"ANOTHER CHANCE ALLOWED"

 “ANOTHER CHANCE ALLOWED”

As 2023 ends, I am giving thanks for making it through another year. I am, however,  anticipating with dread the new year of 2024.  I’ll address that more next week, but for now I want to stick with the celebration of Christmastide and the gratitude that goes with it.  We are blessed to have our family here for a long visit, and it is especially fun to watch our granddaughters grow up and turn into young women.  We also enjoyed participating in David’s and Susan’s going through their old elementary and middle school boxes that we had saved over the years – much laughter and gratitude, and some poignancy as we noted the passing of time.

I also listened to Christmas music, which I love to do – there are many old favorites, and I especially like newer ones like “Rebel Jesus” by Jackson Browne and “Nothing But a Child” by Steve Earle.  Earle’s song especially reminds us of the fragility of the story of the birth of Jesus – born to a woman who got pregnant before marriage, born on the streets, hunted by the government soldiers, a Palestinian refugee crossing borders in order to escape execution.  The glory of a King born to rule the earth is stunningly absent from the details of the birth story of Jesus.  

“Nothing But a Child” puts it this way:

“Once upon a time

In a far off land

Wise {men} saw a sign

And set out cross the sand

Songs of praise to sing

They travelled day and night

Precious gifts to bring

They were guided by the light

They chased a brand new star

Ever towards the West

Across the mountains far

But when it came to rest

They scarce believed their eyes

They’d come so many miles

The miracle they prized

Was nothing but a child

Nothing but a child

Could wash those tears away

Or guide a weary world

Into the light of day

Nothing but a child

Could help erase those miles

So once again we all can be children 

     For a while

So, as we approach the new year with trembling, let us remember the fragility of this story and how radical it is.  It challenges our point of view of ourselves and the world itself.  And it asks us to remember how fragile life is, how precious life is, and how, like Mary and Joseph, we are asked to be bold and courageous and visionary in a time that looks dark and dreary.  And, indeed that’s why the church chose the holiday of the Sun to attach this Christmas story.  We are asked to be like those magi who set off on a journey, looking for a vision that will fill us and sustain us, and which will make a stunning claim about the power and force at the center of the universe.  It is powered by visionaries high on love.  And, most of all, we will find that vision in very surprising places.

 “THIS IS THE SEASON OF PROMISE”

We face a huge and tough and scary year ahead.  On this Christmas weekend, may you and your loved ones know the power and promise of this time.  Here is Howard Thurman’s poem “The Season of Promise,’ from his book “The Mood of Christmas,” published in 1973.  This poem is at least 50 years old, but it could have been written today.  

“This Is the Season of Promise”

Let the bells be silenced

Let the gifts be stillborn

Let the cheer be muted

Let music be soundless

     Violence stalks the land

     Soaring above the cry of the dying

     Rising above the whimper of the starving

     Floating above the flying machines of death

          Listen to the stillness:

          New life is stirring

          New dreams are on the wing

          New hopes are being readied:

     {Humankind} is fashioning a new heart

     {Humankind} is forging a new mind

     God is at work.

This is the Season of Promise.

"WHO IS THIS GUY?"

 “WHO IS THIS GUY?”

In the second chapter of Matthew, the magi come to Jerusalem, having been led by a star to find the One born “king of the Jewish people.”  Their GPS system fails them, and they must stop by King Herod’s place to inquire about this young boy.  Herod is taken aback – who are these foreigners bringing news of a rival to the throne?  Matthew’s account tells us that Herod is troubled and frightened – and that all Jerusalem is troubled and frightened also.  Is this a new order of life coming into the world?  Who is this guy?

Who is this guy?  That is the question at the heart of the Advent and Christmas seasons.  We are asked as individuals to respond to the question and to provide our own answers.  We are asked as communities to respond to the birth of Jesus and to provide our answers.  Who is this guy?  The great humanitarian Albert Schweitzer proclaimed in 1906 that Jesus comes to us as “One unknown,” and in many ways, he was right.  Jesus is not a blank slate – there are many clues to his identity in the birth stories – but we are asked to take up the question for ourselves in this season:  Who is this guy?  Or, as Jesus himself puts it later on in his adult life: “Who do you say that I am?”

Herod gives us his answer – this guy is a threat to me and to the social order.  Herod lashes out as the violent and vengeful leader that he is – he has all the baby boys of Bethlehem slaughtered in an attempt to wipe out this threat.  It is a gruesome scene at the end of Matthew’s 2nd chapter – the mothers crying out for their babies, who are lost in a flurry of vengeance and violence.  Though it is hard to read, this account does remind us that the birth of Jesus stays in the real, violent world – no sugar-coating here.  This story also reminds us that Jesus is a threat to the political orders of the world – unless such orders are based on justice and equity, Jesus will always be a threat.

Some of us go the opposite way of Herod in our answer to the question:  “Who is this guy?”  We prefer an individualistic, spiritualized Jesus – sweet, little Jesus boy, who comes to save us from going to hell after death.  Jesus becomes an ahistorical, philosophical figure, dabbing his toes into human existence, just enough  to provide some salvific energy, making no demands on our lives – interested simply in what happens to us when we die – are we going up, or are we going down?  

This was the Jesus I grew up with – unconcerned with historical life, unconcerned about justice issues, concerned only with my salvation after death.  Because I grew up immersed in white supremacy, this Jesus was the one who allowed my forebears to hold human beings in slavery, who allowed me and other people classified as “white” to continue to receive the benefits of the neo-slavery in which we lived.  I could not hold Jesus back, however, even with the powerful white church world seeking to keep our feet on his neck.  He kept coming around, and he kept asking me and others:  “Who do you say that I am?”  I remember vividly praying to God early in my teenage years, as the hormones hit and as the Civil Rights Movement began to take hold:  “God, please let me keep believing in You as I do now – don’t make it too complicated.”  Of course, that prayer was not answered in the way that I wanted it to be answered.  It did become complicated, and I did change my view of myself, of others, and of Jesus and of God.  I knew it, but I didn’t  want to affirm it - the world was about to change.

As we move through this Advent and Christmas season, let us recall this fundamental question about the birth of Jesus.  Each of us and all of us are asked to find our answer to the question:  “Who Is This Guy?”  May Jesus move in our hearts to help us see a vision of justice and equity, and to be like the dreamer Joseph, who not only had dreams but acted on them.  As we think about these things, let us consider how Schweitzer put it in his 1906 book “The Quest for the Historical Jesus”

“He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, He came to those {people} who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same words: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.”

"LAND ON FIRE"

 “LAND ON FIRE”

John the Baptizer does not make it into Matthew’s version of the Christmas story, but he plays a prominent part in Luke’s.  Luke’s version of the birth of Jesus begins not with Jesus but with the backstory for the birth of John the Baptizer.  John’s conception is not quite as stunning as Jesus’ conception, but it is miraculous nonetheless.  The mothers of John and Jesus are cousins, and the boys become cousins, with some scholars arguing that Jesus becomes a disciple of John the Baptizer.  Other Gospel accounts, like John’s, portray them as rivals, but whatever their relationship, all four Gospels see John as the precursor for Jesus, as one who prepares the way for Jesus.

John the Baptizer was a man on fire.  He took the warmth of the love of God and channeled it into a burning call for repentance and justice and equity.  He challenged the Temple as a site of renewal and religious sanctity.  He offered the idea of baptism in the river as a source of renewal and repentance.  By “repentance,” he didn’t mean only the ceasing of doing bad things – he meant a complete re-orientation of our will and imaginations, a re-orientation towards God and not towards the powers of the world.  It was here, in this idea of death and rebirth that is part of the ritual of baptism, that people could find the fire to renew their lives.

John not only used fire as image of renewal – he used it also as an image of consequences and punishment.  His sermon went like this in Luke 3, as he chastised the religious leaders who came out to hear him:  “You children of snakes!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?......Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees;  every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”  When the leaders and the people asked him what they could do to escape this kind of fire, he told them to share food and clothes with the poor, to refrain from cheating people and to stop robbing people.  For John, the warmth of God’s love was a fire that burned for justice and for equity.

As the fences were cut and people slaughtered by Hamas in Israel on October 8, and as the bombs drop and the fires rage among the Palestinians in Gaza, I think of John the Baptizer and his fiery prophecy.  Israel was established as a nation in response to 20 centuries of horrors against Judaism by Christians, culminating in the still unfathomable Holocaust.  Unfortunately, there were people already living in the lands where Israel was established as a nation, and those people were removed in what is remembered as “Nakba,” or catastrophe.  They were not compensated or given land.  They are now called the Palestinians.  In the right wing movements that seem to sweeping the world, Israel now has a leader who seems determined to kill his way to the decimation of the Palestinians, not unlike what my European ancestors did to the people living in this land.  Thousands and thousands have died and will continue to die until some semblance of justice is established.

What would that justice look like?  It is complex, but at least two elements must be present for there to be a foundation of peace with justice.  First, the state of Israel must be recognized.  Jewish people rightly feel that they must have a state, a safe haven to protect at least some of them from the 20 centuries (Yes, I said centuries) of death and persecution at the hands of the world, persecution influenced heavily by the followers of Jesus the Jew.  The idea of a Palestinian state from the river to the sea is not a possibility that will lead to peace.  Antisemitism is embedded deeply especially in the West, but indeed throughout the world.

Despite there being no Palestinian state from the river to the sea, the second element for peace with justice is that a Palestinian state must be carved out somewhere in the area.  The horror and brutality of October 8 arose out of the cries of injustice and suffering on the part of the Palestinian people.  Hamas was not acting as savages, although they did incredibly savage things.  That fury grew out of the suffering and anger, and though the Palestinians do not have the firepower to match the Israelis, they do have that same deep well of suffering and injustice, a well that will always feed groups like Hamas until some justice is established.

The Holy Land is now a land on fire, as John the Baptizer predicted.  I don’t know what John’s thoughts on the current conflagration would be, but he clearly gives us the answers to end the burning and bombing and slaughter – do justice, share kindness.  Because the suffering is so deep on both sides, establishing justice will require people of faith and endurance and commitment to make difficult decisions.  They must be made, however, lest we all fall into the pit of fire.

"JESUS WAS A PALESTINIAN REFUGEE"

 “JESUS WAS A PALESTINIAN REFUGEE”

We have begun the Advent season, with all its promise and peril and demanding qualities and danger of being sentimentalized.  When we were preaching, Caroline and I rarely ever used the lectionary passages for the Advent season, because they were so disconnected with the season itself.  We preferred to concentrate on the Biblical stories about Advent and Christmas, and there are two main ones in Matthew and Luke, though John has a spiritualized  one also.  Not using the Biblical Christmas stories in Advent allows the culture to take them over, which we obviously have allowed.

The first Christmas story in the Bible comes in Matthew’s gospel, in which the author begins with a genealogy of Jesus – dull reading until you notice that Matthew infuses the usual “male begetting” genealogy with 5 women – and what five women they are!  If you haven’t encountered their stories, take time to do so in this Advent season:  Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah (also known as Bathsheba), and Mary.  All of them “tainted” in one way or another, but Matthew wants them in the genealogy of Jesus – why?  

Then, Matthew moves to Joseph and his struggles over his fiancé Mary telling him that she was pregnant by someone other than him.  She indicates that God did it, using an excuse for the ages.  Joseph is a decent man, so instead of dragging Mary out in front of the elders to have her admonished (or stoned to death), he decides to  send her back quietly to her family to have the baby in shame.  Yet, his name is powerful – Joseph the dreamer from Genesis – and this Joseph too begins to hear God speak to him through dreams.  He is told to take Mary as his wife and to adopt the baby as his own, which he does.

Matthew’s account continues with the story of the magi coming to visit the baby.  On the way, they stop in to see King Herod, who is mightily disturbed to hear of a rival king being born.  After their visit, the magi return to their home by another way – a whole sermon in itself.  Herod is threatened and is furious and sends soldiers to Bethlehem to kill the baby.  In the meantime, Joseph has another dream message from God, telling him to take his family to Egypt, for Herod is coming to kill them.  The baby Jesus becomes a Palestinian refugee, and the family is blessed that Egypt is willing to accept them as refugees – no razor wire, no wall, no armed guards to keep them out.  

    The family is blessed because Herod’s soldiers do arrive in Bethlehem and slaughter all the baby boys in an attempt to stop this new baby from rising to power.  And, though the story of the slaughter is horrific, I do appreciate Matthew’s keeping it in the narrative, because it is a mitigating but realistic factor which should keep us from sentimentalizing the Christmas story.  It helps to prevent us from concentrating on “sweet, little Jesus boy.”  The baby Jesus comes into the real world, our world.  He is on the run from his earliest days.

The bombs dropping on the Palestinians in these days remind us also of the cost of this story and its horrific consequences.  Jesus was a Palestinian refugee also, and he too weeps for this ongoing struggle of terror and murder.  Yet, into these horrible events comes a possibility of hope and even visions and dreamers.  Let us be among those dreamers in these days and listen for God’s voice speaking to us, even as we welcome Jesus the Palestinian refugee.