Psalm 85.10

Peace be to you and grace from him who freed us from our sins.

I know it doesn’t sound like it, but it’s really very simple.  Really.

I don’t know how we get these calls. Someone who is Roman Catholic has a friend who is Lutheran and in pain and so he spoke to his priest about it who said it really sounded like a Lutheran thing, you know like Catholic Charities is to Catholics, so why doesn’t he call Lutheran Social Service, which he did, and the call got sent through the entire LSS system until it finally ended up in the voice mail of my cell phone.

Turns out the friend is a daughter of a Lutheran pastor in retirement, who cared for his wife, her mother with steadfast love until her painful death last summer and now dad who has always served country parishes in the Dakotas has dementia way more than was ever thought, and his home church is a million miles away from here.  Could I or someone from my congregation please call on him?  Oh and yes, maybe keep him and sort of his whole family in the prayers of the church?  And then this.  God bless you in all you do.

I honestly have no idea how we get these calls.  But I know why.

Speaking as one who as I watched and waited with them walked my own parents through their sure and steady decline, this phone call touches something deeply.  I recall as if it were yesterday assisting my father in the stall of the bathroom at the doctor’s office, hitching up the belt, the button, the zipper of his pants because he just couldn’t do it.  The words came out quietly.  “I used to do this for you Johnny, and now you are doing it for me.”

Craziest math I have ever seen.  One plus one no longer equals two, but something far greater.  A chance phone call connects a congregation with love to spare, to a family in need.  A tender dad and a good son trade places in of all things the bathroom, and see the twists and turns of their relationship with new eyes.

Advent arithmetic, actually.  An expectant mother and bewildered father find themselves in a small backwater town because he insisted on paying taxes, resulting in far more than a child’s birth in a stable.  It ushers in an entirely new kingdom where love reigns, faithfulness is the language, freedom to be all of who you have been created to be is joy, with peace as purpose and result.

Like that person and his call to his priest on behalf of his friend, or my father and me, or Mary and Joseph and the baby and ultimately those unrighteous shepherds made righteous, it all starts with showing up.  Not leaving the conversation. Not intrusively, but then not letting yourself get scared off either, by someone else’s reality no matter how awful or tragic or embarrassing or abhorrent or stupid or silly or fearful.  There is no substitute for being present.  Being there is the most Christian thing we can ever do.

So here is the problem.  All too often when we show up it feels like nothing is happening, like we are waiting for what we don’t know, when it might never happen.  Think of the economic situation in the world; the abysmal outlook for new jobs much less just plain finding one; the glut in the housing market; gridlock in congress while the rest of the pagan world is praying for us to get around to being useful instead of self satisfied.  There’s just too much: too many wars burning out of control; too much school debt; too much worry about preposterous things like same-gendered committed relationships damaging marriage. Don’t statistics tell us that married folk are doing a good enough job on their own?

Enough already.  It is time we figure out why we are here and what we are doing.  I hope we are not once again setting up the crèche in Bethlehem for the two thousand eleventh time.  How about waiting for the second coming?  That’s closer, but while Second Peter speaks of it as fact, he isn’t too terribly impressed with the pyrotechnics.  He shows far more interest with being about the work at hand.  Which is showing up to reflect the gracious goodness of God. That’s all.

It’s really very simple. The words of this day’s Psalm are among the most haunting in all Scripture.  Loosely translated: phone messages, bathrooms, stables are strange places for steadfast love and faithfulness to meet together.  And nursing homes, an economy in the toilet, and a short homily are unlikely opportunities for righteousness and peace to kiss. But they do meet.  And they do kiss.

This is what happens when, not equipped with factual answers or fancy solutions, we show up in any and every situation clothed with nothing more than God’s promise to be gracious.  Its Advent arithmetic at its best, with the whole always being more than the sum of the parts. 

Hurt touched gently by grace.  Disappointment met with presence.  Emptiness filled with blessing.  May your Advent hearts be stirred to find God in all the opportunities which surround.  Because they’re absolutely everywhere.  Even on your cell phone.