The Irreverent Reverend

Give $.10 for each writing instrument in your home.

Cut three coupons from your grocery circular. Purchase the items and donate them to your local food pantry.

Advent is a radically subversive spiritual discipline. The world around us is gearing up for unbridled consumerism, increasing most family’s debt load, and giving more to people who already have too much.  Advent, by contrast, is a season of waiting and quietude. It is a time to ponder what this wild and wonderful faith journey is all about. Such pondering can lead us to make lasting changes in how we interact with the culture around us, embodying the promise and presence of Christ in the world.

The first Sunday in Advent is traditionally called the “Little Apocalypse.” Apocalypse is a Greek word meaning “end things.” So we begin by considering what the promise of Christ looks like in the future. There are a hundred theological arguments, which are comical, since no one really knows. Much ink and more than a little blood has been spilled considering these “end things.”

By now you may be wondering why any of this matters; and I get it. Stick with me for a few hundred more words and hopefully it will make some sense.

Andrew Harvey sets the stage with these words, “The Second Coming will not, I believe, be the returning of Christ as a figure: that version perpetuates the old deification of Christ that has kept his force inert in history. The real Second Coming will be the birthing of the Christ consciousness in millions of human beings who turn…towards the fire of love and take the extreme risk of incarnating divine love in action on earth.”

There are a host of Hollywood images that depict the end times. They have more to do with Cecil B. DeMille than with what matters in our lives. The second coming is the gradual in-breaking of God’s more complete realm in the hearts and lives of those who claim to follow the way of Christ.

The second coming is at once profoundly hopeful for the world and completely transformational for us. It begs us to ponder the great questions of our faith:

• What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?
• How do I make the Christ consciousness real in my life?
• How can I more closely align what I say I believe and what I do?

Interacting with the profound questions of faith furthers our transformational journey and also bears hope for the world. As we begin to believe differently, we begin to act differently in the world around us. It is the dance of a lifetime, always exploring our beliefs, deepening our faith and living a life of discipleship.

Take some time to consider what the world would look like if the Christ consciousness were to be the defining experience of humanity. I do NOT mean that all the world should become Christian. The Christ consciousness, the universal Christ, which is to say love, justice and peace lie at the heart of every great religious tradition in the world. I firmly believe that it does not matter what path we follow, but rather that the path leads us to embody these universal values. As followers of Jesus, we seek to embody his teachings in the way we live. For followers of Islam or Judaism, they seek to embody the teachings of their great leaders in their own lives.

In this Advent season, the coming of the Christ Presence in Jesus is ours to ponder and celebrate. We search the dusty corners of our own beings to root out all the places where other priorities have taken root. By tilling the soil of our own spiritual gardens we make ready for the coming of the Christ consciousness in the coming of Jesus.

May your Advent Season be blessed with pondering, prayer and preparation.

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Each day I will post a suggestion from my alternative Advent calendar. Rather than buying gifts you are invited to give gifts based on your own abundance. Then, as the Christmas season unfolds more fully, to take what you have gathered and give it to your favorite charity. This is an activity that can be done as an individual or as a family. It is a host of simple activities with a nominal price tag. In the aggregate they combine to make a difference in the lives of others.

Take a container and label it “Abundance.” Leave it in a prominent place in your home as a reminder of a different Advent rhythm.

Alternative Advent Calendar November 28, 2021:  Give $1.00 for each person for whom you buy gifts.

Thanksgiving begins the season of remembering the way it never was. The stories we tell ourselves as a nation shape the narrative going forward. The stories we tell ourselves at Thanksgiving are a prime example of revisionist history. This means that we embroider the story backwards so we end up looking different than we really are.

The Thanksgiving story is the one most of us learned in grade school. The Pilgrims and the Indians sat down at a bountiful table and shared a meal as a sign of their cooperation and friendship.

Too bad that’s not remotely the way it happened. According to the Christian Science Monitor, most everything we have learned about Thanksgiving is a myth. The images that dominate our understanding of Thanksgiving stem from the “creative musings of a magazine editor in the mid-1800’s.”

We are learning more and more about America’s colonial history. As we get closer to an honest story the push back is enormous. Around the country we see parents trying to define what their children learn in schools and school board members trying to shift curriculum to keep the myth alive. It has a lot to do with America’s racist history, to be sure. At this time of the year it is also about the popular narrative of the first Thanksgiving.

Connected to this popular myth is the supporting myth that Pilgrims came to the new world in search of religious freedom. In truth, it was a relatively small number of Separatists who journeyed in search of such freedom. The majority of people who came to the new world were entrepreneurs looking for economic opportunity. In a twist of irony, the Separatists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony created a repressive religious system that far out-weighed the one they left behind. A state-established church and mandatory participation were the hallmarks of their “freedom.” Basically it meant that anyone who didn’t subscribe to their way of living and believing was an outcast. Think Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson fleeing to what is now Rhode Island to escape religious persecution. Go figure.

What is dangerous about this story we tell ourselves is that it encourages us to think we are different than we really are. This shapes how we understand ourselves going forward. If we see ourselves as benevolent toward Native Peoples, we can dismiss the history of genocide that is closer to the truth.

If we tell ourselves that Pilgrims were coming in search of religious freedom, then we perpetuate the myth that America was founded as a Christian nation. This is particularly dangerous as it provides a major plank in the platform of Christian nationalism that is on the rise in the United States.  According to German scholar Annika Brockschmidt, the myth “of a golden past” is a danger signal in both the rise of Christian Nationalism and fascism.  “Calling for a return to how the country used to be, when in fact it’s a version that never was. It’s used to divide the country into us and them.” Holding on to the notion that Pilgrims came in search of religious freedom (read Christian) feeds the myth that we can return to something that never existed.

Brockschmidt further explains that the tendency to “paint outgroups as not real Americans” is another danger sign. It’s no secret that as a nation we are becoming more and more divided. There is a dangerous mash-up of political, religious and social conservatism that is becoming more authoritarian and less tolerant. It all combines to stoke the kind of fear, resentment and anger against anyone perceived to be “other.” It serves to strengthen the position of the “in” group and marginalize everyone else.

It may seem a trivial matter to put on our make-believe Indian head dresses and Pilgrim hats while we pig out on food we imagine they ate in 1619. In truth there were no potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing or cranberry anything. It is, however, a way we promulgate the myth about who we are and what we are about.

Honesty is the enemy of revisionist history. We have some serious reckoning to do with our history, the myths that define us and what we hold on to going forward. Until we grasp our history in a more honest way, we have no hope of shaping a different future.