Advent - There's Something About Mary (Changing The Narrative)

Summary

In this episode, Bishop DeDe and Adam continue their conversation about Advent. They talk about changing the narrative this Advent and the significance of faith, particularly through the lens of Mary's Magnificat. They explore how God's interruptions can realign our lives, the courage required to embrace faith, and the importance of changing our narratives during the Advent season. The episode emphasizes the need for intentionality, compassion, and welcoming diversity and inclusion in our spiritual practices, ultimately guiding listeners to reflect on their own faith journeys.


Takeaways

• Faith is about engaging in conversations that matter.
• Mary's Magnificat is a powerful response to God's call.
• God often interrupts our plans to realign us with His purpose.
• Courage is essential in embracing God's call in our lives.
• We must change the narrative to focus on what truly matters.
• Repentance involves changing our minds and returning to God.
• Being present during Advent requires intentional practices.
• Compassion and inclusion are central themes of the Advent season.
• Our faith journey is about welcoming the stranger and the other.
• God's grace is present in our interruptions and challenges.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Faith and the Magnificat
05:55 God's Interruptive Nature in Our Lives
12:02 Courage and Faith in Mary's Fiat
17:50 Being Present During Advent
24:10 Embracing Inclusion and Diversity in Advent
30:00 Conclusion and Blessings

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe (00:04.014)
Hello friends, welcome to the podcast. We're gonna speak of faith, talking about what those things that are important to us and centering in our lives. My name is DeDe Duncan-Probe. I'm the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York. I'm joined by Adam Eichelberger, our Director of Communications. And you are welcome to this podcast, no matter your faith, to speak of faith and to be encouraged after listening to this podcast.

to go out and speak with friends and family and neighbors about your own faith, that we will be engaged in a conversation about those things that matter most to us. Now today's conversation centers in, I wanna talk a little bit about Mary and the song of Mary or the Magnificat you may have heard. It actually is from a passage of scripture. Sometimes people don't totally know that.

but it's from the Gospel of Luke. And in this Gospel, verse 46 through 55, this is at the Feast at the Annunciation. Imagine Mary hanging out, if you will, and angel comes to her and talks to her about what God's going to do and inviting her to say yes to, which is to be a Christ-bearer or the bearer of God.

And so this is Mary's response. And so I want to read it to you before, and then we're gonna talk about it in terms of our own lives and in terms of this season of Advent. So the gospel of Christ according to Luke. My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold from.

Now on all generations call me blessed, for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, he has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of humble estate.

Bishop DeDe (02:25.282)
He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever.

Wow, so that is a very faithful response. And in this season of Advent, I think it's important and really helpful to us to consider this moment for Mary. Like us today, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, Mary was going about her day. She had plans, she was engaged, there were expectations of her time, there were ways in which she was going to be engaging in her life and her future.

was something she was actively engaged in creating. This was a time in her life when she was living and doing and being in a moment of preparation for something significant for her. And right in that moment, this angel comes to her and gives this proclamation that she is the chosen one. It's interruptive. And for us, I think in the season of Advent,

there can be a temptation to think that we're preparing for something that's known, that we're preparing for something, that we're waiting for something in the future, and that it's kind of under our control a little bit. We're buying the presence, we're preparing, the preparations, we're reading the scriptures, but it's a time of preparation where we kind of have the reins in our hands. But when we read the Magnificat, what I think we're hearing is that

God comes in and is interruptive. God interrupts our best plans and it's like, yeah, not today. I remember when I was a priest and there's this one time in particular, and it was in the season of Advent, we were preparing the bulletins for the Christmas service, which anyone who's around a church in this time knows is a very fraught time. You're trying to get all the words right, you're trying to get the hymns printed, and you're doing all of these things. It was very busy.

Bishop DeDe (04:38.688)
And I was in my office doing work and fully engaged, preparing. And one of my parishioners came in the unannounced to my office and sat down and just started talking to me about the recent football game.

Bishop DeDe (04:58.548)
And so I listened and I thought, you know, I'll be patient. Okay, we're gonna talk, okay, all right. And in my mind, I'm thinking, what's the point? Get to the point where, you know, we're busy today. We're doing stuff here. What are we doing? And this was a wonderful, delightful person whose way of talking did not go straight to the point. So we wandered in the world of football for a while and then we talked about what was happening at the local mall for a while.

And at about the 10 minute point, I was really kind of anxious because I needed this person to get to the point. But I kept trying to calm myself down and listen to him. And in my understanding, he was interrupting the important things of my life. He was getting in the way of what really needed to be done. Right up until he shared that he had gotten a recent diagnosis. And then I realized that I was wrong.

He was the most important part of my day. His diagnosis, which was catastrophic, the issues that stemmed out from it, the help that he would then need, he passed away not long after that. My assumption that he was getting in my way was because I was focused on the wrong things. I wasn't focused on God, Emmanuel with us coming to us in moments unbidden to interrupt everything.

and to realign our lives in accordance with God. To realign us in a way where the truth and the necessary things in life and the important things in life are what God is calling us to be about. It is easy in this time to allow life to sort of happen to us and to get so caught up in planning and in gift giving and in presence and all of these things and parties or whatnot that we forget that the truth of God

is really life and death and living and resurrection and life beyond death, that what we are about is bigger than the plans we think we have. That God's grace is calling us to more important things than we can even know. So when God interrupts, when God challenges us to change our mind or change the topic, it can feel very destabilizing.

Bishop DeDe (07:20.342)
And I would be remiss if I didn't say that in this Advent season, one of the narratives that is distracting so many people concerns partisan politics, wars, coups, things happening in our world that are destabilizing. And so our emotional spiritual life can get really caught up in reacting continuously to these challenging situations. Every day something new that scares us. Every day something

like a clanging gong right next to our head that bangs and sets us off. And the fear and the destabilization, the sorrow of this time. And so all of our thoughts can become so focused on these temporal realities that it's hard to peel back and get to the advent of Jesus. But we are called, similar to God really in this, to change the topic.

We need to change the narrative to focus on what stories are we paying most attention to? Are we more consumed by what's happening in Washington than what's happening in our heart? Are we more consumed about what's happening across the world than what's happening in our neighborhood and in our family and in our own lives? Sometimes we need to change the narrative to those things we actually can have impact about.

I can do nothing about what's happening across the world, but I have a lot that I can do and say about the words that I use, what I do with my time and that power to take it back and change the narrative and say, you know, today, not today, Satan, not today, not today. We're going to, we're going to calm down. We're going to, you know, the Taylor Swift song, you need to calm down. You're being too loud.

Sometimes the world is too loud and we need to calm down so we can hear God interrupting us and bringing good news to us in ways that we would not expect it. So back to this Magnificat, I think it's amazing that given where Mary is or where we can kind of imagine, we don't know Mary and there's so much mythos around Mary.

Bishop DeDe (09:40.706)
but we can imagine that an engaged young woman has a lot on her mind. And then an angel comes to her, and so I'm not sure, I actually love the verse before this where the angel talks to Mary and she ponders in her heart what sort of greeting this may be. I think that's a very euphemistic, lovely way of saying, what, an angel? I mean, I don't know how that was packaged, but I have a feeling it was surprising.

And then her response here, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior. In all that this interruption, this being confronted by an angel, she's like.

I know who I am. My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my savior. I'm gonna start where I can start with grounding myself in the truth of my faith. You and I have that same opportunity here in this time to ground ourselves in the truth of our faith, to ponder in our heart what sort of greeting this may be, these interruptions in our lives, but then to remind ourselves what is true

what is right, what is good, what is holy, to ground ourselves and then change the narrative, to decide what we're going to listen to and what's gonna carry the most meaning. Now, Adam, I wanna welcome you into this. I've talked a lot about a lot of things, really, but what strikes you as you think about the Magnificat or what questions come to your mind?

Adam Eichelberger (11:20.171)
So this is a great chance for me personally to change my focus during Advent because I know just in my own perspective and many of you listeners or viewers who join us for the podcast, maybe in a situation like mine where you have a family and you're constantly busy with all the stuff that leads us into Christmas. And even the last time we spoke, Bishop, a lot of my focus, even though we are talking about Advent, really seems to be Christmas minded.

Bishop DeDe (11:27.053)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (11:49.016)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (11:49.131)
And it's a great opportunity to kind of refocus myself and change my own narrative, like in the busyness of the season to this time of Advent. It's not something that I'm supposed to just kind of toss to the side as like a, it's not pre-Christmas. You know what I mean? So the first thing that kind of comes to my mind, and I've got these thoughts just hearing you speak in the way we talked about this and prayed about it before. And thankfully,

Bishop DeDe (12:01.134)
Right. Right.

Adam Eichelberger (12:14.805)
Some of our friends went to the website, went to cnypisco.org slash podcast and left us a couple of thoughts. So I want to get into some of these thoughts and questions. but the first thing just in sharing, in hearing what you shared, Mary gives us this yes in the Magnificat and it's this really powerful example of faith and courage. And you talked about her being a young bride to be and

Bishop DeDe (12:20.482)
Okay.

Bishop DeDe (12:33.976)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (12:40.675)
Again, the historical context of this, we kind of throw out the window because we look at it from our 2024 perspective of what it means to be somebody who's getting married and all that stuff. this is a very chaotic monkey wrench that God kind of throws in the works of Mary's wife and Mary's life. Excuse me. So my question is this, how can we draw inspiration from Mary's fiat to change the narrative?

Bishop DeDe (12:45.496)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (12:51.918)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (12:55.33)
Yes.

Yes.

Adam Eichelberger (13:08.513)
this Advent season, because you talked a lot about chaos and distraction. How can we draw inspiration from her yes to change the narrative of this Advent?

Bishop DeDe (13:10.744)
Mmm.

Bishop DeDe (13:18.728)
And everything you've shared, I always want to affirm. First is the courage of it. Because you're right, the context of this, to say yes, she would be the Christ bearer or the God bearer, theotokos, her fiance may not be too crazy about the idea. This puts her in harm's way to be an unmarried pregnant person.

Adam Eichelberger (13:39.011)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (13:46.03)
This would be a very risky, terrifying reality for her. And she doesn't know what Joseph's response is gonna be at this point. And in fact, we know from the gospel text that he didn't either. took him a minute to get to his yes. It actually took him a little longer even. But for her to know that this is from God.

Adam Eichelberger (13:52.727)
Absolutely.

Bishop DeDe (14:14.57)
and to receive it faithfully with the courage to know this is going to mess up everything. This is going to destabilize everything. And yet my soul magnifies God, my spirit rejoices. I believe more in God than in the chaos this decision is going to create. And so for us, we can take courage that

Our faith requires courage to see God, to bear God, to be in relationship with one another in spiritual ways. There is fundamentally a courageous act that's necessary. It is so much easier just to be worried, just to be anxious, just to rush to Christmas and want to focus on the Christmas nativity, to play Christmas music and infuse ourselves with all of these things.

but to have the courage to stop and say, you know, I would like to be in this place of waiting, of really looking at my life with intentionality and saying, is there room in my life for a living relationship with Jesus that upends everything? Hate is so much easier than love, resentment easier than forgiveness, but to be in relationship with Jesus calls us into these places of interrupting what feels natural and comfortable.

for what is righteous and good. And that is a difficult choice. So I think having the courage to make the choice and then to see that in faithfulness that God meets us with faithfulness. That Mary is affirmed by God and God walks with her. And as we know from the Christmas narrative and we talked about it I think last week, know, riding on a donkey when you're like eight, nine months pregnant doesn't seem

Like I think I'm sure there was a moment and there were moments all through this when Mary was like, could you send the angel back for a minute please? I have a couple of questions. Excuse me, pardon me. What is happening here? But her faithfulness to just come back to this is what grounds me. God is always faithful and no matter the circumstance, I can have courage and knowing.

Bishop DeDe (16:35.224)
that God calls us and God responds to us and so we can rest in that knowledge even when it's confusing, even when it's painful, even when it's scary. Our focus, our help really is in God and we can rejoice in the creator of our being.

Adam Eichelberger (16:54.211)
That's so good for me because I've shared with you and I've shared with, I talk about it all the time. I come from a background in my faith as a Roman Catholic and I've been part of the Episcopal tradition for a little while now. And for me, there's so much of this theology around Mary. But even so, it kind of feels like there's these two perspectives on Earth. She gets kind of propped up as this monolith or she's like,

Bishop DeDe (17:05.432)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (17:15.278)
All right.

Bishop DeDe (17:23.011)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (17:23.831)
the beginning of the story, and then she shows up again once or twice more, and then that's kind of the end. And for me, this really opens up a new chance in my personal piety to think about, as hearing you say this, it really made me think about, in these interim times, it's not like she's not talking to God, it's not like she's not praying, wrestling with God, getting angry with God.

Bishop DeDe (17:27.85)
Thank

Bishop DeDe (17:48.654)
Okay.

Adam Eichelberger (17:50.475)
And like it doesn't, it helps me reimagine Mary a little bit as like not just this very cutesy, very mindful, very demure all the time. Like she can be frustrated and scared and angry. And that's really good for me to remember this Advent. So the second question I wanted to ask you was this, what can we do to welcome God's interruption? Because I think that it's really great for us to be open to the interruption.

of God. But then what do we do to like welcome it to be open like being open to it but also like embracing it like you talked about courage but what are some ways in our own spirituality especially for maybe those of us who would listen or watch who maybe Christianity isn't your particular flavor but using that example of Mary to being open to what God is trying to do and and welcome that that interruption.

Bishop DeDe (18:20.238)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (18:25.144)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (18:39.223)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (18:46.806)
Mm-hmm. That's such a good question because, and I want to reflect on it is so, I think, understandable and yet not helpful for Mary to become this paragon of like you say, kind of almost robotic or kind of like, you know, this angel comes to her and you're gonna bear God and she's like, soul magnifies to the Lord, where it's not human. Because when we dehumanize Mary,

Adam Eichelberger (19:02.051)
Mm.

Adam Eichelberger (19:15.543)
Mmm.

Bishop DeDe (19:16.428)
which is, you know, I'm gonna go out on a limb here because some people love this song and I understand it's being played a lot now, but just for the record, Mary did know. She was the first to know, really knew, knows more than you, knows, knows, knows. I mean, come on. So we dehumanize Mary. Some of our listeners are like, I know just what you're talking about. But we dehumanize Mary and taking away.

Adam Eichelberger (19:26.893)
No.

Adam Eichelberger (19:41.473)
Right.

Bishop DeDe (19:45.666)
her humanity, which then makes it possible to sort of look at her with distance or with like, like a object rather than taking in that there's, you know, Mary is an exemplar of what faithfulness looks like for men, for women. She is an exemplar of what we are seeking. And so right at the beginning of this, when it says my soul magnifies the Lord, keep zeroing in on that, but, and even when it goes through here,

What is central to this is repentance. Because when God interrupts us, we have to change our mind. And the word repentance has been misused so much. But in the Greek, it actually means change our mind. In the Hebrew, it means to return to God with sorrow. Either understanding that has relevance for you, it's a similar meaning, means when God interrupts us.

Adam Eichelberger (20:20.248)
Mmm.

Bishop DeDe (20:43.426)
We can be like, this is nice, God's interrupting us. Now, just a minute, I've got to get back to what I was doing. To receive it, to allow it to wash over us, we always start with repentance, with changing our mind, with returning to the ways of God, with recognizing that what we think is so important may not be, with recognizing that what we think is essential may not be, that we have to repent of our

arrogance or our self-sufficiency or our lack of room for God.

and open our hearts to be transformed and to welcome change instead of fearing it as the prayer says. It's an act of repentance. And I think receiving God always starts with repentance because it means we have to change our mind. My day is not gonna be about the busy church bulletins. My day is gonna be pastoring a person who's had a horrific diagnosis and walking with a family in sorrow.

It's gonna change me. I may not get everything I want. Sometimes we come to Christianity, think it's like a Pez dispenser where we pray and we push a button and we get the treat. But the Christian life is calling us to be like Mary, to be like Jesus, ultimately. To receive God, to be transformed by God, and then the healing, redemptive grace of God that our life becomes.

better when we have the courage to recognize those emotions we feel, we may have to hold them at bay. They may not be right.

Adam Eichelberger (22:27.917)
Mm-hmm.

And that kind of goes along. There's one more thought that I had and then I had two questions that we had friends submit to us to actually ask you because I get to be their mouth. I get to ask the questions for them to you. So the last thought and then the question. So lastly, how can we shift our focus to be more present during Advent? I think that this is a really good way for us to kind of start looking at the Advent season, especially when we talked about

Bishop DeDe (22:35.48)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (22:40.942)
Love it. Yeah, send those questions. This is great. Yes.

Adam Eichelberger (23:00.525)
Previously like putting on the armor of God and then how that feeds into what we? Started to go through with because we call it the holiday season right it started with Thanksgiving it goes all the way through a new year's because we're jammed into these situations where we may be with people That we know very well, or maybe we don't know so well that can be really difficult Exactly but how can we be more present during this Advent and I love that?

Bishop DeDe (23:10.05)
Right.

Bishop DeDe (23:19.597)
Or no too well.

Adam Eichelberger (23:27.959)
that you kind of kicked off this thought in me, like talking about that experience you had with the parishioner during your days serving as a parish priest. But like what can we do to be more present during Advent, especially when it comes to difficult folks? That's what I wanted to.

Bishop DeDe (23:33.154)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (23:42.122)
Yeah, and I think we all do. mean, and let me be clear, don't, you know, it's not like I have all the answers on this. There are things that we can know when we look at Mary. I mean, how, you know, dealing with the difficult folks or the things that we know, changing the narrative, like, okay, what's important here? I think sometimes the way we can change it is just, it's fairly simply. Like if we wake up and we have a routine,

Adam Eichelberger (24:10.104)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (24:10.636)
that automatically puts a lot of noise around us or automatically is distracted where we allow it to intentionally say, when I wake up, I'm taking 15 minutes to center my life. When I am at work and I get to work, I'm gonna take 10 minutes to calm down and look at my desk. Whatever it is that we create space in our lives to breathe, to stop, and to...

to intentionally have habits that draw us to God. I know one friend of mine has on her watch, she set up an hourly bing, kind of bing, and every time it bings, she has a prayer, a mantra that she says. 10 seconds, it's not a big thing. She has it set so it can be silent when she's in a meeting, but the idea is it brings her attention back to what matters most in my life. It may be starting off the day and thinking,

Adam Eichelberger (24:49.836)
Right.

Bishop DeDe (25:09.194)
Okay, I have all these things to do today. What's the most important thing in my life today? And to not have it tied to a doing, but to a being. Most important thing in my life today is my love of God and my love of others. Okay, and in the midst of the busyness to just sit back, it may be turning music off, it may be turning music on. It may be that.

Advent needs to be a time where there's no alcohol consumed. One of the things about this time that's really can be destructive is wellness kind of goes out the window. It becomes about overeating, over drinking, noise, noise, noise, and over socializing. And to say, you know, those things aren't good for me. We need sleep, we need exercise, we need health. I'm gonna center my life on wellness.

And so maybe in Advent it's a time to be more focused on wellness than at other times as rebellious act of pushing back. No, I'm not gonna let CVS drive my day. I am going to center myself. So I think it's those active places of making the choices where we can. Some of us don't have the power to decide a lot of things in our life, but we have the power to decide our attitude, to change our focus.

Adam Eichelberger (26:16.36)
Bye.

Bishop DeDe (26:34.892)
You know, that whole thing about to change your vocabulary instead of saying, I have to do this, to say I get to do this, or I'm choosing to do this. Even though simple, it may not change that you don't have agency, but you're using the agency you have. And so I think using our agency is so important for that.

Adam Eichelberger (27:00.183)
really good. Alright, so now two questions that came to us from listeners and viewers and one of them is focused on like our churches. So this one's a little bit more specific to those of us who are of an Episcopalian ilk in our churches and then one of them is specifically for you and I'd like to start with that one considering Advent. So this one comes to us and says, as a bishop, how are you personally approaching Advent this year?

Bishop DeDe (27:09.934)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (27:26.926)
Well, you know, I really try to practice what I preach. And so this Advent, I've changed my morning routine so that I have time where I literally sit. and, we put lights on a tree outside our house and I turn those lights on. I sit in darkness, look at the lights on the tree and breathe and just think, and I, it is 10 minutes. It's not a lot because you know, yes, I have a busy schedule. That's been very centering to me.

The other is to, there's just other habits that as a bishop, I've been trying to be attentive to how I live. am making sure that each day that I am centering in on the importance of what we're doing. And so those are just two small things, but they've actually been quite helpful. And especially the first thing in the morning to sit with some silence and be present with God.

Centering prayer is very big for me. And so I really value centering prayer.

Adam Eichelberger (28:26.893)
Hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (28:32.713)
really good and it's good too to remember that like stuff like that these simple ways that we can bring our faith and our spirituality into our lives are good like prayer doesn't have to be so like militaristic all the time it doesn't have to be this super regiment like just the ability to sit and I really like you said in darkness like a lot of times our faith becomes these very kind of bright expressions of things and it's okay to

Bishop DeDe (28:39.362)
and

Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (28:46.57)
Yeah.

Bishop DeDe (28:53.645)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (28:59.779)
I don't know that makes sense, to embrace darkness when it comes to God. I can sit there in the dark and look at the lights and be still. That's good.

Bishop DeDe (29:07.114)
It is very nurturing. mean, I don't know if it's because I've reached a certain age, but I find it helpful to be in that space and to let myself be with all that is.

Adam Eichelberger (29:15.104)
No.

Bishop DeDe (29:32.064)
And you're right, I think we overcomplicate it. We think we need hours and hours for this or hours and hours for that. Sometimes we do and it's wonderful when we can do that. But what we need more, I think, is intentionality. And the other thing, read, there are books I read during Advent that draw me back to the meaning of the time. But a long time ago, I quit watching any news on a source. I read my news.

And I've gotten more judicious about how much I read. I want to be informed and stay on top of things, but then once I've read things and I, then I set it down. And how I handle email. But those are practices that I do all the time. But I think in Advent, those are things that I pay even more attention to, to just make sure that my life is centered where it needs to be.

Adam Eichelberger (30:29.923)
That's really good. And then lastly, from one of our parishes, we got a question about what are some ways that parish churches can challenge these narratives during Advent to highlight things like inclusion and diversity and reconciliation?

Bishop DeDe (30:47.288)
Such a wonderful question. First and foremost, I think we need to draw more closely to the gospel narrative. mean, Joseph and Mary are refugees. They're travelers. Anything you want to say about them, they are others in their context. And we have centuries of making Jesus look like a white.

But these are people of color who are traveling at risk and where there's no room and they're... And so embracing that story and seeing in that story people in our own context who are in a similar position of seeking safety, of looking for a place to be, who are others to us, regardless of whether it's race or LGBTQ plus or life circumstance that...

We are, this time of year, we are preparing our hearts to welcome a stranger. The Magi, when we get to Epiphany, coming from the East, all throughout this narrative of the incarnation of God, is God coming to us as other, the shepherds in the field. are not, shepherds were not high on the social strata. These are outcasts, these are oppressed.

that God is telling this story, welcoming the stranger. So in our own time, welcoming the stranger and talking about the challenge of that, the gift of that, how our life is transformed by people we at first may be afraid of or put off from or uncomfortable around, that when we repent of our selfish greed and our selfishness and our desire for comfort,

When comfort is more important to us than compassion, that's a time for repentance. And so in this time to use, to draw closely to that gospel narrative, to preach it, to talk about it, and to say, where in my life am I struggling with welcoming a stranger? And I will say, I will, you know, kind of meddle here. You used have a parishioner say, now you're meddling, when I would talk about things like this. But when you're at the store, especially a big

Bishop DeDe (33:12.91)
Those of us in central New York when you're at Wegmans, I can say that. When you're at a store and there's tons of people, what we often do is we get very frustrated with them. And we're like, I'm in my way and you all these people and I don't like going there because it's such a, you know, crush and okay. But I think in that, if we stop and think, how is it so hard for me to, why is it that I'm trying to isolate myself? You know, there was.

Adam Eichelberger (33:15.587)
You

Bishop DeDe (33:42.286)
teaching that what wealth buys you is space from other people. When we're welcoming the stranger to be in relationship with the people around us, and I have to say, one of the things I do practice at Advent is to go to these places and to be present. And when someone is super stressed or anxious to offer a smile or to be courteous as I'm going about what I'm doing,

to be engaged with people, to be relating to people. And instead of it being an affront to my independence or my ability to move around the store, to see in it the movement of this humanity we're trying to figure out how to move together. For it to be an opportunity for repentance of our own superiority. I think at Advent we have a real opportunity.

to be that person in the department store or that person at the coffee shop or that person at the corner who is compassionate and graceful and thinking of the other person and welcoming the stranger and being a person of safety for others. And that means we first repent of it being all about us, all about our comfort, all about our preference. And instead repent of that and say, know.

How am I giving the gift of compassion to this world? How am I part of changing that narrative? And that brings us back to changing the narrative. Change the narrative. Have it be about what God is doing. Open our hearts to what God is doing. Repent of our selfishness, our defensiveness. We want it our way and no other. We want certain hymns played and no other. To welcome change instead of fearing it.

to center ourselves on who we believe God to be. And as Mary says, his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. That God is compassionate with us in our fear, in our anxiety, in the very busyness of life. God is interrupting us with grace and mercy. May we repent of our selfishness in this Advent season, of our self-sufficiency, and open our hearts.

Bishop DeDe (36:01.486)
to Emmanuel God with us. So dear listener, you are loved, God loves you and is with you. May you know grace this day and may this day you live your life in a way where you feel that grace unfolding you and you share it with others. Many blessings to you and we'll speak soon about our faith.