Epiphany 3B and an Inauguration

I feel as if I'm on a slippery slope--I DO NOT discuss politics from the pulpit. But, how to engage with this week's text--scripture about prophetic voices, a city of individuals offering personal sacrifice for the sake of the whole (the people all wore sack cloth) and the calling to discipleship of two lowly fisherman--in light of our presidential inauguration. As I, again, read President Obama's inaugural address I am struck by the difficult truths he proclaims (a devastated economy, war and the need to take a look at our own priorities) and the responses I am hearing from people who are finally saying that they are willing to personally sacrifice their own creature comforts in order to save our country. It has been a long time since I've heard anyone say that they would willingly give up their own power and advantage for the good of the whole.

Obama invoked the suffering of our forbears and rather than claiming a collective entitlement to power and privilege he reminded us that our own response to suffering sets the stage for the generations to come--we have a price to pay and a responsibility to pay it. It sound to me that we have a leader who has rejected the prosperity Gospel and instead has turned us to God's salvation history. It can no longer be about me, it has to be about us--and on the global stage the us is the whole world. Just as our liberation in scripture comes at a cost so too will our freedom as a country--liberation that comes when we "seize our duties gladly" because we know that in doing so we have been freed from the constraint and worry of protecting our own privilege at the expense of others.

"They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” 10When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it." Time will tell whether we will be willing to turn from the violence in our own hands, time will tell whether we will be willing participants in our own salvation.

I read shortly after the Iraq war that during WWII people planted gardens at home and endured rationing so that the troops would have enough sustenance and during the Iraq war people were encouraged to shop...sackcloth indeed. It makes me wonder how desperate for change people were in Jesus' day that they would willingly give up their livelihoods in order to follow a man who's manner of life posed such a challenge to the communion (er...Rome). I wonder if it is out of desperation and despair that the world is changed...if it is only when we proverbially hit bottom that we are willing to do the hard things it will take to rise up out of the morass and become the people God means us to be? Are we desperate enough that we are willing to help usher in the kingdom of God even when the kingdoms of our own making offer such comfort?

Obama turns to salvation history--and insists that the work has not been completed. In scripture we participate as co-creators in God's salvific action in the world and if we truly believe that "Christ has no hands in this world but ours" than what are our hands doing for Christ in the world? This sermon is not an endorsement for a party or president--it is an endorsement for a God who calls us to action in the world. It is an endorsement for the scriptural truths running through a speech. It is an endorsement for the hard truth that we must participate in our own salvation and that we cannot take the journey alone. Obama is not the messiah...but he is a beloved child of God. We are followers of Christ--but as people in this place and in this world--how will we participate in and bear witness to the kingdom of God?

A Response to the Stable

As I read this last post, I realized that perhaps it's less about having ventured too far from the stable and more about only seeing the stable to the exclusion of seeing God's presence in other ways and places. A dear friend just sent me the book The Fourth King which is a children's book detailing the adventures of a fourth magi who in his journey to the stable keeps getting sidetracked by people (especially children) in need. He completely misses seeing the scene at the stable but without knowing it has saved Christ's life again and again through his interventions. Perhaps this is why people are so comfortable with the nativity tableau--it doesn't challenge us to act upon or even to see the suffering that exists around us. We like to see beautiful things and it is disturbing, uncomfortable and inconvenient to go out of our way to act when the uglier parts of life confront us. So, I challenge each of us to begin to see the world as the stable and in doing so realize that the star has brought us here. What gifts do we bring?

An Oratorio and I-Thou

The following passage from Auden's "Christmas Oratorio" reverberated with me considering my last posting: "Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It." This, all too fleeting, moment of such clarity that we no longer objectify each other, that moment when we see as God calls us to see and we note that we are indeed beloved Christ bearers. Buber, my favorite theologian and author of I-Thou, writes that it in these moments of clarity that we can encounter the divine--when we stop seeing "it" and start seeing "Thou". The relationship between the self and the other in an I-Thou relationship is dynamic and mutual. It is a relationship in which we can truly live into our baptismal covenant to "seek and serve Christ in all persons". I think of this moment of clarity as being similar to those moments when we stop seeing the glass and start seeing the beauty of God (and our ability to facilitate that beauty) as we gaze upon stained glass windows. Perhaps we have ventured too far from the stable (about 3,000 square feet too far--or more)and need to look for the star that will guide us back to our truer selves.

The conclusion of Auden's "Christmas Oratorio".

III

Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes --
Some have got broken -- and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week --
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted -- quite unsuccessfully --
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry
And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten
The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.
For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment
We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;
Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.
And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,
We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit
Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose
Would be some great suffering. So, once we have met the Son,
We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father;
"Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake."
They will come, all right, don't worry; probably in a form
That we do not expect, and certainly with a force
More dreadful than we can imagine. In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance. The happy morning is over,
The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:
When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing
Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure
A silence that is neither for nor against her faith
That God's Will will be done, That, in spite of her prayers,
God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.

IV

CHORUS

He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.