A REfection for Advent III

Advent III
Matthew 11:2-11
The Rev. Jenny Gregg
 
How many of you have had the unfortunate experience of having a pinched nerve?

If you haven’t, consider yourself lucky. 

When one has a pinched nerve, there is pressure or inflammation caused by muscle, tissue or bone pushing against a nerve. Each time pressure is placed on the injured area, pain quickly radiates to other places - down the legs or arms, through the shoulders, etc.

There is an anticipatory vigilance that comes with this kind of pain.  If I move this way, will it show up?  If do this activity, what is the risk level of the pain increasing or returning?  To keep the pain and risk of injury at bay, life and movement is often a more calculated endeavor.  Inevitably, at some point you will be caught off guard, and without warning the nerve will be ignited again and cascade through your body.  In those moments, the only thing you can do is ask for help and be present to it.  Notice the sensations move and then eventually, slowly, perhaps not completely, subside. All we can do in the meantime, is wait…. trusting that our body (with the help of other professionals when needed) is doing the very best it can to heal itself.  

Like our body, within our communities and governing structures, lies a vast array of interconnecting systems and we are walking around right now with a pinched nerve. There are pressure points all around us. We live in constant anticipation and a state of vigilance because we can't anticipate when things will flare. We don’t know when ICE will make an appearance.  We don’t know how cuts of all kinds will continue to affect the lives and resources of individuals and  local communities.  We don’t know many things.  So, we simply pay attention and keep watch. We consider what are the best movements to make to relieve some of the agony found in the most tender and vulnerable places. 

It hurts. It hurts to see systems not help but hurt the people they were made to serve. It is agonizing to watch people suffer and feel like nothing is changing.  The pain radiates, showing up in different forms in the lives of those we love and whom we care for.  Some days relief is found, and our beings exhale for a moment. Other days, we find ourselves gritting our teeth as we move through another wave.

While keeping this in mind, it is not hard to imagine John the Baptist here this week, gritting his teeth, as he is trying to relieve the internal pressure, pushing against systemic pinched nerves.  John’s contrasting vision of community, landing him in this jail cell. Things are bleak. His whole life, beginning in utero, has revolved around the belief and hope that Jesus is the Messiah, the chosen one, and the hope this brings. Now, he is faced with an abundance of time to contemplate the end of his life.  So, he asks, “did I do all of this for naught?” Is Jesus, “the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

Jesus’ response, “Go and tell John what you hear and see, that the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the leapers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them.” 

All of these places Jesus named are those places where hope, healing, and connection are taking place. It is an invitation to John to enlarge his perspective from what is not happening to what is.  Even though the systems of this world are not changing as rapidly as we might hope for, things are happening. For where there is hope and healing, God’s presence is there.[1] Signs of God at work are ever present in the world, even amid pain and turmoil.
  
Jesus says to his disciples and so he says to us,

“Go and tell, what you hear and see…..”

And so, what would you say?  What do you see that helps you to remember that God is here in our midst? 

These are the stories that take the pressure off pinched nerves in our culture, and return us to the assurance, the vision and energy, in which God comes to us even as we wait amid multiple pressure points.

What story might you tell?

Last Monday, I listened to the app, “Pray as you Go.”  The scripture reading was the story of the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to search out the one missing sheep.[2] As the story unfolded within me, I reflected on being  lost and being found as we sing in Amazing Grace.  I thought about how we all need to be found sometimes, this week, like John the Baptist, and how God often finds us by using other people that come into our lives.

At the end of the day, as I was preparing to leave United Church of Christ Pittsfield (UCCP,) a colleague, Kamayue, founder of Project New Growth, walked into the building carrying a huge stuffed animal – a lamb!  Tucked fully within his arms, he remarked, you never know what you are going to find around here.  UCCP, home to the Pittsfield Community Food Pantry, the largest food pantry in Berkshire County, receives all kinds of donations.  As I spoke with him, I noticed that this lamb felt like it belonged in his arms. I carried this image with me into the evening.

The next morning, the food pantry was alive with energy, of people shopping for the necessities to get them through the week.  Whatever pressures anyone felt out there, here the pressure was off and exhales were apparent as laughter, chatter, and greetings of affection were abundant.  Then, I noticed it, in the middle of the room, on an information table that hosts various organizations each Wednesday….was the lamb!   

It is in these spaces, I mused, that we find hope and healing.  Where we who are lost can be found and the pulsating pain of our societies’ pinched nerve, and all the ways it radiates, can settle for a moment. These spaces are everywhere in our communities. 

Often the spaces are small. The organizations, running on shoestring budgets, aren’t huge. They are mustard seeds. And these seeds are everywhere, growing and interconnecting in such a way, that though they may not be headlines in our news reels, they are providing spaces for people to come, rest and be.

“Go and tell Jesus says…..”

Go and share the good news that God is with us, while we keep watch and wait…..in food pantry efforts, in the desire to plant new growth, to provide peer support for mental health, to aid people in recovery, to build a different economy and a way of being. They are living the story of God’s good news, “you are loved and worthy of being loved.”  Period. 

To be able to go and tell of God with us, the one who is and is to come, may we stay vigilant and keep watch, for where we see relief from the pain of our collective pinched nerve and for the life that longs to flow when hope is offered and the healing begins because God is there. In this, may we trust. Amen.


[1] Lectionary Lab Live Podcast.  June 6, 2022.

[2] Matthew 18:12-14