December 4 – Icon: Stars, Abraham’s story.

Confession: at the end of Advent I’m supposed to take all the icons off, tuck them away in the storage bag. Then as Advent approaches I take them out and sort them back into the pockets. I do this every time, except for the star icons. And even though I made it easy by fastening the stars with snaps, it’s the one icon I don’t take off…and is already up when December 4 arrives. This is laziness. Confession is good for the soul. (I also liked the way my mother in law would wrap a sheet around her small Christmas tree with lights and ornaments still on and tuck it back into her basement.)

In my reading this morning, Richard John Neuhaus wrote: “Faith does not assert claims; faith receives the gift that is underserved. Faith is itself a gift, the gift of receptivity.” The Bible says of Abram, later Abraham, “…and Abram believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6) God gave a gift – a promise of expansive generatively (progeny as numerous as the stars!). Abram received the gift (faith). And then God gave another gift (righteousness). It helps me to think of faith as receiving God’s gift, like Abraham did. He just stood under that great expanse of stars and said, “I believe.”

There’s a body prayer I came across and pray quite often that helps me practice this receiving kind of faith.