This morning’s Fruit of the Vine features a reflection from Lucy Anderson, first published in 1988. Lucy passed away in 2013, but her words remain both vibrant and encouraging, especially in today’s short essay, one in which Lucy draws our attention to the symbols of Christmas. Lucy reminds us that our love of Christmas carols is partly because of music’s power as “the symbol of joy. . . . The Christmas tree graces our homes as a beautiful symbol of hope.” The gifts we exchange — “a lovely symbol of love.” Bells remind us of the angels’ promise of “peace on earth,” and the Christmas star offers “a bright symbol of God’s message of forgiveness.”
There’s another symbol here. Just two pages before this morning’s short reflection, there’s a photo of Lucy. She’s smiling, and below her photo is a brief biography. Lucy served at Malone University, Barclay College, George Fox College (now University), the yearly meeting office of Evangelical Friends Church-Eastern Region. She lived in Colombia, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Nigeria, Guatemala, Burundi, Kenya. She wrote her life story. And through her words, Lucy remains with us, encouraging us today with a message of hope recorded almost 30 years ago.
I never met Lucy. But when I was just a toddler, her older brother, Roy, came over to my house for lunch and stayed to tune our piano. When I was in grade school, I went to Camp Tilikum, where two of Lucy’s nieces taught me songs and told me stories about Jesus. In college, I often ran into Lucy’s son, Paul. He believed in me. He wanted me to think about graduate school. He always had a word of encouragement. And this last year, I’ve been honored to work closely with Lucy’s daughter, Marva. In her role as clerk of the EFCNA board of Christian Education, Marva has been responsible for helping Barclay Press plan for and move into the future. Marva has been a real source of hope and support for me.
One more thing. Last January, while I was still just days into my new role at Barclay Press, there had been a financial gift — the sale of stock left by the estate of Lucy and her husband, Alvin, that took pressure off of me, giving me a little more time to adjust to the new position and all the unknowns that entailed.
So I’m grateful for Lucy. And for her words this morning.
Lucy offers a prayer at the end of today’s reflection: “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!”
And I am thankful.
Eric Muhr
Praying for Justice
I was at a gathering of youthworkers for Northwest Yearly Meeting. It was a Saturday in November, and a friend of mine approached me with an idea: a lectionary reader with more than fourteen hundred Bible passages – one each day for four years – illustrating God’s kingdom vision for a society in which all are valued as individuals bearing God’s image. He wondered what it would take to get a book like that completed and available for sale by the first or second week of January. “Am I crazy?” he asked.
I didn’t know if Steve was crazy. I’ve only been at Barclay Press for a year — an exciting, challenging year. What I did know is that this is exactly the kind of book and type of project — timely and targeted — that Barclay Press has to be able to do and do well if it’s ever going to be a self-sustaining Christian publishing house that serves Friends as “publishers of truth.”
Steve and another professor in the religion department at George Fox University put out a call for help. Dozens of volunteers gathered Scripture passages as well as quotations from people who have spent their lives thinking about, working for, and telling others about a God whom they believe to be radically on the side of the weak, vulnerable, and marginalized. They checked, rechecked, and rechecked again. And in under a month, they had all 446 pages to us. The book, Praying for Justice, went on sale last night and should be ready to ship by January 2. Here’s a preview:
The title of this book contains an invitation to pray for justice, but this book contains no overt prayers. Many of the more than fourteen hundred Bible passages contained here are prayers or portions of prayers. To read these texts is to be invited to join them in prayer.
This book invites us to use each day’s verse as a meditation or reflection for that day and each week’s quotation as an examination of the ways in which your life images God’s redemptive justice in the world.
This book is also a call to action. Now is not a time for Christians to sit and trust that others will take care of people on the margins of our society. Christians must not content themselves with mere social media activism or personal piety. Christians must act often. Christians must act publicly. Christians must act sacrificially. Christians must act with courage and compassion. Christians must act as if it matter — because it does.
Eric Muhr
On light
The days are short in December. In fact, we’re only nine days away from the solstice, the shortest day of the year for Earth’s northern hemisphere. I think that’s part of why Christmas matters. Christ’s entry into creation occurs almost immediately after our darkest days; and even though Christmas comes each year at the very start of winter, it marks the point at which Light enters the world, the point at which the light starts growing.
In this morning’s Fruit of the Vine Priscilla Hochhalter invites us to consider, in her reflection on Psalm 36:5-9, the way light shows up for us in scripture. In Genesis 1, light is “created by God; he spoke it into being.” And this light, created before the sun or the moon, continues long after the sun and moon are gone “because the only true light source is God himself.” In John 8 and 14, Jesus “claims he is ‘the light’ . . . [and] ‘whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” In the first chapter of John, we’re assured that “‘the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’”
We need this light, and if we take Jesus seriously, we also are the light (Matthew 5:14). God enters a world of short days and long nights, and he comes in the form of a baby — he comes as light. The days grow longer. The nights grow shorter. And we find, in our obedience, that instead of light, there are now lights. The light grows.
Hope grows. Hope grows in us. Hope grows us.
My hope in this season of darkness is that I might be light to you, and that I might let you be light for me. That we might find ways to join together in waiting for light, in being light, in growing our shared light in the world.
This is no easy task, and we can’t do it on our own. Priscilla offers this prayer: “Lord, I crave your light and your life. Please illuminate and animate my heart with your holy presence.”
And to Priscilla’s prayer, I add my own: “God, in these dark days, grow your light in us.”
Eric Muhr