Preached at Urban Abbey on December 24, 2018
This week, I ordered a new Willow Tree figurine. Inquisitive boy….a denim clad, blond haired child sitting like only a child can. Clearly listening to something, learning, absorbing the world around him. When it arrives I will add that boy to my collection…one that currently contains a mother cradling a baby, a father sitting on the floor legs outstretched with a young girl looking admirably at him, a second young girl, this one sitting, but also listening. And of course, the dog. I am not a collector of figurines. In fact, this set is all I have on display in my home and candidly, it is on the bottom shelf of the end table and one would really need to be intentional to see it and to realize that it represents us…this group of humans (and creatures) we have collected in our home.
Since I was first asked to consider this worship and what I could say related to motherhood, I have not stopped listening. Waiting for the right idea and the right words to come to me. I was actually hoping it might be in dramatic fashion…maybe even fireworks or glitter or something. I should know now that that’s not exactly how the Spirit speaks to me. She likes to make sure I am paying close attention. So I have been simultaneously thinking about Advent and this worship service. Chris and I are using Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s God is in the Manger as our Advent devotional. As we have read I have been considering Mary and thinking about motherhood.
What I have heard in this intentional listening is the real work of Advent. Hoping. Waiting. Listening. Praying. Knowing that God will come. That perfect love became human and enters into the most imperfect of circumstances. I think that is the work of moms. The overarching theme of motherhood in all its forms. Imperfect circumstances. Youth, faltering relationships, uncertain environments, struggling finances, ignorance. In all of these circumstances we prepare, we wait and we hope.
In her memoir The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Birth Year, Louis Erdrich writes “Our baby gives herself to me completely. There is no hesitation, no reservation, no holding back, no coldness, no craft, no tremor or fear in her love. Although our relationship may encompass tears, frustration, even fury, it is an utterly reliable bond. As it grows, her love is literally unadulterated. Her love is wholly of the child, pure in its essence as children are in their direct passions. Children do not love wisely, but perhaps they love the best of all.”
In our children we see a glimpse of that perfect love incarnate. The love that we wait for in every moment. When we hope for a child, when those hopes are shattered, when our child was born with physical limitations, when we send one of them across the country or across the world to find her story, when we spend hours in conversation with our son about kindness and being a good teammate, when he signed the papers that made their child the child of another. We are drowning in imperfection with the hope of a glimpse of perfect love. In our children, both those we see and those we cannot, lies the hope of perfect love, the face of God.
No experience brings such clarity to this hope as the one we have been through personally in the past weeks. In the midst of imperfect circumstances 26 years ago, Chris and his partner decided to give a child up for adoption. Perfect love in imperfect circumstances. Perfect love that put the needs of another above the their own. Pain and grief that then waited in hope in preparation. Life moved on. Marriages, children, careers, but still hope and patience. In the perseverance and the hope, God was there. Several weeks ago, we received word of a son. A 26 year old, now man, with blond hair and an affinity for all things sports. A son who is seeking to connect with his birth parents. After a lifetime of patience and guilt and hope and grief, we see that glimpse of perfect love. In a matter of seconds the possibility of a step son became a reality and the depth of that love was instant. Perfect love in imperfect circumstances. Deeper love for my husband, deeper love for my children and a new and aching love for a child that had only been present in waiting. It is the face of God.
So this week I will add that new Willow Tree figurine to our display. A representation of joy and wonder at the end of the wait….of an incarnate God who became human to be among the imperfect. To be present with the love of a mother.
In the words of Deitrich Bonheoffer “Just be aware, be watchful, wait just another short moment. Wait, and something quite new will break over you: God will come.”
May it be so.
What I have heard in this intentional listening is the real work of Advent. Hoping. Waiting. Listening. Praying. Knowing that God will come. That perfect love became human and enters into the most imperfect of circumstances. I think that is the work of moms. The overarching theme of motherhood in all its forms. Imperfect circumstances. Youth, faltering relationships, uncertain environments, struggling finances, ignorance. In all of these circumstances we prepare, we wait and we hope.
In her memoir The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Birth Year, Louis Erdrich writes “Our baby gives herself to me completely. There is no hesitation, no reservation, no holding back, no coldness, no craft, no tremor or fear in her love. Although our relationship may encompass tears, frustration, even fury, it is an utterly reliable bond. As it grows, her love is literally unadulterated. Her love is wholly of the child, pure in its essence as children are in their direct passions. Children do not love wisely, but perhaps they love the best of all.”
In our children we see a glimpse of that perfect love incarnate. The love that we wait for in every moment. When we hope for a child, when those hopes are shattered, when our child was born with physical limitations, when we send one of them across the country or across the world to find her story, when we spend hours in conversation with our son about kindness and being a good teammate, when he signed the papers that made their child the child of another. We are drowning in imperfection with the hope of a glimpse of perfect love. In our children, both those we see and those we cannot, lies the hope of perfect love, the face of God.
No experience brings such clarity to this hope as the one we have been through personally in the past weeks. In the midst of imperfect circumstances 26 years ago, Chris and his partner decided to give a child up for adoption. Perfect love in imperfect circumstances. Perfect love that put the needs of another above the their own. Pain and grief that then waited in hope in preparation. Life moved on. Marriages, children, careers, but still hope and patience. In the perseverance and the hope, God was there. Several weeks ago, we received word of a son. A 26 year old, now man, with blond hair and an affinity for all things sports. A son who is seeking to connect with his birth parents. After a lifetime of patience and guilt and hope and grief, we see that glimpse of perfect love. In a matter of seconds the possibility of a step son became a reality and the depth of that love was instant. Perfect love in imperfect circumstances. Deeper love for my husband, deeper love for my children and a new and aching love for a child that had only been present in waiting. It is the face of God.
So this week I will add that new Willow Tree figurine to our display. A representation of joy and wonder at the end of the wait….of an incarnate God who became human to be among the imperfect. To be present with the love of a mother.
In the words of Deitrich Bonheoffer “Just be aware, be watchful, wait just another short moment. Wait, and something quite new will break over you: God will come.”
May it be so.
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