 Protecting the
Reason for the Season
A
Sermon preached at St. Luke's Church
by The Rev. Anne E. Hodges-Copple
on the Third Sunday of Advent, 11 December 2005
Some powerful Christian organizations are
alleging that the greeting “Merry Christmas” is an endangered species.
And the words “Happy Holidays?” Well, stores and organizations who
allow this greeting either verbally or in print, are actually part of a
cleverly disguised attempt to suppress the visibility and viability of
Christianity. Huh. And here I thought it was just a way to acknowledge
people in addition to Christians who have reasons for finding this a
time of year for generous giving, welcoming of family and friends and
looking up from the darkness of present circumstances in hopes of a
brighter future. Who knew?
Some Christian groups are going to so far as to
organize boycotts against stores which are perceived as not giving
Christianity its rightful dominance in the end of the fiscal year
marketplace madness. Apparently, it is urgent that
the consumer power of Christians be brought to bear upon Target
and Wal-Mart so that we may see, hear and learn from merchandisers the
real reason for the season……
So in addition to fighting wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq, wars to bring democracy, religious freedom and tolerance to parts
of the world where Christians are a tiny and some times persecuted
minority, some want to wage a battle here at home to make sure
Christmas is the dominant reason for the shopping season.
Personally, I find it hard to muster all that much
sense of outrage that Baby Jesus and the Holy Family have been turned
away from their proper accommodations in the warmth and the
welcome of the superstore at the shopping strip.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t need Target to
tell me the reason for my Christmas season. Yes, I do
resist saying Merry Christmas to anyone right now because it is not yet
Christmas! (Though I have to admit I don’t really have a good Advent
greeting.) But this does not dampen my unapologetic and unabashed
public displays of affection for Jesus Christ. I’ll buy religious
Christmas stamps at the Post Office. Every five to ten years when
we send cards, they are always religious and I am more than happy to
let my non-Christian friends know my own faith in word and action and
exchange of greetings.
Each of us in our own way has to make a
separate peace with the tension that grows between celebrating the gift
of life from Jesus Christ and how we go about sharing that gift with
others There is no way to avoid the internal and external
tensions created by spending huge sums of money on things people may or
may not need while others suffer terrible deprivations, all because we
still haven’t figured out how to love our families, let alone our
neighbors, let alone our enemies.
It just never occurred to me that more
exploitation of the word Christmas by merchants could help us out of
our sinful mess. I knew that store owners depend upon our compulsive
buying for their economic salvation, I just didn’t know Christianity
depended upon them for our religious salvation.
I thought you and I were the ones to go
tell it on the mountain, not GAP, Circuit City and JC Penny’s.
But if I do need to be reminded of the reason for
the season I don’t think I’ll be consulting the greeters at Wal-Mart,
friendly and helpful as they are. And I don’t think I’ll ask Jerry
Falwell, or Bill O’Reilly, Stephen Colbert or the honorary chairperson
of this year’s Christmas Parade. I’d rather turn to scripture and the
lectionary for advice on how and where to look, watch, wait and prepare
for the light of Christ
The reason for the Advent season starts with
listening to the prophets. Before we ask what would Jesus do; before we
ask “where is Jesus today” we should ask “What would the prophets
say?”
The prophets are the ones who notice that something
is up; the people have gotten distracted, disobedient and God is about
to take dire action.
The words of the prophets get us ready to recognize
God’s presence among us and to hear and trust God’s promise that every
thing; everything will be changed.
Prophets like Isaiah and John the Baptist like to
start by giving us a stern warning: God is about to act in a decisive
way and the situation may look like it is getting worse before it gets
better.
Often the warning is alarming, telling us that we are not
the people we should be and God’s pretty upset about it. Advent reminds
us that there is a day of judgment, a day of God’s wrath, a time when
we will be held accountable.
Prophets also call us to repentance. If we, the
sinful and disobedient people repent and demonstrate a conversion of
life this raises two related possibilities: one, that God may not
banish us to an inner circle of hell or into exile, and, two,
because our eyes have been opened, we will be invited to enjoy a good
life that God would really rather bring to us.
So the words of the prophets are more than doom and
gloom and admonishments. The prophets also offer
encouragement. The prophets also remind us to rejoice even when
God’s promises have not come to complete realization. That’s is why
today we light the pink candle on the Advent wreath. The prophets also
invite us to lighten up and rejoice!
In last week’s reading we had a lovely sampling of
encouragement from the 40th chapter of Isaiah:
Comfort,
O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak
tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that she has
served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has
received from the LORD's hand
double for all her sins.
In this week’s reading from Isaiah, the words of encouragement are to
those who have been suffering terrible injustices and deprivations.
The
spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent
me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim
liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim
the year of the LORD's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
The book of Isaiah says the Anointed One, a human agent
sent by God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, will lift up the
downtrodden, and allow them to become agents and actors in their own
restoration.
The
Anointed one will take the most broken hearted people and
“to give them a garland
instead of ashes,
the oil of
gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be
called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD, to display his glory.
They shall
build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall
repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.
Such encouragement is necessary because it is sometimes hard to see and
continue to believe that God is working all this out. For one thing,
God’s sense of timing is quite different from our own. God can appear
to our way of thinking to be taking a long and winding road in a hidden
forest instead of one of those straight paths through the dessert.
Another reason the prophets offer encouragement and
hope and trust is that God is sometimes so hard to recognize.
The Pharisees sent the priests and the Levites out
into the wilderness of Judea to check out John the Baptist. These
religious authorities knew their scriptures and knew that God would
send the Messiah, the Son of David, to free them from the oppression of
the Romans. They wondered about John the Baptist who was clearly acting
in the manner of the prophets. Was he the one they had been waiting for?
When asked by the religious authorities he admitted
that he was not the Messiah.
He knew who they were looking for, and told them, “I
am not the Messiah. I am not Elijah. But I am preparing the way of the
LORD.” Then the Baptizer tells his questioners something very
striking: “Among you stands one you do not know; the one who is
coming after me…. And I myself have seen and testify that this is the
Son of God.”
Among you stands one you do not know.
Do we still to this day have trouble recognizing the
presence of Jesus in our lives?
Do we still to this day, have difficulty
understanding his words, following his teachings, obeying his call?
Of course. We are still in many ways a people who
sit in darkness while among us stands one we do not know or care to
recognize.
Well, guess what? Isaiah gave us a big hint about
where to look for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Where are people trying to bring good news to the oppressed in the name
of God? Where are people trying to bind up the broken hearted in
the name of God? Where are people working for cancellation and
renegotiation of crippling debt which is part of the Biblical
description of the year of the Lord’s favor, the jubilee year in the
name of God.
Guess what scripture Jesus chose for his first
sermon in his hometown congregation Nazareth? He reads this very
passage from Isaiah “The spirit of the Lord is upon me; he has sent me
to bring good news to the oppressed.” Then, when all the eyes were upon
him, he tells them “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your
hearing.” In other words he is beginning to let people know that he is
the one they and we have been waiting for.
Of course the hometown crowd will have none of it:
Who does he think he is! They know who he is. He is Joseph’s son. They
think they know. But they don’t know the whole picture.
Jesus is hard enough to understand in scripture, in
the Eucharist and in his own community, that is, within our own parish
family. Jesus still today comes among us as one we do not completely
know or recognize, or understand.
In other words – mystery! And mysteries are
wonderful and holy and can’t be fully understood.
But he does stand among us! He does stand with us.
When life gets really, really dark we don’t have to see or
understand everything around us. We don’t have to know for
certain everything that is ahead of us. We only need to follow
the light that will lead the way. We just have to have the
patient perseverance to follow the light of Christ. And he, in his own
time and in his own way, will show us the way and the truth.
Amen.
|