Month: December 2016

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about where Mary and Joseph would be right now in the Christmas story.  Somewhere around Samaria, I think.  It’s easy to forget that for Mary and Joseph Advent didn’t last for four weeks but for nine months.

Their Christmas preparations didn’t start when the tree went up and the radio started playing Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree around-the-clock.  Nor did they really know when Christmas would actually arrive.  There was no calendar with 25 days of doors, behind each one a piece of tasty chocolate, just enough to hold them over as they counted down to the Big Day, which was sure to be merry and bright.

No, for Mary and Joseph these days—these same days you and I are currently living out—were marked by a journey of a hundred miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem.  Mary was so pregnant that she couldn’t remember what it felt like to not be pregnant.  It had been a year since the Angel Gabriel told her she would conceive and bear a son.  What strange words those were to Mary.  Conceive.  Her.  A virgin.  How inconceivable.  Yet there was not just a little bit of joy…and fear…and shame.  Joseph felt it too.  He had spent a whole night tossing and turning in bed, and in his head.  He knew he’d have to dismiss her.  Dismiss her or stone her.  And he loved her too greatly to ever do that.

Then he had a dream in which his own angel told him, “Joseph, do not be afraid to marry Mary, for her baby is from the Holy Spirit.”  But who was ever going to believe that?  When Mary starts to show, who was going to believe it was God’s doing?  Mary the Infidel they would call her.  And then they’d kill her.  So Joseph married her, not because he believed in dreams or angels necessarily, but because he believed in doing the right thing, which is to protect the vulnerable.

I don’t know what direction you’re heading in today.  The Gospel Writer Luke says that it was right around now when Mary and Joseph had to leave Nazareth to go to Bethlehem.  They’d be somewhere near Samaria today.  Mary needs a comfy spot to put her feet up.  What she’s doing being trounced about on the back of a camel, 50 miles from anywhere, God only knows.

I have traveled the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem before, passing through Samaria.  As in the days of Mary and Joseph, the people who live there look like they belong without knowing where or how.  They are among the most vulnerable.  They pay taxes to a government that is not their own and dream of a day when God will conceive in them something miraculous.

I don’t know what direction you’re heading in today.  I find that my own protective instincts are strong right now.  I feel myself wanting to stay close to home, to hold tightly to the things that make me comfortable and safe.  I want my lights, my services, my radio station just the way I like them.  May we not fail to remember, though, that somewhere out there is Mary and Joseph, vulnerable and unprotected.  And they are the ones who will bring Christmas to pass.

 

This is what the inside of my mailbox has looked like almost every day now for a month.  I imagine yours has looked pretty similar.  Stacks of flyers and magazines, announcing the coming of Christmas.  In our house my children like to flip through the pages and circle the things they are hoping Santa will bring them.  When you compare this process to, say, going to the grocery store, I figure there is a lot to be said for it.  At the grocery store the things we want can very quickly find their way into the cart and onto the checkout belt.  Sometimes this can happen even without parental or spousal consent.  “No dear, I did not intend to buy the 2-pound bag of M&M’s.  I just turned my back and next thing I knew the kids had done it.  But yes, I did mean to buy the box of Ho Hos.”  There could be little disagreement that circling things in a magazine is far safer, less expensive, and generally speaking, much easier on us.  It doesn’t require us to exercise much restraint or self-discipline.

Go ahead, wish away.  Wish all day.  It doesn’t mean you’re getting it, my mother and probably every mother before her has said.

The thing with wishing is that it doesn’t obligate us to anything except to keep on wishing.  Whether we’re wishing on a star, on the right combination of lottery numbers, on the rain to stop, for the family to get back together, or for peace on earth, the luxury of wishing is that we don’t have to be responsible for actually making any of these things happen.  It’s not that we wouldn’t do our part if we could.  It’s that we have done our part, and still we struggle to make ends meet.  We’ve marched and prayed and volunteered and worked harder than hard to love our enemies, and that includes our own family, but still the rain falls.

We call it a wish because we feel it is out of our hands. If the wish is going to come true it will not be for anything we’ve done.  The stars will have to align.  Someone—or something—else will have to make it happen.  Go ahead, wish away.  Wish all day.  It doesn’t mean you’re getting it, which I take to mean, you just never know, you might get it.

This past Sunday marked the beginning of Advent in the church, the season in which we prepare for what is arriving.  It seems necessary to point out that when preparing for an arrival, be it our own or someone else’s, we don’t all prepare the same way.  This is pretty obvious to us.  When company is coming over to the house, some of us vacuum, some of us figure why bother?  It’s just going to get dirty again.  When you’re heading out to do errands and you hear it might rain, some of us grab a raincoat, others of us take our chances.  When we go to the beach, we sit in the sand, right on the edge of the water where the waves come rolling in.  Some of us laugh and laugh to have the waves run up our legs, to feel the sand filling up our bathing suit.  Others of us wait until the last possible second and then get up and run, never letting the water get too close.

In the case of Advent what we are preparing for of course is the arrival of Emmanuel, God-With-Us.  Now I don’t know what type of person you are when it comes to preparing for arrivals.  In this season we will once again hear the story of Mary.  When the angel Gabriel told her that she was favored by God, that she would conceive and give birth to a son who would be called the Most High, whose throne would last forever, Mary said, “How can this be since I am a virgin, least among women?”

“Because God is with you,” Gabriel tells her.  “In the power of the Holy Spirit God is with you even now.”

What does Mary do next to prepare for the baby’s arrival?  No, she doesn’t pick up the latest edition of What to Expect When You’re Expecting.  She doesn’t stock up on diapers.  She runs off to find her cousin Elizabeth who is old herself and has given up any hope of ever having a child of her own, and Mary tells her, “Elizabeth, if it can happen to me, it can happen to you, too.”  This is one way to prepare for an arrival.  Share the invitation to the party.

On the other hand, when King Herod hears this same news, that a baby is going to be born and he will be called the Most High, something within Herod turns vile.  He prepares by dispatching his henchmen throughout all of Galilee to hunt down and kill every newborn male child.

For both Herod and Mary, the arrival of Emmanuel spells the overturning of power, the raising up of the lowly and the bringing down of the mighty.  As such it exposes all of our longest held presuppositions regarding what power is and what it is not and makes clear that for all we are waiting for, we cannot wait to do our part in making way for God to come and be with us.

And what is our part?  The writer of Matthew’s gospel has a simple admonition for us: Keep watch.  For you do not know, you do not know when your Lord will come.  So keep watch.

But where should we keep watch?  And when?  And how?  And who?  Like Mary and Herod, do we need to go somewhere, to see someone?

Like it or not, the answer is as difficult as it is easy.  This is how it will go when the Son of Man comes, says Matthew, two people will be out in a field; one will be taken and one will be left.  Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.  People will be eating, drinking, making merry together when suddenly, like the breaking of a levee and the coming of a flood, everything will be up for grabs.  Matthew doesn’t name names.  He gives us no categories by which we can make sense of who will be left behind and who will be taken.  The good go this way, the bad go that way.  There’s none of that.  What is more, we aren’t even told which is better—to be taken or to be left behind.  All we are told is to keep watch right where we are, over the people we are with.  For some of us, this may be easy.  For others, it may be incredibly difficult, especially if we don’t like where we are, or we feel threatened and afraid of those we are with.

This is, however, the only way.  If we want to prepare for the coming of Emmanuel, of God-With-Us, then we’ll have to resist every temptation to bury our heads in the magazines and flyers.  We’ll have keep watch.  We’ll have to go outside and let ourselves be seen and heard as we call the world’s attention to the poor and homeless among us.  We’ll have to look our neighbor in the face—because we don’t know, we don’t know when any of us might be gone—and confess that we have not listened to them well or heard them well because we are white and they are not, or we are poor and they will never know what that’s like.  We’ll have to call out our leaders for playing power games, and do our part to construct a world where the lowly are lifted up and the mighty are humbled.  If we have any hope of meeting Emmanuel as he comes to us this Christmas, this is what we’re going to have to do, because this is what God-With-Us, Jesus himself will be coming to do.

I don’t know what’s on your wish list for this Christmas.  I don’t imagine any of us will be getting any visits from any angels this year, announcing peace on earth.  Look around, though, you just never know.