A friend of mine recently told me about an amazing experience of hearing God talk to them in prayer. She heard a voice which was not hers and she knew it was God, the Holy One speaking to her in reference to her prayers.

I didn’t ask what she was praying about, but that’s really not the point because what God had to say was just so helpful in general. It’s a bit of wisdom you may find yourself returning to again and again. I have since hearing the story. So, what did God say?

God told my friend, clear as a bell, “You’re just fine. Cut the malarkey.”

Except God didn’t say malarkey. He said another word that was a bit more direct actually, but malarkey works for today in this place, I think.

So, the message was, “You’re just fine. Cut the malarkey.”

It’s a surprisingly succinct message, but also one of good news and great joy, right?!

Or at least, I thought so. We all have our ways we get stuck. We all have our stories of woe that we hold on to for too long. We all have our worries about how we are insufficient. We all, at various times, worry about how we said or did the wrong thing. And then we can spin and spin and spin in our own minds about how we’re not enough, how others aren’t enough, how the world isn’t enough, how God isn’t enough. We all can get stuck and spin in the mess of our own minds.

And we don’t have to. We can indeed cut the malarkey, like God said.

In our readings, we’re hearing about making way for the Lord. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Isn’t this an interesting thing to say, given that we often think it’s Jesus’ job to make our paths straight? In our Luke reading, we’re being told that John came before Jesus, telling us to make the paths straight, to fill the valleys, and bring the mountains low … and then “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

That’s a lot of activity for us to take on. It’s a lot of work to fill the valleys and level the mountains. After all, I’m sure we’ve all seen then earth-moving equipment, those massive things doing this sort of work. It looks hard enough with that equipment, but back in these ancient days, what did they have? Shovels and pickaxes?

This is an epic scale of work being called for here.

This is a metaphorical call to action, of course. No one is thinking that we need to literally flatten every mountain, etc. Whatever John is really talking about, it seems like a call for a major remodeling of our worlds that we are to do in advance, in preparation of Jesus’ coming. This is in advance of Jesus’ salvation and redemption of the world and our lives.

So, what are we to do to make the pathways straight for Jesus? I’m wondering, if at least part, the job we are being called to is to cut the malarkey.

It seems to me the general plot line of current Christmas movies (I’ve watched three this year, so I’m claiming expertise) is basically the main characters end up having a great Christmas and renewing their lives by cutting the malarkey. I just watched one the other day called Christmas Island, I believe. Here’s the premise: a rich California family is flying to Switzerland for Christmas (and a big business deal, which is part of their malarkey!) in their fancy private jet with their fancy private pilot. They all get stuck in Nova Scotia on Christmas Island due to a storm. As expected, all their personal problems are solved within a few great days of getting in touch with “normal” people doing “normal” things. They set aside their pretensions, set aside their fears of commitment, their sadness over past Christmases gone wrong, and, lo and behold, they realize the gifts of God are indeed all around them (even if they don’t call it that on Netflix.)

What they did was cut the malarkey!

It is relatively easy to see the malarkey that other people need to cut. Of course, the pretentious California family needed to slow down, pay attention to their kids, and get back to real life instead of screens, excessive money, and business deals.

It is something else altogether to see and let go of our own malarkey. Sometimes we don’t even know that our own malarkey is actually malarkey, because we tend to trust our own thoughts and judgements. The rich parents in the Christmas Island movie totally thought they had to work as hard as they were working. They thought they were providing a great Christmas with their kids by handing them to the nanny with a credit card in Switzerland. They thought getting stuck in an adorable town with quirky, down-to-earth characters would be the worst Christmas ever. And were wrong, of course!

As cutesy as this movie is, it points to real problems in our lives. The characters were spinning in their own malarkey and were miserable without totally knowing it. They were busy doing their best, hustling in the ways the world tells us to hustle. They didn’t see that their malarkey was malarkey and they were missing out on opportunities to love each other well.

When we’re caught in our spinning, we miss out on opportunities to live into God’s call on our lives.

Truly, God does not want us to spin in insecurity, fear, or a constant need to be different than we are. God does not care about bank account sizes or past failures. God does not want to us hang on to every past hurt. God’s even fine with how your wonderful body is aging and changing.

God does want us to stop the spinning in our own minds, and be witness to the salvation of God that is given to each of us.

This is not easy stuff. Not every thought we have is malarkey. So, we do need to discern what is malarkey and what isn’t so that we can do what we actually need to do and also be witness to the coming salvation of God; so we have the eyes to see, and the ears to hear.

Because it is not easy, we honor Advent every year, this time of preparation of Jesus’ coming. Over and over again, we need the reminders to prepare, to watch and wait, to discover new depths of peace in the midst of our lives that just keep changing under our feet.

God wants us to live in an abundance of love. However, if we are super committed to our malarkey, as we tend to be, God’s call and promise is harder for us to hear. That adorable rich California family had to get stranded on Christmas Island with poor internet connectivity in order to hear God’s call for a slower life of connection. They were forced to cut the malarkey. What might it take to do it on purpose and with intention?

Thanks be to God that God does not give up on us. God is always here waiting for us to respond, to hear, to see, and to perhaps even cut the malarkey that’s in the way of God’s action in our lives as we move continually deeper into alignment and flow with God’s will for us.

This past week, I’ve been sharing this poem, Prepare by Steve Garnaas-Holmes. He’s a pastor and poet. Listen for he talks about preparation and what we’re called to do in this Advent season:

Prepare By Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Mary, waiting for her child, is powerless, patient,
dependent on a greater movement—
not uncertain, but also not in control.
Like waiting for the sunrise.
Waiting for God to appear in a new way.

Yet waiting like Mary is not passive,
but preparing, being transformed.

The “way” of God is not elsewhere,
some road God needs to enter the world.
God enters by the unlikeliest path,
through the least accessible means.
The Mystery will enter as Mystery wills.
So maybe to “prepare” is not so much waiting
for God to appear as changing how we see,
becoming ready to see God in new ways.

And God enters the world through us.
So waiting with Mary, we are waiting
as God transforms within us.

We are the way God is preparing.

How are you preparing yourself
to be the way God enters the world?

There are many captivating lines in this poem to me, but in particular I love this section:

So maybe to “prepare” is not so much waiting
for God to appear as changing how we see,
becoming ready to see God in new ways.

Our malarkey might be our expectations of what should be. How our lives should be. How our families should be. How our holidays should be. How our bodies and minds should be. How the snowpack for skiing should be. When we let go of the malarkey of our judgements and expectations, we might just “become ready to see God in new ways.”

And is that not the work of Advent?

Our faith is that God is all around us; in us and all of Creation, always coming in new life. We get confused and sidetracked by our own malarkey, but we can cut it out. We can see that we are, in fact, just fine and that the promises of God surround us and shine like the stars of heaven. Blessings to you in your holy work of cutting the malarkey in preparation for the coming of the Lord.

AMEN