WELCOMING THE HOLY
CHILD… TO OUR WORLD
Isaiah 64:1-9
November 27, 2011 – Rev. Jerry Duggins
Now
that we’ve been well-fed, had our tryptophan-induced naps, watched the
obligatory turkey day football and braved, or avoided, the mad rush of “Black
Friday,” it is time to begin the serious preparation for Christmas.
Some
things that puzzle me as we enter this season that the church calls Advent and
the culture views as the holiday shopping season: Why do so many people find it
challenging to figure out what to get mom and dad this year? Why do parents
always say “Don’t get me anything” when you know they’d be hurt if you took
them seriously? Why do some people look at shoppers as unsophisticated,
shallow, betrayers of the real meaning of Christmas, while some shoppers look
at their critics as ungrateful curmudgeons? Why do some people enter the season
with that spirit of celebration that sees every event as generating energy for
the climactic Christmas Day, while others view them as a series of obligations
that leave them drained by the time Christmas finally arrives? Why do some see
it as the “most wonderful time” of the year while others experience it as the
most stressful?
Where
is the truth: Is Advent a season of spiritual renewal, the anticipation of God
entering our world in a new way? Or does the way we celebrate it reflect a loss
of spiritual depth and an embrace of the most superficial aspects of our
culture? There appears to be no
indifference in any case. Some mock those who are into the season while others
complain about the rise in the number of “scrooges.”
For
those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, I love this time of year. I love
the anticipation that will begin with lighting the first Advent candle when we
sit down to eat later today. I love dragging out the box of Christmas books,
rereading some of my favorites. I love setting up the Fontanini and the various
other nativities around the house. I’m usually a little slow about the
Christmas list but I like the opportunity to think about what I might want in
the coming year. I like to shop and buy things that will bring a little joy
into the lives of my family. And I love the special things we do in worship
during this season culminating in what I consider the most meaningful service
of the year on Christmas Eve.
What
I don’t like about this time of year are the scripture readings. Even when
Isaiah is being positive, there’s always this negative undercurrent. Listen to
the prophet: “O, that you would tear open the heavens… that the nations might tremble.”
What’s this fearsome image of God all about? And what’s with the implication in
verse 5 that our sin is the result of God’s anger or hiding? Have we really
“all become like one who is unclean?” Are the good things we do no more than a
filthy cloth? Are the bad things we do so bad that we are completely swept away
as with a strong wind? And why would the lectionary committee have chosen such
texts just when we were ready to turn the corner on a difficult year and start
thinking positive?
I’m
so tempted to skip all this nonsense and proceed directly to our Advent theme
for the day: welcoming the holy child into our world. But the curmudgeons and
scrooges would want me to at least acknowledge that there is something to their
complaints. So if you’ll pardon me, I’ll say just a word or two about the text.
I’ll
begin with a brief picture of the historical context behind the prophet’s
oracle. The prophet proclaims this word toward the beginning of what scholars
refer to as the post-exilic period of
According
to Paul Hanson, “we find the prophet seeking to keep God’s word of promise
alive in a period in which the community stands at the brink of losing its
spiritual identity by attributing setbacks not to human unfaithfulness but to
divine indifference…. With the candor of one committed both to God’s honor and
to the people’s well-being, he pleads with God, accepts solidarity with the
people in their sin by raising his voice in confession, and recalls the past in
the effort to prompt both sides to break the tragic impasse” (p.235).
So
here’s a people who are unhappy with their world and want to blame God for the
rampant evil. Not so different from those who ask, “Where is God in this
commercialization of Christmas, in this secularizing of religion?” What
possible hope can we hold out for our world? We have exchanged the politics of
civility and compromise for the politics of division and polarization. We are
no longer motivated by a commitment to be good citizens either individually or
corporately. We have sacrificed intimacy for a pragmatic efficiency in our
relationships. Consumerism has taught us to give our loyalty to the highest
bidder.
One
has to ask if the church is in danger of losing its “spiritual identity.” Are
we sacrificing intimacy for more efficient structures of planning? Are we
evaluating our church connection on the business model of a cost/benefit
analysis? Are we making it difficult for God to speak to us? Could we describe
our historical context as a “tragic impasse?”
As
I said, I love this time of year and I don’t like being down about the world,
but I worry about it? Don’t you? Maybe we don’t worry about the same things,
but surely there are things about your world that concern you, that lead you to
ask, “Where is God while this is going on?” I do hear the “rain on my parade”
Christians who complain about Christ being taken out of Christmas. I do hear
the serious “social justice” Christians who wonder how we can spend so much on
ourselves in a world so full of need. I even recognize my own complicity in the
problems.
But
I’m not going to fix it without God. “Come down,” says the prophet on behalf of
the people. Not just look upon us, not just consider us, not just send us some
help… but “come down.” Don’t be angry with us. Don’t remember how badly we’ve
botched things up. Just come down.
I
love this about Advent too, that we can dare to ask for the outrageous. Think
about it. Why should God be bothered with us? Why shouldn’t God just start
over, as with Noah and his family? Why shouldn’t God just begin again, as with
Abraham and Sarah? Maybe God is contemplating just that when
Maybe
2000 years later Jesus is still wondering whether we’ll be any better than the
bungling disciples of the gospel stories?
But
it’s Advent, and we get to pray to God: “Come down.” We get to wonder about
God’s silence, even suggest that God is behaving with indifference to us. It’s
not that we can’t do this other times of the year. Part of being in a relationship
is that you complain when you’re being ignored. So we pray this way whenever
we’re feeling it, but in Advent we do this not for ourselves alone but for the
whole world.
“Consider
we are all your people, says the prophet. I don’t know whether the prophet
intends to include the whole world or just his community of faith, but today,
in Advent, we remind God of this fact on behalf of the whole world of peoples.
“Consider
we are all your people.” We get to pray this on behalf of the victims of violence,
the underserved children at risk, the impoverished refugee, as well as those
who are losing their struggle with addiction and their families, our unemployed
friends and their families, a grieving parent and a bullied daughter.
“Consider
we are all your people.” We get to pray this for a world that has become
obsessed with things as status symbols, with climbing the social ladder, and
the acquisition of wealth as well as for the self-righteous, the spoiler of
celebration, and the self-appointed critic of curmudgeons.
“Consider
we are all your people.” We pray this not just to God, but we say it to
ourselves as well. It reminds us of our common bond even in the midst of
conflict and controversy. It reminds us that God loves our enemy as well as
ourselves. It reminds us that we ask God to speak to all of us a word of hope
whether we are into the wonderful season… or not.
“Consider
we are all your people.” This prayer prepares us to welcome the holy child… to
the world. It reminds us and calls us to look forward to the coming of the holy
child who is Jesus. And it calls us to see children who are in our world, the
vulnerable of our world as holy and sacred to God. We welcome the holy child
and the child as holy and in doing so we understand that God has come down and
desires to be present throughout creation. It is the world that is the focus of
our concern and it is to the world that we pray for God to come near, because
it is in the world that we make our way through life, and it is to the world
that we are bound, for “we are all God’s people.” Come, Lord Jesus… to our
world. Amen.