You never quite know what's going to happen when you plant something. Several years ago I rescued two sad sprigs of Christmas cactus from the Christmas fair remnants. This morning it bloomed in bushy glory by the altar. Advent is about expecting, but now being sure what you'll get!

Above the pink blossoms hang brand new banners lovingly crafted by two talented quilters, Brenda Davenport and Gail Kromer, to make something of the too small centers I created in 2006.

This bright tree patch nods to our common ancestress, "Eve." What did God expect when planting that fateful fruit tree in the garden? All we know about Eve is that she took and shared what wasn't given to her, then went on to be a hardworking farmer's wife with at least three sons (but that's another story for another time). If the story was just about her and her husband, "Adam," there wouldn't be much else to tell.

Its the main character who makes the story worth remembering. Not ready to give up on the contrarians God had breathed into life, the Creator made sure the creatures had what they needed to survive and thrive. transplanted sprigs bearing human life out into the world.

Today, while we work, we watch and wait to see what God will do next. Jeremiah says, "When that time comes, I will make a fresh and true shoot sprout from the David-Tree. He will run this country honestly and fairly, He will set things right. (Jeremiah 33: 15, translated by Eugene Peterson in "The Message).

Jeremiah points to the truth borne out in Jesus the Christ, God doesn't just send us into the world, God goes with us. The new banners point us toward stories of women who experienced God's powerful presence in their lives: Mother Eve, Sister Miriam, Deborah the Judge, Esther the Queen, Sarah and Elizabeth-late in life mothers, Loyal Ruth, Mary of Nazareth, Martha and Mary who befriended Jesus, Generous Dorcas, Gifted Lydia.

Advent invites us to get ready for what God wants to do in our lives. How will Christ come to us? What sprigs wait to spring into surprising abundance?

Our thanks to Suzanne Schaffhausen and Judy Rehmel for the quilts blocks published in "Women of the Bible," Augsburg Press, 1991.

Birth Pangs

We women sometimes think that we have the corner on birth pangs. I remember the last time I was at a "Jack & Jill" baby shower. The women ended up in one room. “Why I can tell you stories…” (often the one the new Mom wants least to hear!). The guys were in the next room trying to share fatherly wisdom but veering off course toward football scores and demands at work. Even these days when men are invited into the birth experience (appropriate considering their involvement before and after), most of the books and movies make a "girl thing."

The distinctively American music called “Blues” bear witness that, actually, many men "get it." Birth pangs creating life come in many forms.

If you’ve ever heard the real deal,

a raw voice growling and moaning out its misery,

offering it up,

emptying it out,

you’ve heard birth pangs coming from men and women breaking open under the pregnant weight of life.

I think the Psalms are Israel’s blues lyrics.

In the bible, Samuel's story starts out with the good news according to his mother, Hannah. Her birth pangs come long before the actual birth as she sinks under the weight barrenness meant in that time and place. Before Samuel there is emptiness, ridicule and despair. After Samuel's birth, Hannah herself comes to life as she offers back to God the son she struggled to bring into this world.
Before Samuel's birth, Hannah mourned privately to her husband and to Eli who caught caught her pouring out prayer so incoherently he thought she was drunk out of her mind. . Overhearing them feels like invasion of privacy.
But after Samuel's birth, she sings a song that is startlingly public, a song of righteousness turning her inner heartfelt blues into prophetically powerful witness. It's not just the boy who's birthed. Hannah's purpose, her voice, her very life stream from the opened womb as though it were an opened tomb.

"Birth pangs" is the image Jesus choose when he tries to prepare his followers for the scale of change in their future. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. (Mark 13) Biblical scholars remind us that when Mark was writing this gospel it was against a background of public crisis, either the Jewish revolt against Rome in 70 C.E. or Caligula’s earlier demand that the Jews set up a statue of him in the Temple area in the years (35-41 CE depending on how you date the work).

Have you ever stopped to wonder what might be birthed out of a public crisis? What new life might be born?

Something precious will break open, maybe even beyond repair, in Mark’s case a sacred institution, the temple. Something new will emerge, in Mark's case siblings Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism.

Have you ever wondered what might be birthed out of the private crisis that invade our lives?

In his new Memoir, “Living and Loving Outloud,” Cornel West writes, “For Christians, serious faith begins when we experience the sweet shipwreck of the mind and the bittersweet cracking open of the heart…..to be human is to call for help. We saw birth as a catastrophe: you’re thrown in space and time to die. The flesh fails. Then the question becomes simple-how ya gonna cope?"

Birth and death are not so far apart, after all. Natives of our desert South west believed that death is waking up from life’s sleep.

The Christian faith and the modern Jewish movement are siblings birthed out of a nation's temple tragically breaking open. Out of that loss, living faith emerges and spreads out to renew and redeem.

Hannah's pregnancy also births her oracle of judgment against those who hoard and refuse to release the good things in our lives.

Jesus is re-birthed out of a tomb.

On mornings when we just don't know how we'll face another day, God promises that if we will emerge from under the covers stand up, and walk out, the Holy Spirit will breathe with us, set us on fire with passion for what is possible, and blow friends for the journey our way.

Birthing involves emptying, sending out. Marcia McFee shares a radical advent plan in her current worship newsletter: it "... comes from the folks at Metropolitan Community Church in Austin, TX. Their theme for Advent is “Simple Gifts” and they will begin Advent with all the usual sanctuary splendor of the Advent/Christmas season. But then each Sunday they will recess out parts of that abundance, poinsettias, greenery, gifts of clothing or toys for those who need them, decorations, goods for food banks, etc. until by Christmas Eve, the sanctuary is pretty much bare except for the light of Christ as evidenced by Advent wreath and Christ candle. In this way they celebrate the true spirit of giving and sharing of love and resources and will be left with the symbol of the most important and ever-present gift of all–the gift of God’s presence, Emmanuel. Terrific! (www.marciamcfee.com)

What if we thought of church more as pregnant with possibility to be birthed and less as problems to be contained?