During the construction of one of his eggs on a beach he is meticulously layering flat pieces of shale, creating round layers, one on top of the other in a precarious balance. He’s reached about knee high with layers going further and further out making the base of the egg when they collapse all of the sudden. The whole thing first caves into the center, then caves out and it is completely destroyed.
There was a gasp in the room at the workshop as everyone felt viscerally this loss of all that work. It collapsed four times before Andy was able to complete the work, and each time he was visibly devastated, but also he spoke of how each time he learned something about the stone, understood it more, but he said, frustrated and almost in tears, “I guess I don’t understand it well enough yet.”
Another completed statute, same egg shape, sat in a pasture with cattle grazing around it. One cow came up alongside and began using it as a scratching pole. It struck me how strong and sturdy the stone was even though watching it being built, it seemed so precarious, in such a delicate balance. The many collapses, the precarious balance, the learning that took place with each moment of grief and loss - all of this was still there contained within the statute, a part of its beauty, and yet as the result of all those losses it was now a powerful fortitude, a quiet strength. And the animals rested against it.
Today our
passages for this First Sunday of Advent are about revelation. Isaiah begins, “Oh that you would tear open
the heavens and come down!” This is the
cry of all who are oppressed, who wait for justice as their patience wears thin,
as their hopes are dashed again and again, as their dreams go unfulfilled. They wait for revelation of a God who is
hidden. 1st Corinthians, a
bit more optimistic, has Paul thankful for his fellow Christians who reveal to
him their many gifts and graces from God, as they too wait for the revelation
of Jesus Christ. Then in our Gospel we
are back to more signs in heaven and on earth that accompany the revelation of
Christ, and we are told to read the signs of the times.
Revelation. What is it that is being revealed to us? And how are we to see this revelation? How are we able to see with new eyes what is being revealed to us? To read the signs all around us and to catch a glimpse of what is really going on.
Isaiah speaks of a God who is hidden, who seems to have turned his back on his people. The passage is written in the plural we, and it feels like a whole people speaking. They see their enemies all around them and they long for the days of old to come again when God showed his mighty power. Then God did awesome deeds and made the mountains quaked. Then they wonder what they have done wrong to make him so angry and they can see nothing that is good in the times they face. All have become unclean like filthy cloth, they say. They use this word “all” several times, a pervasive darkness is all they can see now. Whatever they once thought they were has been blown away in the wind like a leaf. Whatever they once knew has collapsed before their eyes like so many precarious rocks piled one on top of other.
I think now of the eruption of violence over the grand jury decision in Ferguson. The Episcopal Church has put out an Advent study available online about this. Whoever we thought we were as a people, whatever progress we thought we might have made seems to go up in smoke in an instant in the flames that burned that night. There and in cities across the country. We all look at these events in horror, those of us who are paying attention. Some of us continue to live in denial, imaging that these are other people’s problems and we distance ourselves. For some of us our first thought is to blame the violent protestors who have used this moment as an excuse to destroy. And we can see no further than the fear we have of the other we cannot begin to understand.
Others of us look deeper and see the insidious system of racism and oppression that is pervasive in our country regardless of the facts of this particular case. Though there is no official national database of deaths by police shooting, the numbers are estimated as high as 1000 a year, based on compiled news reports. In the flames of fire and protest we see that evil laid bare before us, and we wonder if this violence is beyond us to end, if these tensions are ultimately irreconcilable and our hearts are filled with grief and despair.
Others look even deeper. We say with Isaiah. “Yet.” We use that word – “Yet,” even so, despite what we see with our eyes, we nevertheless see something else, something else is revealed to us coming to us through our fear and despair. We say, “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.”
“We are all your people.” Words spoken by the prophet to a God who has seemed to turn away. But really a revelation in itself, a new way of seeing the world and all who live in it. We are, each of us, a part of one family, under one God, we are all works of the Creator’s hand. “We are all your people,” all of us. This is a cry that goes up from the depth of our being that reveals to us what is at the heart of existence. Each and every one of us is created in the image of God. Each and every one of us individually a revelation, and together as a whole people, all of us revealing the divine. Just as God is one so are we one.
The police officer pulling the trigger again and again, the young man who loses his life in the actions that follow that split second decision, actions that cannot be reversed, that seem to be unstoppable, that go on and on and on - these two men are brothers. “We are all your people.” Each of these 1000 tragedies around the country that rock individuals, families and communities with horrible grief and seemingly irreconcilable conflict. Each of these tragedies has happened to members of our family, our brothers and sisters. “We are all your people.” This is the revelation we are waiting for, to be able to see enemies as our family. To be able to see the face of God in the stranger, in those whom we most fear, even the most angry, the most violent. “We are all your people.” To be able to see the Coming of the Lord in the most horrible places in the world, in the most hopeless times. To see these times and places especially as moments of revelation in which God is revealed. It which it is revealed to us, that “We are all your people.”
Jesus says, learn a lesson from the fig tree. When the branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves you know the summer is near. This is an image of God in creation. Creation reveals to us how God works. Creation is bringing life from death. We see the lifeless branch in the dead of winter, but if we look closely, if we are paying attention, we can see the signs of life returning.
In the video
of Andy Goldsworthy, his sculpture is placed in a field and the time lapse
photography shows the grass and ferns growing up around it and sculpture
disappearing into the landscape and as the seasons change it reappears
again. The egg that is placed on the
beach is claimed by the rising tide, completely covered by the ocean, it too
has disappeared just beneath the surface only to reappear as the tide goes back
out. And endless cycle of life and death
and life again. The egg disappears into
the landscape, disappears into the ocean and becomes one with its
surroundings. Andy talks about watching
the ocean take his statue and he speaks of it as gift he has given to the sea. At
this moment of grief and loss, at this moment of death, of separation, he knows
that there is an even greater unity that has been achieved. In death we are united to all things in time
and space, and the ultimate hope we have, what we are all waiting for is this
revelation, that we shall be known even as we are known, that we shall be one.
So now the
seasons come and go, suffering is at times all around, at times all seems to be
death and destruction and division. At
these moments God seems precisely absent, but it is exactly in these moments
that God is nearest. Advent is a time
of waiting, of expectant anticipation. We
wait in the darkness, in the darkest hour, for the light to come. Waiting for revelation. We are waiting not so much for the light to
come, as for the ability to see in the dark.
We are waiting for new eyes to be able to see. Hidden in the violence of Ferguson, in the
violence taking place this day around the world, is this truth, “We are all
your people.” It is hard to see it. In fact it seems impossible to see it.
That is why
it is revelation of God. Let us pray then
with the Psalmist to our God who is able to restore our sight, who is able to
help us see in the darkness. “Restore us,
O God. Show the light of your
countenance and we shall be saved.” Let
us see the face of God on our brothers and sisters. This, exactly this, is what will save
us: to be able to see the face of God on
our brothers and sisters. Just as Paul
does in Corinthians, I give thanks for all of you, I see the grace of God in you. I see the spiritual gifts that God has given
you. I see the face of God in you. Together we are co-creators with God,
sculptors, potters ourselves, and with each collapse of this work of art we are
creating together, we understand one another a little better. We catch a glimpse of the truth. We see the new buds once again on the fig
tree. We see the Coming of our Lord in the vision of our own unity with all of
creation. May this Advent Season give
you new eyes to see in the darkness.
