Sunday Musings: A Beautiful Advent

Advent 2: The Wilderness

This Sunday is the Second Sunday in Advent.

Over the four Sundays of Advent, we’ll explore a single word in the assigned gospel reading for the day. There will be four words, images that call forth the beauty of this season.

The Advent word today is: WILDERNESS.

If you are part of the paid community, you can expect a Beautiful Advent post every day this week (except Saturday). Each weekday, you’ll get a new Advent calendar “window” with a surprise related to Sunday’s Advent word.

Last week, we explored the word NEAR. The word for the upcoming week is WILDERNESS.

The daily reflections continue tomorrow — it isn’t too late to sign-up if you haven’t already done so! You can read all the previous Advent posts in the Cottage Archive.

---

---

Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;

the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,’”

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

---

---

We cannot comprehend what comprehends us.

— Wendell Berry

---

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

I’ve been thinking about that Lewis Carroll quote from Alice in Wonderland quite a bit in recent days. December is an odd month for Christians who mark time with two calendars. This month is both the end of the secular year and the beginning of the Christian liturgical year, also called the “church year.” As the world ticks off the last numbered days on the calendar, Christians enter into a cycle of sacred stories that compose our lives.

Advent is the beginning. Again.

A full month before the rest of the world marks a new year, Christians have already begun their yearly journey into the heart of our faith — the unfolding encounter with God through Jesus the Christ.

Thus, we begin at the beginning with the birth of Jesus. Or, rather, with waiting for the beginning with the ancient promise to Israel for Immanuel, God With Us, to come and reside with humankind. Advent is the beginning, yes. But it is the beginning in the same way a prologue starts a book.

“I don’t read the introduction,” a friend once said to me. “I always skip prefaces and prologues and get right to the story.”

She couldn’t have said anything more heretical to a me, a writer! “Please don’t jump over the beginning,” I begged. “You can’t understand the whole unless you start with the first part! The entire story is there.”

The four gospels begin with four different prologues, each revealing the point of their narrative in the opening words.

Matthew starts with a genealogy of Jesus, “the son of David, the son of Abraham,” to tell a family story of Israel. Luke, probably the most familiar gospel preface, begins with political history: “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the should be taxed.” He sets up a contest between the mundane and malevolent machinations of empire and the gestation and birthing of God’s dream. John opens with a vision of the cosmos — “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him.” — as he proclaims a sort of spiritual Big Bang.

Matthew, Luke, and John — a family narrative, a political thriller, and a speculative tale of divine recreation and a universe turned toward love and justice.

And what of Mark? “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness.”

Mark says an unhinged preacher draped in an animal hair torture garment is eating insects in the desert.

A wild man in a wild place.

That’s it — Mark’s “Christmas” prologue.

Most of the scholarly and polite interpretors of Mark’s gospel refer to it as the story of “The Suffering Servant.” It certainly is gloomy. It is hard to read and harder to preach. The suffering is real.

But what if the suffering isn’t really the point? What if the wilderness is the point?

Mark’s story is that of the Wild Christ.

Brian McLaren (who is a good friend) has turned much of his recent work toward ecological theology and spirituality, the “rewilding” of Christianity. In these three paragraphs, he explains:

Most theology in recent centuries, especially white Christian theology, has been the work of avid indoorsmen, scholars who typically work in square boxes called offices or classrooms or sanctuaries, surrounded by square books and, more recently, square screens, under square roofs in square buildings surrounded by other square buildings, laid out in square city blocks that stretch as far as the eye can see. If practitioners of this civilized indoor theology look out at the world, it is through square windows or in brief moments between the time they exit one square door and enter another. But those outdoor times are generally brief…

There is nothing inherently wrong about civilized, indoor theology. Except this: theology that arises in human-made, human-controlled architecture — of walls and mirrors, of doors and locks, of ninety-degree angles and monochrome painted surfaces, of thermostats and plumbing, of politics and prisons, of wars, racism, greed, and fear — will surely reflect the prejudices and limited imaginations of its makers.

….More and more of us are imagining a wild theology that arises under the stars and planets, along a thundering river or meandering stream, admiring a flock of pelicans or weaver finches, watching a lion stalk a wildebeest, gazing at a spider spinning her web, observing a single tree bud form, swell, burst, and bloom. We imagine a wild theology that doesn’t limit itself to Plato and Aquinas but also consults the wisdom of rainbow trout and sea turtles, seasons and tides. We imagine a wild theology whose horizons are measured not by thousands of years and miles but by billions of light years.

“In all likelihood, wild theology is the mother of civilized theology,” he concludes. “And in all likelihood, civilized theology is in the process of killing its mother and acting as if she never existed.”

Mark is the oldest gospel, written just before or after 70CE. And it is a source for both Matthew and Luke, its stories and events are the seed of the later books. Now, if the central message of Mark proclaims the wild Christ, reimagine Brian’s main point: “The Wild Christ is the mother of civilized Christ…In all likelihood, civilized Christ is in the process of killing its mother and acting as if she never existed.”

“Wilderness” is often depicted theologically as a place of danger. Western cultures have understood wilderness as something chaotic, a thing to be mastered, and that which must be ordered and overcome. You go through the wilderness.

But it is also a refuge where you can hide from your enemies and the evils of the “civilized” world. Mostly, it is a raw and unknowable place of encounter where we come face-to-face with ourselves, our environment, and our horrors, hallucinations, hungers, and hopes. We find ourselves — and God — in the wilderness. And everything is far more and far different than we imagined.

That’s where Mark begins — in the wilderness, that terrifying refuge beyond the reach of the squared world. The sun brutalizes the sand; the sirocco shifts the dunes. The landscape taunts and deceives. Caves provide shelter. Whether a winter flood or a dry season rivulet, the river refreshes, sustains, enlivens. The wild baptizer immerses his followers in its waters while promising another even Wilder One who is coming and will drench the world with the Spirit.

This is the place. The wilderness. Here, God burned like a brushfire and thundered Torah.

The scene is set, the story summarized in just few lines.

The wild gospel. A Wild Christ.

Don’t skip the prologue. Let us begin at the beginning.

---

---

INSPIRATION

somebody coming in blackness
like a star
and the world be a great bush
on his head
and his eyes be fire
in the city
and his mouth be true as time

he be calling the people brother
even in the prison
even in the jail

i’m just only a baptist preacher
somebody bigger than me coming
in blackness like a star
— Lucille Clifton, “john”

Going to “The Bush” was an opportunity far more challenging than traipsing through New England and more foreign that traveling to Europe. The Bush was my first encounter with “sacred wilderness.” It was beautiful. Daunting. And dangerous. I found myself referring to this wilderness, this wildness, as dangerous beauty. Perhaps a little like Rudolf Otto’s mysterium tremendum et fascinans. Alluring. And terrifying.

And I was completely illiterate in this world. I could not read scat or a trail. I did not know what leaves could be used for toilet paper and what ones oozed poisonous goo. I could not read the weather to come. I could not decipher the telltale smells as to what had been across the path just moments ago. I did not understand natural habitat. I was ignorant in this world. And profoundly aware of it. I felt like a guest. An ignorant guest. Uninvited. More like a trespasser. And I was vulnerable.
— Marianne Borg, “Finding the Sacred Wilderness in The Bush”

There is a wild-haired man in the desert clad in camel skin. He is the start of things. He lives on honey and insects and he calls us to prepare for the coming of one who will baptize not with water but with fire. God, he says, will come in human form. He will be born in a cave, he will walk on the water and battle in the desert and when he comes to the city it will kill him. But that will not be the end of the story. We can’t write the ending to this story. We can only trace the lines on the page in the dim light of the cave mouth. We can only wait patiently for the storm to come over and for the lightning to come down, and illuminate everything.
— Paul Kingsnorth

---

---

GIFTS FROM THE COTTAGE🎄🎁

GIVE A GIFT OF THE COTTAGE

Share a year of Sunday Musings, seasonal specials, “Inside the Cottage” monthly letters, live and recorded Cottage Conversations, the news with a religion angle, and occasional surprises by giving The Cottage as a gift.

GIVE A GIFT OF SOUTHERN LIGHTS

Treat someone to the Southern Lights Conference in January with a gift card — IN-PERSON and VIRTUAL admission tickets (virtual guests don’t have to attend live — they can watch the recordings at their leisure).

Click the icon below for information — and follow the directions from there!

---

MUSIC

“Come Out the Wilderness” is a traditional African-American spiritual, one that carries a dual meaning of ‘wilderness.’ The United Methodist blog on the history of hymns includes the following note from church musician Darnell St. Romain:

William B. McClain speaks about the dualism of the spiritual. Is it possible that the “wilderness” is a place of refuge? The refrain suggests that one is “leaning on the Lord, who died on Calvary” while in the wilderness.” Scholar Melvin Dixon suggests that “spirituals propose three distinct localities of alternative refuge where one might find or forge a new identity: the wilderness, the lonesome valley, and the mountaintop.” Dixon adds that the alternative to refuge is “discovery of a geography of grace.”

William Farley Smith mentions Nat Turner (who led freed slaves into the Virginia wilderness) in his commentary on “Come Out the Wilderness.” Some scholars suggest that Turner inverted the song to direct slaves into the wilderness for meetings to plan the rebellion. In the end, we cannot be certain of this spiritual’s actual use in slave rebellions. However, a capacity for hidden expression in the text is possible: a variant stanza illustrates that point. Here is the first stanza as found in William Francis Allen’s 1867 volume entitled Slave Songs of the United States:

If you want to find Jesus, go in de wilderness,
Go in de wilderness, go in de wilderness,
Mournin’ brudder, go in de wilderness,
I wait upon de Lord.

The dualism of the wilderness means it can be a place of refuge or a place to leave behind. It is the conversion experience of the wilderness that is most important. The wilderness is a place where one meets Jesus, and from that encounter with Christ, one’s life is forever changed.

---

To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle.
Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats,
the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands. 

— Terry Tempest Williams

---

✨SOUTHERN LIGHTS: IN PERSON OR ONLINE✨
January 12 -14, 2024

Our theme is Reimagining Faith Beyond Patriarchy and Hierarchy — and many in the The Cottage community have signed up to gather in person!

Last January, almost 700 people gathered at St. Simon’s Island in Georgia for a packed weekend of poetry, theology, and music.

JOIN US IN JANUARY!

YOU ARE INVITED to join me and my friend Brian McLaren as we reimagine our faith beyond patriarchy and hierarchy in our interior lives, in our communities of faith, and in the Scriptures. We’ve asked three remarkable speakers to take us through this journey: Cole Arthur Riley, Simran Jeet Singh, and Elizabeth “Libbie” Schrader Polczer (our “resident” Mary Magdalene guide). Our special guest chaplain for the weekend will be the Rev. Winnie Varghese (St. Luke’s Episcopal, Atlanta). There will be morning yoga by the river with Hínár Schrader Polczer. And you’ll be treated to the amazing music of Ken Medema and Solveig Leithaug and other surprise offerings!

IN PERSON: Please join us in Georgia. A FEW SEATS ARE STILL AVAILABLE.

There will be a special opening reception for members of the Cottage on Friday before the first session.

ONLINE: If you’d rather be with us virtually, you can choose that option. You will have access to the recordings after the event if you can’t watch live.

GIVE A GIFT OF SOUTHERN LIGHTS: See above!

It helps with our tech planning if you sign up for the virtual option EARLIER rather than later. We appreciate early virtual registrations.

INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION CAN BE FOUND HERE.

Advent: the time to listen for footsteps – you can’t hear footsteps when you’re running yourself.

— Bill McKibben