ADVENT 4 - B

MARY HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY

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My girls have a little Christmas book that came with a tree decoration we put up in their room. At the back of the book are a few carols, one of which I have not sung very often, and had all but forgotten about: “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”

I knew from literature courses in university that this was an older poem – but I was reading the lyrics and thinking to myself how appropriate they sounded. Listen for a second just to three verses:

I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head

“There is no peace on earth,” I said,

“For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With peace on earth, good will to men.”

Pretty interesting is it not, that we live in an era when war and disaster loom large all around us, when many people want to say that God is dead and that there is no hope. And yet...

Do you know where that song comes from? It is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was written shortly after his wife burned to death in an accidental fire; shortly after his son returned from war a cripple; all near the end of the America Civil War, Christmas 1864.

But that is nothing. A little over 4000 years ago our prophet, Malachi, was bemoaning the fact that God seemed very absent in light of Babylonian Military invasion, and yet we should have hope.

Some 2000 years later Mary and Elizabeth are wondering about the wisdom of bringing forth sons in Roman occupied Palestine.

I don’t want to seem all doom and gloom a few days before we all celebrate – but hey, this is over 5000 years of anecdotal evidence that life pretty much is not what we would expect it to be.

Having a child is a pretty interesting case study in just how easy it is to forget the good things. I don’t mean, having a child and watching them grow up, I mean physically having a child. Now clearly I am speaking from observation here – but I think pregnancy goes pretty much like this:

We should have kids – wouldn’t that be nice?

I’m Pregnant! (tears of joy, relief, buying baby booties)

Why did you do this to me?

Get this thing out of me!

We tend to forget that the characters in the Bible are real life flesh and blood people. So I think Mary has gone long enough that by the time she goes to see Elizabeth a lot of the original joy and happiness has been replaced by the pain, sore back, morning sickness, lack of sleep, and the fact that Joseph is off with all his carpentry things and not picking up the slack.

What started out as hope and enthusiasm has turned to worry and fear.

This is not just a pregnancy thing, this is a human thing. You start school with such bright eyed optimism, you become a doctor because you are going to heal people, or a lawyer to reform the world, and there comes a point where the pain, the cynicism, the utter reality of life dulls that optimism and you wonder why you should bother.

Another war, another story – remember the Christmas Eve story from the trenches of World War One, when some anonymous German soldier began to sing Stille Nacht...

It started at the battle of Flanders where the two sides were dug into trenches and fighting bitterly. The Germans actually went so far as to put up Christmas trees with candles. As the story has been told, it was the German side that started the truce. Many of them spoke English, while few of the allied soldiers spoke German.

They put up signs that said “you no fight – we no fight” and “Merry Christmas”... eventually someone was brave enough to stand up and test things – and no one fired. Then they made their way into no man’s land and each side buried their dead. After that the truce lasted a few days; gifts were exchanged and the soldiers played soccer together. Unfortunately, it didn’t last. Still....

One song, one night, was enough to reach into the gloom of World War One and restore some of that hope that seemed lost.

It takes something to reach into the darkness that pervades our souls. We cannot do it alone. Even mary had grown weary and worried, frightened for what might become of her baby. It took Elizabeth, and the joyous meeting of two unborn children who seemed somehow to recognize each other to break the spell, and remind them what a miracle childbirth and new life is.

It took Church Bells on Christmas Eve to make Longfellow remember that his pain and struggle did not have the last word.

The trick is to allow these moments of revelation to seep into our soul and revive our hope and spirit. Remember, no matter what is happening in your life, there is hope. That is the miracle of the magnificat, that is what Mary finds the courage to sing about, that is the point of a Christmas Carol penned in the midst of war:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With peace on earth, good will to men.”

LINKS THAT I SPOKE OF

Hi All.... this week in church I spoke of a site to rank yourself against the world...

here is the link:
www.globalrichlist.com

Advent 2 - C "Preparing the Way"

Last week I was talking with some friends who were debating about how they would decorate for Christmas this year. Would they go about it simply or use all the decorations they have?

What about you? Are you going all out or cutting back?

You know what the real problem with Christmas is? We are already busy. My house is filled with stuff, every shelf and corner has something on it... my calendar is usually booked solid whether it is May, October, or December... So where do we fit Christmas?

I think this is an actual real practical question that most of us face...

When we begin to decorate, boxes are pulled out from the attic, the basement, a closet or maybe from all these places. And there is a lot of fun, a lot of nostalgia, as you decorate the house. But in order to find a place to put them, we also have to rearrange some of the things that are already out there taking up space in our homes.

I for one, wish I could get some extra time during the month of December. I want to slow things down, just a little. What I find often happens is that I come to the Christmas Eve service and once it is over, I find myself saying, ok now I am ready for Advent to begin.

But the world doesn't stop for Advent & Christmas. Even though we are supposed to be finding more time for family and friends, many have to work extra shifts and we all have to keep doing the usual things that keep our lives running.

And what about gifts? Shopping this year is a real challenge. The economic times we live in make it difficult to set a budget let alone stick to it, after all, when things have been tough, we want to try and make people feel better with the gifts we give. So this year we have to look a little harder, make a little more time and effort.

Now, I hope you can also see that this is a metaphor for something else...

It is not just the house and the schedule that is already filled to the brim come December, I think we have a lot of un-cluttering of our “selves” to do as well to get ready for Christmas.
Consider two of the most famous groups of visitors in the Christmas season; the Wise Men and the Shepherds. They are the role models for how to get this right.

The Wise Men gave up the comfort of home, they set aside everything they were doing as princes and astrologers and made the journey to see this promised king. They brought the best gifts they could think of – ones that meant something to Jesus.

The Shepherds did the same; left the sheep in the field, followed the summons of some strange
heavenly music, and found themselves standing in awe at the sight of a little baby.

John the Baptist, who speaks out in our Gospel today, was one of the most colorful characters in all of history what with his fashion sense and diet. And his marketing techniques weren't the best either. He went out into the wilderness, away from the city, away from the crowds, to attract a great crowd. He seemed almost determined to fail. Despite all of this, Matthew tells us that people from all over the region were flocking to hear this message.

It was, for the record, the same message that had summoned Wise Men and Shepherds.
What John did was to take a moment in history that everyone had read about and could remember, the Exile in Babylon, and use the same words that Isaiah had used to talk about captivity and occupation by the Romans.

His message was simple - comfort will come to God's people, in the wilderness, in exile; a way will be prepared for the Lord. In a time of feeling lost, like in a game of hide and seek, we are assured that God will find us. But that doesn’t mean that there is nothing for us to do to make it easier...

As you look at your plans for the holidays, have you been so busy making sure that you do what you think everyone expects of you that you have not have left a little time to spend some quality time with those you love? Maybe a friend or loved one needs “you” more than the gift you will spend hours trying to find. Is it possible that having a smile on our face may be more important than perfecting the decorations in our home or getting everything done on schedule?

I think John’s challenge to us is a constant one. It is too bad that it only comes up once a year, but it is as good a place to start as any. Preparing a way means being willing to ask some tough questions and make some hard decisions. It means trying to let go of things that divert your focus from what really matters.

So where do we start?

Think with me for a moment of some of the clutter that could possibly fill our hearts and minds, think about how these things can drain our hope and diminish our energy.

There are the regrets of things we did not do in the past or things we wished we had done. There are fears of not doing the right thing, or of how we will be viewed by others. There is the grasping for things to bring meaning, for toys and shiny things that in the end always dissapoint; and there is the way we close ourselves off, for whatever reason, from each other.

Advent comes each year with a challenge... Advent comes only after John has been out there in the desert calling for us to repent... and here is what he is really saying:

Surrender.

Let go of all those things that are just not helping to get you to Christmas in the right way. Prepare the way of the Lord – make enough room in your life, and in your heart, that God has a way to be born in there again.

Once again John uses the ancient words of Isaiah to show us the way forward: Every valley shall be filled and every mountain brought low. Those valleys or low places in our lives, such as worry or grief or doubt, and they can be filled with an awareness of the very presence of the living Christ. The mountains we must deal with in our hearts include pride, prejudice, fear, and selfishness. When these are brought low, we can see a greater horizon; we can see the way of the Lord.

The Gospel also calls for us to make the crooked places straight. We are challenged to confront those things in our lives that lure us away, push back the trivial that fill our minds and hearts and seek God's ways. We are being invited to clarify our choices and take the steps needed in order to live our lives as ones who follow Christ.

And we are told to make the rough ways smooth. In our lives, this may mean for us to forgive those who have hurt us, to refuse to allow what has happened to you to control your life. We need to make sure there is enough time for those that we care about. This means looking at how we live, examining, challenging those things that clutter our hearts. Then we will find the way more open.

As we approach Christmas, let each of us see beyond the clutter of living to the hope that was born so many years ago in Bethlehem. The invitation is for us to find a way for God to be in our days and our hearts.

Free your life from the clutter that has cut you off from the real meaning of this season, and let the love of God be born once more in your heart. Amen.

Advent One - "On The Threshold"

{My apologies to everyone for the fall - due to personal issues I was not working and not updating - I will change that forthwith...}


A Sermon for the First of Advent using the first and last lines of the Lectionary as bookends...

“The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land...”

The days are surely coming....

My youngest brother is returning this week from Korea. He has been there for about 14 months, teaching English with his girlfriend. He is bringing me a Buddha statue for my desk.

During a conversation about this he said, “Buddhism is not so much a religion as a way of life, a way of living...”

When I heard this it immediately sounded wrong – Buddhism is not a religion because it is a way of living... is that not what Christianity is, a way of living? There are far too many people out there who think it is all about believing certain things, all about praying a certain way, (all about coming to church on a Sunday.... )and has nothing to do with the way we live our lives.

Curious that almost every story of the Bible is about how we live, not about what we think.

When we are told that God will fulfill the promises made to our ancestors, made to Abraham, and to Isaac, made to David and to us, as their descendants, we are told that God will cause someone to rise up who will execute justice and righteousness in the land...

The Messiah, the messenger of God, is going to come and remind us how we are supposed to live. Not how to pray, not how we can get into heaven, not who God is, but how we can live.

Think about what you know about the stories of Jesus... Nichodemus came and asked how to get into heaven and Jesus said it is simple.... be born again... and Nichodemus said, “What?” and Jesus never does explain it any further.

The disciples kept on asking over and over how to pray and at one point Jesus gets frustrated and tells them the Lord’s prayer... but that is it... just one universal prayer...

In fact, Jesus never really does argue theology or ecclesiology... he never talks about how we should build churches or who can and cannot preach in them...

Instead, Jesus says over and over and over and over... God is love. God is righteousness. God is action.

Forgive each other, take care of the widow, don’t throw the first stone, pick up Samaritans on the side of the road, heal those who are hurt, welcome outsiders into your family, feed the hungry...

Here is why we have a hard time with all of this. Jesus coming means we have to change. It still does.

My favourite social philosopher of all time is Charles Dickens. If you know him for nothing else, you know him for the character he created, called Ebenezer Scrooge.

Dickens was a messiah of sorts.

He came into Victorian England at a time when everyone thought they were good and Christian and following God... but in fact there were terrible things happening in society with orphanage, slavery, workhouses, poverty and the like.

Dickens England was probably the worst possible place to live unless you were the Aristocracy.

Dickens was raised as an Anglican; he eventually converted the Unitarian Church because of its broader message. His first career was as a Law Clerk... think Bob Crachit in a Christmas Carol. In the evenings he taught himself shorthand in order to escape and become a reporter, then one of England’s most successful novelists.

Dickens's religious beliefs were those of most 19th century British Unitarians. In his will he urged his children to adopt a liberal, tolerant, and non-sectarian interpretation of Christianity, "the teaching of the New Testament in its broad spirit." He recommended they "put no faith in any man's narrow construction" of isolated passages. In The Life of Our Lord, written for his children and not published until 1934, Dickens summarized his faith as "to do good always." He believed humanity, created in the image of the divine, retained a seed of good. He preached the gospel of the second chance. The world would be a better place if, with a change of heart, people were to treat others with kindness and generosity.

In 1843, while he was most active at Little Portland Street chapel, Dickens created the first and greatest of his Christmas books, A Christmas Carol. Around this time Christmas Day was again beginning to be celebrated and the holiday transformed. The story and its characters—Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Crachit and Tiny Tim—defined the holiday's meaning for the English-speaking world as the regenerative spirit of generosity, or what Dickens called his "Carol philosophy." The heart of Dickens's social criticism and his religious message is found in A Christmas Carol.

Here is one of the most memorable quotes from a speech that Scrooge’s cousin berates Scrooge with: “But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round ... as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

Dickens’s was following in Jesus’ footsteps, challenging the way church and state had come to define what was good, what was right, what we were ‘supposed’ to be like. For Charles, people were meant to be kind and generous, righteous and good.

He was one of those voices calling from the wilderness and reminding us that things are about to change – the days are surely coming.

And this is the message of Advent, the message of Christmas, the Message of Scrooge and of Santa. This is what Rudolph and his Island of misfit toys are all about; this is what Frosty and the magic hat is all about... The message is that we can find a different way, God’s way, of love and generosity and hope.

We are preparing for Christmas – the beginning of the message that Jesus came to bring into the world to share with us – and that message is all about a way of living...

Ebenezer Scrooge needed three ghosts to come and point out all of his weaknesses and misunderstandings. Perhaps it is easier for us, we merely need to listen to the stories, to be reminded of the reason for the season. We need to be on guard for the spirit of Goodwill that surrounds this holy season and begins each church year.

The world is not what it is meant to be, and the days are surely coming when we will realize this, or, as the Gospels put it:

“...Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”