Building a house fit for the messiah, rather than trying to fit the messiah to our house (Sun, Dec 18, 2022)

Focusing

 

The other day I heard Nat King Coles’ version of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”  How lovely and warm.  There’s something about “home for Christmas” that calls to us – appeals to us.  Even if only in our dreams.

 

It makes me think about building a home for Christmas – creating a home in the world where the Word of God, the Light of God feels welcomed, is cared for, and is able to grow for the good of the world.  We’re going to think about that a bit.

 

Reading: Matthew 1:18-25

 

Angels appear a lot in the Bible at significant turning-point moments.  What are angels?  And how do we imagine or experience them?

 

Literally, angels are messengers from God who open our eyes to spiritual realities in a situation that we are in, that we would otherwise not notice, or not give much attention to, or consider worth acting on.  They bring to the surface the deeper meaning of a situation we are in, and thus give us a chance to choose and to act in harmony with God’s good will.

 

In the unfolding of the birth of Jesus, an angel visited, and spoke to Mary in the middle of the day.  An angel also visited, and spoke to Joseph, in the middle of the night.

 

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.  Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

 

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

 

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

 

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

 

Reflection

The angel comes to Joseph in the dark, to tell him to take Mary as his wife, and her child as his to father.

Why?  With Mary on board, and the messiah already coming to life within her why does God need Joseph?

The simple answer is that even God, and even the messiah – for all his necessary sense of homelessness in the world – “the foxes have dens, the birds have nests, but the son of man has not a place to lay his head” – also still needs a home at least at the start to be welcomed into, to be nurtured, and cared for, and to grow as the Word of God and the Light of God for all the world.

And who better to do that, than a carpenter like Joseph?  Master builder of homes for people to gather and have a place to grow? 

Except, the way God needs to engage Joseph is in the dark.  While he is asleep, his defences are down, and the lines are not as clear as they seem in the day.

As a carpenter, Joseph was good at drawing lines.  To build things right and to know they would last, he needed to know where the line was, to cut off the unwanted and un-needed piece, so the rest – the best of the wood, could fit together well.

And Joseph was good at drawing other lines.  A moral man, he studied the lines God seemed to draw between good and bad, and tried hard to follow them to help build the world towards the good.  That’s why when he learned Mary was pregnant and not by him, he could not marry her.  It was wrong.  It was not good for the moral life of the town.  He needed to end the engagement, so ... hating the sin but loving the sinner -- isn't that how it’s put? – he resolved to let Mary go without fuss into a life alone and apart, to live with quietly – but at least to live, with her shame.

 

Until God, through a dream of an angel, directs him to step beyond where he thought the line needed to be drawn.  To think outside the box he had got himself into.  To change the box.  Because ultimately God, the messiah and the light of God for the world cannot be contained in any box we make.

In the news this week, was a story about the Calgary police who twenty years this past Monday raided a gay bathhouse, and arrested a dozen men on morality charges.  In the end, none were found guilty, but to the police and to many in the city, it seemed the right thing to do.  They were drawing a line they thought needed to be drawn to keep the city good and right.

It cast a long, dark shadow on the life of the city, however, and last week on the anniversary of the raid the Calgary police did something they could not have imagined twenty years earlier.  They acknowledged the unjust hurt their actions caused to many in the city.  They formally apologized.  And they backed up their words by acting to expunge the names, the photographs and the fingerprints of the men arrested, from the police files.

It makes me think of the journey of the church into North America.  We came five hundred years ago knowing the truth of God, confident and sure of the difference between true and false, good and bad, Christ and devil.  We built a world here for ourselves and others along the lines that we knew.  And we built a terrible home – at least, a home with some very terrible dysfunctions within it, that has brought great trauma to many within it.  Along with whatever light we shared, we also spawned darkness. 

Thank goodness – thank God, for angels who come to us today in the dark and out of the darkness, to help us see the truth of what has been built – the good but especially also the bad of it, to help lead us on a way towards reconciliation to see God, others and ourselves in new ways, beyond the old lines.  Who help us to step outside the box, to be open to a different way of being together, to combine the best of who we all are, together to build a different kind of home where maybe God and God’s Word can really live and grow more healthily in the world.

It's a big issue, and it's also a small one.  A societal one, and a personal one.  I think of a young woman I know – deeply religious, committed to serving God.  When a dear and close friend of hers applied, and was accepted for MAID -- a medically assisted death, to end her incurable, increasing, and increasingly intolerable suffering on what was really unending life support, she could not accept it.  To her friend, MAID was a deep and meaningful gift of God.  But to this woman it was an offence against God’s will and sovereignty.  It meant crossing a line she deeply believed should not be crossed.

She said she could not allow herself to be with her friend when the time of her passing would come.  But in the darkness of the anguish she felt, what she came to see, as she texted to her friend, is that “it’s not a matter of right and wrong; it’s a question of love” – such a clear echo of something Rumi, a Sufi mystic and poet, came to see in the thirteenth-century:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.  I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.

Simply a coming together in love – love of God and love of neighbour.  Can there be any better house than that to build, to live in, and to welcome others into?  To welcome God into?  Or maybe, let yourself be welcomed into by God?

I can’t help but think of our own mythic story here at Fifty of how our Upper Room came to be.  The room, from the time it was built a hundred years ago, was a big square box, at least as high – even higher, than it was wide.  It was a big space of empty air – kind of cold and unwelcoming.  We wanted to change that, and the plan was to lower the ceiling – put in a false ceiling to close the room in a bit.

The room would still just be a box, of course.  And the false ceiling would have kind of a cold, office-type look.  But it was all we could imagine as long as we were working with only the horizontal and vertical lines we were familiar with.

And it was then, stalled in the darkness of uncertainty that Wes, master carpenter of the congregation, imagined something one night.  Something totally new for our building.   Not a flat, but a chapel- or chalet-style ceiling.  A creation of new diagonal lines leaning in from halfway up two opposing sides, coming together and meeting in the middle near the top.  With skylights as well cut into each new sloping ceiling, to keep letting the light in from each side.  It was perfect.

A space where opposite sides have a chance to rise up equally towards the heavens, and meet somewhere in the middle.  With light coming in from each side.

Sounds like a good dream to have, and to wake up with, and wake up to.  Sounds like a good kind of home to build, and a good kind of world to help create.  The kind of world where God and God’s word, where the messiah and the light of the world maybe can feel at home, and grow for the good of us all. 

 

Can you imagine Jesus being born anywhere else than a stable? (Sun, Dec 11, 2022)

Focusing

 

There’s a lot of sorrow in the world – in our lives and in the lives of others, both near and far away.  In the midst of this, what does it mean to say to anyone – especially someone in a bad time, or facing something hard in their life – what does it mean to say, “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year”?

 

Is Christmas a way of escaping the hard stuff for a few days?  Or does Christmas tell us something hopeful we need to know about the bad times and the hard things in life?

 

Scripture Reading:  Isaiah 35:1-10

In today’s reading, the prophet Isaiah is speaking to the people at a very difficult time.   Their kingdom is in ruins.  Over many generations, they have suffered from corrupt rulers.  Many people are trapped in cycles of poverty and disadvantage.  There is constant fighting between factions, for control and advantage. Faith in God has been degenerating for some time.  And now the Assyrians – an empire to the east, are knocking at the door, and the prophet knows they are an easy target.

The invaders will destroy everything, and the people themselves – those who have anything to offer, will be taken away to live in exile in the service of the Assyrian Empire.  To the people of Israel, having everything taken from them will be like being back in the desert.  Except this time, it will seem there is nothing ahead for them to look forward to.  This time, they will fear there’s no more promised land on the far side of it.  Into this dark and fearful time, Isaiah speaks these words of faith and hope.  

The desert will rejoice,
    and flowers will bloom in the wastelands.
The desert will sing and shout for joy;
    it will be as beautiful as the Lebanon Mountains
    and as fertile as the fields of Carmel and Sharon.
Everyone will see the Lord's splendor,
    see the Lord’s greatness and power.

 

Give strength to hands that are tired
    and to knees that tremble with weakness.
Tell everyone who is discouraged,
    “Be strong and don't be afraid!
    God is coming to your rescue …”

 

The blind will be able to see,
    and the deaf will hear.
The lame will leap and dance,
    and those who cannot speak will shout for joy.
Streams of water will flow through the desert;
    the burning sand will become a lake,
    and dry land will be filled with springs.
Where jackals used to live,
    marsh grass and reeds will grow.

 

There will be a highway there,
    called “The Road of Holiness.”
… Those whom the Lord has rescued
    will travel home by that road.
They will reach Jerusalem with gladness,
    singing and shouting for joy.
They will be happy forever,
    forever free from sorrow and grief.

 

Reflection

 

What a wonderfully hopeful and encouraging reading.

 

“The desert will rejoice, 

and flowers will bloom in the wastelands.

The desert will sing and shout for joy; 

it will be as beautiful as the mountains of Lebanon.

… There will be a highway there called ‘The Way of Holiness.’

Sinners and fools will not find their way there,

but those whom the Lord redeems 

will travel home by that road.

They will reach Jerusalem with gladness, 

singing and shouting for joy.”

 

In the prayer book I’ve been using for morning prayer for the past year or so, the final blessing that sends me on my way for the day, is this:

 

“May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever he may send you.

May he guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm.

May he bring you home rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you.

May he bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.”

 

Every time I read that blessing – still, no matter how many times I have read it, I get caught by those lines, and have to think about them anew each day: “may he guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm.”  And by the affirmation that this is precisely “[where] he may send you” as the way to finding your way back home – back to where and how and with him you really need to be.

 

I think of all the wildernesses and storms we face.  On a personal level, sickness and weakness.  Bereavement and grief.  Loss and sorrow.  Break-ups and break-downs. 

 

On a global level, the pandemic and all its fallout in our economic and social systems, the breakdown of the old normal in so many ways and in so many areas of life, a future that seems more violent, more bleak, more conflicted and more fearful than we expected.

 

And how are we to think about these things as people of faith, and of openness to God in all things?

 

Are the “bad” and hard things that happen in life, things that we as God’s people shouldn’t have to suffer, and that God – if he is God, saves us from having to suffer, and rescues us from if we do? 

 

Or do the “bad” and hard things in life, just happen to us all in some way – because that’s part of what life is, part of this great project of life and that God – if we really let him be God as he desires to be God for us, helps us face it, and embrace it, and grow in some way in love of Go and love of neighbour because of it? 

 

The people of Israel, when they suffered the loss of their kingdom, the loss of the temple and the holy city, the loss of their economy and culture and life as God’ people in the world, felt like they were back in the wilderness and the desert that they had come from.

 

It seemed like a calamity and the end of the world.  And in some ways, it was.

 

It seemed like a terrible punishment and a terrible price to have to pay.  And in some ways, it was.

 

It was something they wished God would save them and insulate them from, something against which God would give them a safe and comfortable shelter, something that God would keep them from having to suffer along with other, less chosen people.  But it wasn’t.

 

Instead, the prophet says, it’s in the desert that new life will come.  It’s in the wilderness that new things will bloom for you and come to life in you, and be signs to you and to others of the love of God at work in the world as it is. 

 

It's in the hard times and in the storms that your eyes and ears will be able to see and to hear new things, your legs will walk in new places and your hands reach out in new ways, and your voice will learn to praise God in new ways and for new kinds of things.  And as you move beyond the old normal – now broken and irretrievable, you will find in the chaos of the new normal, the pieces you need for a new and truer life – the things you need to grow a little more towards who and how you are really meant to be.

 

Every Christmas, I try to find a Christmas book to give to the grandkids – a single Christmas book of some kind for the whole family to read – or have read to them, together.  Spoiler alert! This year’s book is “A Northern Nativity” by William Kurelek.

 

William Kurelek was a Canadian painter and writer who died in 1977 at the age of 50, and who through his lifetime painted many series of pictures based on Christian themes and images.  “A Northern Nativity” is a series of a dozen or more paintings that portray the birth of Jesus if it were to happen today in Canada.  In the paintings, Christ is shown being born to Mary and Joseph to Inuit, to other First Nations, to blacks, to poor and marginalized people of all kinds, and in the settings that today are equivalent to a borrowed stable in an unfamiliar place – places like a city mission, a grain barn, a country schoolhouse, a boxcar on a railway siding, a poor fisherman’s shack.  

 

It's a moving meditation on who and where Jesus is in the world, and where we are called to meet him, if we are really to know and love him.

 

And what I think needs to be said, is that William Kurelek – the creator of these deeply sacred images, was himself a troubled person – one step out of mainstream normality.  He suffered depression and mental illness, spent time in an institution, was largely unrecognized through much of his life, was not successful in the way the world measures success.

 

But as the prophet says, sometimes it’s the desert and not just the well-tended garden that is the place where God’s joy is known, and it’s in the wasteland not just in the greenhouse that the flowers we most need, will bloom.

 

I don’t know what this means for you.  For me, it has meant being attentive and open to the places of sorrow and grief that I suffer myself or encounter in others, not running from them or trying to escape them, but intentionally spending time in those kinds of places, and letting God lead me through them to where, and what and how I am really meant to be.  To let the bad and hard things I and others suffer, help me grow in openness to God and in genuine love of all others around me. 

 

In other words, to grow in love of God and of neighbour, because isn’t that how and where we are meant to be?  Isn’t that what it means to come home to our selves and to God?