I've Seen Fire and I've Seen Rain

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Isaiah 64: 1-9
Mark 13: 24-37

“Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest and let these gifts to us be blessed. Amen.”

This is the prayer that has graced the Newquist family table ever since I can remember. It is a prayer that apparently goes back generations, having actually originated on another continent in another language in another time. It is a prayer that, if we pay close attention, speaks to the deepest longings of all our hearts every time we gather as one human family at one table or another across time and space. At the Thanksgiving table. At the communion table:

“Come, Lord Jesus,” we pray. Come.

In my family, of course, we were eager to eat the meat! When I was growing up the blessing was but one more parental-imposed barrier between our over-eager taste buds and the stacks of complex carbohydrates and essential amino acids that would fuel our active minds and adolescent bodies. My three brothers and yours truly would race through the blessing as fast as we could, combining words that were never meant to be compounded, cascading ever more rapidly toward the punchline ‘Amen!’ that would finally give us permission to dig in.

It sounded something like this: Comlojesubeoguesnlethegiftusbestahhhhhhmen!

(Let’s just say we were not all that reverent when it came to stuffing our faces.)

As you know, I went back home for Thanksgiving this year. All four siblings back at the same table with spouses and offspring and Grandma stopping in for good measure. As we sat down Monday night for what would be our first meal of the week, I reverted to childhood. The fastest blessing on record came out of my mouth.

My family was not amused.

“Okaaaaaaay?” my sister-in-law wondered, looking around for an explanation to this mutiny. “What was that about?” my brother demanded, completely forgetting that he had originated this race.

The times had apparently changed. Not a single one of them dove for the comfort-food spread lavishly before us. The “blessing” that had once been a burden had become one of the most treasured parts of their meal.

“You ruined it,” my Dad sighed, shaking his head. And he was right. I had ruined the blessing of our family meal the same way most of us ruin Advent.

The season of Advent, beginning today, is, you might say, the grace before the feast of Christmas. Advent is a churchwide chance to gather with our human family and prepare for Christ’s coming. Which is, I would argue, altogether different than preparing for Christmas, at least given what Christmas has become in our culture. Advent may be even more important than the Christmas meal, itself. Or at least it can remind us—like a blessing before mealtime—why Christmas is so very special.

What might happen if we decide not to race through the season of Advent like four teenagers on a fast-track to the Christmas dinner splurge? If we took the time to pray our way through this blessed season of Advent slowly and intentionally, opening our hearts and minds and spirits to receive Christ as our guest, asking for God’s blessing on our gifts—both great and small?

Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blessed. Amen.

If we slow down enough to pay attention to the blessing that is this season of Advent, we may very well hear ourselves reciting a prayer for all time, and not just our time: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” we might hear ourselves clamoring in this season, with the same spirit of longing as the prayer from the prophet Isaiah that is our Old Testament lesson for today. “We are all your people,” we might hear our human family crying out, if we slow down enough to pay attention, as Isaiah heard his human family crying out when God seemed hidden from them.

If we slow down enough to pay attention to the blessing that is this season of Advent, we may very well, like Isaiah, hear the cries of people we don’t even know. Or even more challenging, people we do know but don’t like. Or even more challenging, people we do know don’t like us. And we might actually start to listen to them, and learn from them, and maybe even come to sit beside them at the feast that is to come.

Because if we slow down long enough to pay attention to the blessing that is Advent, we may very well be forced to acknowledge how desperate we truly are—every one of us—for a savior. Right here, right now, and not just two thousand years ago. Because the hard truth of this Advent blessing is that neither Isaiah in the Old Testament lesson nor Jesus in the Gospel of Mark promises cheap grace or easy comfort as we rush to the fulfillment of God’s promises of peace. “We have all become like one who is unclean,” Isaiah confesses on our behalf, “and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.” “For nation will rise against nation,” Jesus warns, “there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.”

How’s that for Christmas holiday joy? How’s that for a family time of prayer before the big meal of the season?

But they are right. Perhaps the reason we race through the blessing of the season of Advent is that it just may spoil our appetite to acknowledge the complete and utter mess we have made of this world God has given us. And yes, I mean “we.” Because the biblical tradition does not let us off the hook as individuals who say we don’t agree with the failings of our institutions. The biblical tradition holds every one of us accountable for the common failings of the human race.

Our fractured economy, for example, where regardless of what we think about the Occupy Wall Street Movement, the truth really is that income inequality is greater than it has been since the eve of the Great Depression, even as one country after another and one state after another and one municipality after another defaults on its promises to the past and to the future. And our fractured government, for example, where superb dysfunction is all that seems to come from the super committee of the moment and superb silence too often resonates throughout the churches on the pressing issues of our time as we in the pulpit rush to the Christmas comfort of your affliction, instead of afflicting your comfort in the blessing of the season of Advent.

If we slow down enough to pay attention, we may very well hear ourselves grumbling, like the prophet Isaiah, that God has “delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.” And that may make us very, very uncomfortable at the exact moment we are seeking God’s comfort. And this is, I must tell you, as it should be. Because if we are more concerned in the season of Advent about feeling good than we are about being good, then we have missed the whole point of the coming of Christ. Repentance is required for Christ to come again.

The blessing of Advent does feel like a burden, I am afraid . . . unless it reminds us how desperate we really are for a savior. We really are pleading with God in Advent to bring forth that time and place where pain and suffering will be no more, and no more shall the sound of weeping be heard, and God’s reign of justice and peace will lead the wolf to dwell with the lamb. We really are holding out in hope in Advent with these few words—“Come, Lord Jesus”—the promise of that heavenly banquet we all will share with a wounded yet resurrected Christ at the end of time. The “coming of the Son of Man” Jesus calls it in Mark’s Gospel lesson for today. The “eschaton,” as we have been discussing in our adult education class.

We who are moderate to progressive Presbyterians do not generally speak of preparing for the Second Coming, which is what this Advent blessing really is all about. Often, given our intellectualism or our desire to move beyond a fear-based religious upbringing or the simple fact that Jesus said in Mark’s Gospel Lesson for today that it would happen in his generation and it clearly did not—at least not the way we think it should—we are not necessarily sure we want to believe it. Or we leave it to the Left Behind movement or simply dismiss the whole notion as irrelevant to the moment we are in.

But the prophet Isaiah holds God to account for God’s promise of steadfast love and loyalty through the end of time, and we who follow Christ in our time and place are no less faithful when we do the same. We sinned because you were angry, Isaiah is bold enough to declare to God. “Because you hid yourself we transgressed,” Isaiah says. If we could just see you, he seems to be declaring, we would get our act together. If you would just shape us who are clay into a beautiful and useful creation, Isaiah pleads—like a potter at the wheel—we will become your new creation, we will sit at the table with our friends and our enemies in the coming kingdom of Christ’s glory, and we will find a way to make sure the table is open to all. You have worked this wonder in the past, Isaiah says. “Come, Lord Jesus,” we pray. “We thought we’d see you again.”

“But about that day or hour no one knows,” Jesus concludes in the Gospel of Mark. It is like God has gone on a journey and left us—God’s servants—with God’s work to do, and asked a doorkeeper to be on the watch. So we gather at the table with passionate patience in a perpetual season of Advent, holding hands and praying, “Come, Lord Jesus. Come.”

And in the meantime, we get to work. Because we are Christ’s body, here in the church, right here, right now, and God has given us a job while we wait. “Can You Help?” the front cover of today’s “Giving Issue” of Parade Magazine asks. And it features 10 organizations that are lending a helping hand across the nation. And if you want to “think globally but act locally,” may I point right next door to the Child Development Center, where your extra donation could go a long way toward ensuring the stability of a program that serves so many who have few other places to go? Or if extra dollars are hard to come by right now, how about just asking someone you don’t know—or better yet someone you do know but have a hard time liking—to sit down to dinner with you . . . and hear their prayer for Christ to come mingled with your own . . . and watch the kingdom unfold right before your eyes.

Because in a very real sense Christ is already here, as we sit at the table. The meal is already before us, as we pray for God’s blessing in preparation for the feast. And this watching and waiting is but a prelude for the joy to come, if we just take the time to pay attention.

I pray it may be so. Amen.

You Have What is Yours

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Matthew 25:14-30

Two years ago, when I was serving a church in Tucson, I had the privilege of joining a group of teenagers and their adult advisors on a mission trip to Agua Prieta, Mexico, just across the border from Douglass, Arizona. We were participating in one of our Presbyterian Border Ministry partnerships called “Frontera de Cristo,” which offers assistance in church development, health ministries, and migrant resources for both sides of the U.S./Mexico border.

Our very first day was a Sunday, so we visited Lily of the Valley Presbyterian Church in Agua Prieta. The service was, of course, in Spanish, so we strained our ears to understand what was going on. But worshiping God is, in a sense, a universal language, so we found ourselves settling into the rhythm of the sanctuary quite nicely after just a few moments.

Then came the time came in the worship service to receive the morning offering. Here at Madison Square, we pass a plate down the pew while the choir blows our socks off with whatever musical arrangement Paul Hughes has cooked up for us this week. And it is amazing! But nobody sees what we give—or if we give—and we don’t really talk about money very much, and it is all very private, as issues relating to money usually are in polite society on this side of the border.

But at the Lily of the Valley Church, the offering time is a really big deal. In fact, it’s almost as if the entire service culminates at this point. The band—with drums and guitars and crashing cymbals—leads the entire congregation in singing, and they come forward in plain view to place their offering in plates that are placed on the communion table. We, who were supposedly ‘rich’ Americans, wanted the congregation to see that we would give our part, too. But as we stood up to put our dollar in the plate, our host urged us to sit back down.

There are two different processions that come forward to the front of the sanctuary at the time of offering, he said. In the first, it is only the official members of the congregation that come forward. When you join Lily of the Valley Presbyterian Church, you commit to offering ten percent of whatever income you have earned every week. It is a condition of membership to offer a tithe, he told us.

Wait until the second procession, he said. That is when anyone who wishes to give an additional offering—or participants in worship who are not official members of the congregation—come forward to present their gifts. Two processions—one to tithe, one to make an offering of love, both to celebrate the goodness of a God who has offered us abundant life, who has commanded us to share that abundant life with everyone.

Three days later, we learned that part of our mission trip experience would be to try to figure out how to live on a maquila salary for 36 hours. We were reminded that this salary was about the same as what our tithing Christian sisters and brothers at Lily of the Valley Church received. So we, who had been asked to figure out how to live on a basic salary similar to what our Christian sisters and brothers working at one of these factories would have, huddled over a budget worksheet to discuss our most important budget priorities: Food, of course. Shelter, definitely. We figured we had enough clothing for 36 hours so we let that basic necessity go unbudgeted. But tithing. That was on the list of possible budget items. What would we do about tithing?

It was a concept that was new to our youth, so I explained that in biblical tradition, when the Israelites lived in an agricultural economy, they were commanded to return the first tenth of their crops to the service of God. This “tithe”—meaning 10 percent—provided an income for the temple priests who had committed their lives to serve the people. The tithe also provided a pool of resources to care for those who did not have enough to cover their basic needs.

It is not so different from the pledges we make to our congregation. Some of us give ten percent, right off the top. Others of us give a different percentage every year. Others of us give a particular amount that reflects our prayerful response to the generosity of God. Through the practice of giving back—whatever amount it might be—we, like the ancient Israelites, remember that everything we have produced through the sweat of our own labor is, in fact, a gift from God, even if we worked hard to earn it. And through the practice of giving back, we, like the ancient Israelites, share the fruits of our labor with those whose labor simply has not provided sufficiently for their needs, even if they have worked just as hard as those who have more.

So there we were, four American teenagers and three American adults living on a Mexican maquila salary for 36 hours trying to decide whether or not to tithe. We did not think our maquila salary was very large. We had already decided that we could not afford to set aside any money for medical emergencies. And with four growing teenagers among us, we really, really, really wanted to have enough to eat!

So . . . would we tithe?

Well, it just so happens that one of the adult leaders and I are committed tithers, and we both spoke passionately in favor of the practice. The other leader spoke of how her experience of tithing is an expression of her gratitude for having a job and her discipline of trusting that God will provide, even when times are difficult, just as God provided for the Israelites wandering in the wilderness on their way to a land of milk and honey. I spoke about how the practice of tithing had given me the courage and dignity to receive help from others when I needed it, knowing that God was using the gifts of others to care for me in my time of need, just as God had used my gifts to care for others in their time of need.

We convinced our teenagers to tithe in Agua Prieta on that mission trip. Some of us agreed reluctantly, others of us agreed passionately. But in the end, we tithed. And then we got sick. We had set aside money for the church, we had set aside money for food, we had set aside money for housing, but we had not set aside money for healthcare. And we got sick.

Guess who helped us? Lily of the Valley Presbyterian Church. The place we had just sent our tithe.

Our pastors took us to the doctor, and we got the medicine we needed. Our church family made us chicken soup—a cross cultural health care system for sure. Our leaders adapted the schedule for us, so we could rest. And we got better. And now it is all a distant memory.

But we tithed. On a maquila salary, we gave thanks and we gave back. And I would submit to you that the experience of giving to the church in that 36 hour period really did change our lives, spiritually, emotionally, physically. We gave back as a reminder that everything we have received comes from God. And we gave back as a reminder that God has asked us—no, God has commanded us—to share what we have with others. And we gave back as a reminder that we might someday need help ourselves. And that, too, is a gift from God.

On this Stewardship Sunday, at Madison Square Presbyterian Church, God has invited us all to gather in the spirit of those four teenagers and three adults in Agua Prieta making decisions about our budget and what we think we can afford. Food, of course. Shelter, no doubt, Clothing down the road. Health care, we pray. But giving back to God . . . perhaps we really can afford it. Perhaps, in this economy, when more and more people are coming to us for help, we can’t afford not to.

God really has provided for everything we need, just as God provided for the Israelites wandering in the desert . . . just as God provided for the first century Judeans in the time of Jesus . . . just as God provides for 21^st century Christians—and people of all faiths—across any border in any part of the world during any economic cycle. And our job is to say thank you . . . and to share. May it be so among us today. Amen.