[Propertalk] 3 Advent

[TL]

Advent 3 Greetings All:
With a theme of repentance, with readings of exhortation and joy -

This is just starting to be in process, still gelling.
 But for any thoughts given or returned it's out there.
(Now that the pump is pumping water from the well, dirty water, but water.)

Rev. Tim Lofstrom

Today’s Advent theme is repent. And we ask: Teacher, what should we do?
Jill Bolte Taylor 1 reminds us that each emotion that we experience is actually a result of particular chemical interactions in our brains. She should know about such things since she is a brain scientist, a specialist in brain neurology. She also says that there is nothing we can do to avoid these emotions. They happen as a result of triggers around us or in us that we cannot control.
What is interesting is what Dr. Bolte Taylor says is next possible. It is possible for us to choose either to follow that emotion or we can wait 90 seconds for the chemical reactions to complete and we can choose to step away from that emotion and pursue some other emotional experience, some other way of interacting with our environment.
Common wisdom teaches that when something gets one angry, it is best to count to ten before responding. One keeps out of a lot of trouble that way.
More interesting is that as we gather experiences, as we follow certain thought patterns in response to certain situations, we lay down a well travelled chemical pathway in our brain. This is how we learn to recognize things more quickly, quickly enough to function in the world. The drawback is that we filter much of what we experience through sight, sound, smell and touch in order to function in everyday life. The result is we can respond poorly to new situations, and even old situations as our mind takes shortcuts to lead us to well travelled pathways.
Then along comes John the Baptist, and God’s Word, the Holy Spirit and asks us to change how we live in our world. John the Baptist pulls no punches. He calls the crowds who gather to hear him “broods of vipers” looking for a way to flee the wrath of God to come. Now these people have come a long ways out into the river Jordan to be baptized by John. They are his followers. Yet he gives them the stiffest of warnings.
And they ask in return “Teacher, what then should we do?” They do not attack him, or walk away, or mob him. They ask Teacher, what should we do?
This is not the first time we have heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nor is it the first time we have heard God’s call to us to change our ways. This is an experience that has a well worn pathway of chemical reaction in our brains. The result is we are not likely to come up with a different response today, than the last time we heard these words. And that means we will not change our behaviours in response to this Gospel.
But we are supposed to. That is the purpose of hearing the Gospel again and again. We lay down new pathways in our brains that bring us to be more flexible, more compassionate, more creative, more gracious, more accommodating, more forgiving in our responses to other people. And, as John the Baptist made clear in his instructions to those with two coats or with food, to the tax collectors, and to the soldiers, God’s word has much to do with how we carry on during our everyday lives.
Which brings us back to Jill Bolte Taylor. She speaks about her own experience that taught her the possibility of choosing an emotional response. At the age of 37 she suffered a stroke, a bleed in her brain that took out a chunk of her left side of her brain, the side where all the orderly, goal determined pathways are laid down. She retained her right hemisphere brain functions, of being able to be present in the moment, part of the huge universe without distinction between herself and the universe, expanding out into the universe with her experience, at one with everything.
But she had to start over with everything, as if she was just then born into an adult body. She learned how to walk, how to talk, how to read and write, how to relate to people and function in polite society. And she choose, because of her experience, to be compassionate. Which was entirely different than she had been as a scientist before. She had been driven, focused, and even aggressive. After her recovery, she is an entirely new person, more sensitive, more compassionate, more creative, more flexible. And she sees that she moves more freely between the orderly functions of her left brain, to her unfettered in the moment, one with the universe experience of her right brain.
This I believe is what the Word of God calls us each to experience, to choose, to develop as habits: the ability to be both focused and driven, and to be compassionate and in the moment connected to the universe.
Dr. Bolte Taylor blogged her experience and one reply from a person in Europe put into words what many people had thought: God give me a stroke. Of course the request was not meant literally. But the desire is to be able to move between the well worn paths of everyday life and work, to the wonderful response to God’s creation as gift, as connected, as grace.
One of the pathways that we want to lay down, as the default response to any circumstance we encounter is to express joy at the wonder of God’s work for us. This is the joy expressed in our first reading of Zephaniah. Though his book is one of judgment of the sin so evident in his community, he provides at the conclusion the hope and joy that comes from confession and repentance. “Rejoice and exult with all your heart … the Lord is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.”
Writing during the corrupt days of Israel leading up to the exile, Isaiah expresses this joy in our Psalm reading today: “Sing praises … shout aloud and sing for joy … for great in your midst is the Holy One….”
Paul expresses this joy even while he is in prison as he writes to his friends in Philippi: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything …”
How can these three writers, all in the midst of disaster, personal or national, - how can these writers overflow so abundantly with unreserved joy and praise for God?
How can anyone, in the midst of disaster, overflow with grace and joy?
It is possible only when one makes it a habit. One chooses to let go of the other emotions so rife in the midst of disaster. They will run their 90 course. But one can learn to choose other thoughts, other emotions to embrace, to follow and build on as one responds to something that conjures up completely defensive, or destructive impulses.
We are the people of Jesus the Christ. We are baptized and therefore we are assured that Jesus the Christ is for us and that our judgment before God will be a celebration of freedom from sin and pure joy at coming home to our God. Because we know how the end will play out for us, and for all God’s people, we need not fear anything that happens in the present.
We need not fear what is foreign to us, what is unknown. Rather we can choose to be free, freer than we’ve ever been before in our lives. We are free to embrace God’s universe, in the moment, as one with us and all creatures. We are free to respond with a new response to an old situation. We can respond with love, with compassion for other, with justice done on our part, and with joy, uncontained joy, at everything that God is doing for us.
John the Baptist brings the Good News with many exhortations. We indeed can respond, applying the Word of God in new ways.
Today’s Advent theme is repent, to turn 180 degrees from our normal path, to turn toward God. Even a brain scientist knows that this is possible.
We have 90 seconds that bind us, but we have hours that we are free to choose. What shall we do?	Amen
1-CBC Tapestry - December 6 , 2009 - Jill Bolte Taylor http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/pastpodcasts.html?7#ref26