Monthly Archives: December 2013

Meredith Stone: Preaching Pregnant in Advent

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           When I was pregnant with my first daughter, I was working on a Master’s degree and my husband was serving on a church staff in a small rural community. As the minister’s spouse, who happened to also self-identify as a called minister, I sought ways to be a part of the ministry of the church in whatever place was open to me. One of those places in that particular church was the worship ministry.  So in 2003 on the Sunday before Christmas, I was asked to pull my massively pregnant self up the stairs to the platform during the service, read Mary’s song in Luke 1:46-55, and then sing a solo. In other words, I was asked to be the surrogate Mary.

            While the service that day didn’t include an examination of what being birth-er and nurturer to the Christ-child meant, the people in that church were given a meaningful snapshot of Jesus’ mother.  Sometimes Jesus’ miraculous birth makes us forget about the tangible details.  Jesus was an actual human being who grew inside of a woman.  Mary did carry him in her belly for nine months and he grew from tiny embryo to fetus inside of her.  She had to think about what she ate and the activities she engaged in so that she could be sure to nurture this tiny creature into a fully functioning human being. Mary’s womb was the first minister to the Christ as it provided a place for the baby human Jesus to grow.    

It was with this picture of the pregnant Mary that I approached my second pregnancy-filled Christmas season in 2007. By then I was serving on a local church staff as a Teaching Pastor and one of my responsibilities was to coordinate worship and preach during Advent.  So when one of the lectionary passages for the third Sunday of Advent that year was Luke 1:46-55, I just knew that, again, I brought a unique perspective into reading Mary’s song. 

As I read and re-read Mary’s song that week in preparation for Sunday, I felt a strong connection to her. I imagined her looking just like me – gigantic belly and all.  I envisioned her responding to each kick and punch of the baby in her womb by placing her hand on her belly. And as her hand rose and fell with the movements of her unborn child, I wondered what she thought about and how she pictured that little person growing inside of her?  Being almost eight months pregnant myself, at that point my imagination had constructed a very detailed vision of who my second daughter would be.  So who did Mary picture her son to be and what did she dream for him?

Then as I read through commentaries and articles about Mary and her song for my sermon preparation, I began to see her mother’s dream unfold in the words of Luke 1:46-55.  Mary dreamed about the new world her son would bring into being.  It would be a world where the poor, the downtrodden, and the powerless are restored.  It would be a world where the strong, the rich, and the proud no longer dominate, but the lowly are lifted up and the hungry are fed, where God fills, helps, remembers and is merciful by turning the entire order of society upside down.  It would be a world where her son starts a revolution.

And there she sat. 

Pregnant. 

With the hope of a revolution of justice and redemption inside of her.

And with the expectation that she would deliver that hope to the world.

And looking down at my own pregnant belly, I was reminded that Mary was not the only one pregnant with that same kind of hope.

So when I preached that December morning in 2007, I tried to paint a picture of Mary that is sometimes forgotten – the Mary in-between Gabriel’s visit and the manger.  I attempted to use her pregnancy to illustrate the kind of hope we should all have.  When we hope for redemption and justice, we should have Mary’s kind of hope.  It should be a hope that is assured since we can feel it kicking and punching and growing inside of us.  It should be a hope that is active since, like labor and delivery, bringing our hope to fulfillment is not a passive endeavor. 

And you can only imagine the congregational gasps as I said, “In fact, who better than Mary to illustrate to us the fact that we are all humble virgins whom God has impregnated with hope?  That’s right, you heard me – I’m not the only pregnant one in the room anymore. As followers of Christ we have all been made pregnant by God’s hope and like Mary we have the privilege of giving birth to God’s revolution of justice!”

After church that day, one male member of the congregation said to me, “I will never forget today – the day you made us all pregnant.” 

Note: The above is an excerpt from Meredith’s essay “Pregnant and Remembered Hopes” from the collection  A Divine Duet: Ministry and Motherhood (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys Publishers, 2013).

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Reverend Meredith Stone serves as women in ministry specialist for Texas Baptists.  Her work includes resourcing and supporting women serving in vocational ministry across Texas and consulting with churches and institutions that support women in leadership.  Meredith is also working on a PhD in Biblical Interpretation through Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University.  Meredith’s husband, James, serves as Director of Church Relations for Hardin-Simmons and they have two daughters, Hallie and Kinsey.

 

 

Joanne Costantino: A Grammy, An Angel and “Todzilla”

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Advent: The Coming of Something Momentous.

Advent for me is always what the definition is: waiting, lying in wait for something to happen. Growing up in the Catholic Church, my memories of Advent are of the dark purple vestments the priests wore for the four weeks at Sunday Mass, the Advent wreath, the hymns of waiting for the Savior’s birth (“Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel”), and the bare altar that suddenly exploded on Christmas eve into a stage of brilliantly lit Christmas trees lining the altar and a spectacular manger scene complete with the Holy Family, a crèche with lots of hay spread around, shepherds and angels in diaphanous white gowns with wings that looked like Michelangelo himself had created them. Fast forward into my younger Mommy years, and immediately after Thanksgiving my Advent was coupled with that feeling of “lying in wait for something to happen”– and always with the angst of did I get it all done?! right up to midnight of Christmas Eve.

In my Grandparent years I still feel the “lying in wait for something to happen.” But the angst is replaced with anticipation for how I’m going to knock the socks off my grandkids with an experience they might not have had the opportunity to enjoy with their overbooked and exhausted parents. Sometimes it’s an expensive event, but the memories are priceless. This year it cost me less than $25 for my granddaughter Meghan.

Meghan is tiny in a family of non-tiny people. She is also “affectionately” nicknamed “Todzilla,” and lately, “Toddy.” She actually is proud of the moniker. Her small size is a shrewd disguise for her huge temper, the volume of her articulate voice and not the least of all her razor sharp intelligence. Her brain never shuts down. I find it amusing more often than not, but she gives her parents an emotional workout.

The application for which role a child would like in the Nativity play came home last week. My daughter Kate asked Meghan if she’d like to be something different this year, maybe a shepherd or a reader. Meghan’s response was without hesitation, direct and terse: “No! You said I could be an angel.” Okay, we won’t dwell on the double entendre in the statement, but this is life with our Todzilla.

Meghan’s mom was in that very place of anxiety I remember so well. When she called, I could hear in her voice the restrained panic: “Toddy wants to be an angel in the Nativity play, we don’t have a costume. The play is in two weeks.” We dug out last year’s costume. Because she is so petite the angel dress still fit her. But then we found the homemade wings and the halo. Toddy looked at them and stated, “I thought we threw those away.”

We had bought fairy wings at the Dollar Store and covered them with foil, because all we could find was pink ones and had no time to do anything else. Meghan had declared she could not have pink wings in a white gown, so we improvised. The foil did the job, but apparently other parents’ angels were adorned with real feathered angel wings trimmed in maribou. There was nothing homemade about their wings. Meghan looked angelic throughout the Nativity play, but she continued throughout that evening about how she was the only one with “silver wings.” That was last year.

This year, Meghan’s had no change of heart about the homemade wings and halo. Kate tried to convince her that her wings were special because they were different. But Toddy wasn’t having any of that nonsense and walked away. With two weeks until the play, I was confident I could find a set of angel wings that would be suitable to Meghan’s standards.

Naturally, I consulted the internet. The initial search resulted in a lot of “sold out” or “out of stock” findings. It was beginning to look bleak. The feeling of anticipation and confidence that these wings were going to be a slam dunk was ebbing. After taking a break from the search, I went back online, determined we were going to have feathered wings for Todzilla in time for the play. Thanks be to God for persistence, patience and OrientalTrading.com: feathered angel wings, trimmed in white maribou, $8.50. Expedited shipping was more than the cost of the wings, but it did not matter.

They were delivered as promised and when I displayed them for her, Meghan exclaimed “Oh my God! They are HUGE!” Although the wings are almost the same size as Meghan, they are beautiful and look like real feathered angel wings.

The halo never fit well on her head, so we’re going to forgo the halo and go with a trimmed white headband. Toddy is just fine with not wearing a halo. As she so astutely observed, “it’s always slipping off my head.” No kidding.

 

 

 

Joanne Costantino is a Philly girl living in the wild suburb of Washington Township, NJ, where she still pines for city life. She graduated from College in 2008, two weeks shy of the birth of her 4th grandchild. The “accidental matriarch” of a life she didn’t sign up for, Joanne will never run out of writing material with her family of daughters, nieces and their youngsters, all living close enough for weekly Sunday dinners. Joanne’s short stories “The Philly Girl in Jersey” and “Leaving the Leaves” appeared in Tall Tales and Short Stories from South Jersey. http://weneedmoresundaydinners.blogspot.com.

 

 

Advent Week 1: Practicing Watchfulness

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Matthew 24:36-44

(36) “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (37) For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (38) For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, (39) and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. (40) Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. (41) Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. (42) Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. (43) But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. (44) Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Several years ago, I had a powerful encounter with this passage. I had just preached a sermon on this text that week, focusing on the call to be awake to God and each other in this season of hope and anticipation. I heard the text inviting us to set aside the distractions of this day and age and delve deep into God’s presence. As I prepared the sermon, I imagined a long, pensive season set to the haunting tune of “I Wonder as I Wander.” I longed for such a reflective, angelic season (with more ancient Enya-like songs as background music, of course).

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Not 24 hours post-sermon, I found myself frantically searching travel sites trying to firm up plans for a vacation over spring break.  The trip was a major component of our children’s Christmas gifts that year—and one of the only true surprises. I’d been researching for months, reading travel tips and restaurant reviews, trying to be a good steward of our time and money. We’d probably only visit this spot once. So I was working hard to make sure we could squeeze every last drop from the experience.

By 10:53 p.m., which is late for me, I was hunched over in bed, trying to read the fine print on a confirmation e-mail, without my contacts in or glasses on, of course. My shoulders were tight and sore, my temples throbbed and I suddenly sat up in a moment of un-OCD sanity, thinking I just wasted an entire evening of peace and quiet!  In our household of three young boys and two ministers, an evening of peace and quiet is worth its tick-tocks in gold.

Sound familiar? From Cyber Monday deals to calendar juggling to sugar overload, the distractions of the season are legion. They aren’t intrinsically bad, just powerfully tempting. Seeing as I am human and live in the real world, I probably won’t ever be able to resist fully and that’s not such a bad thing. Advent will keep happening; Christmas will still come.

So my prayer is that the time between the slipping into distraction and the wake-up What am I doing?! moment will lessen. My Advent discipline this year is to carve out time in each day—OK, maybe every other day—to breathe, think, be quiet, listen. A little ritual of stillness, a time to be awake to God, may be just the antidote to a season of constant distraction.  Four days into Advent and this discipline, accompanied by some Enya-like background music, is already helping. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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A native of Atlanta, GA, Reverend Alicia Davis Porterfield is a writer, teacher and Board Certified Chaplain. She is a graduate of the University of Georgia and earned a Master of Divinity and a Master of Theology from Duke University Divinity School. After graduation, Alicia completed two years of chaplaincy training at Rex Healthcare in Raleigh, NC. For six years, Alicia served as chaplain at Quail Haven Retirement Village in Pinehurst, NC before her family moved to Wilmington, NC. Her husband Eric is senior pastor at Winter Park Baptist Church and together they stay busy learning and growing with their three sons: Davis (12), Luke (10) and Thomas (8). A frequent retreat leader and guest preacher, Alicia enjoys reading, singing and re-learning piano–to make some use of those four years of lessons her parents funded long ago.