· stillpoint ·

 This Advent I'm exploring ways in which Jesus came to his Temple and he was not what people expected.    Jesus came to the Temple twice in the last week of his life.  In Matthew 21:12-15 we find Jesus indignant at the way the temple had become a place of changing money and selling goods, albeit in the name of religion.   He turns the stalls over and chases the money lenders and others out crying out 'my house will be called a house of prayer but you have made it a den of robbers'.   Just as the Jews had been waiting for a long time, so too we can be waiting, but in our waiting things can drift.  There were (semi) good reasons for the money changers and the sellers of doves to be there, to facilitate the sacrifices and offerings of people.  Over time though a religious habit had become so entrenched that it actually took away from what worship of Yahweh was about.   It could be time for us to look at ways that some of our religious habits as individuals and corporately have

  The second time Jesus visits the temple is as a young teenager when he stays behind "in the temple courts sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions." (Luke 2:46).   I love this image of a young person full of curiosity and an openness to learning, asking questions that would probably be quite different than the usual ones the teachers of the law mulled over. Young people look at things differently and have a perspective that can be both quite refreshing and disconcerting at the same time.   In my experience knowing the right questions to ask can open up new avenues of discovery and experience.  It often involves letting go of previous assumptions...as I said last week 'we're all addicted to your point of view'! May this advent be one in which you feel liberated, and perhaps even playful and youthful enough, to ask questions, even strange and unusual ones.  You never know where they might lead.   Perhaps they may open our eyes enough

 During Advent I will be looking at Jesus' visits to the Temple. The first visit is when Jesus is presented as a baby at the Temple by Mary and Joseph, in keeping with the custom that all first born sons were dedicated to God.   The story is told in Luke 2:21-40 and somehow in that great courtyard of milling crowds they were noticed by Simeon and then Anna. … my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the sight of all people.   In our own Advents and our long waitings for God to answer prayers, or circumstances to change, or the world to become a more just place, or the church to reflect more unity, have there been fragile, ordinary, even innocuous visits from God that we have missed?   God came in the form of a young infant, held by shy, overwhelmed new parents, trying to be faithful to what they had been given to do.    Can we learn from their example first of all, by keeping faithful to what is in front of us.    What God may hereafter require of you, you mu