People of Hope,
Many of you know one of my favorite pandemic church memories: The Sunday morning when, after spending all night trying to fix technical difficulties, I greeted you to online worship in my sweats from the couch of my office. The ironic theme of the sermon was “How do we keep awake when we’re exhausted?”
Recently, a friend – who has spent her career in refugee work – texted me, “it’s just exhausting to be awake in these days.” To be awake meant more than the waking hours of eyes open. To be “awake in these days” is to be alert and intimately aware of all the harm, injustice and hatred being spewed out in rhetoric and manifested in government action, particularly toward our immigrant communities, as well as so many more. To be awake in these days is to risk being burnt out from grief, rage and fear.
Our theme for Advent this year is “Keep Awake,” and here I am, asking a question I’ve asked before, “how do we keep awake when we’re exhausted?” If you heard last Sunday’s sermon, you heard the beginnings of an answer: in the midst of it all, keeping awake to Christ. We cannot take everything in at all times, and neither can we ignore it, but we can keep awake to where Christ is leading us. The Spirit awakens us to the movement of God here and now – for me, for you and for our communities – even as so much weighs on us, harms us and others, and exhausts us. Christ in the oppressed; among the rubble and detention centers; with the grieving and enraged. Yet, even here and now, Christ gives peace, joy, purpose and power to sustain and to keep awake. This is God’s promise.
But to be honest, y’all, I do not promise a clean answer to this question of keeping awake when we’re exhausted; there’s only reaching out to God in discovery. Through Advent, and always, there’s the invitation to Sabbath rest and to the Holy Spirit’s empowerment. There’s learning to trust God again. And again. There’s learning to risk again. And again. There’s learning to hope. There’s learning to live in community and in the kingdom of God while the powers of this world oppose it. So this Advent, we’ll be discovering together (again) how we keep awake in these days.
Peace,
Pastor Liz
Many of you know one of my favorite pandemic church memories: The Sunday morning when, after spending all night trying to fix technical difficulties, I greeted you to online worship in my sweats from the couch of my office. The ironic theme of the sermon was “How do we keep awake when we’re exhausted?”
Recently, a friend – who has spent her career in refugee work – texted me, “it’s just exhausting to be awake in these days.” To be awake meant more than the waking hours of eyes open. To be “awake in these days” is to be alert and intimately aware of all the harm, injustice and hatred being spewed out in rhetoric and manifested in government action, particularly toward our immigrant communities, as well as so many more. To be awake in these days is to risk being burnt out from grief, rage and fear.
Our theme for Advent this year is “Keep Awake,” and here I am, asking a question I’ve asked before, “how do we keep awake when we’re exhausted?” If you heard last Sunday’s sermon, you heard the beginnings of an answer: in the midst of it all, keeping awake to Christ. We cannot take everything in at all times, and neither can we ignore it, but we can keep awake to where Christ is leading us. The Spirit awakens us to the movement of God here and now – for me, for you and for our communities – even as so much weighs on us, harms us and others, and exhausts us. Christ in the oppressed; among the rubble and detention centers; with the grieving and enraged. Yet, even here and now, Christ gives peace, joy, purpose and power to sustain and to keep awake. This is God’s promise.
But to be honest, y’all, I do not promise a clean answer to this question of keeping awake when we’re exhausted; there’s only reaching out to God in discovery. Through Advent, and always, there’s the invitation to Sabbath rest and to the Holy Spirit’s empowerment. There’s learning to trust God again. And again. There’s learning to risk again. And again. There’s learning to hope. There’s learning to live in community and in the kingdom of God while the powers of this world oppose it. So this Advent, we’ll be discovering together (again) how we keep awake in these days.
Peace,
Pastor Liz
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