In a break with tradition, I'll share my Christmas sermon from the past week. My sermon for the coming Sunday will work its way here sometime this week, but it'll come easier if I unburden myself of the first part of Christmas.
And of course--Merry Christmas to you all. I hope joy surprises you, or at least that peace finds you, during our festival of Light.
So: Christmas. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."
Let's start by talking a bit about Buddhism. Buddhism has several major divides within it as well as numerous minor divisions. These divisions are both a little alike and totally unlike our Christian 'denominations', so the comparison to these is mostly mistaken. But I want I to talk for a moment about one of these major divisions. I won't wander into the finer points of it, or the history of it, and besides, I'm hardly a Buddhism scholar. Yet, spending a few moments on one of our neighbors may well help us see something about ourselves.
One of the primary divisions in Buddhism is between the Mahayana and the Theravada (I'll have you know that Google's spell check recognizes both of those terms--hooray for the modern age--although it still won't recognize 'lectionary,' an oversight I continue to find utterly bizarre). 'Mahayana' means something like "the greater vehicle," and 'Theravada' means something like "teachings of the elders." However, Mahayana has a pejorative term for the Theravada, which it will be helpful for a moment to learn. The Mahayana often call the Theravada approach the Hinayana, meaning "the lesser vehicle."
The difference is this: the older form of Buddhism, the Theravada, argues that following the Buddha means using his teachings as a kind of 'vehicle,' quite literally a boat to take us to another shore. Upon reaching it, we have obtained Enlightenment, a kind of existence beyond here. The teachings of Buddha are precisely for this--a kind of vehicle to be Enlightened, which means escaping the world of suffering and illusion. The Mahayana, however, see the Buddha's teaching as a kind of greater vehicle. It is not the case that the Buddha's teachings simply carry us to another shore, beyond this suffering world, and we leave the boat on the shore. Rather, say the Mahayana, the Buddha's teachings are a vehicle that we never abandon. They are a kind Great Vehicle, and they are both the vehicle for carrying across the river and the place to which we shall arrive. Where the Theravada talk about becoming Arhats, the fancy name for the Enlightened, the Mahayana say that we are beginning the trek to becoming Buddha's ourselves by joining the Great Vehicle.
So see the difference? The Theravada see the teachings of Buddha to be a temporary vehicle; the Mahayana see the teachings of the Buddha to be both vehicle and Enlightenment. Which Buddhist school is right? That debate belongs to someone within the tradition--but seeing this long-time debate in our neighbor can offer us something.
Now, let's talk about Christianity. We don't use those words, but perhaps we should use them to refer to ourselves. Parts of our Christian family have argued, both overtly and covertly, that this world is a cycle of suffering to be escaped. Christ's teachings form a vehicle for us to lead us neatly into another world. They are here to shelter us, protect us, make us grow up, and ultimately preserve our souls for the afterlife. Notice that, in this sense, there are Theravada Christians who are extremely Roman Catholic in an archetypal, Middle Ages kind of way, and others who are extremely Protestant in a new school evangelical type. Many people have criticized Christianity for this kind of worldview, and often rightly so.
Many today believe this to be the case--Christ is the boat to carry us safely into the afterworld. To be a good Christian is to have a perfect moral life, quite literally not to rock the boat. The world is a hostile place, a foreign land, and the ways of the world can stain us, ruin us, destroy us. No good comes from it. We are to cross the raging river of this reality with our heads down, because this reality is nothing but rapids and only Christ's steady hand at the tiller can guide us safely to heaven, a place without rapids, a place without danger.
However, as we celebrate Christmas, I cannot help but be mindful that this is not faith of the Incarnation. Christmas teaches us exactly the opposite lesson: namely, that we are to be Mahayana Christians, if the term makes sense.
You see, when God took the form of a human, of Christ, it changes everything, quite literally everything. If God and the world have met together in one person, the world--the whole universe--has been touched in an irrevocable way. If we needed only a lesser vehicle, a prophet would have done just as well, someone to teach us perfect tools for keeping out the world. If Christ came to save, to drag us up from death, it was not as a lesser vehicle, a thing that was only good to shelter us from the darkness and the water. Christ has come to sanctify the world, to heal a wound we can only vaguely understand. Christ has come to invite us up into the life of God, the self-sufficient life of the Trinity. Christ is a greater vehicle, both carrier and shore, beginning and end.
This means that we are not called to keep our heads down until we reach a perfect place with clouds. It means that heaven is not the other shore. Heaven has begun in its first fruit in us, the the community following Christ and inspired by the Spirit. It is not shown perfectly--5 minutes at coffee hour will reveal that. But day after day, surprising healing happens. Day after day, people become more like Christ, learning to see as he saw. . Christ is different from the world, but the world is not altogether different from Christ. Christ is different from us, but we are not altogether different from Christ. This world is passing away because it will be reborn in its perfection. We have died to ourselves because the Holy Spirit has begun her work in us and needed room to begin that resurrection.
So, what does this mean for us at Christmas-time, all this lengthy business about Mahayana Christians? It means many things, but for this season, I will say this. This Christmas, consider: no thing is wholly evil. Santa Claus is good--and I hope he visited everyone with things that inspired much thanksgiving. Christmas trees are good--foci of family life and light. Eggnog, the bourbon kind, is surely good, inspiring good cheer and happy palates. And maybe more importantly: we are never wholly evil. No thing we can do irreparably separates from God's love. This means, too, that no thing irreparably separates our neighbors from God's love, and we're called to mirror that love of neighbor.
And: if the world isn't wholly evil, perhaps for a little while, 12 days or so, we might remember that the light shone in the darkness, and darkness did not overcome it. Perhaps we might smile not despite the world, but in the world, with the world, at the love that is drawing it still. The Word dwelt among us, and it changed everything, began the long process of moving all created reality closer into the heart of God. We might remember that through the mess of our lives, despite that mess and in the midst of that mess and precisely because of that mess, God is drawing us on up into the divine life.
In other words, perhaps we might remember that our joy is not accidental. Joy is not a byproduct. Joy is not a thing only other people experience. Joy is not a thing reserved for later, on another shore. Joy is a thing that is for now, for the present divine life surrounding us. The divine reality pervades this reality.
Joy is now.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Inside/Outside
Advent 4 in the RCL: Luke 1:26-38
Let us begin with a short discussion that takes us a little afield. I often think of Zoo Story, the play by Edward Albee, which contains the line: "Sometimes, you have to go a long way out of your way, to come back a short distance the right way." This may be one of those occasions.
So: I don't feel like I belong in church.
I have had the unusual privilege of touring congregations lately, visiting and exploring and seeing what they are about. And again and again I'm discovering something: I don't feel like I belong in church.
Perhaps part of the reason is that, about half the time, I can slip into a new church and have no one speak to me. Don't misunderstand--I don't try to avoid people. I even stick out in a crowd, partly because I'm a little tall and I'm often the only person in the room in their 20s or 30s. I tend to sit toward the back because I'm usually late. I participate actively in the service--worship is fun, after all--and I don't usually bother to open the order of service because I know it. I sing confidently, if not always beautifully, and if the hymn has a good tenor line, I hunt and peck until I find it. But about half the time, no one speaks to me--perhaps at the peace, those nearby will shake my hand and mutter something or other. However, being ignored is, for me, the smaller problem.
The bigger problem is that I have so little to connect to in the worship services. Now, it's true, I love liturgy and singing and preaching. But, where I have been (here and all over the country) few people sing in the congregations, small or big, racially diverse and un-. At a guess, roughly 90% of the sermons I've heard were bad, sometimes because they lacked a central point, sometimes because they were irrelevant, and once because I saw someone snowball every bad sermon technique into 28 minutes of non-stop torture. Most congregations seem bored to be there--that's the feeling in the air, whether they feel that way in their selves or not (I hope they don't feel that way). As for me, I have a terrific thirst for meaning and gospel at this time. I want to know more about God, contemplate God in silence, speak with God about many things. But when I visit a church, I mostly feel the distinct sensation that I don't belong--I'm too young, too thoughtful, too much wanting to express my individual voice, too much wanting to hear others.
I've tried to think of an image of this experience. Here's one for you--I like it, so follow it through. It's like being 15 and entering a nursing home where you've come to visit your grandmother. It's not that there's anything wrong with nursing homes, at least in principle. Older folks need care at certain times in their lives, and sometimes families or the people themselves cannot care for them as they had hoped at other stages.
But as a 15 year old, even knowing those things, even having come to visit your grandmother whom you've loved your whole life, the nursing home is most emphatically a place where you do not belong. It smells funny. No one speaks your language. People often ignore you, or when they do speak to you, you can't tell if they're really talking to you or someone from their past they've projected on top of you (this happens to me in almost every church). If you spend much time there, the nursing home is incredibly boring. The actions of those working there seem perfunctory but organized, following a calendar you can see on the wall (filling socks for the homeless on Wed; Friday is bingo night!) but that has no relationship to your calendar. People shake your hand your hand when you enter and leave, and everyone comments on how sharp you look and wonders where you go to school, but no one really sees you. You'd go there to visit your grandmother--it's the best place to see her. But you wouldn't stay. You wouldn't want to go back. It would be something to be tolerated as part of 'grandmother-visiting.'
And by the image, I do not mean that churches are full only of the elderly. Often, the younger adults and middle aged are the strongest nursing-home participants. Worse, many of the churches that I have seen that claim to be welcoming, or relevant, or hip, or young, are worse than the others. They're like elitist nursing homes, where if you feel like you don't connect, it must be because the problem is you.
Now, while all of this does make me question my call to be in church, I do love church. I love the liturgy, the scripture, the sacraments, the Holy Spirit of the whole affair. I connect to those things even as I feel like I don't belong, so I manage. But I do manage even while I feel alienated. And sometimes, I wonder whether I could recommend church to anyone I know outside the church. I don't feel like I can, not in good conscience. If a friend visited and said: it was like being part of a bizarre and ancient social experiment in ostracizing foreigners, I couldn't help but agree. I long for community and church that is engaging, thoughtful, energetic, contemplative, heart-filled. I well know that this doesn't happen every Sunday in any community, but you think it'd have to happen sometimes. Or that that kind of community would at least be a goal. Mostly, folks seem content when I visit church.
So, why such a long reflection on this experience? Partly because I'm always curious if others feel this way, and I suspect that others have and maybe even for different reasons. Perhaps this will spur some reflection on our practices. But mostly because I want to share a bit how an insider, like me, can feel like an outsider. I want to show that someone who is quite privileged, who is in the inner circle, can also not belong, can want something that is entirely outside my power. I suspect many of you have had similar experiences--being both an insider, and outsider.
Because it is in that insider/outsider split that I relate best to Mary. It's the theme that dominates her life. In our lesson today, we hear that great emotional story, the call of Mary to be the mother of Christ. The story is so emotional that most hymns on it are operatic, Ave Maria, flying all over the scale in various harmonies as with these words whole worlds move and are changed. We hear Mary say: but how can this be, for I am a virgin? Now, when we hear this, we think mostly about sex. How can Mary conceive a son without sex?
But, if we were to read the text more closely, I think we would find that sex is not the important thing here. The problem is not a mechanical/biological one, the question of where sperm is going to come from in the operation. The real question Mary is asking is this: Gabriel lets her know that her son will be Son of the Most High. Mary's objection is not that she hasn't had sex. It's that she's just a human, a 15 year old who suddenly feels way out of her depth. What does she know about raising a child? What does she know about raising a child to become royalty? What does she know about raising a child who is God? Not much, probably, to all three questions.
But Gabriel promises that God will carry this through, overshadow her, and make the thing work out. And so, she agrees.
She begins the story as an insider and an outsider: she is a child of Israel, a chosen people. But she is also an outsider--she lives in a country under imperial rule, and so she has become a foreigner in her own land. She is from a chosen people, but she is also a woman, lacking in many of the things that being 'chosen' should bring because of her gender.
By the end of our story, Mary has become a peculiar kind of insider with God, party to all kinds of information most others do not know--she joins Elizabeth and Zechariah. But she has also become an outsider, an unwed pregnant teenager, a "condition" even less welcome in her society than ours. She sees the heart of things, but she is an outsider.
And the theme will continue throughout her life. When prophecies are spoken at her son's circumcision, she will hear both of the salvation coming to everyone and of the sword that will pierce her own soul She will be, in her own way, a follower of her son, and yet spurned as her son proclaims that real families are made by faith and not by blood. She will be at the crucifixion, watching from a distance. Insider, and outsider.
That is the message we hear today, the complex way Mary is both insider and outsider. In the world but not of it, her son will say. We hear the ways that we as Christians have become insiders to the salvation that is coming, to the forgiveness given, to the reconciliation and making new of all things, to the great acts of goodness and kindness perpetrated throughout our world. We are witnesses and participants in resurrection. But we are also witnesses of and participants in crucifixion, seers and perpetrators of the great evils of this world.
So today, we hear Mary's story and know that it is our story. Swords in souls and new life from the dead, crucifixion and a kingdom of peace without end, and not one without the other. No wonder that, after her son is born, Mary sees all the things around her and ponders them in heart.
Christmas will be here shortly, and there will be plenty of time and space for the good news of great joy that is coming. We can look forward very much to rejoicing in those days. But for a short while longer, it is still Advent, and we stand with Mary. We too are both insiders and outsiders. God is not offering to remove that tension for us--it is part of the experience of life offered to Mary and us. God very well may not make us feel like we belong in those places where we are outsiders. In fact, following the example of Mary, God is offering to prolong that tension, that out of that tension something fruitful might grow, a holiness. Today, we stand with Mary, both inside and outside, waiting to see what will grow in the empty space in ourselves.
Have a blessed rest of Advent.
Let us begin with a short discussion that takes us a little afield. I often think of Zoo Story, the play by Edward Albee, which contains the line: "Sometimes, you have to go a long way out of your way, to come back a short distance the right way." This may be one of those occasions.
So: I don't feel like I belong in church.
I have had the unusual privilege of touring congregations lately, visiting and exploring and seeing what they are about. And again and again I'm discovering something: I don't feel like I belong in church.
Perhaps part of the reason is that, about half the time, I can slip into a new church and have no one speak to me. Don't misunderstand--I don't try to avoid people. I even stick out in a crowd, partly because I'm a little tall and I'm often the only person in the room in their 20s or 30s. I tend to sit toward the back because I'm usually late. I participate actively in the service--worship is fun, after all--and I don't usually bother to open the order of service because I know it. I sing confidently, if not always beautifully, and if the hymn has a good tenor line, I hunt and peck until I find it. But about half the time, no one speaks to me--perhaps at the peace, those nearby will shake my hand and mutter something or other. However, being ignored is, for me, the smaller problem.
The bigger problem is that I have so little to connect to in the worship services. Now, it's true, I love liturgy and singing and preaching. But, where I have been (here and all over the country) few people sing in the congregations, small or big, racially diverse and un-. At a guess, roughly 90% of the sermons I've heard were bad, sometimes because they lacked a central point, sometimes because they were irrelevant, and once because I saw someone snowball every bad sermon technique into 28 minutes of non-stop torture. Most congregations seem bored to be there--that's the feeling in the air, whether they feel that way in their selves or not (I hope they don't feel that way). As for me, I have a terrific thirst for meaning and gospel at this time. I want to know more about God, contemplate God in silence, speak with God about many things. But when I visit a church, I mostly feel the distinct sensation that I don't belong--I'm too young, too thoughtful, too much wanting to express my individual voice, too much wanting to hear others.
I've tried to think of an image of this experience. Here's one for you--I like it, so follow it through. It's like being 15 and entering a nursing home where you've come to visit your grandmother. It's not that there's anything wrong with nursing homes, at least in principle. Older folks need care at certain times in their lives, and sometimes families or the people themselves cannot care for them as they had hoped at other stages.
But as a 15 year old, even knowing those things, even having come to visit your grandmother whom you've loved your whole life, the nursing home is most emphatically a place where you do not belong. It smells funny. No one speaks your language. People often ignore you, or when they do speak to you, you can't tell if they're really talking to you or someone from their past they've projected on top of you (this happens to me in almost every church). If you spend much time there, the nursing home is incredibly boring. The actions of those working there seem perfunctory but organized, following a calendar you can see on the wall (filling socks for the homeless on Wed; Friday is bingo night!) but that has no relationship to your calendar. People shake your hand your hand when you enter and leave, and everyone comments on how sharp you look and wonders where you go to school, but no one really sees you. You'd go there to visit your grandmother--it's the best place to see her. But you wouldn't stay. You wouldn't want to go back. It would be something to be tolerated as part of 'grandmother-visiting.'
And by the image, I do not mean that churches are full only of the elderly. Often, the younger adults and middle aged are the strongest nursing-home participants. Worse, many of the churches that I have seen that claim to be welcoming, or relevant, or hip, or young, are worse than the others. They're like elitist nursing homes, where if you feel like you don't connect, it must be because the problem is you.
Now, while all of this does make me question my call to be in church, I do love church. I love the liturgy, the scripture, the sacraments, the Holy Spirit of the whole affair. I connect to those things even as I feel like I don't belong, so I manage. But I do manage even while I feel alienated. And sometimes, I wonder whether I could recommend church to anyone I know outside the church. I don't feel like I can, not in good conscience. If a friend visited and said: it was like being part of a bizarre and ancient social experiment in ostracizing foreigners, I couldn't help but agree. I long for community and church that is engaging, thoughtful, energetic, contemplative, heart-filled. I well know that this doesn't happen every Sunday in any community, but you think it'd have to happen sometimes. Or that that kind of community would at least be a goal. Mostly, folks seem content when I visit church.
So, why such a long reflection on this experience? Partly because I'm always curious if others feel this way, and I suspect that others have and maybe even for different reasons. Perhaps this will spur some reflection on our practices. But mostly because I want to share a bit how an insider, like me, can feel like an outsider. I want to show that someone who is quite privileged, who is in the inner circle, can also not belong, can want something that is entirely outside my power. I suspect many of you have had similar experiences--being both an insider, and outsider.
Because it is in that insider/outsider split that I relate best to Mary. It's the theme that dominates her life. In our lesson today, we hear that great emotional story, the call of Mary to be the mother of Christ. The story is so emotional that most hymns on it are operatic, Ave Maria, flying all over the scale in various harmonies as with these words whole worlds move and are changed. We hear Mary say: but how can this be, for I am a virgin? Now, when we hear this, we think mostly about sex. How can Mary conceive a son without sex?
But, if we were to read the text more closely, I think we would find that sex is not the important thing here. The problem is not a mechanical/biological one, the question of where sperm is going to come from in the operation. The real question Mary is asking is this: Gabriel lets her know that her son will be Son of the Most High. Mary's objection is not that she hasn't had sex. It's that she's just a human, a 15 year old who suddenly feels way out of her depth. What does she know about raising a child? What does she know about raising a child to become royalty? What does she know about raising a child who is God? Not much, probably, to all three questions.
But Gabriel promises that God will carry this through, overshadow her, and make the thing work out. And so, she agrees.
She begins the story as an insider and an outsider: she is a child of Israel, a chosen people. But she is also an outsider--she lives in a country under imperial rule, and so she has become a foreigner in her own land. She is from a chosen people, but she is also a woman, lacking in many of the things that being 'chosen' should bring because of her gender.
By the end of our story, Mary has become a peculiar kind of insider with God, party to all kinds of information most others do not know--she joins Elizabeth and Zechariah. But she has also become an outsider, an unwed pregnant teenager, a "condition" even less welcome in her society than ours. She sees the heart of things, but she is an outsider.
And the theme will continue throughout her life. When prophecies are spoken at her son's circumcision, she will hear both of the salvation coming to everyone and of the sword that will pierce her own soul She will be, in her own way, a follower of her son, and yet spurned as her son proclaims that real families are made by faith and not by blood. She will be at the crucifixion, watching from a distance. Insider, and outsider.
That is the message we hear today, the complex way Mary is both insider and outsider. In the world but not of it, her son will say. We hear the ways that we as Christians have become insiders to the salvation that is coming, to the forgiveness given, to the reconciliation and making new of all things, to the great acts of goodness and kindness perpetrated throughout our world. We are witnesses and participants in resurrection. But we are also witnesses of and participants in crucifixion, seers and perpetrators of the great evils of this world.
So today, we hear Mary's story and know that it is our story. Swords in souls and new life from the dead, crucifixion and a kingdom of peace without end, and not one without the other. No wonder that, after her son is born, Mary sees all the things around her and ponders them in heart.
Christmas will be here shortly, and there will be plenty of time and space for the good news of great joy that is coming. We can look forward very much to rejoicing in those days. But for a short while longer, it is still Advent, and we stand with Mary. We too are both insiders and outsiders. God is not offering to remove that tension for us--it is part of the experience of life offered to Mary and us. God very well may not make us feel like we belong in those places where we are outsiders. In fact, following the example of Mary, God is offering to prolong that tension, that out of that tension something fruitful might grow, a holiness. Today, we stand with Mary, both inside and outside, waiting to see what will grow in the empty space in ourselves.
Have a blessed rest of Advent.
Advent 3--Everyone loves a pink candle
Sorry for the lack of sermon-post last week. I'm sure hearts ceased when the thing had not appeared by Saturday.
I was in the midst of a hardware switch and illness in the home. The new hardware seems to be sailing along at speed, and the illness has evaporated, so life seems to be returning to track.
My reflections on the upcoming Sunday will be posted e'er long. I hope it's a blessed Advent for you kind folks.
I was in the midst of a hardware switch and illness in the home. The new hardware seems to be sailing along at speed, and the illness has evaporated, so life seems to be returning to track.
My reflections on the upcoming Sunday will be posted e'er long. I hope it's a blessed Advent for you kind folks.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
On being grass
Advent 2 in the RCL, Isaiah 40:1-11
Nothing makes me hum and whistle like Christmas and Advent music. "Comfort, comfort ye my people" gets me all excited and singing. I can hear those words in Isaiah and instantly, I'm ready for Christmas. "Comfort those who sit in darkness mourning 'neath their sorrows' load." Rocking. My being so suggestive is more of a problem for me in July when I find myself suddenly ready for Advent with miles of green season to go. But I hear them this week and I'm ready. Bring on the Advent! Bring on the Christmas!
"Comfort" is such a striking word for beginning a lesson, too. It's a definite 'speech-act.' Hearing "comfort O comfort my people" not only tells me that I should be comforted but also in fact comforts me. The very saying of it in Scripture is itself comforting. If only the rest of the passage kept on that same emotional note.
How interesting that 'being grass' is supposed to be comforting. Comfort, says the prophet, and then in the reading then the prophet turns back to God and asks: what's my line again? What am I supposed to say? It's like watching the local Christmas pageant, with Mary turning to Gabriel and saying: what's my line again? Oh right.
God replies: go with the grass bit. "Oh right," says the prophet. "Ahem. All people are grass . . .."
We'd almost expect the prophet to say: um, are you sure you want to go with that grass bit? It might not be that comforting for them to remember that they're grass, that their lives are short, that their lives are not really in their control, that they have less weight than the leaves on the trees or the dead leaves on the ground. Maybe, God, you should build on the whole 'comfort' theme before jumping to grass. I'm just suggesting.
But no, God apparently goes with the grass thing in our text. You people are grass, says God. I am not. I endure forever. These very things I say, my words, even they endure forever, which would be infinitely longer than you grassy people. And so let's celebrate! I'm like a shepherd, says God, I am strong to defend and quick to save.
So here is the emotional arc of the text, more or less:
1. Comfort, my people--all your badness is forgiven, you've served your sentence, your healing time is here.
2. Here comes the Lord! The Lord will see you now!
3. Um, so what should I say?
4. You are all grass! You're going to die!
5. God endures forever!
6. God takes care of God's people!
It's a pretty strange emotional arc. If we were all feeling like text-critical biblical scholars, I think we might be inclined to say that the redactor (editor) here must have shoved two different texts together. After all, this part of the chapter would stand just fine as two totally separate prophecies. The "Comfort" prophecy, and then to be read on another occasion, the "Grass vs. God" prophecy that begins when the prophet asks for a new word from God--thinking here of the better meaning of the word 'prophecy' with its social/critical connotations, not Nostradamus and crystal balls and predicting the lottery.
In fact, that's one way to deal with this passage. It's actually how the hymn "Comfort, comfort ye my people" deals with it--its theology is based only the 'Comfort' part of this passage. It combines a little of the language of the second part, the Grass vs. God part, with the first part, but skips over all the awkward Grass part of it and sticks with the 'comfort' theology only.
So we could walk away from this passage. We could easily say: great, I feel comforted! Back to shopping! Or not, as the case may be for many of us this year. Window shopping, perhaps. We could walk away and say: eh, redactor, do a better editing job next time! We could hear only what we want to hear through those great sieves on our ears. Selective hearing is a characteristic not only of children, spouses, and parents, but of everyone who has ever attended church.
Or: can we hear that we are grass? Can we bear that truth?
Isaiah seems to think so. Isaiah seems to think that the good news is that our comfort does not depend on us, we grassy people. Our being comforted comes from God, who is not grass. The way these two passages stack in our lesson today from Isaiah, the suggestion seems to be that our comfort does not come from us. Comfort comes from outside us. We gather to sing joyfully not because of we ourselves, but because God has remembered us.
That's the two-pronged message in Isaiah. In order to feel comforted, we'd have to recognize that we are finite, limited, weightless. If we recognize that we are grass, we can find our comfort outside ourselves--otherwise, we're always looking for comfort where comfort isn't.
Two pronged messages are so tricky. It's so much easier to be content with being comforted, or to relish the self-punishment of finitude. It's much more challenging to live into the whole passage--limited yet saved, worth little yet cared for much.
As we prepare for Christmas, we could state this two-pronged message another way. In order to hear God, I must not be God. It's just so easy to pretend that we are God and not humans. Aelred of Rievaulx, a perfectly delightful writer from the Middle Ages, very nicely says that our problem is that we are made in the likeness of God, but we try to be like God.
So as we prepare for Christmas, perhaps we should stop trying to be like God--all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent. That would mean we would have to stop running other people's lives, stop trying to pretend we understand why we are the way we are, and stop trying to live without sleep, private time, and quiet. That would mean we would have to own up to being grass--and not only own up to it, but embrace it.
Because once we embrace it, we can finally see from where our salvation is coming.
Nothing makes me hum and whistle like Christmas and Advent music. "Comfort, comfort ye my people" gets me all excited and singing. I can hear those words in Isaiah and instantly, I'm ready for Christmas. "Comfort those who sit in darkness mourning 'neath their sorrows' load." Rocking. My being so suggestive is more of a problem for me in July when I find myself suddenly ready for Advent with miles of green season to go. But I hear them this week and I'm ready. Bring on the Advent! Bring on the Christmas!
"Comfort" is such a striking word for beginning a lesson, too. It's a definite 'speech-act.' Hearing "comfort O comfort my people" not only tells me that I should be comforted but also in fact comforts me. The very saying of it in Scripture is itself comforting. If only the rest of the passage kept on that same emotional note.
How interesting that 'being grass' is supposed to be comforting. Comfort, says the prophet, and then in the reading then the prophet turns back to God and asks: what's my line again? What am I supposed to say? It's like watching the local Christmas pageant, with Mary turning to Gabriel and saying: what's my line again? Oh right.
God replies: go with the grass bit. "Oh right," says the prophet. "Ahem. All people are grass . . .."
We'd almost expect the prophet to say: um, are you sure you want to go with that grass bit? It might not be that comforting for them to remember that they're grass, that their lives are short, that their lives are not really in their control, that they have less weight than the leaves on the trees or the dead leaves on the ground. Maybe, God, you should build on the whole 'comfort' theme before jumping to grass. I'm just suggesting.
But no, God apparently goes with the grass thing in our text. You people are grass, says God. I am not. I endure forever. These very things I say, my words, even they endure forever, which would be infinitely longer than you grassy people. And so let's celebrate! I'm like a shepherd, says God, I am strong to defend and quick to save.
So here is the emotional arc of the text, more or less:
1. Comfort, my people--all your badness is forgiven, you've served your sentence, your healing time is here.
2. Here comes the Lord! The Lord will see you now!
3. Um, so what should I say?
4. You are all grass! You're going to die!
5. God endures forever!
6. God takes care of God's people!
It's a pretty strange emotional arc. If we were all feeling like text-critical biblical scholars, I think we might be inclined to say that the redactor (editor) here must have shoved two different texts together. After all, this part of the chapter would stand just fine as two totally separate prophecies. The "Comfort" prophecy, and then to be read on another occasion, the "Grass vs. God" prophecy that begins when the prophet asks for a new word from God--thinking here of the better meaning of the word 'prophecy' with its social/critical connotations, not Nostradamus and crystal balls and predicting the lottery.
In fact, that's one way to deal with this passage. It's actually how the hymn "Comfort, comfort ye my people" deals with it--its theology is based only the 'Comfort' part of this passage. It combines a little of the language of the second part, the Grass vs. God part, with the first part, but skips over all the awkward Grass part of it and sticks with the 'comfort' theology only.
So we could walk away from this passage. We could easily say: great, I feel comforted! Back to shopping! Or not, as the case may be for many of us this year. Window shopping, perhaps. We could walk away and say: eh, redactor, do a better editing job next time! We could hear only what we want to hear through those great sieves on our ears. Selective hearing is a characteristic not only of children, spouses, and parents, but of everyone who has ever attended church.
Or: can we hear that we are grass? Can we bear that truth?
Isaiah seems to think so. Isaiah seems to think that the good news is that our comfort does not depend on us, we grassy people. Our being comforted comes from God, who is not grass. The way these two passages stack in our lesson today from Isaiah, the suggestion seems to be that our comfort does not come from us. Comfort comes from outside us. We gather to sing joyfully not because of we ourselves, but because God has remembered us.
That's the two-pronged message in Isaiah. In order to feel comforted, we'd have to recognize that we are finite, limited, weightless. If we recognize that we are grass, we can find our comfort outside ourselves--otherwise, we're always looking for comfort where comfort isn't.
Two pronged messages are so tricky. It's so much easier to be content with being comforted, or to relish the self-punishment of finitude. It's much more challenging to live into the whole passage--limited yet saved, worth little yet cared for much.
As we prepare for Christmas, we could state this two-pronged message another way. In order to hear God, I must not be God. It's just so easy to pretend that we are God and not humans. Aelred of Rievaulx, a perfectly delightful writer from the Middle Ages, very nicely says that our problem is that we are made in the likeness of God, but we try to be like God.
So as we prepare for Christmas, perhaps we should stop trying to be like God--all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent. That would mean we would have to stop running other people's lives, stop trying to pretend we understand why we are the way we are, and stop trying to live without sleep, private time, and quiet. That would mean we would have to own up to being grass--and not only own up to it, but embrace it.
Because once we embrace it, we can finally see from where our salvation is coming.
Advent means we prepare for Christmas . . .
And because we're preparing for Christmas, it is time to keep the old traditions. Maybe you've heard it, maybe not, but I like it far better as a tradition than, say, "Jesse trees."
I'm glad to say that this one once again put me immediately in the spirit of the season. Just push the little play button on the page.
O Holy Night
I'm glad to say that this one once again put me immediately in the spirit of the season. Just push the little play button on the page.
O Holy Night
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