The season of Advent sounds a discordant note in a world abuzz with holiday Musak.  While everyone else is humming “have a happy jolly Christmas,” we church folks sing prophetic tunes that sound more like a slave spiritual or a freedom song than a Christmas Carol.

O come, O come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel, who mourns in lonely exile here until the son of God appears.

We do not begin our Advent journey with the baby Jesus snuggled in the arms of his parents all aglow in an idyllic postpartum nativity scene.  Instead we begin right in the middle of the birth pains that accompany a difficult delivery.

The prophet Isaiah lets out a gut wrenching cry: “O God that you would tear open the heavens and come down.”  The world around us is in turmoil, God.  We need your presence.  Come and occupy our world now!

Remember, the nation of Israel had been overrun by the Babylonians. The people had been deported and held in captivity. Isaiah was among the throng of refugees returning to their homeland only to find that it looked like London after the blitz or Ground Zero after 911. The Temple complex has been reduced to a pile of rubble.

And all I want for Christmas, Isaiah cries, is the earth shaking, fire kindling, water boiling Presence of a God who can set the world aright.  I think we can safely say that Isaiah is crying out for the kind of Presence that can’t be put in a box and won’t come neatly wrapped and tied in dazzling ribbons.

In fact the first Christmas Presence defies all expectations.  Behold the birth of a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger full of cow dung, in a back alley stable in a dark and forsaken corner of the world.

Advent does not begin with the birth story however.  Instead it fast forwards us to the end of Jesus’ life where he is predicting what the world will look like if it does not heed his message to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

The gospel of Mark gives us a litany of woes that sound like today’s news headlines: There will be wars and rumors of wars.  Nation will rise against nation and there will be earth quakes in various places and famines.  Many will come in the name of Jesus and try to lead people astray.  The apocalyptic passages in the gospels are often used by the end-time preachers to predict the end of the world.

But in reality these texts were written in the mid-first century specifically for the early Christian community who were actually experiencing social strife and upheaval and the end of the world as they knew it.

Rome had ordered Jews (including Jewish Christians) to erect statues of the Emperor in the houses of worship.   By A.D. 70, the Roman armies laid siege to Jerusalem and the Temple complex was reduced to rubble for a second time.

According to Jesus, this was but the beginning of the birth pangs.  Every birthing process includes blood sweat and tears and contractions.  It is when the world is at its darkest and when things look the bleakest, that we are most ready to give birth to something new.

Learn a lesson from the fig tree, Jesus says: new life emerges like the tender branch of a fig tree which sends out a green shoot as winter turns to spring.

If we are not paying close attention, if we do not stay awake and attentive we may miss what is in the process of being born.   In fact, the whole Christmas story is about people who remained attentive and awake to what the world could be rather than in captivity to the way things were.

There is Mary, the unwed mother who opens the door of her heart and life and prepares herself to give birth to God’s possibilities and to envision a world where “the powerful are brought down from their thrones and the lowly are lifted up, where the hungry are filled with good things and those who hoard all the wealth are sent away empty.”

There is Joseph who is awakened by God’s dream and then must make a choice between protecting his own interests and reputation or taking care of a mother and child in need of shelter and he makes the choice to do what is right.

There are the day-laboring shepherds out in the field who let go of their fears and attune their ears to “the good news of great joy” that could save the world and bring “peace on earth and good will to all.” Not only do they hear the “good news” but they heed its call and run with haste to a stable in Bethlehem believing that another world is possible

There are the three wise star gazers who are commissioned by a power hungry King Herod to follow a rising star and search for a child rumored to be a new born king.  In a dream they discern Herod’s intent to destroy the child and they put their lives on the line to protect the child from the violent forces that are seeking to snuff out his life.

Advent is a time of preparation.  In order for Emmanuel – God with us – to enter our world anew, we need to keep the eyes of their heart open to the new life waiting to be born amid the dung and despair of the world as we know it.

Our world is feeling the birth pangs and we do not know yet what is being born. The Occupy Wall Street movement is only in its second month of gestation.  It is being called “the heart cry of the world.”

Citizens in over 1500 cities around the world are verbalizing their outrage at the widening gap of income inequality and the gross negligence of the common good as politicians sell their souls to the highest bidder.

Advent is a time to watch and watch and to remember that there is a long way between the first contractions and the delivery room. Every birthing process is messy.  Social movements always are.

There is a diversity of voices and opinions as solidarity begins to build.   The poor, the working class and the middle class – all of us —  are feeling the squeeze and the OWS movement has provided a forum to hear our common call to hold those responsible for our economic mess accountable.

We are at a tipping point and what hangs in the balance is what will occupy the heart and soul of our nation and our world.

Advent is a time to stay awake, to resist hitting the snooze alarm.

Advent is a time to watch for the light emerging in the darkness and the hope arising even in the midst of the birth pains.

Advent is a time to make room in the inn of our lives for what God desires to birth within us. It is a time to make conscious choices about what will occupy our mind, our heart, our time and our energy.

If we are occupied by pessimism and despair, the hope that envisions a new future can’t be born.

If we are occupied by divisiveness and mistrust, the peace that builds bridges will not be born.

If we are occupied by an endless flurry of activity, the joy that springs from a true giving of self to others will not be born.

If we are occupied by maintaining what is or what has always been, rather than dreaming of what can be, the love that demands justice and the common good will not be born.

There is a light shining in our darkness.  Let us keep walking toward that light.

Rev. Laura Rose is the senior pastor at First Congregational Church of Alameda/United Church of Christ, a doctoral candidate in Postmodern Leadership at Drew University and a member of the Interfaith Tent community at Occupy/Decolonize Oakland.  Her articles have appeared online at Alameda Patch, Patheos and Huffington Post Religion.

The Big interfaith Tent at Occupy Oakland: Faithfully Engaging the 99%

A Local Pastor’s Reflections from the Oakland Encampment

Fourteen members of the Interfaith Tent @ Oakland locked arms in front of the Tent and were arrested early Monday morning as the police raided the encampment.  It is not surprising that our words and actions have been reduced to a few sound bites and fleeting images by the mainstream media, but there is a deeper, better story to be told.

Our Interfaith Tent is a Big Tent – spatially and spiritually.  The tent has been a sacred space of solace at the encampment, but it has also provided a sacred canopy for an interfaith coalition of Indigenous Elders, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims and Jews in solidarity with the Occupy Movement, locally and globally.

As someone who pastors a local church less than four miles from the Oakland encampment, I am keenly aware of how critical it is that we challenge the people in our faith communities to engage in soul searching dialogues that force us not only to read between the lines and listen beyond the partisan sound bites but also to grapple face to face with what it means to BE the 99% in all its complexity and diversity.

So right after our worship service on Sunday morning, just hours before the raid on the Oakland encampment, twenty five of us gathered around the board room table at First Congregational Alameda, United Church of Christ including two people who would later be arrested.

“We are the 99%!”  It is one thing to chant this statement in a large crowd; it is another thing to embody this truth face to face.  At our table we had people who have slept overnight at the Oakland encampment, some who have participated in the Occupy Oakland General Assembly and the General Strike, and some who got arrested last night.

At our table were an economist who works for the Federal Reserve in San Francisco, a City of Oakland employee who works with at-risk youth, a senior citizen who lives in downtown Oakland, and several people who work in downtown Oakland or in San Francisco’s Financial District, including one person who had the courage to admit that he works for a financial institution that represents the high end of the 1%.

I wanted to create a safe space for all to share their concerns, struggles, questions and hopes.  The conversation was messy and raw, deep and unsettling.  There were many truths spoken and many loose ends that could not be neatly tied together.  People listened respectfully to one another and did not try to censor opposing points of view.

Our diverse congregation is like many, which why I believe it is imperative for faith leaders to bring folks together to air our disparate views and wrestle with our own personal culpability and acquiesce to an economic and political system that benefits the few and burdens the many.

Whatever our economic bracket, we each have a stake in the Occupy Movement.  The success or failure of the Occupy movement to enact real and lasting change will depend on whether or not we can harness the power of that connective spirit that binds us as human beings, despite our culturally engrained and often religiously-sanctioned self-interests.

One sure sign that people of faith are called to create a sacred space is that after the police raid on the Oakland encampment, the only tent left standing eight hours later was the Interfaith Tent.  Although the physical tent was eventually taken down, the Interfaith Tent is much more than a physical space.  It is the presence and spirit of an Interfaith Community bound together and in solidarity with Occupy/Decolonize Oakland.   No police force can tear it down.

Rev. Laura Rose is the Senior Pastor at First Congregational Church Alameda, United Church of Christ, a doctoral candidate at Drew University and a participant in the Interfaith Tent presence at Occupy/Decolonize Oakland.

The tragedy in Tucson this week has brought us once again to the brink of asking all the right questions.  What is it going to take for us to wake up to the truth that hateful and violent speech leads to hateful and violent actions?  A parable has unfolded before our eyes this week. The question is whether we will heed its message.

A democratic congresswoman convened a “Congress on Your Corner” meeting with her constituents and was gunned down.  Democracy at its best is violently under attack and fighting for its life in our world today.

A Federal judge stopped by the rally to thank his colleague across the aisle for their work together on a common goal regarding “border” issues and he is gunned down.  The potential fruits of bi-partisanship left to die on the vine.

A 9-year old girl, just elected to her student council attended the rally with a neighbor to learn more about politics with the hope that one days she could bring people together. Could there be any more light-filled symbol of humanity’s hope for the future than a child seeking to learn about how to participate in the democratic process?

And if that were not enough, we quickly learned just hours after her death that Christina Taylor Green was born on 9/11 and featured in a book called Faces of Hope: Babies born on 9/11.   Christina died on 1/8/11.  Add it up: 8+1=9/11.  Christina was 9 and she died in 2011. I’m not into numerology but… Add it up. We missed the wake-up call on 9/11.  Will we as a nation heed it nine years later?

How many times does the rooster have to crow before we wake up the sun? Civil speech leads to civil actions. Can we heed the call to stop using our words as “weapons” and find a way to use them as tools for constructive action with those who are across the aisle and across the street?  Can we meet at the border of our ideological differences and build bridges based on our common goals?

In memory of Christina Taylor Green, for the sake of all our children, will we heed the call the wake-up call or will be hit the snooze alarm?  Will we listen to the voice of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. whose birthday we celebrate next week crying out in the wilderness of our incivility warning us about the kind of verbal warfare that kills both soul and body?

“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true…

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction….The chain reaction of evil–hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars–must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963.

A parable is unfolding in our world today and it is no fairy tale story with a magic ending.  Too many innocent lives have been lost.  Too many families are grieving. Only we have the power to decide whether this will be a turning point in our public discourse and politics or a descending spiral.

We can heed the call to love our neighbor as we love ourselves which for Dr. King had everything to do with how we conduct ourselves in the public square and call our national leaders to account or we can turn our backs on this call.

Across the country, we can stop hitting the snooze button and we can wake up to civility.  We can meet on the street corner, in the library and at City Hall and begin a new kind of respectful conversation seeking to work together on goals we hold in common. I can’t envision a better way to honor Dr. King or those who died in Tucson on their way to participating in the democratic process.

A parable is unfolding and we have a chance to write the rest of the story.  Each of us have the power to influence what will happen next. Will we allow this, the hope of civil discourse and democracy, to live or to die?  Will we wake up the sun and see the light?  That is the question before us and it is a matter of life and death.

Rev. Laura Rose is the senior pastor of First Congregational Church in Alameda, CA, and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.