The Twelve Steps Meet the Gospels: Reflections on Scripture and Stories of Hope for Those in Recovery

Introduction

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Step Eleven, Alcoholics Anonymous

With its bouncy alliteration, Conscious Contact might be the most delicious phrase in the Twelve Steps. It describes the dance with God that we in recovery are about. It also sums up the purpose of this book—to share the light that the Scriptures we hear each week shine on the experience of recovery, and to offer a new lens for all readers to see new depth and richness in God’s constant message of unconditional love.

Back to conscious contact for a moment. Both words begin with the prefix con, which means with in Latin. The rest of the first word means knowledge or knowing, and the second half of the next word means touch. This is much more, however, than simply knowing touch, as when someone touches your elbow. The prefix indicates mutuality, a joined touch and a joined knowledge. We are each knowingly reaching out and touching, even as we are touched.

Furthermore, the initiative is God’s. We reach out only in response to the One who has reached out to us. God has spoken to us in every breath, in every moment. Our response is anchored in gratitude and moves to praise and petition and contrition when appropriate.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, more commonly called the Big Book, people in recovery are reminded that religious practice can be a support in recovery. The Chapter We Agnostics notes, We, who have traveled this dubious path, beg you to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion. In the rhythms and practices of the Christian liturgical year, and in the Scriptures that worship offers, we can find support for countless principles of recovery. With that in mind, this collection of homilies/sermons is a reflection on our conscious contact with God throughout the Christian Church year.

In the chapter on the Twelfth Step, the book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions asks, can we bring new purpose and devotion to the religion of our choice? Doing so has been a great source of hope and strength for our authors in their journey of recovery. In this book, they have attempted to stay in conscious contact with the God of their understanding, with the texts, and with one another, so that you, the reader, might find new ways to be in conscious contact with the Higher Power you embrace, as well.

Advent

He comes, comes, ever comes….

Rabindranath Tagore

Christians are fond of saying that Advent remembers the coming of Jesus the Christ into history, longs for the coming of Christ in majesty, and celebrates the coming of the Spirit of Christ right here, right now. Both as Christians and as people in recovery, ours is a journey of progress, not perfection. We are always following Christ, always climbing the steps, always waking up without ever arriving until we have completed the journey. And so it is right to say that our Higher Power comes without ever fully arriving in this life and, in response, we journey without fully arriving until we die. As Augustine wrote, You have made us for yourself and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

Advent is the season that honors that relentless restlessness and so—we hope—do these reflections. (DR)

Advent

Becoming Light Bearers

Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Matthew 25:13

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.

The Preamble

Advent is a season of waiting, hope, and, as the Scriptures remind us, light breaking into the darkness.

In Jesus’ parable about the lamp-bearing virgins who await the bridegroom, we learn a great deal about light: who has it, who doesn’t; how light must be tended to keep it burning; why it’s important to be watchful and prepared; and the risk we run when we don’t have a well-fueled and trimmed source. If we are not watchful, the darkness can engulf us in a moment.

On first read, we might see this parable as the one in which Jesus tells us (among other things) that we shouldn’t share! As a mother, I’ve had ample opportunity to deal with the question of sharing—who’s not sharing, who should be sharing, who’s getting the better end of the sharing. At first glance, it seems that the wise bridesmaids are actually the selfish bridesmaids—they won’t take from their own stores to help the others. Of course, this must be too superficial a reading, because so many of Jesus’ stories tell us in detailed and even radical ways to give to one another generously. So don’t share can’t possibly be the point of this Advent parable!

Perhaps what it points to is that there are things we possess that, for a range of reasons, we can’t give to others—as much as we’d like to. There are some essential but intangible things we cannot give to people even when we see their dire need for them. We can’t hand people the surrender that the First Step requires. We can’t give them serenity or acceptance. We can’t hand someone faith or peace as they struggle to embrace the new way of living that the Twelve Steps offer.

These intangibles that we possess well up like an inner fuel source within us from our deep relationship with the divine. Fortunately, while we can’t give, we can tell people how we got these inner stores—we can lay out our path so that others may thoroughly follow it. In doing this, we are acting much like the wise bridesmaids who told the foolish bridesmaids where to buy the oil they needed.

I remember a day someone very dear to me called to share her grief over her recent miscarriage. She knew that personal experience gives me a particular compassion and understanding around this issue. I would have liked nothing better in that phone call than to be able to hand over the peace and acceptance I have come to know. But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t pull from that personal spiritual well and fill her cup, as much as I wanted to do that. But I could be with her and bear light from my own experience as she journeyed.

In so many moments in life, we can have full-enough lamps to be awake and able to come alongside others in their pain. And we can be awake enough to realize when we need to replenish our stores. I can’t be there for others if I’ve run myself empty. Isn’t it interesting that the term we use for that utter emptiness is burned out? The parable of the wise and foolish virgins reminds us that there is something in our Christian life, and in our sharing of the program, that constantly needs to be replenished, lest it burn out. Fortunately, we have an unlimited, utterly generous source. This is the gift of meetings, of our literature, of a good sponsor who knows our case. In all of these things, God lights our path.

Our journey of recovery is one of moving from darkness to light, with the support of others. We share our experience, strength and hope with each other, so that others may discover and claim their own experience of healing. The Al-Anon closing says this so well, when it suggests that we each let the understanding, love, and peace of the program grow in [us] one day at a time. (TV)

Advent—First Sunday

God Breaking into Our Story

So will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal; one will be taken and one will be left. Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.

Matthew 24:38, 40–42

He finds himself in possession of a degree of honesty, tolerance, unselfishness, peace of mind, and love of which he had thought himself quite incapable. What he has received is a free gift, and yet usually, at least in some small part, he has made himself ready to receive it.

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 107

I’ve been going to meetings for what we euphemistically call a few 24s. Some people in my life have scoffed at this, asking with incredulity, Why are you still going to those meetings? Well, I go for a lot of reasons. I go to be of service, to give back gifts that were so freely given to me. I go to fill my spiritual well, to remember that there is a God, as I choose to call the Higher Power, and it’s not me. And I go to hear the stories.

The stories serve me not because they are entertaining (which they often are) or insightful (although I always take away what I call a golden nugget) but because they wake me up. They sweep me not into another’s reality, but into my own—what I was like, what happened, what it is like now. I see that God is not done with me. That there are still things to learn and things to do. That I had better stay awake one day at a time, and remember to give away what I hope to keep.

The stories of Advent speak of darkness and light—light so great that no darkness can overcome it, stories about paths being made straight, about voices crying out, about vulnerable women taking great leaps of faith, about God coming