Spoken into Being

This week’s bible text can be found at https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=507016347

Often when something is ending we also start thinking about how it started. We look at where we are now and wonder how we got here. How do these things compare to what used to be or what we were expecting? In the beginning of 2021, I was clinging to the hope of a vaccine rollout and the relief that would finally be drawing near.  We were still doing everything in our lives online and honestly, even with hope on the horizon, I couldn’t imagine the awkwardness and joy  and lingering grief of learning how to gather and hug people again. At the beginning of this season of Advent anticipation I was looking forward to a time of slowing down, of steadily tending to simple rhythms like adding to my advent calendar each evening. I set hopes to go and see different holiday lights around town, to get my shopping done early, to spend time with people I care about and inspire me.  Some of that happened and some of it didn’t, and some of it didn’t unfold the way I had pictured it.

Sometimes when things are ending, we start to think about what new thing will begin. Sometimes it’s exciting, sometimes a matter of necessity or inevitability, and sometimes, especially when we’re tired, we would rather experience literally anything else than starting over.

And still the sun rises and sets, the tides rise and fall. Every beginning has an ending and every ending is also a beginning. A beginning is a clean slate, but it’s more than that too.  It’s a big open space, but it’s not empty space.

In the beginning of the Gospel of John, the beginning of Jesus, there isn’t any journey to Bethlehem, or donkeys or sheep or shepherds or angels. But there’s not nothing. In the beginning was the word.  A breathy thing with no physical weight or matter, but holds and forms and blesses everything. This tiny thing that just wafts through the wind like dandelion fuzz and slide through all our defenses and yet sticks in our side.

A word is not too small a thing to start with, nor too pithy to last.

Think of what it means to someone when you make an effort to pronounce the sound of their name correctly or get their pronouns right. She/her, he/him, they/them – just a couple letters to create a word that brings life and light into someone’s world.

Think of authors, poets, musicians, and speakers whose words have shaped and stuck with you. The best ones are not only the greatest artists but those who embody what they express. Just look at the impact of author Bell Hooks and the way her words have been shared in this week following her death.  She wrote, “the moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.” The way she spoke of love moved us to understand it as more than a word on a page or even a feeling, but as a force that animates our bodies and moves the world.

This understanding of the word isn’t talking only about ink on a page or sounds that make up speech. Those kinds of words are always limited, certainly too limited to encompass the divine. A Greek understanding of word, logos, is that which describes the ordering plan of the universe – giving it shape and meaning.  In Hebrew philosophy words are wisdom – a lens that shapes how and what we see, experience, become, receive. In its broader meaning, a word is that by which the inward thought is expressed. And so, Christ, the Word of God who was and is and is unfolding, is an expression of God’s own being, God’s own heart. 

“No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”

This poetic prologue gives us Jesus as God walking around with their heart on their sleeve. This living breathing bleeding word walking to the local bus stop, avoiding the laundry, and hanging out with friends telling stories and laughing late into the nights. This living Word, both reveals and creates God’s heart of grace and truth and what that looks like in action and in the world. In the Message transliteration of this passage, it says “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” Like Uncle Eddie in Christmas Vacation parking their RV in your driveway. God sets up shop right here and becomes a part of our daily rhythms of life. Jesus will show us who God is, and engages us to become a part of how God is in the world. 

What do our words reveal about us? What do they create?

We are created in the image of a God whose word creates and redeems the entire world. This creative power extends to us as what we think, we create. If continually tell ourselves a story of misery, we find ourselves constantly miserable. Whether we tell a story of hopelessness or hope, we usually find what we speak into being. To be sure, there is healing power in expressing things like sadness and anger. There is room within this season and certainly within this community to speak and hold these things. And also, there is more to tell. This is a living story that weaves light and darkness together.

So I wonder…What are saying to ourselves in these days? 

I wonder…what do we say about or to ourselves, or to or about others,

that is not graceful or even really true?

How might we consider our words with care knowing their capacity?

As I reflected on this and this text during the week, I also began to wonder…what’s the difference between this and manifesting? This practice and philosophy that if I speak something out into the universe, it creates the existence I want. An “I think therefore I am” kind of worldview that feels empowering but really just ends up putting salvation back on our own shoulders. Our words are indeed powerful - they create, they wound and heal, express and inspire…and yet they still pale next to God’s word.  

Last week we heard Mary’s song of praise and in hymn based on that song, The Canticle of the Turning, there’s this beautiful line that says, “the saving word that our forebears heard is the promise that holds us bound.” Before and beyond anything we could say or do is the anchor of God’s word that holds us in promise from generation to generation.

God’s word to us is life. “life and light to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.”

Life. Nothing more, nothing less, just this steady rhythm of being and wholeness and the daily liberation that unfolds through it. God is revealed, known, and unfolding in the simple and profound rhythms of waking, breathing in and out, holding hands, sharing a warm meal, and then getting some rest. That’s enough. That is revolutionary power in world that will always demand more. That is how love seeps into our bones and lungs, our very identity and our relationships. This word of life and love becomes flesh and blood among us and we will never be the same. Amen.