As we teeter here before the plunge into the Christmas season,
we can seize a ripe opportunity to intentionally “empty out” our lives in
preparation for the holy days of waiting that are just around the corner.
There is beauty in allowing our hearts (and homes) to wait for Christmas. Or to
wait for anything at all. There is great tenderness in the approaching
Christian feast. Christmas is about nurturing the human spirit. It’s about
gazing at newness and nurturing it with hopefulness and gentleness. The
roughness of the Cross looms ahead yes, there is always the Cross. But
Christmas, it is the time for comfort and joy; it is the time for
festival.
We must pray for an increase in faith so that we can believe that Christmas is
enough on its own. The story is enough. It is our story. It does not need
embellishing. It doesn’t need elves on shelves or flying reindeer.
Sadly, we Christians begin to wonder if God is enough for us. We hear the
murmuring of the world around us and we think maybe we are naive in our belief
that there is something great at work in those quiet moments we hasten to fill.
Isn’t this what God’s chosen people have done over and over again throughout
salvation history? Will our lives be magical enough without our
engineering things? Without our frenzy? Will God show up? Will he
satisfy?
Martha was task-oriented, and Mary was relationship-oriented in that particular
Gospel moment we all know so well. No doubt Jesus was gentle in his chiding
Martha, “Mary has chosen the better part, Martha ... and it will not be taken
from her.”
But Christmas is Martha’s time to shine! And Martha doesn’t sit down without a
fight. There is so much she could do! Jesse tree traditions, Advent calendars,
cards, baking, DIY gifts …! And the parties, think of the gatherings; the hors d’oeuvres!
The fact is, Martha was not wrong in her desire to be prepared and have people in her care. Preparation and hospitality are important. It was her unwillingness to part with her vision of how things should go. This attachment to her vision and plans – her fixation on her sister’s “laziness”—these things led her away from the ‘better part’. If we believe that God is in control and that God loves us, tranquility and acceptance come easily.
Advent is the time to make our vision align with God’s vision. To allow ourselves room to be surprised; to allow ourselves to find the sacred in the unplanned moments of connection and intimacy.
“God builds his house; that is, it does not take shape where
people only want to plan, achieve and produce by themselves,” Pope Emeritus
Benedict wrote as Cardinal Ratzinger. “It does not appear where only success
counts and where all the ‘strategies’
are measured by success. It does not
materialize where people are not prepared to make space and time in their lives
for him; it does not get constructed where people only build by themselves and
for themselves. But where people let themselves be claimed for God, there they
have time for him and there is space available for him.”
In the measure that we make space for the mystery and for the unexpected ... to
that same degree God will come to dwell among us.