Light shines in darkness (Advent, wk 1)

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Where is God when we feel stuck or trapped? For the first Sunday of Advent, the four weeks leading up to Christmas, we look at Isaiah 9, a traditional Advent passage, with help from womanist theologian Monica Coleman.

(Art: Isaiah 9 by Amy Lindahl)

SPEAKER NOTES

Light shines in darkness (Advent, wk 1)

Context

Today is the first Sunday of Advent - the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas

• Along with Lent in the spring, which leads up to Easter, Advent is one of the two high points in the Church Calendar
• And there is wisdom in that rhythm
  • Recently heard advent described as a mini lent
  • Instead of all the merriment and holiday parties we tend to have around this time of year, originally advent started as a more somber time of fasting and prayer
  • Interesting that we have these reflective and somber times leading up to high points (Easter and Christmas)
• Throughout the year here at BLC, or at any church, we visit many different texts across the Bible
• BUT EVERY YEAR in Advent, we visit a few familiar texts
  • the birth narratives of Jesus in Matthew and Luke’s Gospels,
  • and the Hebrew poetry they creatively attached to Jesus
  • Scriptures that hold up Jesus as “Emmanuel” or God with us
• There is something particularly formative and important about these texts and rhythms

Advent is one of my family’s favorite seasons

• We’re more intentional with rituals and family traditions and prayer
• Building rituals and traditions in your families and friend groups is so important for your spiritual health
• We want BLC to be an aid to folks as they try to build those
• So during Advent, we release our weekly Mealtime Prayers
• We encourage you to set aside time once a week here in December to do these with your family or roommates or some friends from BLC
• For a lot of us, prayer feels like a great thing, BUT awkward or difficult
  • Maybe it’s never been modeled for us
  • Maybe it was, but what was modeled no longer works for us
• We think our BLC Mealtime Prayers can help
  • Just takes one person to lead a group through the text
  • If you’d like to sing together, there’s an element of that
  • If you have an Advent wreath and candles, there’s an element of that
  • Or you can make it your own by just using this as a launching pad for your own traditions or prayer practices
• They’ll be released every Sunday of Advent via email, Discord, and on instagram
• And our messages here at services these Sundays will build on the Biblical texts we’re visiting in those Mealtime Prayers as well.

If you’d appreciate a daily Advent ritual,

• We highly recommend Kate Bowler’s devotional “Bless the Advent We Actually Have”
• Access online for free- there are daily reflections, scripture passages, and blessings along with some discussion questions (expanded version of what we are offering weekly)
• Katebowler.com/advent

Isaiah 9

So the Biblical text that it is our tradition to return to this first week of Advent is Isaiah 9

• Isaiah is the Hebrew Prophet that Jesus quotes the most frequently in the gospels. ::ISAIAH VISUAL::

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;

those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined...

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us;

authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace

for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it

with justice and with righteousness

from this time onward and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

For those who walked in darkness, light has shined on them ::ISAIAH OFF::

• there is reason to hope!
• the hope may be just born, in infancy, but it will grow and mature!
• the things that bury us in despair or leave us feeling trapped will NOT have the last word!

This Isaiah 9 hope is at the core of the Christmas message of God coming to humanity in Jesus

There’s lots to say about social applications of this.

::But, before we go there, Hayley, any personal examples you’ve known of hope that is like “light shining in darkness”?::

Personal examples of light shining in darkness

Hayley: literal light shining in the darkness

• I remember, some years ago I was in the midst of a depressive episode
  • [Disclaimer: I don’t ever want to speak of depression or anxiety only in past tense, before and after of “I struggled then and now all is well”
  • Mental illness is often cyclical and I want to acknowledge that it’s an ongoing journey]
• And in this particular season, I was having a tough time
• It was easy to isolate and disengage from a lot of things (apathy was big), so when I wasn’t working, I spent a lot of time alone in our tiny apartment that didn’t get a lot of light
• One day, Andy came home and I had been literally sitting in darkness for hours
• And he just very gently suggested “How about we turn on the light?”
• And we had a conversation about what I needed to feel supported and how we were going to keep moving forward.
• I don’t think he knows this, but I often think about that simple suggestion “How about we turn on the light?” especially on the harder days
  • It took someone joining me where I was in the midst of the darkness and suggesting ways to help let in some light. I needed both

How about you, Vince?

Vince: Student teaching

• I was going to a place everyday where I felt like a failure -- not because of the kids, but because of the adults I ended up around
• By a month in to that year,
  • I dreaded getting up in the morning
  • I felt trapped like this would be my future forever
• There was this distorted view of me as flippant and authority-flouting
  • How that happened is a different story that is such bad luck,
  • Because anyone who knows me knows my flaws are not being flippant, but perfectionistic and micromanaging
  • not "flouting authority”, but being too much of a rule follower
• And though part of me raged, I also couldn’t help but let that distorted view take up space in me --
  • am I who they say I am?
• But I remember
  • Keziah listening to me everyday, letting me cry and rage
  • A dear friend taking a long walk with me around Rogers Park, praying for me,
    • telling me who he saw I really was,
    • speaking God’s acceptance and love over me
• Being listened to and prayed for helped me accept that I am accepted in spite of this story about who I am that's out there that I can't control
  • That carried me through the rest of student teaching
  • Helped me imagine a future with more creative possibilities, not trapped or doomed to one dreaded way

So Vince, you suggested the writing of Monica Coleman, a womanist (or black feminist) theologian as a lens for us to use this Advent.

• Tell us about Monica Coleman and how she helps us interpret our experiences and Isaiah 9

Making a way out of no way

The title of Coleman’s 2008 book that made a big influence on me is Making a Way Out Of No Way ::MAKING A WAY VISUAL::

This a phrase that Black Americans have taught to the world. It's often associated with Dr. King and the Civil Rights movement.

Basically, Coleman unpacks the social and religious experience of black women to develop a picture of God and lands on that phrase

• Who is God? Where in life might we recognize God?
• God is the call and the force of love that makes ways out of no way.

Anytime you feel trapped or stuck or beyond hope, but then, in spite of that, you carry on — that is God

• The pull lovingly calling you forward is God
• The push giving you the courage to cooperate with that call is God

My student teaching experience was absolutely this.

Or my first ever encounters with God after my mom died of cancer when I was 15 was absolutely this.

I felt the presence of God in that: a way was made out of no way — light was shined in darkness.

::Hayley, how does that map on to your experience?::

Hayley:

• I’ve been listening to the audiobook version of Remember Love by Cleo Wade - book of poetry and essays, highly recommend
• She writes about the old motel 6 slogan “We’ll leave the light on for you” as a reminder that we can leave an internal light on, a voice of love, that calls us back home to ourselves even when things seem dark
• I think the language of having a relationship w/ or encountering God can feel kind of vague. Or it can carry some religious baggage if you’ve been in unhelpful faith settings
• But when we are able to look inward and find a hopeful light, that is an experience of the Divine
  • Sometimes we may need some help from others finding the light that’s left on
• It’s this experience of a hopeful light within that can allow us to participate in efforts of justice and goodness in the world (pull and push language you were using)
• Making a way out of no way brings to mind for me the bravery it takes to keep moving, to remember love, even when the way ahead feels near impossible
  • I’m grateful the “making a way” is done in community, we don’t carry the weight of it alone

Yeah, this is one of the things that can truly connect all people, if we embrace it — that eventually we all face walking in darkness

BUT we also must acknowledge that we don’t all face it in equal amount or frequency.

As a liberation theologian, Monica Coleman would say:

• The God of the Bible is especially on the side of those who have to walk in darkness more than others for systemic reasons —
  • the marginalized, the oppressed
  • in particular black women, the focus of her work
• God's Salvation then, from this definition, is NOT unbelievers being saved with right belief, so they can go to heaven
• God's Salvation is people tormented by the threat of dehumanization being saved with personhood, so they can live free, with possibilities, not trapped or doomed to rehearse the past

Hayley:

• Traditionally, the first week of advent represents Hope
• In a recent interview, Cole Arthur Riley (one of our favs) talked about how hope can be wielded against oppressed people as a way to placate and silence suffering and reality”
• She talks about a need to resist that narrative (of silencing and weaponizing) and reclaim the language of hope
• And the hope of scripture, is a hope that is inherently liberating. It’s a hope that humanizes

Isaiah 9 supports this by specifically pointing to the hope of light shining in darkness at the level of societal authority and power

• A Wonderful Counselor, a Mighty God, a Prince of Peace will confront the systemic injustices that oppress some more than others
• For the Hebrews when Isaiah was originally written, 500 to 700 years before Jesus was born — their identity is in crisis,
  • due to violent attack by the Assyrian and then Babylonian empires,
  • due to pressure to comply with those empires and assimilate their distinct practices and convictions
  • so they’re longing for just and righteous leadership
• And then, for the earliest Jesus followers, in their context of oppression under the rule of the violent 1st century Roman Empire,
  • it is no surprise that they attach Isaiah 9 to the story they tell of Jesus’ noble birth,
  • presenting him as an alternative non-violent King to the violent Roman Caesar

I think the question that brings me to, Hayley (or all of us in the chat), is: ::how can we represent the Christmas story in our families, neighborhoods, and friend groups as humanizing? (Especially when so much of this season becomes swept up in a dehumanizing consumerism, and when the loudest Christian voices want to talk more about belief than personhood?)::

Hayley

• What a simple little question haha
• First, We can’t fall into despair or apathy: because there is a light that shines in the darkness
• We also can’t overspiritualize or holiday-cheer our way out of the obvious dehumanizing taking place from local to global levels: the darkness is very real
• Embracing this middle ground, holding that two things can be true, imagining a hopeful way ahead are all reflections of the Christmas narrative
• I think of the “He’s the Reason for the Season” decor and yard signs
  • Actually a helpful reminder when we associate that message with establishing justice, peace, and righteousness as the Isaiah passage says
  • And we act in ways that align with this call- what is just, what is peaceful, what is most hopeful

Break through rather than break in

::MAKING A WAY OFF::

Another important thing for Monica Coleman is to ask:

• In what manner does God make ways out of no way?
• Because if what we teach ourselves to expect from God is not based in reality, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment
• For her, the fact that faith leaders (like pastors) don’t teach people satisfying answers to this question, but rather set people up for disappointment, is what gradually kills so many people’s faith in God
  • especially black women

One expression I’ve heard for the view Coleman takes (an open and relational view of God and life) is God comes in break throughs, not break ins. ::BREAK THROUGH VISUAL::

• Jesus is a break through of God, not a break in of God
• A powerful moment in prayer when we feel the presence of God or experience the miraculous is a break though of God, not a break in of God.
• The Civil Rights Movement of the 60s shining light into the darkness of Jim Crow is a break through of God, not a break in of God

::Does that distinction feel important or helpful for you, Hayley? Or does it just feel like semantics?::

Hayley >>

Helpful for me because it shows God entering further into circumstances with us and partnering with us:

• Not an escape from circumstances that we are left passively waiting for
• God working from within is an empowering realization individually and communally that’s very much in line with the mindset of liberation theologies
• Making a way out of no way is more an emergence from the ground up, it’s active, it’s participatory
  • It’s not dictated by some removed God on high that is all-controlling and could be just withholding justice
  • “God can but chooses not to” is such a harmful message

Why does it feel important to you, Vince?

For me, I can’t believe in a God who is outside of the world in some timeless throne room, and occasionally decides to intervene in our lives. (But frustratingly not always!)

That God doesn’t feel worthy of worship, and it breaks down in the face of modern science.

Much more attractive and plausible to me is:

• A God who is always present, in every moment, always coming to us, inviting us to help make ways out of no way.
• BUT, of course, the conditions of life are impossibly complex and inter-connected and sometimes intractable.
• And, as Jesus taught, there are so many choices made in the world that are NOT God's will
• We live in a broken world, it’s often observed.

A God who could break in and exert all-controlling power if God wanted to is the default view of a powerful God when white men are the only ones developing our pictures of God, because they experience a lot of control

But starting with the experience of black women instead, marked not by control, but resilience and survival and finding quality of life in spite of pain

• This locates our expectation of God differently,
• For me, that increases my confidence in God’s trustworthiness,
• And feels more consistent with the teaching of Jesus

The God who is always working to break through,

• but who is contending with the real brokenness of the world that can't just be wished away
• is a God I can trust in to be influential and helpful when I pray,
• AND who treats me like an adult — who doesn't shield me from the reality of brokenness

The view of God as one who can, anytime God wants, break in with all-controlling power,

• but frustratingly doesn’t always (at least not when I pray),
• makes God seem asleep on the job or unworthy of worship.

So that’s why that distinction in Monica Coleman’s view of God feels really important to me. ::BREAKTHROUGH OFF::

Final Words

::Any final words?::

Hayley: [ I can leave this off if we don’t have time ]

• Many of the voices I’ve been listening to thru audiobooks and podcasts lately - Tricia Hersey, Cole Arthur Riley, Cleo Wade- stress the importance of looking back to move forward
• And really I think this is the work of the prophet
  • Prophetic voices (in scripture, in our histories, in our society today) help us see both the beauty and the destruction of our pasts so we can move toward a more hopeful future
• As God continually breaks through we can participate with that presence by remembering and imagining
• We can remember the light we’ve experienced, we can lament the injustice and hopelessness, and we can imagine the light breaking through as we move forward
• We can listen for and follow the prophetic voices beckoning us to new possibilities

How about you, Vince?

Advent and Christmas are our celebrations that:

• God broke though in a particularly powerful way in Jesus,
• and God’s Spirit continues to break through today.

When we feel despairing beyond our control, or unacceptable, or small, or a crushing lack of certainty — the God who is our wonderful counselor is working to break through, to make a way out of no way for us. We are not doomed by our past or the seeming limitations of the present; God is infinitely creative, bringing us new, fresh possibilities, no matter the circumstance.

Prayer

Breathing Prayer

• God, you came to us in Jesus,
• And your Spirit comes to us today.
• God, you broke through in Jesus,
• And your Spirit breaks through today.