St. Thomas’ Parish at Dupont Circle
Archive for December, 2008
Sunday Salon – Gospel for Advent Three
Dec 8th
The Sunday Salon (each week at 10 a.m. between the two main worship services) focuses on the Gospel Lesson being read and preached-about that day.
To help you get ready for Sunday, here’s the Gospel Lesson for Advent Three, also known as The Third Sunday in Advent. It’s followed by the Rector’s notes on the lesson from the current issue of The Phoenix, plus some suggestions for your prayer and reflection time during the following week.
Gospel Lesson for Advent Three – December 14
John 1:6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
15(John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) 16From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
19This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” 21And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” 22Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 23He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said. 24Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. 25They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” 26John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, 27the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” 28This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.
Surprisingly we find ourselves in the first chapter of John’s gospel this week, the first 28 verses. John is assuring us that a significant moment has arrived in all of history, bringing change and change’s companion – challenge. How do we prepare the way for his coming? Prayer is an essential part of our Christian vocation.
During next week, December 15-20, pray daily that God would come in the midst of our most menial tasks of love and the costliest struggles of survival. Expectant prayer is an attitude of life, a focus on God’s presence in the here & now. It’s our collective crying out in the face of human need and a position of trust that shouts hope. (The Rev. Dr. Nancy Lee Jose, Rector – from The Phoenix, December 1, 2008)
Selling Advent
Dec 3rd
There are almost as few things for sale with an Advent-theme as there are Lenten-collectibles. Lent, of course, is focused on the events leading up to the end of Jesus’ life at the age of thirty-three. Lent is a hard sell, and few people try to make a living off of Lenten trinkets.
But it comes as a surprise to many of us that one of the central themes of Advent is the final judgment. Advent, we are jolted to learn, isn’t just about waiting for the baby Jesus in the manger, but also our anticipation of the end of all things at the last judgment when Christ comes back on ‘the last day’ as the Lord of all of creation for all time .
No wonder that both seasons – Lent and Advent – are ‘hard sells’. They are, after all, periods for introspection about “the time of this mortal life” (BCP, 211), and thus have a certain ‘penitential’ quality to them – a tone of giving-up or turning-loose of our attachment to ‘things’. So ‘selling Advent’ sounds like an oxymoron, if not just in bad taste.
As a result, we are left with Advent Wreaths and Advent Calendars for the most part, although personally I can never find where I put the four-candle-styrofoam-form last year for my wreath, and I always get to about December 15th before I realize that I’m ten days behind with my calendar already, and give in to sloth.
So it’s been interesting to think about whether there are actually any ‘consumer goods’ out there with Advent themes that are worth considering even in an age of recession. The trick, of course, is how not to fast-forward to Christmas, even when trying to celebrate Advent — like this Nativity Advent Wreath I found for sale online this week.
In protest you could wear an “It’s Only Advent” button while you’re out doing your Christmas 
shopping. Or you you could be less self-righteous than I tend to be and look at a wonderful website and blog by the artist Jan Richardson to see some of her fabulous Advent art and to buy one of her Advent books – Nancy and I own Night Visions and have just ordered The Advent Door.
Here’s someone who’s been captivated by Advent, and her art can unleash a whole new set of associations about this special season.
Spend some time looking at her Advent Hours Series of Greeting Cards, or one of her fantastic prints, like “Wise Women Also Came.”
Advent is such a curious season for so many Christians because it invites us to entertain the possibility that God chose to be in our midst precisely because creation is one of God’s favorite places to be. God took flesh, became incarnate, because our flesh was worthy of bearing God … then … and still is now.
It’s hard to sell Advent because we’ve been so thoroughly taught that our bodies are bad that we can no longer even imagine they are good enough to be God’s place to dwell. So we wait in Advent for this miracle to become ours again … althought it is already, if we were only awake enough to see it.
“Ike” Eisenhower and the Advent Calendar
Dec 2nd
Leave it to the BBC for trivia you can count on:
“The first advent calendars appeared in 19th-Century Germany, when various methods of counting the days between the start of Advent and Christmas Day were used. Starting on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, or simply on 1 December, the Protestant Christians would keep track of the days by making marks on their doors with a piece of chalk, which would then be rubbed off one by one as Christmas approached. Other practices then developed, including burning a candle or putting up a small religious picture to mark each day.
There is some disagreement as to when the first printed advent calendars appeared, although it is clear that they were first produced at some time in the 1900s. There are claims that a Christian bookshop in Hamburg produced a ‘Christmas Clock’ in 1902, and a newspaper in Stuttgart is known to have included an advent caldendar in its pages in 1904. However, the first mass producer of advent calendars is thought to have been Gerhard Lang, who worked at the Reichhold & Lang printing office in Munich. He released his first advent calendar in 1908 and had a steady business going which produced over thirty patterns of calendar until some time in the 1930s. The calendars would usually have 24 doors, but tended to be better-decorated than modern versions.
Soon enough, calendars were being designed with little doors or pouches which contained small religious pictures or bible extracts. Better still, some of the calendars also contained sweeties in order to keep the attention of young children. The practice escalated up until the Second World War, when paper and cardboard were rationed and advent-calendar production ground to a halt. Once the war ended, though, the production began again, pioneered by Richard Sellmer in 1946.
The introduction of the advent calendar to the USA was aided by ‘Ike’ Eisenhower, whose grandchildren took a shine to the idea. The calendar was soon adopted in other countries too, and in the UK chocolates began to appear behind the little doors as soon as rationing would allow. By the end of the 1950s, chocolate advent calendars had appeared, and by the following decade they had become widespread. They still exist today, with hundreds of different varieties appearing across the globe.”
Three of the best online are the Full Homely Divinity Advent Calendar — the Episcopal Diocese of Washington’s fifth annual 2008 Advent Calendar — and the BBC’s wonderful, musical Bach Christmas Calendar. Bookmark each of them (or just your favorite) and check each day for a new surprise.
