How does a weary world rejoice? We acknowledge our weariness

Luke 1

On Thanksgiving Eve, I went to worship at a neighboring congregation and the pastors reminded us that gratitude is not necessarily a feeling but a practice. Sometimes feelings of thanks well up within us—like those who met around this week’s Gratitude feast hosted by Daily Work and Shobi’s Table. But sometimes, gratitude doesn’t come as easily. In tough times, it’s the discipline of practicing that carries us through. You may have read Kate Bowler—she’s a survivor of stage four cancer—and ever since she made it through that experience, she’s written a lot and hosts a podcast about the authentic experiences of life. This week, she wrote a thanksgiving blessing for when you don’t feel terribly thankful.

 

Kate Bowler wrote—

God, I am struggling to find my way toward gratitude this thanksgiving. 

Help my heart find joy, for you know how much I need it.

Come meet us in our needs that weigh so heavily upon us.

Blessed are we who come to you just as we are, with our loneliness and loss,

Our scarcity and sorrow, and say God, there is just not enough 

Though we’re not even supposed to say [that] today, there is just not enough to go on:

Not enough money to pay bills, not enough jobs, nor safety for those who have them,

Not enough wisdom to find solutions, not enough strength or comfort or connection.

Things are just harder now.

Blessed are we who say, God, could you come meet us here, in this place?

This place of need where our feelings don’t match the day?

Blessed are we who hear You saying: “come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

And we come. And somehow there is rest, and gladness for tiny, tiny graces.

Blessed are we, the truly thankful.

Settle. Place before your mind one gift of God. And say thanks.

 

How does a weary world rejoice? This is an Advent and Christmas question that we’ll be exploring over the month to come. Today’s response is just the first—How does a weary world rejoice? We acknowledge our weariness. 

 

At our Thanksgiving table, the one who shared the prayer got tears in his eyes as he contemplated the pain of the world. Still, there is reason for hope, he said. We know, we know…  but maybe it is good to practice this month first the truth-telling, with Kate Bowler, with the writers of this beautiful devotional from A Sanctified Art, with the biblical characters—that there are very many hard things in life and that we are weary.
Christ was born into a weary world.

So, they invite us to look closely at the details in the opening stories of the Gospel of Luke. They invite us to discover where joy is sprinkled throughout the narrative and identify the moments when joy arrives—despite anxiety, fear or grief. And they invite us to consider how joy can be a companion to you this season, the joy that is rooted in the truth that you belong to God. 

Imagine this—you deserve to feel joy—fully. The world needs your joy, even if you are weary and all the resources of this month are to help you hold space for weariness and joy. All the resources of this month are to help us practice joy in a weary world.

 

This first story—Zechariah—is a good example.

It is completely understandable why Zechariah would be weary from waiting and full of doubt. He’s offered his whole life to serving in God’s presence, but has he been rewarded for that in the ways his culture would understand? No, in fact childlessness in his culture signified God’s contempt. Zechariah and Elizabeth are childless and old—so when Gabriel appears in a vision in the temple, it makes perfect sense that Zechariah would question that incredible message. “How will I know that this is true?” I’m well past my prime. I doubt it.

But with Gabriel’s joy-filled response, we learn that God’s promises are more powerful than our doubt, weariness and despair. “I am Gabriel… “ Zechariah’s ability to speak is taken away for awhile—maybe for both himself and for the community—so that God’s power can do it’s good work and bring into being not only the baby who would become the prophet John the Baptist… but the transformative future that he would proclaim.

 

Rev. Cecelia D. Armstrong writes in our devotions this week--

We can be weary in various ways. We can be weary because of our age. We can be weary because of our waiting. We can be weary because we have faced the same routine for years and seemingly watched nothing change. We can be weary for various reasons, but must we stay weary? Can we exchange our weariness for hope? Is there a way to experience weariness and insist on the blessed hope that is to come?

 

I love that idea of “insisting on the blessed hope that is to come.”

 

And Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman, the artist who made this beautiful image—Annunciation to Zechariah—wrote these reflections:

 

I often try to neglect my weariness by putting on a veneer of unwavering trust in God---while feeling like I may suddenly unravel…

 

Do you bind up your weariness in a neat and tidy bow, put your head down, and project okay-ness like me? What would it look like to acknowledge our weariness, quit powering through, and open ourselves up to what God might have in store for us? Perhaps we’ll meet an angel.

 

Breathe deep as you gaze upon the image on the left.

What do you see? 

One hand is over his mouth in disbelief, the other hand cradles the notion—not yet hope—of the new one being born.

 

We are that same mix—of weary doubt, of the possibility of joy—and God comes among us, a companion to us this season, to help us remember the truth that we belong to God. May that belonging be the first new spark of joy this season as we begin practices together to grow in love, comfort and joy for the sake of a weary world.