advent

Story: Imperfect

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

December 17, 2023

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Luke 1:46-55

She was making gingerbread cookies for the first time in her life – she wasn’t very old – and she was all excited about it. Her older brother had learned to make gingerbread cookies a few years before, and he’d got rather good at it.

This was her very first time.

She thought it was going pretty well, even if there sometimes seemed to be more flour on the counter than in the bowl. She might have miscounted the amount of ginger, too. She decided she’d better add some more to make sure there was enough. Yes. Just a little more. And a little more.

When she was cutting out the shapes – there were cookie cutters for people shapes, and for star shapes, and for reindeer shapes, and even for Christmas Tree shapes – she got things a little scrunchy. In transferring the cut-out cookies to the trays for baking, things got more disarranged. One poor gingerbread person lost their leg, and she tried to mash it back together.

Her older brother came by about this point and decided to make fun of her more oddly-shaped cookies. The two discussed it calmly and reasonably – well, no. The two of them were yelling by the time the cookies came out of the oven. Which might be why there were a little overdone.

She burst into tears.

Mother gathered her into her arms as she said, “They’re not perfect! They were supposed to be perfect!”

Indeed, they weren’t perfect. Some of the trees looked like they’d been through a windstorm. The mashed-together leg had come off in the baking. At least two of the stars had very bent points.

And, it had to be said, they were a little too brown. Not burnt, quite, but any longer in the oven and burnt they’d have been.

“They’re not perfect for Christmas!”

Mother, who thought about things like this, said, “Do you think Christmas is about being perfect?”

The girl said, “Isn’t it supposed to be?”

Mother told her that Jesus didn’t come into the world because it was perfect. It was full of people doing unkind, even cruel things to one another. Jesus came to show a better way, and help people find and live a better life here on earth and beyond. Jesus came to love the ones who didn’t think they were loveable.

“But my brother’s Christmas cookies are perfect.”

Brother, who was feeling sorry he’d picked on his sister, told her that they certainly hadn’t been perfect the first time. “I really burnt the first batch,” he said. “And the second batch wasn’t much better.”

“Let’s see how yours are,” said mother, and all three of them took a bite. She had, in fact, put in far too much ginger.

“I don’t think these are very good, Mommy,” she said, but she wasn’t crying.

“Not so good,” Mother agreed. “Shall we try again?”

In the meantime, her older brother reached for a second cookie. Mother and sister looked at him.

“I like lots of ginger,” he said. “Can I have the recipe?”

Imperfect we may be, but there’s love for us, too.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

https://www.youtu.be/hVjLqjqWgXw?si=4SMjom1PZ4WUCdTn&t=903

When I tell these stories, I tell them from what I remember of the story I’ve written. And… I make new things up as we go through. There will always be a difference between what I’ve prepared and what people hear.

The image of gingerbread people cookies is by ParentingPatch – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24263325.

What We’re Waiting For

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” – Matthew 11:2-3

The clarity that comes with voices in
the clouds soon fades. The vibrant colors of
the golden sun, the azure river, and
the argent billows in the air transmute
to foggy grey as time saps confidence.
So ask the question, John, as well you may:
“Are you the One? Or must we wait to see
One you proclaim as I once proclaimed you?”

With you I bend my ear to the reply:
Look well, stern messenger of God. The ones
who could not see now see. The ones who could
not hear now hear. The ones who, ill, had lost
community and home have been restored.
The poor are cheered to hear good news proclaimed.

And so we see, and so we hear, dear John
the Baptist (caught in Herod’s snares), that one
has come to claim anointing by the One,
and not to seize a throne, or start a war,
or set himself apart from us. He’s come
to heal. He’s come to preach. He’s come to bring
us freedom from the cradle to beyond
the grave – a life for you, dear John, and me.

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 11:2-11, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Third Sunday of Advent.

The image is John the Baptist Thrown into Prison from Le Mont Ste. Odile, Alsace, by © Jörgens.mi/wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31709349.

Inconvenient Baptism

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

“…they were baptized by [John] in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” – Matthew 3:6

Ah, baptist at the riverbank, I come
to seek the power of the cleansing touch
of water and of Spirit and of fire.
Anneal my harrowed soul. Your words have burned
their way into my heart and mind and I
do not forget. Who warned me, John? Well, you.
You with your party-breaking summons to
the realization – hardly new but strong
in its familiarity – that I
have not kept steadily the prophet’s road,
which is not straight, not even close, but winds
through thickets and through thorns like serpent’s teeth.

I wanted, baptist, to step quietly
into the muddy waters, duck my head
in quick and studied piety, then stand
and melt into my ordinary life
once more as surely as the water dried
upon my skin. The water I might thus
ignore, but not your harshly calling voice.
I shiver and I listen and I plan:
to learn and follow, learn and follow, learn
and follow Christ more faithfully today.

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 3:1-12, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Second Sunday of Advent.

The image is Saint Jean baptisant sur les bords du Jourdain by Nicolas Poussin (ca. 1630) – Notice sur le site du Getty, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15387068.

Nothing Will Be…

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

“For nothing will be impossible with God.” – Luke 1:37

I am content with ordinary miracles:
the way my day speeds up and slows
as down or up my foot puts pressure on
the accelerator pedal.

I am content with ordinary miracles:
the way I skip from isle to isle,
sometimes a-soaring o’er the sea,
sometimes with figures on a screen.

I am content with ordinary miracles
compressing space and time, compressing this
small planet into yet a smaller sphere,
connecting over oceans, over time.

I am content with ordinary miracles
that God concerns God’s self with women’s lives,
in resolute rejection of self-centered males,
unlikely to embrace a Savior.

I am content with ordinary miracles
so like the one in which a woman played
her necessary part, to bear and raise and love
a child, a sage, a Savior.

I am content with ordinary miracles
that mean my vision of the future with
its frights and fears and failings is,
most likely, wrong.

A poem/prayer based on Luke 1:26-38, the Revised Common Lectionary Alternate Psalm Reading for Year B, Fourth Sunday of Advent.

Mosaic of the Annunciation from the Cathedral of San Marco, Venice, by unknown author – http://azbyka.ru/forum/blog.php?b=1579, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34067815.