Last week we started our Advent Journey on the Way of Love with an exploration of what
a Rule of Life is and how each individual Rule of Life might assist us in our
Journey through Advent. Today is the First Sunday of Advent. This week we will
look at how saying ‘yes’ to God and to the journey might change and enrich us.
We are using ideas in the Way of Love curriculum and Advent calendar from the Episcopal Church*. I’ve
taken some of those suggestions and incorporated them into the Planner page for this week, along with
some other ideas. The planner gives you tips for using the study in an
individual way, and the Way of Love curriculum
can be used in a group setting.
The Way of Love
curriculum encourages us to be specific about their Rule of Life actions in
each of the 7 disciplines in the Way of
Love. Perhaps Centering Prayer is your Prayer practice and reading a
devotional or selected scripture daily is what you do to Learn. Are Sunday
church services your Worship? What do you do for the Bless, Turn, Go, and Rest
portions? How do each of these practices help you say ‘yes’?
This week’s scripture is the Annunciation story in Luke
1:26-38 (depicted here in Ecce Ancilla Domini! by Dante Gabriel Rosetti, 1849-50). Mary’s ‘yes’ to God’s call on her life is, as the Way of Love curriculum notes, “a model for our own yes to the Way
of Love…one of the most countercultural things we can do today…it may be just
as frightening as Mary’s. We may not know the implications of saying yes…We can
never be fully prepared for the magnificent journey with Jesus…we are called to
say ‘yes’ to this impossibility made possible.”
It is true. If we really LIVE a Way of Love that says ‘yes’ to God, we are being countercultural.
Think about all the messages we are bombarded with. Very few of them have
anything to do with love. The daily news is full of scary and bad things
happening. Social media is crammed with negativity (interspersed with cat
videos). There is fear and anger and hatred, seemingly, everywhere. To live as
members of the Body of Christ and embody the Way of Love Jesus taught is not an easy response to those people or
things that make us afraid or angry.
We must be very intentional about seeking out positive
things to focus on. We need tools that will help us react in a loving way
rather than in a self-protective, angry, or negative way. The Way of Love disciplines are one way to
re-program our minds to look to God first and foremost as we incorporate them
into our individual Rule of Life.
During this Advent journey along the Way of Love, we may just discover that by deepening our life in
Prayer and Rest, Learning and Worship; and that living by Turning (or
re-Turning) and Going out to Bless we can indeed be a countercultural influence
in the world.
As the saying goes, “A day hemmed in with prayer won’t
unravel”. That’s true. When we keep our hearts fixed on looking for God and
saying ‘yes’ to the little and big ways God is calling us to live Love, we will
be changed. Just maybe we’ll change the world around us, too. All it takes is
saying ‘yes’ to God’s call! That sounds deceptively simple, doesn’t it?
Think about your own life now and leading up to this moment.
When have you heard God asking you to say ‘yes’? Where has that taken you? For
me, one of the times I heard God asking me to step out was when I sat down to
write my first book. And then to publish it. I would never have guessed that
the simple act of putting words on paper would change me from an introvert who
would prefer not to speak to groups, to someone who leads retreats and chairs
committees.
Sometimes it’s not completely clear what God is asking, or
where it will lead. There is a recent contemporary Christian song by Hillary
Scott. In her song Thy Will, Scott admits,
“I’m so confused/ I know I heard You loud and clear/ So, I followed through/ Somehow
I ended up here/ I don’t wanna think/ I may never understand/ That my broken
heart is a part of Your plan.”
This week’s planner asks us to consider our 'yes' to God by asking what part of Worship
fills your heart and why. The planner invites us to really listen to someone else’s
point of view, and to do a random act of kindness. We are also called to
consider where we might have fallen short and invites us into Rest by doing
something that feeds the soul. Each of these is a way to say ‘yes’ to God’s call
and invitation to live a Way of Love.
We don’t know where that will take us, and being out of control is usually scary.
As Hillary Scott sings, “Sometimes I gotta stop/ Remember
that You’re God/ And I am not…Thy will be done.” Often the best we can do when
we are faced with God’s answer to our ‘yes’ is to admit we aren’t God, or in
control, and just pray ‘Thy will be done’. We have to trust, with Scott, “I
know You hear me, Lord/ Your plans are for me/ Goodness You have in store.”
Whenever we say ‘yes’ to God, we’ll go places we didn’t ever
expect. As things change around us, we are can be assured that God is in control, no
matter what. As a way of submitting to God, you may want to add this closing
prayer from the Way of Love
curriculum to your Way of Love
prayers this week.
Holy One, who makes
the impossible possible, open our ears to hear you calling us to birth new life
into the world. Grant us, through the power of the Spirit, the courage of Mary
to respond with “yes” so that your Word may dwell in our hearts; through your
son Jesus Christ, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now
and forever. Amen.*
*Way of Love Advent Curriculum; By Jenifer Gamber and Becky Zartman;
Copyright © 2018 by The Episcopal Church;
The Episcopal Church/ 815 2nd Ave/New York, NY 10017
