17When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. (Luke 1:17-20)
Writing a Christmas sermon is not easy. Everyone knows the story. They have heard it all before, or at least enough of it to have said, Yep, I know what its all about. It’s a story about a baby, some shepherds and their reindeers, a funny old fellow called Santa Claws, presents and a star. I know its got something to do with chimneys, kissing under the mistletoe, three wise women from the east and a docile donkey, no midwife and only a cows’ feed trough for a bed. It’s about Christmas specials, turkeys and prawns, snow and beach cricket, a big lunch and an afternoon siesta, a boat race to Tasmania and beating the Indians at the MCG. Yep, that’s what Christmas is all about.
Really? You sure?
Christmas is also about boat people looking for a better life, refugees on Christmas Island (appropriately named), people mourning a loved one, no money to feed empty tummies, needless wars in far off lands, too much alcohol, car accidents, politicians and their platitudes, and more.
Really? Is that all?
Well no, that’s not all.
Christmas is about hope, gift, presence, love, mystery in the midst of the ordinariness of life. When, as a child, I asked my father what he wanted for Christmas he would say, “A jam tin with a hole in the bottom.” A funny thing to say. A jam tin with both ends cut out is kind of useless really. You can’t put anything in it, you can’t cover anything up with it, it is useless.
Or was he saying something else about the essence of Christmas – was he saying that it is much more than a tangible item, it is a gift that is too big to grasp and contain, to hold and to keep for yourself. It is more than something you can lock down and put a lid on. The essence of Christmas is beyond definition, beyond theological or philosophical argument, it is the presence of the Spirit in the midst of life.
The shepherds are keeping watch over their flocks – sitting around a campfire as the sheep sat around them, their night - time stillness was disturbed by a mysterious vision of angels announcing the birth of the Messiah. Now that was disturbing, for no one ever told shepherds anything – they were so much the outcasts that people barely spoke to them. Yet it is to them that the birth of the Messiah is announced. And not an announcement about a king born in a fancy palace, but a baby born in the shed put aside for the farm animals at the back of a house of lodgings – called a pub – in a non-descript country village far from the halls of power and authority.
This so intrigued the shepherds that they went down to have a look. Interestingly no-one stayed behind to watch the sheep. Why? Well, because of the racket caused by the angels, I suggest the sheep had scattered far and wide and they would have to go looking the next day to round them up. Can’t do that of a night.
So down they go and find it all as the angels had told them, and they are amazed and rush off back to share their story with anyone and everyone who would listen. They were excited.
Now, the key player in all this, Mary, responds differently. She has just given birth to a healthy baby boy, a boy she has been previously informed is the saviour of the world. I am sure she was happy, happy to have given birth in circumstances that were primitive, even for the time, and survived the ordeal and happy for the special honour this particular birth was. Yet she and Joseph don’t seem to be cracking open the champagne and passing out the cigars. They seem to be quietly watching this extraordinary event unfold around them, the birth, the gathering of the shepherds and their encounter with the angels, the visit from the locals, the strange star overhead, and the back story which preceded this event.
Luke captures their mood when he says:” 19But Mary treasured all these words (and experiences) and pondered them in her heart.”
For Mary and Joseph this event was so mysterious, so indescribable, so awe-inspiring that it was beyond their understanding at that very moment. Neither understood what this all meant, no could they, but they simply didn’t dismiss it all as some sort of myth or hallucination, but pondered, reflected, contemplated it all, allowing the Spirit of God to reveal it, as and when appropriate.
On this, the night before Christmas, let us take into our hearts the story of the birth of Jesus, the coming of the Christ, the Messiah, the one with us in this world and reflect upon it’s innocence, it’s love, it’s depth and it’s call to us, who once were outcasts, to open our lives and share it with all, regardless of who they are. Let us reflect on the gift God gives us and remember that all gifts, given and received this Christmas, are only symbols of the gift of love found in Christ.
Let us reflect on the incarnation or coming amongst of Christ and be mindful of how we are amongst those we share this world with.
Let us reflect on the fragility of that small baby who relied so much on others for life and know how fragile our lives are and how much we rely on others for our daily existence.
The story of Christmas has become a little confused in the modern retelling, or should I say, reselling of it; yet the foundational story has not changed. It is about the gift of life and the power of that gift to unbalance our complacency and cause us to ‘ponder on all these words and experiences within our heart”.
The challenge, as we move to the Eucharist and the festivities of Christmas day, is to celebrate the gift or life and live mindful of that gift everyday. Like my father’s jam tin with the a hole in it, Christmas is a gift we can never contain and it will go on revealing itself to us for the rest of our life, if we ponder on it in our hearts.
Showing posts with label Babylon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Babylon. Show all posts
Friday, 23 December 2011
Friday, 5 March 2010
Who Feeds Us?
We live in a society built on the ideology of scarcity. What, you might think, is he talking about? Never has there been so much available to us, never has there been so many choices for us to consume. According to Choices Magazine there are more than 80 different brands and types of milk, some 23+ washing powders and over 14 coffee brands on your supermarket shelf.
In terms of banks, mortgage providers and finance brokers the choice is now much more than the big 4. Buying a car is a mire of maker choice and then, if you happen to find the make you want, there are up to a dozen or more choices of model and style. And I haven’t even thought of nail polish and hair colour!
Yet we live wedded to the ideology of scarcity. Enough is never enough to satisfy us. The issue, according to theologian Walter Brueggemann, is whether there is enough to go around - enough food, water, shelter, space. An ideology of scarcity says no, there’s not enough, so hold on to what you have.
An ideology of abundance is just the opposite and is often the ideology of those deemed the poorest in our society. Appearances notwithstanding, there is enough to go around, so long as each of us only takes what we need.
It has always interested me that when I spend time with families who are indeed poor, the willingness to share what little they have, to turn what seems to be a meager supply of food into a banquet of exquisite quality and quantity is overwhelming. There is always enough.
And food and table play a great part in the abundant life. Having grown up in an extensive extended family with 21 aunts and uncles and their partners and their children meant that family get togethers were massive in terms of numbers and catering. In my childhood none of these families were wealthy but the women involved knew how to make a little go along way and how to produce monumental feasting tables. We would all grab a chair and sit around a long series of trestle tables and eat until we could eat no more.
Conversation and laughter filled the air and where there had been conflict or difficulties they seemed to disappear in the convivial atmosphere. Family remained family despite what may have happened. The covenant was repaired and life moved on.
Isaiah 55 takes the prominent place of food and meals in the Bible as a tool for bonding and belonging, of remembering who you are and whom you belong to:
“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.”
The prophet invited the Israelites, living in exile in Babylon, to come to a lavish meal and receive renewal of covenantal blessings. Isaiah is warning against the very real danger that they would become obligated to or assimilated into the culture of their captors and present benefactors, and adapt to the bread of Babylon. Being assimilated into a foreign way of life and forgetting their roots. Brueggemman again, “Whoever feeds, owns.” Food, he says, comes with a price. “Eat royal bread and think royal thoughts. Eat royal bread and embrace royal thoughts.”
Isaiah reminded the Israelites that who fed them and what they ate were no small matter. Why should they continue with food that did not nourish? The Israelites were a people of different bread, another way, a bread that came as a gift.
In our modern world there are many who offer to feed us; the people we associate with, the ideologies we are exposed to, the pervading culture of consumerism, the idea that God is dead and there are now no rules, that we are special and the centre of our world and more. It is almost inevitable, say the realists, for us to abandon the Greek, Roman and Christian heritage on which western civilization was founded and simply run with the ‘I am god’ pack.
Charles Taylor suggest we have moved from a time and a society in which “belief in God is unchallenged and,…unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace.”
Stanley Hauerwas agrees, ‘the situation we find ourselves in as Christians is at once a threat and an opportunity.’ He continues, and I agree, “For if you believe as I do that there is an inevitable tension between the church and world,then a world in which belief in God is unchallenged may be one in which Christians too readily assume that they can be at home in the world. So the world in which we find ourselves (today) may be one in which we recover the difference a Christian should make.”
The lack of concern for others, the lack of boundaries and moral assumptions in our children’s (and their parent) lives, the inappropriate behaviours of adults and children, the bullying which is rife across all ages and classes, and the simple mantra of ‘if I say it’s ok for me, it’s ok’, the personalism which rules thinking abroad; all challenge those who hold to the Christian ethos.
Thomas Merton, writing in the early-‘60’s, referred to that age as the post-christian age. I suspect we have moved deeper into this age for we are insatiate consumers of Babylon’s bread, even within those bodies and disciplines such as the church, education institutions, the body politic and the arts, previously critical commentators on Babylon and its ways.
In each Eucharistic service the invitation is given to come to a lavish meal, the well set table of Jesus’ body and blood where we renew the new covenant of love set in place by Jesus death and resurrection. We are reminded in this meal of our heritage, for it looks back to the Old Testament covenant God had with Israel, it takes us into the act of love which Jesus gave us in the New Testament covenant, and leads us forward into the eternal relationship we will share with all the saints who have gone before, in heaven.
At this table, just for a few moments we stand in the eternal space, touching the past present and future, and are reminded who feeds us. It is an ideology of abundance, not scarcity, there is sufficient for all our needs no matter how the circumstances and the voices of this world may suggest otherwise.
It is a theology of difference, for the body and blood of Jesus welcomes us into a new way of seeing the world and puts us firmly in the place of tension, the space-in-between this world and its appetites and the kingdom of God – there but not yet.
We are not fed by this world and we are called to remain true to the One who feeds us. That is the meaning of our dismissal from the table at the end of our service. We are reminded to ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord’, not Babylon.
Isaiah challenges the Israelites to return to the covenant table and be fed. We are challenged to do the same.
In terms of banks, mortgage providers and finance brokers the choice is now much more than the big 4. Buying a car is a mire of maker choice and then, if you happen to find the make you want, there are up to a dozen or more choices of model and style. And I haven’t even thought of nail polish and hair colour!
Yet we live wedded to the ideology of scarcity. Enough is never enough to satisfy us. The issue, according to theologian Walter Brueggemann, is whether there is enough to go around - enough food, water, shelter, space. An ideology of scarcity says no, there’s not enough, so hold on to what you have.
An ideology of abundance is just the opposite and is often the ideology of those deemed the poorest in our society. Appearances notwithstanding, there is enough to go around, so long as each of us only takes what we need.
It has always interested me that when I spend time with families who are indeed poor, the willingness to share what little they have, to turn what seems to be a meager supply of food into a banquet of exquisite quality and quantity is overwhelming. There is always enough.
And food and table play a great part in the abundant life. Having grown up in an extensive extended family with 21 aunts and uncles and their partners and their children meant that family get togethers were massive in terms of numbers and catering. In my childhood none of these families were wealthy but the women involved knew how to make a little go along way and how to produce monumental feasting tables. We would all grab a chair and sit around a long series of trestle tables and eat until we could eat no more.
Conversation and laughter filled the air and where there had been conflict or difficulties they seemed to disappear in the convivial atmosphere. Family remained family despite what may have happened. The covenant was repaired and life moved on.
Isaiah 55 takes the prominent place of food and meals in the Bible as a tool for bonding and belonging, of remembering who you are and whom you belong to:
“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.”
The prophet invited the Israelites, living in exile in Babylon, to come to a lavish meal and receive renewal of covenantal blessings. Isaiah is warning against the very real danger that they would become obligated to or assimilated into the culture of their captors and present benefactors, and adapt to the bread of Babylon. Being assimilated into a foreign way of life and forgetting their roots. Brueggemman again, “Whoever feeds, owns.” Food, he says, comes with a price. “Eat royal bread and think royal thoughts. Eat royal bread and embrace royal thoughts.”
Isaiah reminded the Israelites that who fed them and what they ate were no small matter. Why should they continue with food that did not nourish? The Israelites were a people of different bread, another way, a bread that came as a gift.
In our modern world there are many who offer to feed us; the people we associate with, the ideologies we are exposed to, the pervading culture of consumerism, the idea that God is dead and there are now no rules, that we are special and the centre of our world and more. It is almost inevitable, say the realists, for us to abandon the Greek, Roman and Christian heritage on which western civilization was founded and simply run with the ‘I am god’ pack.
Charles Taylor suggest we have moved from a time and a society in which “belief in God is unchallenged and,…unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace.”
Stanley Hauerwas agrees, ‘the situation we find ourselves in as Christians is at once a threat and an opportunity.’ He continues, and I agree, “For if you believe as I do that there is an inevitable tension between the church and world,then a world in which belief in God is unchallenged may be one in which Christians too readily assume that they can be at home in the world. So the world in which we find ourselves (today) may be one in which we recover the difference a Christian should make.”
The lack of concern for others, the lack of boundaries and moral assumptions in our children’s (and their parent) lives, the inappropriate behaviours of adults and children, the bullying which is rife across all ages and classes, and the simple mantra of ‘if I say it’s ok for me, it’s ok’, the personalism which rules thinking abroad; all challenge those who hold to the Christian ethos.
Thomas Merton, writing in the early-‘60’s, referred to that age as the post-christian age. I suspect we have moved deeper into this age for we are insatiate consumers of Babylon’s bread, even within those bodies and disciplines such as the church, education institutions, the body politic and the arts, previously critical commentators on Babylon and its ways.
In each Eucharistic service the invitation is given to come to a lavish meal, the well set table of Jesus’ body and blood where we renew the new covenant of love set in place by Jesus death and resurrection. We are reminded in this meal of our heritage, for it looks back to the Old Testament covenant God had with Israel, it takes us into the act of love which Jesus gave us in the New Testament covenant, and leads us forward into the eternal relationship we will share with all the saints who have gone before, in heaven.
At this table, just for a few moments we stand in the eternal space, touching the past present and future, and are reminded who feeds us. It is an ideology of abundance, not scarcity, there is sufficient for all our needs no matter how the circumstances and the voices of this world may suggest otherwise.
It is a theology of difference, for the body and blood of Jesus welcomes us into a new way of seeing the world and puts us firmly in the place of tension, the space-in-between this world and its appetites and the kingdom of God – there but not yet.
We are not fed by this world and we are called to remain true to the One who feeds us. That is the meaning of our dismissal from the table at the end of our service. We are reminded to ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord’, not Babylon.
Isaiah challenges the Israelites to return to the covenant table and be fed. We are challenged to do the same.
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