Ancestors of Advent: Reconstructing a Bigger Story
Sometimes we talk about Christmas and Advent as an event that “suddenly” changed everything.
“After 400 years of silence, God suddenly spoke!”
“After the years of separation and abandonment, Immanuel suddenly came!”
“Into the darkness, suddenly there was light, peace, and hope!”
As 40 Orchards is known to do, what if we pause and ask more questions about those explanations?
If we think God was “silent” during the time between the Old and New Testaments…
Does that mean God has been “silent” for the last 1000+ years since the last of Scripture was written down and canonized?
Does that mean God only speaks through the words of those who have the power to write it down?
If we think Jesus being named Immanuel is the first time “God is with us”…
Does that mean the people and leaders of the Old Testament, including the authors of Scripture, did not have an experience of God’s presence?
Does that mean the Ruach (Spirit) of God was limited in movement and action before Jesus came in the flesh?
If we think light, peace, and hope suddenly came with the birth of Jesus…
Does that mean the light God created on day 1, at the beginning of creation, at some point had disappeared?
Does that mean the movements of peace (shalom) and hope (tikvah) in the people of the Hebrew Scriptures were not also indicators of God at work?
What if the birth of Jesus was special, but was not the beginning or the end of God’s connection to and care for this world?
What if Christmas is not the dichotomy of a before and after story?
In my own faith deconstruction and reconstruction journey, it has been important for me to wrestle with this question. Somewhere along the way I realized how deeply I held the person and work of Jesus in binary ways… Darkness to light, absence to presence, lost to found.
I thought seeing Jesus as a force that “suddenly changed everything” was an indicator of a strong faith. But I wonder if it was more of a sign of pride and a hero complex born in me from a colonizer way of thinking.
In the book Abuelita Faith (which I recently read and highly recommend), Kat Armas says,
“The crux of colonial thinking is embedded in perceived binary dichotomies… To construct decolonized thinking, we must set aside dichotomies that stereotype and force people into boxes- in order to recover the voices of the underrepresented, the marginalized voices that get lost in the middle… The more I seek to decolonize, even my readings of Scripture, the more in love I fall with the mysterious grand Creator who imbued our ancestry with embodied knowledge.”
As I read this book, it pushed me to wrestle anew with the questions of this post. How is the way I’ve held the “suddenlies” of Advent a reflection of a faith based in colonization and control?
This Advent, I am looking forward to studying the women of Jesus genealogy. I hope it will help me, and all of us, push back against binary thinking.
We are following the lead of the Gospel of Matthew, which starts not with the birth of Jesus, but with a genealogy of the ancestors that came before him. We will focus especially on the women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. How might seeing the light, hope, righteousness, and peace in their lives, long before Jesus was born, affect how we experience Advent and Christmas?
May these ancestors of Advent help us all expand our experience of what is sacred, whole, and good.
Steph
We are excited to mark Advent together with four Scripture Circles on Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. We are offering a mix of lunchtime and evening options, hoping to make it work for people of different schedules.
Come to one study or join us for all four. Let’s wonder together at how God was working through women years before the angel first visited Mary.
Tamar: December 1 from 11:30am to 1:30pm
Rahab: December 8 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm
Ruth: December 15 from 11:30am to 1:30pm
Bathsheba: December 22 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm
These Advent circles are open to all, no matter your faith background, current beliefs, or whether or not you have studied with us before. We hope you can join us. See more information and register using the links above.