"OCTAVIA BUTLER AND THE SEASON OF ADVENT"

 “OCTAVIA BUTLER AND THE SEASON OF ADVENT”

In 1993, Octavia Butler published her powerful novel “Parable of the Sower.”  It is about a time in the future when the growing climate crisis and the widening gap between rich and poor has produced a president like Donald Trump and has made for a complete breakdown in society.  When does this novel take place?  In 2024-2025, which seemed a long way away at the time but now seems prescient in its vision and predictions.  I first encountered it in the Oakhurst Supper Club in the 1990’s, and it was astonishing.  It motivated me to read everything that Butler wrote before her untimely death in 2006.  If you have not read Butler’s “Parable of the Sower,” go find it and read it – you will need it to get you through the next four years.

The central character of “Parable” is a young African-American woman named Lauren Oya Olamina, and she joins a long line of African-American women who are Butler’s heroines.  There is plenty of suffering and death in “Parable,” but Lauren’s vision and grit and determination carry her and the small community that she is building.  She lives in a time which is eerily similar to ours – a corrupt and narcissitic president who proclaims that he is making America great again,  the growing poverty and climate crisis causing all kinds of disruptions and stresses and violence.  We are not quite there yet, but the deadly potential is there in the second Trump presidency.  

The season of Advent began yesterday, and the lectionary readings for it are apocalyptic in seeking to prepare us to receive a new time, the gift of “Immanuel, God with us,” in the birth of a Palestinian Jew named Jesus.  Those readings may seem more relevant in this year, as we prepare ourselves for what could be an apocalyptic time under a second Trump presidency.  Just as Lauren shows her people the way in “Parable of the Sower,” so we are asked to follow another young woman who will be showing us the way in this Advent and Christmas seasons.  She is a teen-ager like Lauren, and her name is Mary.  The biblical stories do not give us much detail about her back story, although the church has certainly filled in some of the gaps in our desire to know more about this extraordinary young woman.  Mary lives under the oppressive power of the Roman government, and as a woman, she lives under the oppressive power of patriarchy.  

Mary has a vision from God, a vision which tells her to allow herself to be placed in a very vulnerable position:  a woman pregnant before marriage, pregnant by someone other than her fiancé Joseph.  In agreeing to this vision, she places herself in a difficult position:  she may face the death penalty because she has shown agency and has demonstrated sexuality, even though her Scriptural impregnation by the Holy Spirit seems fairly chaste.  The Advent story is disturbing in this sense:  it is rooted  in scandal, oppression, and death.  Rome orders a census so that it can strengthen its tax base;  Mary agrees to become pregnant by someone other than Joseph; and after the birth of Jesus, the Holy Family must flee Bethlehem because King Herod has sent soldiers to kill them.  Fortunately, Egypt had open borders at that time, and the Holy Family was able to sojourn there as political refugees.  

For those who think that the Christmas story is only “sweet, little Jesus boy,” take some time to read the Scriptural accounts of the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke.  No sweetness there – rather there is danger, slaughter, and migration.  Yet, the Scriptural accounts are also full of love and courage and community.  Like Mary, let us ponder on these things as we start the Advent and Christmas season.