Back to the Future
| John Wilkinson |
Third Presbyterian Church |
| December 23, 2007 |
Isaiah 7:10-16/Matthew 1:18-25 |
Faster than you can say Hannah Montana, Christmas is upon us.
It seems difficult to believe that 2007 is nearly finished,
let alone the month of December. Yet it is, and not a moment
too soon, if you ask me. We will put on the Christmas Eve full
court press here tomorrow evening – the wonderful 4:30
nativity service, 8:00 communion in the chapel and 11:00 lessons
and carols, broadcast and webcast also on WXXI. We are mindful
that many are traveling to be with loved ones elsewhere today
and tomorrow – if that is the case, then a blessed and
joyful Christmas to you, with traveling mercies and Christmas
mercies.
Let us pray. You have given us such wondrous gifts, gracious
God – this world you have created and called good, one
another, this community, meaningful work to do, your story,
your son. In this holy season, keep us mindful of every good
gift and allow us to be joyful stewards of them, and in particular
this story, which you will open to us again in these moments.
Silence in us any voice now but your own, and transform us with
your truth. For we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
***
Time magazine’s James Poniewozik writes of a
little cultural shift that has happened over the past several
years, marked by a surge in the popularity of the movie “A
Christmas Story” and the attendant diminished popularity
of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” “In a traditional
Christmas story, the larger holiday is a social good,”
Poniewozik writes, while now, in movies like “A Christmas
Story” and many that have followed, “the Christmas
celebrated by the greater society is crass, stressful and risible.”
For this generation, he writes, Christmas has become full of
paradox, “sacred and secular, giving and gorging, loving
others and suffering them…(we are) a society of people
who tell pollsters that Christmas has become too commercial
yet spend north of a grand on it on average.” (November
29, 2007)
I am not ready to give up just yet. We’ve watched “The
Grinch Who Stole Christmas” and “A Charlie Brown
Christmas” more than once in these past few weeks –
the point about simple gifts is still not to be missed. But
still that paradox.
John Patrick Shanley’s fine play called “Doubt,”
which some of you saw in its recent Geva run, is set in New
York City in the 60’s but is really very contemporary.
At an early point, the radical young priest and the crusty old
nun are debating the upcoming Christmas pageant.
“What do you think, Father Flynn,” Sister Aloysius
asks, “is there something new we could do?”
Flynn: “Well, we all love the Christmas hymns, but it
might be jolly to include a secular song.”
Sister Aloysius: “Secular.”
Flynn: “Yes. ‘It’s Beginning to Look a Lot
Like Christmas.’ Something like that.”
Sister Aloysius: “What would be the point of performing
a secular song?”
Flynn: “Fun.”
Sister James (the younger nun): “Or “Frosty the
Snowman.”
Flynn: “That’s a good one. We could have one of
the boys dress as a snowman and dance around.”
Sister Aloysius: “Which boy?”
Flynn: “We’d do tryouts.”
Sister Aloysius: “’Frosty the Snowman’ espouses
a pagan belief in magic. The snowman comes to life when an enchanted
hat is put on his head. If the music were more somber, people
would realize the images are disturbing and heretical…It
should be banned from the airwaves.”
Flynn: “So. Not ‘Frosty the Snowman.’”
And still the paradox – sacred and secular, giving and
gorging.
Throughout Advent, we have been sharing in conversations about
just that. “Advent visions,” we have called them,
highlighting the paradoxes, the points of tension, of this great
story that we claim and that claims us.
They have included, for us, a reminder that our faith is designed
to be very public and very personal at the same time, though
never private; the balance we seek between meaningful spirituality
and rigorous social responsibility. We have been reminded of
the importance of imagination, ours and God’s as we live
our ordinary lives, doing ordinary things.
We have been reminded of the pull between the present and not-yet-present,
between the good news of Jesus’ birth and its impact right
now, and the future-pull of what has yet to be realized. That
set of tensions reminded us that our expectations, in this season
of expectations, may not always be in sync with God’s
expectations.
These tensions and paradoxes are not made up, to be sure, pulled
out of thin air. We have discerned them together as we have
encountered the Advent vision in the biblical vision, through
the book of the prophet Isaiah and this year through the gospel
of Matthew. Though the path of the story has taken us in some
unexpected directions, its constant, continuous pulse has been
steady and true.
* “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and
their spears into pruning hooks; nations shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
* Or “with righteousness he shall judge the poor and
decide with equity for the meek of the earth…the wolf
shall live with the lamb…and a little child shall lead
them…they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain.”
* Or “the desert shall rejoice and blossom…the
eyes of the blind opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the
lame leaping like a deer…and the ransomed of the Lord
shall return…with singing.”
The continuous, constant pulse of justice and hope, of reconciliation
and restoration. Broken lives, broken humanity, broken world,
broken creation, all healed and made whole.
And in the background, the radical and daunting words of John
the Baptist emphasizing this vision with every breath he takes
and every word he utters.
So that, when we get to this day, we know what is coming. We’ve
anticipated it. And the paradox, the tension, lies in the fact
that we are surprised anyway, as if we are hearing it for the
very first time.
We hear Matthew’s version this morning, which features
Joseph. An angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him
what will happen. Joseph wakes up and does what he is told.
In fact, we get no real Christmas story in Matthew, no birth
narrative, as the scholars call it. Simply Joseph’s response
to what the angel tells him to do.
We want to know so much more, of course, primarily, what-on-earth
is going on in Joseph’s head as all of this unfolds. But
in Matthew’s matter-of-fact telling, what we realize is
that Joseph, standing in for all of us, has been anticipating
this news all along. He has heard about the sign. He not only
knows the words of Isaiah, he has appropriated them, internalized
them: “The young woman is with child and shall bear a
son and shall name him Immanuel.” He knows the story.
He has been anticipating it.
The surprise, the tension, the paradox, is not in its telling,
but in the delivery system, as it were, that God has chosen.
An unlikely young man engaged to an unlikely young woman put
in an awkward social situation.
The constant, continuous pulse of hope and righteousness, fully
expected, fully anticipated, and yet taken in a surprising,
unexpected, unanticipated direction with this unlikely context.
Walter Brueggemann writes of the tension we experience this
morning, as Isaiah asserts that the one to be born is the “son
of David” from the old dynasty and Joseph’s angel
asserts that the one to be born “of the Holy Spirit”
is of no dynasty. Rather than seeking to explain that tension
away, Brueggemann asserts, we should live into it, seeking to
“honor the concreteness of the coming one…(as well
as his) inscrutable sovereign mystery.”
We don’t do that very well, it would seem to me. We don’t
like tension or paradox, and we are certainly uncomfortable
with mystery.
Time magazine’s Top Ten religion stories of
2007 (December 24, 2007) are rife with our inability to embrace
mystery. Mother Teresa's crisis of faith. The use of faith in
a less than helpful way on the campaign trail. The crumbling
of the Episcopal Church (and, unreported by Time but not unnoticed
by us, parallel travails in the Presbyterian family). A spate
of books by self-defined “atheists,” and a new fantasy
movie, “The Golden Compass,” criticized roundly
by many.
Rather than saying that these are not the best moments for
the church, though they are not, and rather than criticizing
books and movies that seem to criticize the church, because
it perhaps deserves critique of both the internal and external
variety, perhaps we can live with the question of mystery and
paradox for a little while, as we move ever closer to Bethlehem.
The main characters of “Doubt,” two nuns, a priest,
a son’s mother, all had established a set of absolutes.
The problems occurred, it seems to me, not because of their
doubts, but because of their fears of their doubts.
“I have doubts,” Sister Aloysius confided to Sister
James. “I have such doubts.” And the stage fades
to black and the nun dissolves in emotion, afraid to death of
her doubts, which would be so less devastating if her life were
not lived with such absolute certitude.
Thank goodness, I often think, that the power of the story,
the truth of the mystery, is not dependent solely on the church
for its telling, and its human carriers. Nonetheless, God has
shared the story with us, with forbears like Isaiah and John
the Baptist and Joseph, and particularly with Mary, and with
current carriers, people sitting to your right, for example,
or to your left.
God has called us into the story, imperfect though we are,
and invited us to share it with a world in need. And when we
get to the point where the story fades, or we hear it wrongly,
we simply need to stop, and listen, listen for that constant,
continuous pulse that draws us back in, that calls us to repentance,
to imagination.
Catholic priest James Allison writes of the tension: “In
this gesture of quietude and confidence, God will reveal himself
as the one who loves his people and brings his kingdom to flourishing.
It is the sort of sign not perceived by those whose attention
is fixed on current affairs, on power politics, on strategic
calculations…What sort of power is it,” Allison
asks, “that allows itself to be so vulnerable?”
(Christian Century, December 11, 2007, page 18)
Gentle power may be the biggest paradox of all, but here it
is.
It is expected. Listen to Isaiah. It is anticipated. Listen
to John the Baptist.
But it is also surprising, because even when we are washed
in mystery, bathed in it, we are not always sure what to do
with it.
Walter Brueggemann posits that the ultimate Advent question
is this: what would happen if life were so reorganized that
the baby’s presence became the central reality?
What indeed? What would happen if we lived into our hopes rather
than our fears? And rather than being paralyzed by the problems
and perils of paradox, to be overly alliterative, be liberated
by the vision and promise of mystery, and its timeless and eternal
pulse.
Or, like Joseph, go to sleep one night and have a most remarkable
dream. And when you wake up, life will never be the same again.
All for the restoration of creation, the reconciliation of
humanity, and the glory of this gentle, powerful God. Merry
Christmas. Amen.
