the gift is a WidGet!(tm)) without all these stupid idols screaming for our submission.

I’m so glad to have peeled away from lesson planning and research papering to meet up with Ula, Dan and a warm collection of Followers in the family room of Radical Living for their Advent/Book of Common Prayer Release Party in Brooklyn tonight.  Following the prayers and scriptures that we shared together for December 1st (We even got a call from Shane Claiborne sending his love), there’s a note on Advent for December 1st in the Book of Common Prayer, and a link to an interesting looking website-    http://www.adventconspiracy.org/story

I suggest checking out the “about” section- Worship fully, spend less, give more, love all; and the stories which I’ve linked to, which share our communities around the world are applying the above guidelines creatively in the celebration of Advent.  One of their stories might also be something great to share with us in a future Advent blog post, if you’re blanking on what to say that day.

grateful,

amber

We arrived to a carnival in D.C., where the crowd was as much of a show as the events on stage. College kids, 20-somethings, 30-somethings, families and senior citizens, in costume as Uncle Sam, The Mad Hatter, Honest Abe, Darth Palin, and illegal aliens with antennae. But above all there were the signs: signs like “I Disagree With you But I Don’t Think You’re Hitler,” “I wanted to write something important but I ran out of lett”, and “I’m Mad As Hell but I’ll probably be fine tomorrow.”

Unfortunately, the polarization of American politics has bled over into the church – there are people who allow issues like LGBT justice and reproductive rights to split the church. I, myself, have been accused of spreading a doctrine of demons in public media.

I would really like to see the church remember its roots as an alternative to the dominant culture – a place of grace, forgiveness, and justice.

Some other fresh expressions of church get a lot of use out of projectors, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.  In my experience, projections are best when they are a substitute for stained glass – they enhance the mystical ambiance of a room, they provide a visual backdrop for sacred activity, and they convey emotional information to the gathered community.

Projectors are at their worst, however, when they’re used as a substitute for bulletins – we’ve all seen lyrics and liturgy projected on a screen against stock photos of pristine mountain landscapes, and we all know it sucks.  I’m not a big fan of bulletins, in general, but they are very good at what they do – much better than PowerPoint, in fact.

I got to thinking about this due to a short little pamphlet by Seth Godin on really bad PowerPoint and how to avoid it.  Maybe I’ll set myself a goal of doing a ritual that really makes creative use of space and ambiance, and which uses projection in non-obvious ways…

Now I’m all for community service, but there’s a big part of me that still gets bitter when people co-opt the WTC tragedy.  9/11 was a huge red-letter date in my life – I was there when it happened and I spent a year working by the pile alongside the construction crews, the police, the USAR folks, the firemen, and all the volunteers.  For my 20-year-old self, it was both formative and traumatizing.

Now, nine years later, I’m kind of surprised to find that I still have resentment built up around that day.  I don’t want that chapter of my life to be co-opted for patriotism.  I don’t want it co-opted for ecumenism.  I don’t even want it co-opted for volunteerism – it just seems manipulative.  When perky activists start talking to me about the 9/11 legacy, I just want to say, “You weren’t there.  You didn’t smell it.  You didn’t see the bodies.  You weren’t even in New York.  You don’t have the right to appropriate that day.”

It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that this isn’t the healthiest of attitudes.  I don’t own 9/11 any more than any one else does, and 9/11 is as good a reason as any to get a bunch of people out volunteering in their communities; it’s certainly be better than everyone staying home and being mopey in their rooms, which is what I usually do.  So I’m going to go out and volunteer with everyone else.  If anyone wants to join me, I encourage you to.

I’m never, however, going to call it “Patriot Day.”

Creativity
User-Generated Content
Food
Un-Dogmatic
Defining Your Own Participation
Intimacy
Welcoming / Inclusion
Personal Spiritual Journey
Transmission Shows Up / Support
Music
Gender Inclusive Language for God
Christian-based
Free

So there seems to be a fundamental difference in the sentiments being created by these two remembrances.  One tells a people their shared history of survival through the will of God.  The other tells a people of the survival of their God, in SPITE of the will of the people. Strange, huh?  Both reveal that God is more powerful a force than death and oppression, but in very different ways… Anybody else have any thoughts on the difference between these two?