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There are a lot of reasons many of us will be glad to say goodbye to 2025. Among them is that it’s been difficult to watch the news without closing our eyes and releasing a sigh that is both an exclamation and a prayer: “God, have mercy.” Among the atrocities we have been horrified to hear of: a man who gunned down several people at Brown University last week, killing two and injuring nine others. There have been 30 deadlier shootings in the U.S. this year, including one at a high school homecoming celebration in Leland, Mississippi that left seven dead. And it’s not just in our country. Just two weeks ago today two gunmen killed at least 15 people and injuring 42 others at a Hanukkah gathering at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia.
In Matthew’s account of the visitation of the Magi, we read that, “When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under.” That verse has a deep and sickening resonance in these days. Herod would make a fine figure to grace our evening news. And when we read in the same account that Mary and Joseph fled the country and became refugees in Egypt to save the life of their child, it is a story ripped from yesterday’s headlines. Today, we also see people fleeing their countries in fear or hopelessness, and so often being turned away, sent back to danger or even torture . . . “No room in the inn.”
There certainly seems to be a timelessness to the irrational shedding of blood, and the heartless dismissal of refugees. When the author of the words we read this morning from Ecclesiastes said that, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” and, “He has made everything suitable for its time,” it’s hard to believe that includes a time for such inhumanity and lack of compassion.
We embark upon the year 2026 like refugees from the past. Terrorism, war, natural disaster have changed our world. The homeland of security, the ordered world in which we once lived, has been washed away, and we find ourselves wandering through a strange land of traumas and questions. The beginning of the year is a good time for hard questions. It’s a time when the world itself seems to stop spinning for a moment while we catch our collective breath and look back to where we have come from, and then ahead to where we are going. So, here’s a question to ponder while we sit on the doorstep of 2026: what in the world are we doing here, and what is the Lord Almighty doing? I would not be brash enough to attempt an answer in fifteen minutes on this Sunday morning, but I’d like to start turning the gears in my head and think out loud about it, if it’s OK with you.
These verses from Ecclesiastes are a great place to start. They’re transcendent words that don’t try to sell you anything; they just open up a little hole in reality and take a peek inside. By far, the most fascinating of all the words here is this one in verse 11: “He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put ha‘olam into their minds . . .” That’s the Hebrew word in the original texts: ha‘olam. Here’s what I like about that word. All of the best Biblical scholars of our age can’t agree on just what it means. That’s the kind of thing that sends chills up my spine. I love it when God turns out to be smarter than William Hertzog. The New Revised Standard Version, from which we read this morning, translates this single word as a phrase: “a sense of past and future.” Any time you find a single Hebrew word translated into a nebulous phrase like that, you can bet it’s a lulu of a translation problem. That’s clearly one of the choices, though. And it’s certainly an appropriate one for us as we approach January first. We can’t begin to tackle the nagging questions that rise up in us like a raging sea without a “sense of the past and future.”
The past is the source of both our fears and our hopes. We have borne witness to grief, catastrophe, brutality, and callousness. and we know just how hard and cruel the world can be. But we have also seen the triumph of the human spirit, the victory of courage over difficulty, and the shining example of those who have passed in majesty before us like tall ships, showing the way through dark waters. All too often, I think, we fall into either despairing over the traumas of our age, or idealizing our past and thinking of ourselves as the chosen ones. It is terribly important, as we sit here pondering our place in the scheme of things, to look back, and in our looking back to never succumb to the tyranny of selective vision. We must see the dangers in order to prepare ourselves, we must see the evil in order to battle against it in our own hearts, and we must also see the beauty in order to lift it up and celebrate it. Perhaps that’s the genius of “For everything there is a season . . .” It reminds us that it’s all there, and all has to be accounted for.
But we also need a sense of the future. We need to consider our own, personal futures (Lord knows, I need that), and we need to reflect on the future of this great enterprise we’re part of – the Divine human experiment, if you will. Indeed, it is our concern for the future, the future that our children and our children’s children will inherit, that offers hope in the most hopeless of circumstances. In Richard Attenborough’s famous film, Gandhi is on a hunger-strike to stop the violence between Hindus and Muslims. A Hindu rioter comes up to Gandhi and throws a piece of bread at him saying, “Eat! I am going to hell – but not with your death on my soul.” To which Gandhi replies, “Only God decides who goes to hell.” The rioter then explains how he killed a little Muslim boy by smashing his skull against a wall after the Muslims killed his own little boy. Gandhi tells the man, “I know a way out of hell. Find . . . a little boy . . . and raise him as your own. Only be sure that he’s a Muslim, and that you raise him as one.” The story is telling. It reminds us that the only way to redeem our own futures is to put in our hearts the love that is born of a sense of the eternal future. Maybe that’s the power of another translation of this word, ha‘olam. It’s sometimes rendered as eternity. If the Lord places eternity in our hearts, then we each have the chance in any moment to see the whole “world in a grain of sand,” or the whole future in the eyes of a child.
But my favorite word used to translate ha‘olam is world. God has placed the world in our hearts. Therein lies the greatest hope for us. The world has been put in our hearts. I take that to mean that when a hurricane swept across Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba a couple of months ago, we were compelled to close our eyes and breathe a prayer that swelled up from our own broken hearts. And more, we were moved to open our treasure chests and to reach out with whatever hands we have to people whose spirits were dashed against the rocks. People all over the world have poured resources into relief efforts for war refugees and when disaster has struck. Untold tens of millions of dollars have poured in from people like you and me everywhere. And members of this church have donated generously to our local food banks and to domestic and global relief efforts through our contributions to the UCC.
God has put the world in our hearts, and that’s a wonderful thing. All too frequently, we forget that it’s there. It’s so easy to think of international conflicts as too big and too complicated for us to do anything about, and therefore to care much about, or to consider people of other nations and religions as so vastly different from us that we have no common bond with them. But those are illusory thoughts, and when the bombs drop, or the ocean rages, or the heavens crash against our brothers and sisters across the globe, or people come to our land with hope in their hearts we realize it.
Ecclesiastes says God has ordained that “there is a time for every matter under heaven,” and “has made everything suitable in its time.” How do we square that with the heartless work of earthquakes and storms? How do we square that with a world seemingly bent on mutual destruction? How do we square that with the personal traumas of dreams deferred and hearts broken too early? And how do we find our own place in the world, or comprehend the Lord’s place in it?
Well, as for the Lord’s place, apparently that’s intended to remain something of a mystery. Ecclesiastes says that we “cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” I guess, for whatever reason, that’s just the way it’s supposed to be. Where is the Lord of Heaven and Earth? I believe that Lord is, at a minimum, with the poor, in a tent camp with a Syrian refugee family, on the South Side of Chicago with a mother grieving for her son cut down in the streets. That mother’s tears are ancient. In response to Herod’s slaughter of the little ones, Matthew quotes the prophet Jeremiah:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
Rachel eternally weeps for her children, and that’s where you can expect to find Emmanuel, God with us.
And as for our place in the ageless story? Well, the Lord has put ha‘olam into our hearts and minds. And that gives us at least a good starting place for figuring out where we fit in the whole thing. We have the past to serve as a guide. Let us never forget its lessons, or fail to treasure its wonders. We have the future to give us hope. Let us never falter in our determination to help our children find a way out of the hell that might otherwise be left to them. And, wonder of all, we have the world placed in our hearts. Let us never let go of it.
During these Sundays, I have been examining those characters in the nativity drama with only small parts (bit-players, Hollywood calls them). In fact, the parts for the characters we are speaking about are so small that they are never even mentioned in the Bible. The most famous of these unmentioned bit-players, of course, is the innkeeper.
We have always given him a part in Christmas pageants because since the Bible says, “there was no room for them in the inn,” we assume there must have been an innkeeper to convey the sad message – this being long before the neon “no vacancy” signs warned motorists to just keep driving.
“No room,” we imagine him saying to the young couple. Hogwash! Of course there was room – or, at least there would have been, if this couple had been prominent citizens, emissaries of the King, or traveling with papers from the Emperor. Almost 500 years ago, Martin Luther, commenting on the second chapter of Luke, referred to Mary and Joseph as “the lowest and most despised, and [those who] must make way for everyone until they are shoved into a stable to make common lodging and table with the cattle.” He writes that the people at the inn “did not recognize what God was doing in the stable. With all their eating, drinking, and finery, God left them empty, and his comfort and treasure was hidden from them.”
So, the image is timeless. And it speaks even today. You and I have also been the ones living it up with food and drink and music, never suspecting that the knock at the door, the embarrassing and untimely intrusion, the interruption from the inappropriate one out back in the stable, might be the gentle voice of the Lord seeking room in our world, in our lives, in our schedules.
We understand the innkeeper perhaps better than we do this extraordinary couple who followed a Divine promise to the stable in Bethlehem. We are not given to pursuing visions and hearing angel voices. We have no room in our busy lives for such nonsense.
It’s a simple matter of arithmetic. A job, a family, a house to keep up, bills to pay, friends to visit, meetings to go to, all add up. And there’s simply no room in the schedule for anything else, certainly not for “extras,” or “non-productive” things like meditation, reading the Bible, getting together with others for reflection and spiritual growth, paying attention to the world around you and listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit. Those are the last things you and I generally will take time out of our busy lives for. In short, if angels were to visit us with “good tidings of a great joy,” would anyone be listening? And if the world were pregnant with hope and meaning, might we consign its birthing to the barn because we’re too busy trying to have fun?
We might ask ourselves, you and I: with all the terribly important things that fill our lives, what might we be missing out on?
And this question: if the Holy Lord’s own pregnant promise were standing in front of us, knocking on our door, would we recognize it?
Divine disclosure is often obscure. It seems at times like the Lord of Life is playing a rather cruel joke on us, concealing wisdom in that which seems foolish, hiding strength in that which appears weak, disguising divinity in the clothes of a pauper. Here’s the dilemma at the heart of the incarnation: If Jesus identifies himself with the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the strangers, the sick, the prisoners, how in the world are we supposed to tell them apart, the Messiah and the dead-beats? It’s as if we’re supposed to have a hard time identifying the divine; maybe such a hard time that we’re forced to look for it everywhere.
I’m sure we’ve all heard the spiritual, and we know its truth: “Sweet little Jesus-boy, they didn’t know who you was.” But we still don’t – we who are the innkeepers of the world. If the Divine Miracle came knocking on our front door, how would we recognize it? There are a few clues in this Christmas story. Most significantly, it seems clear that the Word of Truth is not sent to us in packages that we expect. The Messiah comes not as a distinguished guest with an impressive entourage, but as a pregnant girl looking for a place to sleep. So look for the Divine promise where you would least expect to find it. For one thing, look for it in the arguments of the person you can’t stand. If the current national political frenzy tells us anything, I hope it is this: opposing points of view can be based on high principles held passionately. It is rarely the case that one of them is totally right and the other totally wrong. Perhaps what we need are leaders who can stop shouting at each other long enough to listen, and to craft a reasoned, principled, and compassionate way forward. And perhaps each of us might benefit from realizing that high principles held passionately are sometimes just another way of trying to win. So, don’t get so caught up in talking with your own circle of friends that you slam the door on a differing idea when it knocks. You never know, it just might be the voice of Eternity.
Look for the divine in the lowly and the outcast. Don’t expect eternal truth to come in a nicely crafted sound-bite on the evening news, but look for it in the eyes of the old woman you walk past in the nursing home. If Christ were to walk among us, he is more likely to be found among the poor folks from the other side of the tracks, or those made homeless by government ineptitude, than among the politicians and power brokers of our land. Look for him in the backwater towns and the third world countries.
Has Jesus come knocking on our doors this Christmas Season? If so, how have we received him? By filling our lives with the busy-ness of living, avoiding the deeper spiritual and social issues, devoting ourselves more to the trappings of the season than to the One who comes looking for room in our hearts, taking up our time with all the other honored guests in our house of priorities?
Will we fail to recognize the presence of Christ in the poorly dressed person with a foul odor, the friend with a need to share, the emotionally disabled person who is disregarded? Will we dismiss the divine wisdom in the person who disagrees with us, slamming the door on them and contenting ourselves with the company of our like-minded friends? Will we do our best to keep people “in their places,” only tolerating those who are different “so long as they keep quiet and stay out back with the cows?” When Christ knocks on the door of our hearts, will our answer be, “Sorry, no room?”
Archie Showen shared a marvelous story that’s one of my favorites. It’s about a little child, a handicapped child, who wanted to have a lead role in the Christmas pageant. “He longed to be Joseph,” Showen writes, “but that part was awarded to the teacher’s pet. He would have been satisfied to have been one of the wise men, but these parts went to the rich kids who could dress in their exquisite bathrobes and look like kings. He was even rejected as a shepherd – no one could imagine a shepherd on crutches. The part remaining was his – the inn-keeper. His little heart ached as he dreaded having to reject the Christ-child. When the night for the play arrived, the room was packed. The curtain was pulled and the play began with Joseph’s knock on the door of the inn. His big moment had arrived and he could stand it no longer. With all his might he flung open the door of the inn and shouted at the top of his voice, ‘Come in! I’ve been expecting you!’ The audience roared and a thunderous applause broke out. His acceptance of Christ ended the play and everyone remarked that it was the best Christmas they had ever seen.”
Maybe it’s time we rewrote the story. Maybe this coming year we should put candles in the windows of the Bethlehem inn as a sign of welcome and keep an eye out for the holy family. Not knowing who they are, maybe we should just welcome everyone, and sleep in the barn ourselves if need be. Maybe when a disheveled couple approach looking for help we should throw open the doors of the inn and say, “Come in! I’ve been expecting you!”
The attempt to do so is very old, and etched into our very traditions. The way we celebrate Christmas is patterned after an ancient Roman festival that honored just such a revolutionary idea. We landed on December 25th for Christmas, you know, because (according to the mythologist, Thomas Bulfinch) early Christians seized upon the Roman festival of Saturnalia as a good time to celebrate the birth of Christ. Bulfinch writes, “. . .the feast of Saturnalia was held every year in the winter season. Then all public business was suspended, declaration of war and criminal executions were postponed, friends made presents to one another, and the slaves were indulged with great liberties. A feast was given to them where they sat at table, while their masters served them, to show the natural equality . . . and that all things belonged equally to all . . . .”
So, we stand in a good tradition with this December celebration. And we’re still trying to live up to a very high ideal: to break down the barriers between us and give birth to peace and equality, to change the story of Bethlehem and say there is room for Christ – always room.
Seventy-four years ago, NBC-TV presented the first opera written for television. Menotti’s “Amal and the Night Visitors” became a Christmas classic. In this opera for children, Amahl, who was once a shepherd boy is now disabled and can walk only with a crutch. He and his mother are visited by three kings who are on their way see the miracle child that was born in Bethlehem. In the course of their interactions, Amahl is miraculously healed and leaves with the kings to see the Holy child and take him his crutch as a gift since he no longer needs it. But this wonderful opera is only one in a long string of images, hunches, songs, legends and notions about the question: where were the children when Jesus was born? We instinctively assume that there must have been children somehow connected to the story of the manger in Bethlehem. Maybe it’s because Christmas has always seemed to be such a joyous and consuming time for children. Whatever the reason, we do want to put at least one child in the manger scene — other than the one in the manger, that is.
Usually, it’s a little shepherd boy. And usually, our focus is on what gift he might give to the holy infant. There is something fitting about that. Because children, I think, have a special issue around the notion of giving. We all hear at this time of year about children’s fixation on “getting.” We know they want the latest action figure, or video game, or music CD, or interactive toy, but do we ever stop to think about how they struggle with the concept of giving? It all has to do with self-image, you know. The child who doesn’t think he or she has much to offer doesn’t take the notion of giving very seriously. The child who doesn’t feel capable of giving something that will be truly treasured can be too embarrassed to take the gesture to heart.
Garrison Keillor said that Christmas is “a holiday fraught with peril.”1 The whole “gift giving” and “gift getting” ritual is full of land mines. He says that a Christmas gift often tells us very little about who we are. But it tells us a great deal about who some other person thinks we are, or wants us to be. It’s no wonder children are often overwhelmed by the task of selecting a gift for someone.
But something beautiful happens in all our Christmas legends about the little shepherd, or drummer boy, or boy king. The child always fails to come up with what he considers an adequate gift, and so ends up, even unintentionally, giving something of himself. And, wonder of all wonders, it turns out to be just the right thing to bring a smile to the holy countenance.
I think there has to be a child in the manger story because children have something to teach all of us about giving, and about receiving. In the end, a child will scribble a few lines on a piece of construction paper with a crayon, fold over one end and stick a staple in it or a sticker on it, glue a couple of cotton balls on for a snowman, and scratch the words “I love you” in the corner with a pencil. And somehow, of all the treasures under the tree, it’s the gift that brings a tear to the corner of a parent’s eye. And a child receives gifts unrestrainedly, with wonder and unbridled enthusiasm, tearing into the wrappings, and looking for that which is to be theirs.
This can be “a sign unto us” – to keep us from giving out of a sense of duty or the burden of obligation, and from receiving with embarrassment or only half a heart. This is critically important because giving of ourselves, and receiving the blessings of grace lie at the very heart of our faith. And a half a heart is not nearly enough.
No, there’s no little shepherd boy in the Biblical account of the nativity, no earnest child with a drum. But there should be. Among those shepherds on the hillside who were swept up in the wonder of a mysterious light and swore they heard the beating of angels’ wings there must have a been a boy. And if not, then the men who heard it must have been transformed into children themselves, tearing full bore down the hill toward the sleepy little town, frightened, awed, expectant, jubilant.
Christmas is for children. Because at this time of year every one of us is, at some level and with any luck, reduced to the wide-eyed, awe-struck, hopeful, little ones who Jesus said we must be in order to enter the kingdom. Every one of us comes to the Christ-child, uncertain, hopeful, bringing only what we have. Every one of us figuratively puts on a bathrobe and a paper crown, or cuddles a toy lamb, and in trepidation and wonder shuffles up to the manger.
Dadgie and I had a habit of smiling and even sharing a loving chuckle whenever we saw a little one in the grocery store or on the street. We frequently saw a parade of little ones walking in downtown Athol connected by each holding on to some kind of chord — out, it seems with their teachers on an exploration of the town. Whenever we saw them, we couldn’t help smiling and laughing. It warmed and brightened our day. Just the other day in the grocery store, we encountered a mother with a little one in her shopping cart. I smiled and waved, and the child smiled back. I asked the mother what isle you find those on. Children give us a gift. It is a gift of the soul – a gift of self. They give us their smiles, their voices, and their abounding, joyous presence. Day in and day out, they give us more than hope, they give us confidence about the future. When you see them, give them an eager grin, and a warm “hello.”
Yes, I think there must have been a child at the manger. Maybe even one with a drum:
Baby Jesus, pa rum pum pum pum,
I am a poor boy too, pa rum pum pum pum.
I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum,
that’s fit to give the King, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,
shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum pum,
On my drum?
Mary nodded, pa rum pum pum pum,
the ox and lamb kept time, pa rum pum pum pum.
I played my drum for Him, pa rum pum pum pum,
I played my best for Him, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,
then He smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum,
me and my drum.
1 Garrison Keillor, A Prairie Home Companion, date unknown.
Have you ever stopped to consider the foolishness of what we Christians proclaim at this time of year? According to just about every standard and norm for rational, differentiated thought in our culture, you and I ought to be locked up in the psych unit for all this – the Christmas wreaths and candles and manger scene. We have this story to tell at this time of year about how the almighty Lord of the Universe, the creator of the far-flung heavens, the perfect Idea whose Word gave birth to life itself, took on flesh and bones in the person of a newborn baby brought forth in a smelly cow-feeder in the back alley of a one-horse town on the outskirts of nowhere.
To a modern, scientific mind, the thought of the Almighty being manifest in human form is hard enough to swallow, but the clincher is the cow dung. That’s what was there after all, in the stable where the manger was. You don’t have an animal feeder to lay a baby in, you know, without the end product being present as well.
The cow dung is a problem because healthy, skeptical, twenty-first century Americans have come to know a little something about power, and how it works. We know about power ties, and power lunches, and power shirts, and that 80% of success is appearances. We know that the most powerful person in the world is supposed to be the President of the United States, and that one of the best ways to become President is to have the most flags behind you when you speak on television. We know about dressing for success, and driving the right kind of car, and we know about smelling right! If you’re going to be a person of power, you have to smell right! There’s an entire shopping isle at the grocery store dedicated to colognes, under-arm deodorants, tropical fragrance shampoos, and scented hair sprays. And there’s another whole isle devoted to nice smelling soaps, room deodorizers, and pine-scented toilet products. So, if we know anything, we know that the Lord Almighty, Ruler of heaven and earth, wanting to impress upon humanity the breadth of divine power, would expressly not come into this world in a cow barn, with you-know-what lying all around. It’s preposterous.
But that’s our story, and we’re sticking to it. J. Barrie Shepherd calls it “the mystery and manure of Christmas.” By all accounts, you see, there had to be animals there.
So, continuing with this Advent pulpit series, in which I am focusing on some of the unmentioned characters — the bit-players — at the nativity, I’m focusing today on the donkey. Now, we don’t know for sure that there was a donkey at the manger; it’s not mentioned in the scriptural accounts, but we can assume that, Mary, being nine months pregnant, would have had to ride on a donkey to make the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, so the animal must have been tied up nearby. Besides, we have rarely seen a creche without a donkey.
I never spent much time around donkeys, but when I was boy in Iowa, I sure spent some time around farm animals. And in my limited experience, I can say that the beasts we house and feed to provide milk, and meat, and animal power are not the gentle, lovely creatures we see resting in the straw of our manger scenes. They’re big, and coarse, and nasty and smelly, and generally not very intelligent. So, the answer to the question, “what was the donkey thinking as he looked upon the holy child in the manger?” is, “he wasn’t thinking a blessed thing.”
Perhaps the more important question is, “What was the Lord Almighty thinking in choosing to break forth into the world in a cow-stall with a donkey looking on?” I would not claim to know the mind of, or speak for the Almighty, but I do think there are clues in scripture. We find this advice in the second chapter of Philippians, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself . . .” Or, in 1 Corinthians, we find, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”
In other words, maybe we don’t really know as much about power as we think we do. Maybe the donkey was not only a bit-player — a beast of burden that just happened to be tied up nearby. Maybe the donkey was one of the chief parts in this drama of “mystery and manure.” Maybe it was intended that there be animals, and the smellier the better.
It’s almost as if the Lord were putting that unmistakable barnyard smell right in our faces, and making a point with it. It’s almost as if we were supposed to be shocked, and the very moment of greatest wonder at the miracle of divine intervention was used to send an entirely earthly and profoundly important message to us. It’s almost as if all the things we consider “beneath us” were chosen in order to mock our high-minded, squeaky clean, “I’m too sexy for my shirt,” bloated self-image. It’s almost as if we were being told something about real power, that contrary to everything we have learned, power has almost nothing to do with appearances, or with odors. True power – divine, eternal power – has nothing to do with what kind of tie you wear, what kind of car you drive, how many votes you can tally or dollars you can collect, how many bombs you can drop, how righteous are your positions, or how cogent your arguments. It may be that, in the baby lying in the straw with the donkey looking on, we are being told that there is a kind of power that we don’t even understand, let alone have mastery of, a power that operates within the context of the human condition, but transcends human culture and convention, a power that is accessible, but can never be grasped, a power never earned or won, but only conferred as a gift.
I have always had a feeling – a hunch, I suppose – that there is a Divine partiality to animals. I don’t know if it’s true, but to me, it fits. Maybe that’s because I suspect the Lord knows something about existence that we don’t, something that puts us on a lot more equal footing with the animals than we’re generally comfortable acknowledging.
Anyway, I can’t help believing that the birth of Jesus had something to do with the order of things in the cosmos. It had to do with priorities and values that are the same throughout the universe, and that incorporate all of God’s creation. It had to do with the disclosure of the primary force at the heart of being, the mystery and power of Love.
That love – the kind of love that breaks through convention and goes to the heart of being – much to our consternation, is often best and most powerfully revealed among the people and in the circumstances that run most counter to our prideful assumptions about status and power and decency and culture.
Nancy Dahlberg told her personal story of being overtaken by that kind of love.1 She and her husband and two small children spent Christmas Day driving between two cities on the West Coast. It was a long trip, but the only way they could visit their families in the limited time they had. They stopped for lunch at a kind of two-bit diner in a two-bit town, not the greatest place for Christmas dinner. But even in her road-weariness, Nancy was aware of deep feelings of gratitude as she looked around the diner. She was probably the most fortunate person in that whole depressing place.
As they waited to order, she saw her one-year-old son Erik’s face light up in excitement. He began to wiggle all around in his high chair, and squealed with delight his baby version of his favorite new words, “Hi, there.” He pounded his fat baby fists on the metal tray, giggling with joy so that everyone in the diner heard and looked.
His mother turned to see the object of his delight, and I quote:
“I saw a tattered rag of a coat, obviously bought by someone else eons ago, dirty, greasy, and worn, baggy pants, both they and the zipper at half-mast over a spindly body, toes that poked out of would-be shoes, a shirt that had ring-around-the-collar all over, and a face like none other, with gums as bare as Erik’s, hair uncombed, unwashed, whiskers too short to be a beard, but way, way beyond a shadow. I was too far away to smell him, but I knew he smelled, and his hands were waving in the air. ‘Hi there, baby. Hi there, big boy. I see ya, Buster.’
The exchange went on: “‘Do you know patty cake? Atta boy. Do you know peek-a-boo? Hey look! He knows peek-a-boo!’”
Nancy and her husband tried to eat in dismay and embarrassment as the old bum, a drunk and a disturbance, shouted across the room and created an awful scene with Erik’s ecstatic cooperation. In despair they moved Erik’s chair so he could not see the man, but the baby’s howls just made things worse.
The parents gulped their food, grabbed the check, and Nancy carried Erik toward the exit, the old man’s chair right in her pathway. As she got close to him, Erik leaned from her arms, and try as she did, she could not avoid the man’s eyes imploring her to let him hold the baby. She didn’t really have a choice. Again, I quote:
“. . . Erik propelled himself from my arms to the man . . . Erik, in an act of total trust, love and submission, laid his small head on the man’s ragged shoulder. The man’s eyes closed and I saw tears hover on his lashes. His aged hands, full of grime and apparent pain, gently, so gently cradled my baby’s bottom and stroked his back.
“No two beings have ever loved so deeply for so short a time. I stood awestruck,” she wrote, “as the man rocked and cradled Erik in his arms, and then his eyes opened and set squarely on mine. He said in a firm, commanding voice, ‘You take care of this baby.’ He pried Erik from his chest, unwillingly, as if in pain. I held my arms open to receive my son and again the gentleman addressed me, ‘God bless you, ma’am. You’ve given me my Christmas . . .’”
The greatest power in the universe is the kind of love that is knit into the fabric of existence. It is a kind of love that resides so deeply in the core of being that it transcends everything we associate with cultural standards and norms. Real power is not found in pride, position, or possessions. Real power is found, as Jesus demonstrated, in common cause and a common bond with all people regardless of station in life. Real power is found, as Jesus demonstrated, in self-sacrificing love. The heart of that love was given birth on a chilly night to an unmarried woman, in the back-waters of Palestine, and in a cow-feeder.
So, in my estimation, there had to be a donkey. And it had to be a stubborn, smelly, slightly bedraggled beast, road weary and leaving plenty of mementoes around on the floor of the stable – one of those creatures that makes us wince, and that God adores.
1 The American Baptist Magazine (Date unknown).
This year, during Advent, I’ve decided to take a look with you at some of the characters in the story of Christ’s birth who are out of the spotlight – “bit-players,” if you will, in the drama of the Nativity. The characters that I intend to examine in these weeks have such unassuming roles that they are, in fact, not even mentioned in the Bible. Their existence is at best inferred, or in some cases just a flight of fancy.
Now, to begin with, I don’t want to spoil anyone’s Christmas, but I feel a responsibility to point out a problem with Luke’s account of the Birth of Jesus. The story begins, “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered.” Here’s the problem: Caesar Augustus ruled from 27 B.C. to 14 A.D. There is no evidence during this time of any census being taken of, as Luke says, “all the world” (which would have meant the entire Roman Empire). It is curious that the “first registration . . . taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria,” in Luke’s words, was a local census taken in A.D. 6 or 7 for the purpose of imposing a tax on the people – one, incidentally, that led to rioting in the streets. Additionally, Luke tells us earlier in the book that John the Baptist, and therefore Jesus also, were born during the reign of Herod the Great in Judea. The problem being that Quirinius was never governor during the reign of Herod, who died in 4 B.C.
But, all that having been said, let’s forgive Luke his little historical inaccuracies, and for convenience’s sake, think of this as the tax census taken by Quirinius in 6 A.D. Indeed, what matters about the story is not its fidelity to historical facts but its fidelity to timeless meaning. In that spirit, I’d like for us to consider for a time the role of that unnamed person in the account who was, on the day in question, simply going about his job, setting up shop to take the census.
When a road-weary man with the slightly harried look of an expectant father appeared before him and announced, “Joseph of Nazareth, in Galilee,” how could he have known who this was? How could he have known that standing there at his registration table was a central figure in perhaps the greatest drama in human history? Inscribing the name, and the names of his family in the role, I suspect our census taker glanced out the window at the sun to see how late in the day it was getting, and how much longer he would have to endure this tedious tallying, and the ceaseless stream of people, each one starting to look exactly like that last.
“Next,” he said with the indifferent air of one who sees no further than the tip of his pen. And that was that. A difficult journey with a bride nine months pregnant to a town with no vacancies. And not so much as a “How do you do?” Just a cold question, and a curt, “Next.”
It’s hard to blame the census taker. He’s so much like us. Life is, after all, mostly about getting by, doing our job, meeting our responsibilities, getting dinner ready, or any of the thousand things with which we fill our days – or, at least, it seems to us that’s what life is about. And how much time do we spend looking out the window, or glancing at our watch, wishing away the present moment, looking for something different, anticipating whatever on our agenda might be the next experience of any real interest?
There is a common malady loose in our world. It is the persistent desire to be someone we are not, to be somewhere or some-when we are not. We suffer from this disease frequently at Christmas time. I don’t know about you, but I find the burden of all the preparations for this holiday to be about as tedious as, say, writing down an endless list of names of people standing in line for a census. The gifts I have yet to think of, let alone buy, the notes and cards to be written – when am I going to find time to do those? To a large degree, I find myself just looking forward to getting it all over with, so all this won’t be hanging over my head any more. The radio and television tell us we are supposed to be happy and busy little shoppers, out there doing our best to keep the engine of the economy going, but instead I find myself with head down looking at the list of those for whom I need to buy gifts, and wanting to check another off so I can say, “Next.” Won’t it be nice when it’s January, and all this is over for another year? How’s that for a fine attitude about Christmas from a preacher?
In my better moments I know this is not what Christmas is all about. But I have to say the piped in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” in the shopping malls, and the four page holiday ads in the newspaper do seem to conspire to keep me from maintaining a good perspective on the season.
I think that what I need is to watch A Christmas Carol for the fifty sixth time. I think there is a certain Zen in the reborn Scrooge that is particularly important in this season. Integral to Scrooge’s Christmas morning transformation is his newly acquired ability to see deeply and appreciatively into every moment and everything that’s happening around him. He can’t get enough of each precious encounter, each treasured sight or sound or smell. He’s filled with joy at every little thing that comes his way. No longer is his face buried in the ledger, dispassionately waiting for the next opportunity to make a nickel. Now he is always looking, always laughing, always taking in and savoring the sweet moments of life with which he is blessed.
That’s what I need a heavy helping of this Christmas. I need someone to slap me in the face and say, pick up your head and look at the face of the person standing in front of you, look at the last leaf from the old oak tree floating to the ground, look at the list of names of people you are privileged to care about and to whom you want to express your love by remembering them at Christmas time. That’s what I need.
I think it’s what that census taker needed too. I don’t know if he ever found it. I’d like to think maybe he did. I like to imagine him finishing his day’s work and heading back to his room, head down, eyes weary, when suddenly, as he passes near the inn, he hears an odd sound – the cry of a baby, coming from out back, from the stables. I like to imagine him picking his head up, and turning aside to investigate, approaching the stable, and seeing something wondrous – a newborn baby, a common, lower-class family having a baby in a cow stall. I like to think of him picking his head up and looking into the face of the father, a warm, strong face, and recognizing him as a man who’d been at his census table earlier in the day. I like to think that he had something of an epiphany in that moment, that he suddenly knew that every star in the sky was announcing good tidings of great joy, every manger was filled with abundant new life, every face was an image of the face of God.
I love the sentiment of that great philosopher, John Lenin, who wrote, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” You and I have a lot of options this Christmas season: we can drag ourselves through the ordeal for yet another year, wishing away our moments, waiting for an easier time; we can occupy our minds with big plans and preparations for grand celebrations; we can bury our faces in the ledger, or the newspaper, or the report the boss is expecting tomorrow – the Good Lord of this Universe, I suspect, will be busy delivering a baby.
There are all kinds of interesting discussions I could enter into about this morning’s reading from the epistle to the Colossians. We could talk about authorship of the letter (it’s inscribed with the name of the apostle Paul, but the authenticity of its Pauline authorship has been questioned by several biblical scholars). We could delve into the circumstances in which it was written and the heretical teachings that engendered a controversy apparently raging in the church at Colossae. Or we could talk about the centrality of Christ that Paul was lifting up for the Colossians to embrace. But I’ve decided to preach a whole sermon instead on two words found in this passage. In the course of four sentences, Paul uses the phrase “all things” five times. I found that quite interesting. But the one that jumped off the page at me was the final time he used it. He writes, “. . .God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things . . . .” I’d like you to stop and consider that with me for a moment. It’s clear from the earlier sentences and use of the term that when Paul writes “all things” he means “all things.” That includes “things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things [that] have been created.” In other words, trees and stars and cucumbers and photons and wacky ideas and Honda Civics. “God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.” Wouldn’t you have expected Paul to say, “God was pleased to reconcile to himself all people,” or “all believers,” or “all Christians?” What can it possibly mean for the Lord of Life to reconcile to himself “all things?”
As you might have guessed, I have some thoughts. First of all, it strikes me that you and I tend to live in a chopped up world – a place where “all things” are divided up and placed into their proper categories and those categories are set in an appropriate hierarchy. You and I, of course, are at the top of that hierarchy. After us comes people who are not like us, then people who are laughable, rude, or evil, then probably good food, then dogs, next, houses and other important buildings, followed by cars. Somewhere down at the bottom of the list are things like dirt, dead animals, garbage, and, of course, black flies. It certainly makes the task of moving through our days and navigating our complicated lives a lot easier if everything has its place, so to speak, and “all things” are in their places. But Paul seems to be suggesting that the Almighty is not much like us. If God is “pleased to reconcile to himself all things,” that throws you and me into the same pile with terrorists and tulips and earthworms. In other words, Paul is suggesting that in the eyes of the Lord all of creation, every tiny speck of it, is a unified whole. Wouldn’t it be something if humanity could finally grasp that notion? We may be getting there, but the jury is still out on whether we’ll get there soon enough. We’ve learned so far that the earth is round, and that everything in it is made out of the same stuff, atoms mined from primordial stars. We’re starting to figure out a few more things – that there is no such place as “away,” for instance, when we use the expression “to throw something away.” And it’s beginning to dawn on us that what we put into the atmosphere affects the whole planet, and has a critical impact on ourselves. And some folks are making the connection between the things that we humans build, grow, dispose of, and monkey with and the very food chain that keeps us alive. Who knows? Maybe in time we might come far enough to gain the level of wisdom about ourselves and our world attained by the native peoples who originally settled this land. My point? All of creation is a unity. It is not a collection of categories. Everything we do affects everyone and everything else.
Secondly, when Paul says that God is “pleased to reconcile all things to himself,” I take that to mean that “all things” were not reconciled to God, and that the act of bringing all things into harmony, resolving them, making them consistent and congruous with Divine purposes is a pleasing thing. To me, that suggests movement over time toward a goal, and that the achievement of that end is a divinely delightful idea. Now, I know that a lot of religious folks are not big on evolution. It seems that some people think that science and biblical faith are somehow incompatible. But I think evolution is a very biblical idea. I think the entire record of scripture is the story of an evolving people, the people of God becoming very, very gradually what the Lord of All intends them to be. But more than that, it seems that all of creation – “all things” – are evolving in the direction of that divine design. That may not seem apparent when we look at the ways humanity has mangled our world, or when we see the bizarre side roads and dead ends that technology often takes, or when we notice how often our proclivity for violence rears its head and seems to send us two steps back for every one forward, but I’m convinced that somehow all of those experiences of failure, misdirection, and backsliding are part of the journey we are on together and that the journey has an objective, and that the Divine Power at the heart of existence is “pleased” – smiling on the progress . . . overall.
And, finally, I take note of how the apostle begins this portion of his letter. He writes, “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.” You and I have been given an inheritance by those saints who have advanced the ball ahead of us. And we have been given power to take up the challenge ourselves of sharing in the work of reconciling all things to God, and to those Divine purposes. With these great gifts how can we choose not to do as Paul suggests, and “joyfully give thanks to the Father?” That’s what this week’s celebration on Thursday is all about, after all, joyfully giving thanks. Sometimes thankfulness ducks around the corner and we lose sight of it. We can be seized by the enormity of social and global evils. Sixty-two years ago yesterday, we all remember how deeply we were grieved by one of those evils when our president was slain on national television. And it’s also easy to be overcome by our daily problems, so easy to lose perspective on life and to forget what we have to be thankful for.
I think I’ve told some of you before about “Charley,” but his story bears repeating. It was about thirty or more years ago, and I was senior pastor of the First Baptist Church in Beverly, Massachusetts. We had a number of homeless people in the city, and our church hired a social worker to counsel and support them in any way possible. “Charley” was one of the homeless men. He was mentally disabled, had no money, no job, no place to live, no family, no resources. Every morning he would come in off the street to the lobby of the church and walk over to the door of the office where the secretaries worked. We would always ask, “How are you this morning, Charley?” And he would invariably flash a giant grin and reply, “Could be worse!” Could be worse. I have never forgotten that phrase, and will never forget it as long as I live. How, in the name of all that is holy, I wondered, could it possibly be worse? How could a person be in a worse situation than this poor man? But I have taken that huge grin of his to be his way of expressing thankfulness. To this day, I’m a bit baffled about what exactly he was thankful for. But he was thankful. Every time I start to feel a little sorry for myself about something I remember “Charley,” and I remember, “Could be worse!”
So, we are reminded by Paul that this universe in which we reside is not a series of compartments, it is a grand unified whole in which we participate and for which we bear responsibility; we are reminded that the Lord of Life has intentions for it and for us to be reconciled to divine purposes; and we are admonished to remember to give thanks with joyful hearts.
I don’t know of a better way to illustrate all this than with a story related by the preacher, writer, and college chaplain, William Willimon. He wrote about a young woman he encountered several years ago at the college where he worked. “She had a miserable time the second semester of her Sophomore year,” Willimon writes. “She had unwisely signed up for a couple of killer courses. She was flunking both of them, in way over her head. Then, her mother had a heart attack and was reduced to being an invalid. To top it all off, her boyfriend of three years unceremoniously dumped her. ‘How on earth do you keep going?’” Willimon asked her. “’I think of May 14, 2012,’ she responded. ‘May 14, 2012? What’s that?’ I asked. ‘It’s the day of my graduation. Sometimes I picture myself in my cap and gown. I can hear the music of the orchestra. In my mind’s eye I can see myself processing down that long row of graduates, see myself receiving my diploma from the hands of the President. That dream, that vision of the future, keeps me going.’”1
It is the vision of a future to which we are gradually but inexorably growing, a future of wholeness and shared responsibility, a future worth investing in, that keeps us going, and keeps us thankful . . . for “all things.”
1 William Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Logos Productions, December 11, 2011.
In just the last couple of months we’ve seen typhoons and an earthquake in the Philippines, a landslide in Sudan that killed over a thousand people, more typhoons, flash floods and earthquakes throughout Asia and Europe. We’ve seen images on television and the Internet of neighborhoods and whole towns thoroughly destroyed. In recent days not one but two typhoons have hit the Phillippines. It seems that poor country is always getting slammed by these storms.
I had been watching coverage of a disaster in the Philippines, and I saw the face of a woman being interviewed after losing absolutely everything – her home, her family, her possessions. She had no place to live and nothing to eat or drink. And her face bore the most beatific aura. I don’t remember her exact words but it was something like this: “We just have to do the best we can and keep the faith.” I was stunned by her equanimity and what appeared to be a hopeful confidence in the face of overwhelming loss and grief. Sometime later I was putting recyclable items in our recycle bin and raised up banging my head on the bottom of a cabinet above. I jumped back, grabbed my head, and let go with a few choice, unrepeatable words at a high volume. Upon reflection, the contrast between my reaction to a minor “first world problem” and that woman’s reaction to an horrific third world nightmare struck me with what can only be described as the force of typhoon winds.
That amazing woman with the lovely, calm countenance was living in the midst of that with which the prophet Isaiah would have clearly identified. The “word of the Lord” we heard read this morning was offered as a prophecy by Isaiah in the sixth century B.C. It was given to a people standing in the midst of the ruins of their city. Not unlike Tacloban, Jerusalem had been laid waste. It wasn’t a superstorm that destroyed their city, it was the Babylonian army of King Nebuchadnezzar. The city was leveled, the temple was destroyed, and the leaders were carried off to Babylon in exile. Isaiah himself was one of the victims of that destruction, and his words about a time of peace, prosperity, and long life were spoken to a broken and devastated people looking at what seemed like the impossible task of rebuilding their lives and their nation. I can’t help hearing the echo of the prophet’s words in the voice of that hungry, bereaved, Filipina woman speaking with confidence about doing their best and keeping faith.
It makes me wonder if Isaiah’s prophecy is simply a prediction of future events, or if it may have more to do with now – with the eternal now. It leaves me thinking about those who heard his words over twenty five hundred years ago. Were they, perhaps, listening to a man who was living his hope – living his glorious new Jerusalem, new heaven and new earth – amidst the very ruins of the city? Was I, in my lovely, warm, well stocked, log home, swearing about bumping my head, living defeated in the ruins, while that Filipina woman I heard on television was living in a new heaven and a new earth?
It strikes me that no one on this planet has a carefree existence, free of loss, heartache, pain, and struggle. Some struggles are infinitely more devastating than others. But the lesson of Isaiah’s prophecy, and of that dear woman speaking after the storm, confirms for me that there are two ways to approach life: either as the victim of those struggles, wailing and swearing amidst the rubble of life’s injustice, or as one who lives on a different plain, who lives their hope, and who dwells in a new heaven and a new earth.
If my notions hold any water, then it all raises important questions about the meaning of prophecy. Most people tend to regard prophecy as fortune-telling – a kind of magical hocus-pocus in which future events are revealed. That’s certainly the language used in these pronouncements. Isaiah relates, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth . . .” and Jesus says, “Days will come when not one stone will be left upon another . . . .” But could it be that, similar to the language of myth, what is being conveyed are not future facts, so much as present truth? Is it possible that by describing a future of wars, insurrections, persecutions and trials, Jesus is telling those who would follow him that faithfulness requires constancy, trust, and perseverance?
What I’m talking about here is the difference between truth and fact. Facts are helpful; they are descriptions of observable reality. But truth is more profound, and more capable of changing lives and shaking nations. It is the deeper reality of existence that deals with meaning; it is the bread and butter of the prophets, whose job it was (and is) to use their often bizarre images to open a window on human experience. Daniel Webster said, “There is nothing so powerful as truth, and often nothing so strange.”1
And so what are we to make of the prophets’ future predictions in which these nuggets of timeless truth are set? Do they, indeed, reveal something about the world that is yet to be? Does that future world already exist in the mind of the Almighty? Is it, in fact, inevitable? Well, not according to Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg. When they came up with the movie Back to the Future, they hypothesized a kind of tabula rasa on which the future could be written and, if one went back in time, rewritten. Even minor changes in the course of events would have a profound impact on shaping, or reshaping, the world to be. I think that’s the general cultural mindset that you and I live with most of the time. It places a strong emphasis on individual responsibility. After all, if anything that one of us does or fails to do can end up having an outsized impact on the course of future events, it behooves us to act as responsibly as possible.
When I look back at the course of my life I can’t help identifying key moments when I made choices and decisions that I wish I could change. But when I consider the potential impact of correcting those mistakes, it would seem to send me on a completely different trajectory in life, and I realize I would have missed out on so much that I truly love and value. Then, I think I wouldn’t want to change a thing, for fear that it would change everything.
There’s a cosmological theory that has grown out of quantum physics called the multiple universes theory. It holds that everything that can happen does happen, and at the juncture between two possible outcomes both results occur and the universe splits in two at that instant, with the one outcome occurring in one universe and the second in the other universe. At every instance in which such multiple possibilities arise, another universe is spawned. Hence there are an infinite number of universes all following their own course of events, and an infinite number of universes constantly branching off of those universes. According to this notion, there is a universe out there somewhere in which I didn’t hit the brake soon enough once a few years ago and was killed in an auto accident, and perhaps another in which I became a nationally recognized best-selling author. I like that one. This theory is, I suppose, the ultimate extension of the Back to the Future conception of time.
Strict Calvinists would shudder at all this. John Calvin was one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation in Europe in the sixteenth century. Among other things, he was a powerful promoter of the notion of predestination – that everything that happens is destined by God to happen, and nothing can change any of it. The Divine power and control of events is absolute. Calvin’s ideas were highly influential in the development of Protestantism, and certainly among our forebears here in New England, the Puritans. The whole premise of Back to the Future would be anathema to Calvin. The future cannot be altered, he would say; it is etched in stone by the Lord of the universe.
What does this do to personal responsibility? That’s a subject that was hotly debated by those among the Puritans who had the courage to offer dissent. They argued that, if everything that happens is predestined and some people are irrevocably consigned to be among the elect and others are inalterably slated to burn in hell, then why bother to try to change one’s behavior? Why bother to try to accomplish anything, for that matter? The notion of free-will becomes meaningless.
So how are we to resolve this dilemma? I have a few suggestions. First of all, as I indicated earlier, biblical prophecy is not merely a matter of predicting the future, it is most importantly a window on human experience that allows us to see more deeply into the meaning of existence. On the other hand, the hope that is offered by the prophets and by Jesus and his followers (and the hope offered by modern day dreamers and people of vision) is essential. And it cannot hold power if it’s not real. The new heaven and new earth might not turn out to be exactly as described in Isaiah’s vision (it was Woody Allen who said, “The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won’t get much sleep.”2). But the substance of Isaiah’s hope, that humanity will ultimately become all that we are intended to be, must seize us and empower us. The alternative, especially in this world of darkening clouds of destruction, is to yield to the powerlessness and hopelessness of despair. And that is not who we are called to be. I have to turn no further than the face of that Filipina woman to know the power of living with such faith.
Do you and I have free-will to make the future what we will? I tend to believe that. Is the future already written? Are we in the hands of fate? I don’t know, but I am confident that we are in the hands of the Lord of Life.
1 Daniel Webster, The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, vol. 11 (1903), Cornell University Library, 2009, p.68.
2 Woody Allen, Without Feathers, Ballantine Books, 1986, p. 28.
Let me begin by saying that there is much about this sermon I do not want to preach, and much that I don’t want to hear. It is not a sermon that has welled up from my most treasured inner convictions; it has, rather, leapt out of the lectionary grabbing me by the shirt collar and forcing me to pay attention. It is the unmistakable message of Jesus, heard time and again, that the Almighty’s vision is revolutionary — the Divine future is a “whole new ball game.”
I’m uncomfortable with that because I like the present — at least quite a bit of it. I don’t care to have my world turned upside down by anyone — not even the Lord Almighty. I am pretty content with things just the way they are, thank you. And I’m not alone. I think the ancient Egyptians, and not a few of the foreign slaves, were quite content under the rule of the Pharaoh, until Moses started his rabble-rousing. I suspect the Israelites were happy with the collusion of the Temple priesthood and the Roman governors before Jesus came along and stirred up trouble. I rather think that many, many people sat in their pews quite contentedly and listened to the delegates from the Holy See appeal for indulgence money, before Martin Luther and John Calvin started stirring up the common folk to bring on the “calamity” of the Reformation. I know for a fact that millions of Americans were happy with what seemed like the “natural order” of things, until trouble-makers like Martin Luther King, Jr. started calling for marches and sit-ins. Mostly, folks would like to just keep enjoying things the way they are. Is that too much to ask?
But, apparently, that same Lord Almighty isn’t interested in accommodating our desire for stability, but always seems to be doing a new thing. Isn’t that annoying? In fact, when really pushed by the Sadducees (the religious conservatives of his day), Jesus revealed that the ultimate Divine plan was nothing less than the total remaking of the world, in a way that would be absolutely unrecognizable to people of the present day. The Lord’s hidden agenda (which, ever since Jesus, is not quite so hidden) is to refashion absolutely everything from the ground up, and make the world all over again in a whole new way. I really wish there were some other plan in the offing, but I guess that’s just not in the cards
Take church, for instance. I happen to absolutely love this church. I love everything about it. I love that we are a bunch of open-minded, good-natured, kind, caring people who enjoy each other’s company. I love our building. I love its history and it’s simple New England charm. I love the commitment demonstrated by our trustees and everyone else here to keeping this building as enduringly beautiful and functional as it is. I love our worship, and how comfortable it is, because so much is so familiar — we sing our Amen and “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow,” and say the Lord’s Prayer, and pretty much each week we stand up at the same times and sit down at the same times. I like that. I love our organ and our piano. I love sharing in our music each week here. I love the commitment and dedication of all of you in this church family — the way people can always be counted on to do whatever needs to be done to help out people in need, and to keep our church programs going year after year. I love all of you. I love how close we have become in these years together, and how happy it is to be in relationship with people you care about. I love everything about this place — just the way it is.
And I become a little troubled when I see young people and families in our community or in other communities drawn to these “new kinds of churches.” You know what I mean. There are a few of them around. They’re designed from the ground up based on all the research done by the church growth movement. They are carefully tailored to speak the language, play the music, and offer the look and feel of the newest generation of white, middle-class Americans. They tend to offer a theologically conservative (if not fundamentalist) message. They place a huge emphasis on the creation of small groups. And they have totally changed worship music. It’s all contemporary; largely gone are the familiar old hymns of the church; long gone are the beloved old pipe organs. Now it’s all guitars, drums, bands, and what has come to be known as “praise music.” And they are succeeding monumentally in drawing hundreds and even thousands of people to their services, in communities all over this land.
What are we to say about this? That thousands of people are being unfortunately duped by modern snake-oil salesmen hawking nothing more than a shallow, feel good, watered down version of the gospel? It’s tempting. But it wouldn’t be entirely accurate. People are being drawn to such churches because those churches are meeting a need. They are responding to a dramatically changed society by presenting at least a version of the gospel in a form that resonates with a new generation of people, hungry for an experience of alive, engaging worship. In many cases, it turns out to be a version of the gospel that I don’t subscribe to, but that’s hardly the point. The point is that they, and I suspect the Lord of Hosts, are doing a new thing in our midst.
What does this mean, that we should throw out our hymnals, dismantle our pipe organ, buy some electric guitars, and “get jiggy with it?” Somehow, I think not. But does it all have something to say to us? Is there a message in it about the deep and pervasive spirit of reformation that lies at the heart of the Gospel? Is it possible that we could become so happy and so content with “things the way they are” that we might miss out on the Divine plan for this world? Is it just possible that, if we are to keep up with the Spirit of transformation, we will need to move outside our comfort zones, and become more discoverers of meaning than purveyors of tradition?
I’m not going to offer my own ideas here for what we might be called to. I know you all have within you the capacity to “Stir one another up,” in Paul’s words, “to love and good works.” We sit around tables downstairs and talk about everything from the weather to our fond memories of days gone by, but we could also share with each other some of our own visions for the days and years ahead. What I’m talking about is a spirit – an approach to life and to our life together.
Jesus gave us a glimpse of that spirit in the encounter we read about this morning from the gospel of Luke. The Sadducees came to Jesus and tried to trick him by putting a question to him about who’s married to whom in the hereafter. Jesus’ answer, in short, was: what is in store for all of you is so far beyond your grasp, so foreign to your experience, that your little question about marriage is absolutely irrelevant. Well, folks, that’s not just an observation about the hereafter, it’s a comment about the intentions and directions and plans of the Lord of Hosts. Jesus said “the kingdom of heaven is upon you/within you.” He prayed, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The Lord’s plans are for the remaking of this very world, and they are for right now, not just some distant time into the future. And if we are going to be part of that unfolding plan, we’d better be on board before the train leaves the station.
Many of us may be very happy with this community of faith. But we have not found here the ultimate expression of Divine will for all time. There is more yet to be disclosed about what community can be, what faith can be, what worship can be, what service and love and commitment can be. The same is true for the rest of life. You may have a good marriage, but I’ll bet it could be better. You may have a job you love, but you likely have not discovered all that you are called to in life. You may have a circle of friends that give you support and pleasure, but I know that there are people yet to meet, hearts to win, discoveries of relationship to be made. The Holy Spirit is an entrepreneur — a spirit of innovation. And we are called to be innovators. This I believe: the Good Lord has got plans in store for us that would blow our minds if we could conceive of them.
If that’s true for whatever awaits us on the other side of death’s door, how about for what goes on on this side of that door. I believe it’s true for your own life. Consider those who have been transformed, remade by an encounter with the holy. In the words of Frederick Buechner, “Henry Ward Beecher cheats on his wife, his God, himself, but manages to keep on bringing the Gospel to life for people anyway, maybe even for himself. . . . Zaccheus climbs up a sycamore tree a crook and climbs down a saint. Paul sets out a hatchet man for the Pharisees and comes back a fool for Christ.”
I don’t like to think of things changing. I’m really pretty happy with my life, and my world. I’m happy with the church; I’m happy with my role here. But there’s something calling to me from the pages of this Bible asking if my contentedness is the last word. There’s something gnawing at my gut that answers, no.
So, against my will, I challenge you this morning to think of ways that things might change in the church, and to be bold enough to bring your ideas before others, and before appropriate leaders or boards. I challenge you to think of ways that things might change in your family life, and bring your thoughts into the family conversations. I challenge you to think of ways things might change at your job, at your club, with your friends, and act upon those thoughts. I challenge you to look for what the Spirit is doing within you, and around you.
If you’re wondering what lies ahead, what’s in store for us, let me assure you, it’s a whole new ball game. So keep your eyes open and your heart ready. There’s no question, the Good Lord is doing a new thing. Watch for it, wait for it, work for it. The best is yet to come!
Sometimes our coffee hour becomes a time of enjoying just desserts (with two s’s). But, of course, there’s a play on words at work here. It has to do with people getting what they deserve – their “just deserts” (with one s) – in other words, justice. I suppose if you carry the pun far enough it comes ’round to the idea that you all will get, on those dessert coffee hours, just your just desserts (with two s’s) – the desserts you deserve. Well, before I get too carried away, let’s move on.
Justice. That’s what people getting their “just deserts” means. I’ll never forget the great preacher Sandy Ray telling all of us liberal Protestant preachers at a conference that we keep crying for justice. He said, “You don’t really want justice, because justice means getting what you deserve, and, trust me, you don’t want what you deserve. You don’t want justice; you want mercy.” Well, I suppose he was right. But if we take a moment to listen to Jesus as he spoke to the disciples in our reading from Luke, it turns out that justice and mercy are pretty much the same thing. He said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” I think he’s saying that doing justice means showing mercy. I love the comment I heard a while back from an author who was being interviewed on television (I don’t remember who) he was talking about this “golden rule” of Jesus’s and he said, “I don’t get this ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ Instead of assuming that they want to be treated the way you would, why not just ask them how they wish to be treated?” A good point, I suppose. It’s really just a further statement of the underlying principle, though: that if we wish to be just in our dealings with others, we must be ready to show mercy.
So, what’s all that got to do with our everyday lives? Just this: treating others as we would be treated, going the extra mile, turning the other cheek, giving of our resources for the nurture, growth, and well-being of others are all part of one basic approach to life. It is the kind of living that Jesus spent his entire ministry trying to get across. And in many quarters the message has yet to sink in.
One clear example has to do with food stamps (known as the SNAP program). I’m sure you all have read lately about the cut in food stamp funding due to the government shut-down. But even if the shut-down gets resolved, under the current legislation Millions of people who receive food stamps could soon see smaller benefits or even get kicked out of the program, according to several analyses from the federal government and public policy think tanks. About 2.4 million people could lose access to food stamps in an average month, because of the new law’s changes, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimation. Millions more will see their monthly benefit amounts shrink because of other changes mandated by the law. The total pool of people who will either be cut off from SNAP or see smaller monthly benefits could reach 22.3 million U.S. families, according to a July analysis from the Urban Institute.
It’s argued that some folks out there are taking unfair advantage of the food stamp program – not getting their just deserts, so to speak; maybe they’re just getting desserts. So, the obvious solution is to cut the legs out from under families in need. But the budget shows they’re not prepared to cut government subsidies to oil companies (the richest corporations on the planet); that’s referred to as “bad policy.” In other words, it’s the same old story of trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor.
And what has “do unto others” got to do with this? I would be interested to see the golden rule applied to Congress. I would be interested to see how any of those congressional representatives and senators would feel about these decisions if they were unemployed for two or three years, went through all their assets, and it were their own families who ended up subsisting on food stamps. I wonder if they would consider government subsidies to oil companies to be a higher priority than food stamps.
But it’s not just Congress, is it? You and I are part of a whole culture that is driven by a “me first” principle, an ethos that says if everyone seeks his or her own good, the whole society will benefit, and those who fall through the cracks are either unworthy or regrettable but acceptable collateral damage in the battle for economic progress. That doctrine is pounded into our heads from the time we are born, and is reinforced night after night on the television. And it takes weekly, and sometimes daily, reminders to keep bringing us back to Jesus, and helping us remember that we are part of a counter-cultural movement, that our loyalty is to a larger kingdom, and our fidelity to a higher cause. To a large degree, that’s what we do when we write letters to our congressional representatives urging them not to cut food stamps; that’s what we do when we bring our boxes of Wheaties and cans of soup for the food pantry; and that’s what we do when we offer our pledges and our weekly offerings. They provide that reminder to ourselves of who we are in this world. And the more sacrificial the gift, the more powerful the message.
But in the words of Jesus we heard this morning there is also a caution for us as individuals and as a church. He plainly and boldly says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled,” and “. . . woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.” In other words, we need to be aware that having our cake and eating it too (that is, having just desserts) is likely to lead to receiving our “just deserts.” And the church needs to be aware that it is not here to get rich either. I for one don’t think Jesus would be impressed with crystal cathedrals. Richard Halverson put it well. He wrote, “When the Greeks got the gospel, they turned it into a philosophy; when the Romans got it, they turned it into a government; when the Europeans got it, they turned it into a culture; and when the Americans got it, they turned it into a business.”1 If the church is to remain faithful to our calling, our resources must be used humbly, thoughtfully, and with justice and mercy always our priorities.
So, the Trustees are currently planning a church pledge campaign. And it isn’t just about raising money to sustain the ministries and missions of this church, as important as that is. It’s also about raising awareness. It is an annual ritual in which we all tell ourselves and one another that there are more important things in life than storing up treasures for ourselves, more important things than finding personal comfort and security, more important things than even (I hate to admit it) the Red Sox.
As I mentioned, yesterday was All Saints Day. So, today we can celebrate an All Saints Sunday. And as we remember today all those beloved ones who have gone before us, we take a moment to consider what they have bequeathed to us: a church, a ministry, a spirit, and a message – a message that consistently reminds us how pleasing it is sometimes to have just desserts, but how much more pleasing it is when we help all of the world’s children get their just deserts.
1 Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America, Edited by George R. Hunsberger and Craig Van Gelder, Eerdmans, 1996, p. 77.
Early in the year 1756, a musician in the Salzburg court orchestra wrote a note to a friend in his hometown of Augsburg: “I must inform you that on 27 January, at 8 p.m., my dear wife was happily delivered of a boy; but the placenta had to be removed. She was therefore astonishingly weak. Now, however (God be praised) both child and mother are well. She sends her regards to you both. The boy is called Joannes Chrisostomos, Wolfgang, Gotlieb.” That father’s name was Leopold Mozart. And the boy would be called by the name Wolfgang, but would himself shun the German name of “Gotlieb” which means “beloved of God” in favor of the Latin translation, “Amadeus.” Three months from now, we will mark the 270th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Three days before his 5th birthday, Wolfgang learned to play his first piece of music on the clavier; it was a scherzo by Georg Wagenseil. It took the four-year-old a half hour to learn to play it. In short order, Wolfgang and his sister, Anna, were performing for important audiences. When Wolfgang was six years old, he and his sister played in a public concert in Linz. Their reputation as child prodigies spread so fast that within days they were playing for royalty in Vienna. From there, the family went on tour, making considerable money off of twice daily concerts by these “miracle children.”
When he was eight years old, he wrote four sonatas and a symphony. By the time he reached his tenth birthday he had written fifteen pieces of music. He wrote his first four movement symphony at the age of eleven. He died a young man, only thirty five years old, but in his short life he wrote over six hundred compositions, many of which are today considered among the greatest masterpieces of all time and are the standard fare of the finest orchestras in the world.
He was a strangely compelling figure. His almost superhuman gift of music was combined with a spendthrift lifestyle of partying and lavishing food and drink and gifts on his friends – a lifestyle that left him frequently penniless. It’s little wonder that he has been the subject of legends, myths, and dramatic exaggerations (the wildly popular film, Amadeus, among them). But there can be little doubt that, in this quirky and rare human being, something special was going on.
Reactions to his life and to his gift are varied. Some would say it’s entirely unfair that such monumental talent would be conferred on someone who turned out to be such a roguish twit. Others simply celebrate that talent, and that a body of work like his ever came into being at all. Some of you might be asking this morning why we are bothering to take so much time to talk about a composer. What, you may ask, has Mozart’s life got to do with our worship?
Well, I hear you. Wolferl, as he was affectionately known by his family, was no saint. He was a Catholic Freemason who wrote a tremendous amount of religious music, and converted his own father to the faith before his death. But he was also an irreverent and rebellious soul. He wrote a canon for six voices on the words, “Leck mich im Arsch” (I apologize to any of you who speak German for having repeated that phrase in the pulpit). We might politely paraphrase it as “kiss my rear-end,” but, trust me, it’s far more graphic and base than that. He wrote another one – a party song for his friends – that takes the image even further (we won’t even go there). So, no, we’re not lifting up Mozart this morning as an exemplar of virtue or religious piety.
Here’s the thing that gets to me about Mozart. Have you ever been driving down the road, and come over a hill to where a valley full of wondrous sights stretches out before you so that you have to catch your breath? Have you ever been walking in the woods and come upon a massive, towering tree rising so high in the air you can’t see the sky, to which the only appropriate response is to stand and gape in reverential silence? Have you ever been outside at night and looked up to see the edge-on view of our galaxy in brilliant detail, set in a sea of vivid distant lights, and found yourself simply exhaling softly the words, “O, my God?” Or, perhaps another way of saying that is: “Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent . . .” Those are the words the psalmist used to convey that feeling. In fact, in this 104th Psalm, portions of which we heard this morning, the author goes on for 35 verses exuberantly listing one awe-inspiring image after another of the glorious things the Lord of Majesty does in pouring gifts upon the earth. So many of these gifts of the Lord are listed that I think those who came up with the lectionary just got tired, and decided to truncate the lectionary reading so it wouldn’t take up half a worship service just to read it all.
These gifts land on each of us, and we are often found living as though we are not so gifted. We might compare ourselves to someone else and think, “O, I wish I were more like him or her. One might shy away from something saying, “O, I’m no good at that.” We might waste our time and our lives focusing on the things that make us feel unfortunate, or unable. You might live with remorse thinking you are not gifted at all, but you are. Many of us have the gift of humor. I have sat with you and found myself laughing out loud at the funny things you come up with. Some of you, like our young pianist, Wyatt, and our occasional soloist, Pat, are showered with the gift of music. Some are gifted in the ability to write, Like our brilliant moderator, Nowell. Some are a wiz with finances and numbers. But every one of you, I know from experience has been blessed with the gift of compassion and love. The gifts just keep pouring forth and filling our little community of Christ’s followers with blessings abounding.
The gifts of the Almighty are showered on us like the October rains we had this week (finally). They land everywhere; they fill up the hollows; they puddle here, and run wild down the canyon there. We live in a world of gifts, from the brilliant, glowing colors of autumn to the lovely sound of birds chirping in the trees. We are surrounded by such gifts.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an outrageous spendthrift on whom fell an overabundance of gifts from the Great Spendthrift Giver. That’s what I love about Mozart. He wasn’t perfect. Like you and me he was flawed, and like any of us at times, even straying over the line. But that’s the thing about Divine grace; it’s there for every undeserving one of us. And listening to the brilliant music from that gifted mind of Mozart is like beholding the Milky Way; it can take your breath away, and it can, in that breathless moment, leave you with nothing to express but awe – awe at the majestic wonder of creativity, awe at the whole of creation itself, awe at the creator, the wildly extravagant Giver who lavishes gifts on us, the undeserving.
So, here’s to you, Wolferl. And in the words of the Lacrymosa “on that tearful day, when from the ashes shall rise again sinful man to be judged,” may you, the outrageous spendthrift party animal, be counted among the most treasured of gifts from the Spendthrift Giver.
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