Re-Thinking the “Wonders” of Christmas

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 A Christmas Requiem for Sandy Hook

Unidentified icon of Madonna and the Child; and the Crucified Christ

Note:  this Christmas Commentary is written in the context of the holiday observance, and as a requiem for the slaughter of the innocents at a place now known to us all as Sandy Hook. A pdf version to read and/or print is here.

Prelude

In July, 1933, singer-songwriter John Jacob Niles found himself in the small Appalachian town of Murphy, North Carolina. He came across a gathering of evangelicals who’d been run out of town by the local police.  He watched as a young girl, whose name was Annie Morgan, stepped up the edge of a small platform attached to a vehicle. As he would later recollect in his autobiography:

“She began to sing. Her clothes were unbelievable dirty and ragged, and she, too, was unwashed. Her ash-blond hair hung down in long skeins…. But, best of all, she was beautiful, and in her untutored way, she could sing. She smiled as she sang, smiled rather sadly, and sang only a single line of a song.”

As she sang, repeating the line over and over, additional lines of a verse and the fragments of an extended melody came to Niles.

Later, Niles would add the two additional stanzas, to become the familiar American Christmas carol. But at the heart of the rather mournful and haunting tune the puzzling question remains. Why — despite popular Christianity’s doctrinaire explanations — was a Galilean peasant child’s fate was sealed even before he drew his first breath? Was the only reason for the birth of Mary and Joseph’s child — God’s greatest gift and blessing to them — simply so he could die a miserable death; and somehow thereby make up for all the wretchedness in folks like you and me?

And what was Jesus’ consolation? That he is not only the sacrificial Lamb of God, but is God’s “son,” and somehow even God “himself?”  But if that is so, then isn’t he not only the very incarnation of God, but the abdication of all those absolutes (those “omni-everythings”) we like to attribute to God, as well?  After all, “if he’d wanted for any wee thing,” as the song goes, “he surely could have had it,” if he was the king.

Like little Annie Morgan, I wonder as I wander, about such nonsense.

I wonder: Since Jesus came into this world, just as every child of every mother and father comes into this world, then did he come with the same reason we came, as children of God; with that same spark of divinity that, in him, became a living light to this ornery, dark and shabby world?

And, if he were to come again, bearing the likeness of God, would he really come merely to judge this sorry world; simply to determine who would supposedly inherit the next? Or instead, bearing the light and likeness of God, is it up to us to instead hear his voice, follow where he has already led us, and transform the only world there is?

I wonder if we ought to reconsider another way to the manger, and rethink what kind of Christmas we ought to not only eagerly expect, pray and hope for most especially this year; but be as midwives to its birthing, as well?

I wonder if we ought to reconsider another way to the manger, and rethink what kind of Christmas we ought to not only eagerly expect, pray and hope for most especially this year; but be as midwives to its birthing, as well?

Given those recent events at Sandy Hook that can’t help but muffle the merriment of the Christmas season, we might do well to re-think the harsher realities of the original Christmas tale that has been retold again this season as such a stark and sober reckoning.

 A Wonder-Full Christmas?

A week after the onslaught of this year’s Black Friday’s kick-off to the national holiday shopping frenzy, the Rhode Island governor’s office announced at 11:31 AM on November 29^th that the annual tree-lighting ceremony would be held twenty nine minutes later, at high noon in the state capitol building.

The reason for the short notice was meant to pre-empt a repeat of last year’s disruption, when protesters objected to Gov. Chafee’s generic reference to the “Holiday Tree,” instead of the more traditional term “Christmas Tree.”  While the Gov said he himself would have a Christmas tree in his own home, he believed a more inclusive term was appropriate for the government building shared by people of all faiths, or no faith whatsoever.

In response to the sparsely attended event, the state’s leading Roman Catholic hierarch, Bishop Thomas Tobin, suggested the “Gov” should instead have respected the “heartfelt sentiments of the vast majority of Rhode Islanders” by calling the 17-ft high spruce a Christmas tree. Never mind the inconvenient fact such holiday décor is utterly pagan in origin, I guess. But such is just one of the many  “wonders of Christmas” this year. So it got me wondering what other puzzlement could be found?

One thing I apparently won’t have to wonder and worry so much about is what I might get for Christmas. If my beloved fails to come through, happy retailers report the rising popularity of a recent trend known as “self-gifting.”  For every present I buy someone else, I’m encouraged to go ahead and pamper myself with another gift for lil’ ‘ol me. After all, whether I’ve been ornery or nice, apparently I deserve it.

And, if I have buyer’s remorse over any of my trinkets and bobbles, there’s always the now well-established modern tradition of “re-gifting.” If I were to draw your name in the Secret Santa gift exchange, for instance, I could unload some of the stuff I neither want or need.

Bedrock Christianity and Bedrock Americana

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[You can read and/or print a pdf version of this commentary here.]

Bedrock Christianity and Americana

A Precarious Reflection for the Thanksgiving Holiday, 2012

By John Bennison

Above: “Seaside with the Sermon of Christ” – Bruegel, late 17th century. Note what looks like “Pilgrim” dress!

 

Preface

 The presidential election is history, and you’d like to think we ought to be able to move on and enjoy the holidays; followed by that creeping encroachment of the  traditional mass consumer spending spree, to the delight of retailers. But the debate over one of the most contentious issues remains unresolved; namely, the federal deficit / budget crisis, the battle over new revenues (taxes) and a looming “fiscal cliff.”

The day after the election, the Speaker of the House of Representatives delivered a speech, meant to re-establish his political party’s position on such matters.  In his remarks, he alluded to scripture, perhaps with whatever seal of approval that might provide:

“In the New Testament, a parable is told of two men,” he reflected.  “One built his house on sand; the other built his house on rock. The foundation of our country’s economy – the rock of our economy – has always been small businesses in the private sector.”

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the “rock” to which that little scriptural illustration was referring was Jesus’ ethical teachings; based on an unconventional and (as it turned out) unpopular form of radical egalitarianism.

The use of an analogy for the two types of foundations for anyone who would undertake to construct their life was well known and used in the ancient Near East. But the New Testament employs it specifically to conclude that section commonly known as the Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew 7) or Sermon on the Plain (in Luke 6). And, that particular “rock” had little to do with keeping one’s fiscal house in order, taxes to Caesar, the entrepreneurial spirit, or the free enterprise system.

That bedrock of Jesus’ teaching did however have implications as to how we might order our lives in society; in closer alignment with what those scriptures depict as something more akin to what the divine had in mind. As well as how we ought to treat one another, without vacuous pretence or self-embellishment.

The last Words and Ways commentary explored how we might reconcile our very human motivations of gratitude, generosity, sufficiency, abundance and excessive concern for self.  As a Thanksgiving holiday reflection that customarily takes stock of our bounty and abundance, this commentary explores what is clearly the precariousness of our lives, in light of the bedrock of what we call our Christian faith.

 

The Precariousness of All Things, and the Impermanence of God

 

“Rock of Ages cleft for me

Let me hide myself in thee.”

Hymnist Augustus Montague Toplady, 1763

 Legend has it that Rev. Augustus Montague Toplady, an itinerant English preacher, was inspired to write the old Christian hymn of personal salvation, when he was caught in a nasty storm and sought refuge in a rocky crag in the Mendip Hills of England. It wasn’t the first, nor last, time mortals sought a form of divine protection and favor for refuge and repose that was touted to be as sure and firm a foundation as rock.

That’s what religion is often purported to promise; something – indeed, sometimes anything — of permanence to which one can cling; when the ground beneath our feet begins to shift, and the old reliable pillars we’ve constructed can no longer support the weight of the pressures brought to bear upon them.

This could certainly include those outmoded human institutions and belief structures (religious, social, political, economic, etc) that bear little resemblance to present-day realities.  In a “religious” context, when all else fails, the prophets and soothsayers call us to turn (or return) from what is retrospectively regarded as our wayward ways in exchange for another covenant, or “grand bargain.”

When we do so, we want to believe if there remains at least one constant, amidst the uncertainties of life.  God – or, at least our notions of who, or what, God is — should be that one certain anchor and rock. After all, isn’t that how we typically try to define the divine, as all-knowing, all-powerful, all-everything we want “Him” to be?

The seeming contradiction we find in our own biblical tradition, however, is a kind of divine dynamic contradiction, when it comes to making our images and imaginings of God as one who is inanimate, unchanging and permanent. And it becomes clearly problematic when we seek to construct some sort of bedrock of faith.

The Affliction of Affluence

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We all know the story of Tevye the poor peasant, who dreams of another life; with his own particular list of those things that constitute what would make him a wealthy man.  For him, it includes ducks, chickens, turkeys and geese, a wife with a proper double chin, a big house all the neighbors would envy, and all the time in the world to discuss holy books with learned men.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES: Jerusalem, Now and When?

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[You can print and read a pdf version of this commentar here.]

The story is told of an old man who’d been visiting the Western Wall (otherwise known as the Wailing Wall) in Jerusalem for many years. Turning his face to this last remaining ruin of the ancient Jewish temple in the Old City, he would nod his head repeatedly, while reciting the same silent prayer over and over again.

One day a reporter approached the man and asked how he felt, given the current state of affairs. “How does it feel?” the old man replied. “It feels like I’ve been knocking my head against a brick wall.”

We know all too well the ongoing dispute between Israelis and Palestinians in the divided city of Jerusalem; where a 26’ high security barrier made of solid concrete partitions the city, as part of a 430-mile long physical barrier being constructed along the West Bank.

But it is not simply a global hotspot of international tension and conflict. In the context of a shared biblical tradition and the three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) both the old Western Wall and the new concrete barrier stand as powerful and sobering symbols for the hope, struggle and failure of humankind to build the kind of city where all can not only dwell, but abide one another, as well.

Both the old Western Wall and the new concrete barrier stand as powerful and sobering symbols for the hope, struggle and failure of humankind to build the kind of city where all can not only dwell, but abide one another, as well.

Above: Guard towers along the 26′ high concrete security barrier. Right: the ancient Wailing Wall of the old temple in Jerusalem.

Both the old Western Wall and the new concrete barrier stand as powerful and sobering symbols for the hope, struggle and failure of humankind to build the kind of city where all can not only dwell, but abide one another, as well.

Historically, by one calculation, the city of Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured then recaptured 44 times. Since this is the repeated past and present reality, one might well ask when and how might things ever be any different?

Biblically-speaking, it’s déjà-vu, all over again

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you murder the prophets and stone those sent to you! How often I wanted to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. Can’t you see your house is being abandoned as a ruin? … Yes take a good look at all this! I swear to you, you may be sure not one stone will be left on top of another! Every last one will certainly be knocked down!” [Matthew 23:37-24:2]

 The Jesus character in Matthew’s gospel reportedly once wept over Jerusalem, but such weeping was hardly new. The Wailing Wall has a long, repeated history. Composed after the fact, this gospel passage retrospectively foretells the destruction (once again) of Jerusalem; this time by the Romans in 70 CE. The historical Jesus, of course, was executed by the Romans decades earlier.

This is why it is essential to read the canonical gospels — written decades after Jesus’ life and death – in the light of the geo-political-religious framework of the “earthly” Jerusalem that had once again just been laid waste; followed by this subsequent era of apocalyptic/messianic expectation amongst the Jewish peasant class.

Consequently, in addition to the prediction of the temple’s destruction, Matthew’s Jesus does not simply predict his own demise. He recites, as well, what would have been recognized by his listeners as that literary motif commonly known as an oracle of lament. It is representative of a much, much earlier collection of sayings, which can be found in the Book of Lamentations in the Jewish scriptures. Those ancient oracles expressed the very same sorrow. Except in that case, it was over the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians nearly six hundred years before the time of Jesus.

If anything was different this time around, it was an attempt within the early gospel traditions to not only comprehend what could have once again be razed to the ground; but what could also somehow be raised up again, once and for all. For early first-century believers of an emerging Christian faith, Isaiah’s ancient prophecy could be appropriated, and finally realized:

The Tower of Babble: Giving Voice to Intolerance in an Age of Pluralism

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You can also print and read a pdf copy  here.

Left: Building the Tower of Babel, ca 1200, Duomo di Monreale, Sicily

Win, Lose or Draw? Jesus’ Way of Confounding the Trophy-centric Ways of this World

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Jesus’ Way of Confounding the Trophy-centric

Ways of this World

[Print and/or read a pdf copy of this Commentary here.]

                                                Spanish poet Antonio Machado

Preface

At the Olympic trials recently held in Eugene, Oregon, sprinters Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh tied for third place in the women’s 100-meter race.  Even a high-speed camera that can capture 3,000 frames per second was unable to determine a conclusive winner.  It seems they were both winners and losers.

The racing world was totally flummoxed and had no provision amidst all their rules and regulations how to handle such a situation. Never before had they been unable to determine the difference between a winner and loser.  A draw simply wasn’t acceptable, since only one of them could go on to further compete with the American team. A tiebreaker would be required either by a run-off, or a capricious coin toss.

In the trophy-centric world in which we live there’s little alternative to either yet more competition, or allowing pure chance to decide the matter. Clearly it seems, winners win, losers lose, and there’s certainly no such thing as winning by losing.

The previous Words & Ways commentary explored a foolish kind of confounding wisdom once espoused by the Galilean sage through his teaching, through the parables he told, and even the absurdity that seemed inherently present in so many of the so-called miracles he wrought.  [See The Foolishness of Jesus] It is this same Jesus tradition that also proposes such counter-cultural notions that one can “win by losing,” (Mk 8:35, and five other variations in the canonical gospels), and the “first shall be last”  (Mt 19:30, 20:16).

Yet we seem to live in a time and place where we are repeatedly cajoled into believing it’s all a race of truly Olympic proportions; with the constant assurance we can all be winners if only we’re the one who – given the opportunity — just tries a little harder than everyone else to get ahead.

If you stop and think about it for just a moment, that’s a puzzling equation, at best. Yet even in religious matters, righteousness can often seem a sanctimonious competition sometimes, and even salvation a prize to be won. Jesus had something to say about such perceived winners who have already received their “rewards.” (Matt 6)

“I have finished the race,” says the writer of II Timothy (4:7). “I have kept the faith.”  Yet how much of it is about some crown of everlasting glory and victory in it all? How much of it is instead about a kind of humility that might slow you down in an other-centered kind of way; even if it costs you the race and the humiliation of losing?

Everyone knows the fabled race of the plodding tortoise, who perseveres and reaches the finish line ahead of the swift-footed, self-confident and prideful hare.  Conventional wisdom would suggest that cautionary tale alone should at least suffice to challenge our easy presumptions about how to tell a winner from a loser.  But what if there’s a little of each in each of us?  Winner and loser?

If we can’t all be winners all the time, then what is there to say about all of us occasional losers? For surely anyone who has lived long enough to number our days has known some very real, sometimes very painful loss.  What do we do with those other contestants we find in this human race that just happen to be among the “last and least” among us? (Mt. 28)

Is there anything, or anyone, for whom we might be willing to drop out of the race? And by doing so, how could we possibly come in first?

Winners and Losers

“Those who try to win their life will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it.”  Luke 17:33

My mate and I play games all the time. Not mental games, mind you. I know her well enough to usually know what she’s thinking, so I can usually fill in the blanks on her behalf if necessary. And she can read me like a book.

I mean board games, where I keep score, and she routinely questions my arithmetic skills. She’s fairly good-natured about losing; which is fortunate, since she loses more often than she wins.  But if there was a trophy for good sportsmanship, she’d win hands down.

At the same time, we both know that out there in what is often perceived as the real world, gamesmanship is serious business. The competition is fierce, winning or losing is the name of the game, and it’s a blood sport.

There are unwritten rules and commonly expected prizes when it comes to winning. They are the accepted norms and values by which we most often collectively measure who are the winners, and who are the losers: more money, the most toys, fame, fortune, success, etc.

And there are also established rules by which you’re allowed to win, as long as everyone plays by the same rules; which deludes the populace into believing it’s a level playing field. Mitt Romney is a howling success story when it comes to winning.  Bernie Madoff was once considered a big winner too. But now, as it turns out, he’s one of the biggest losers; serving a jail sentence so long it’d take him several lifetimes to even crawl his way back to the starting line.

This post-modern, high-stakes world in which we live still perpetuates the basic ways in which we’ve always defined and separated the winners from the losers. Everyone loves a winner. One of the most popular reality shows on television is The Biggest Loser, where the winner is the one who has lost the most. Poundage, that is. It seems to be the only way we seem to be able to get our heads around the idea of winning by losing.