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Only A Dream

Fourth Sunday of Advent  |  Matthew 1:18-25

In which Joseph dreams about an angel…Snow Path 001

Most of us would claim, if pressed, that should an angel appear to us and tell us what the Lord wanted us to do, then we would certainly follow the Lord’s bidding. In the meantime, if we somehow miss the mark, it is that we are unclear on just what it is that we ought to do.

Joseph, according to the story, was visited by an angel, and the angel told Joseph exactly what was going on and what to do. And of course Joseph did it. After all, there is no great difficulty knowing what to do when an angel comes and tells you, and any sensible person would do just as the angel said.

Joseph had learned that Mary, his bride to be, was already pregnant. We don’t know how that conversation went, but we may imagine that it was a bit awkward. We do find Joseph to be a thoughtful and kind fellow: while he was certainly not foolish enough to marry such a woman, neither would he add to her disgrace. He determined to break off the engagement quietly.

One might consider for a moment that the story does not, strictly speaking, say that Joseph saw an angel. In fact, the story says that Joseph dreamed about seeing an angel, which is not quite the same thing. If in broad and waking daylight an angel appears and tells you things, full of light and sound and actual presence, that would be difficult to rationalize away. If you only dream about an angel, well then, one begins to wonder.

If Joseph were very sensible, knowing how the world works and where babies come from, then he would have awakened that morning, shook his head, and muttered to himself that it was only a dream. Then he would have carried out his plan to break his engagement with Mary, gone and married some other woman, and he and what’s-her-name could have made a good life together. That would have been the sensible thing to do.

Following his dream, listening to the words he thought an angel whispered while he was sleeping, that was foolish. Ask any sensible person who knew Joseph.

Oh, that is right: we don’t know any of the people who thought Joseph was foolish. Their names are lost, and their lives are not remembered.

We do remember Joseph. He was brave enough to act on his dream. He was kind enough, loving enough, faithful enough to consider that God was at work in the midst of what appeared to be an untenable situation.

In the end, Joseph simply chose to believe that God was speaking to him. When Joseph made his choice, he did not have lights and trumpets and scrolls handed to him. He did not even have a proper vision, some waking encounter with God that someone else could, at least, observe and confirm in some way, if only to tell Joseph that he did, in fact, sort of blank out there for a few minutes. No, all Joseph had to go on was a dream.

And so Joseph made the best choice he could, despite the fact that well meaning and otherwise intelligent people were telling him he was wrong. He made his choice without certainty, and as he watched his wife’s belly grow, he must occasionally have wondered whether he had done something foolish.

In the end, Joseph knew that he had made the right choice. Just when things were going so badly that his new wife was giving birth in a rented stable, not even in a decent house, and they were so far from home that their nearest family member was a donkey, suddenly there were angels aplenty that everyone could see. And there were wise men coming from who knew where bringing gifts, pretty good ones.

By then, it may be that Joseph did not need angels and wise men to tell him he had made the right choice. Long before Bethlehem, and even if the child were to have been quite normal and unremarkable, he may have looked at Mary and known that he would love her and the child regardless. He had made his choice with what good sense he had, the love in his heart, and faith that God is in our choices and our dreams.

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Mary

Third Sunday of Advent  |  Luke 1:46-55

For the third Sunday of Advent this year, the lectionary offers an alternative to the Psalm reading: one may substitute Luke 1:46-55, called the Magnificat from the opening word of the Latin translation.Mary and Joseph 001

The Magnificat is a beautiful passage. Many scholars believe that it was an early Christian hymn, worked masterfully into the Gospel of Luke. Few would argue that Mary herself actually spoke these words. Still, the early church accepted not only that these words of praise offer truths about God but also that these words offer genuine insight into the mind and heart of Mary, whether she spoke them or not. It should not worry us. Many of the truest stories never actually happened.

Mary the mother of Jesus is adored in most of Christianity, particularly within Roman Catholicism and Orthodox faith. Sometimes, to the eyes of some other Christians, it appears that she is even worshiped.

It is not so in the plainest traditions of Protestant Christianity. Among Protestants, Mary is seldom discussed. Oh, she has a role in the story of the Christmas Child, but Mary herself is given little role in the Protestant pursuit of Christianity. It would seldom, if ever, enter the mind of a Baptist to call upon Mary, or any of the other saints, for help. Most of these Christians would explain that such a focus upon anyone other than God is unseemly at best, perhaps not even Christian, and that such attention given to Mary borders upon idolatry.

I suggest that the truth may be simpler: we do not like to think about things that unsettle us.

How does that apply to Mary, one might ask?

Well, for one thing, to think about Mary at any length leads one to think about the great portions of the life of Christ about which we know nothing at all. What was he like as a child? Did he get bruises and scrapes? Did he forget things, do his chores, have any chores? What did Mary and Joseph do with the gold, frankincense, and myrrh? Did they set up a trust fund for the child?

There’s more. What was it like, in the first days of what turned out much later to be the first century AD, to be pregnant and unmarried (at least for a while, till Joseph came along)? What did Joseph really think about the whole thing? How long did the neighbors gossip about it and count on their fingers the months from the wedding to the birth? What happened to Joseph, and how long did Mary live after he was gone?

What about the brothers and sisters of Jesus? What were family gatherings like?

What was it like to watch Jesus die? What did she think when she heard the report of the empty tomb? Why did Mary, if the tradition is true, go to stay with the apostle John?

Did Mary write any of it down? What would that story sound like, and would you like to read that Gospel?

How much did Mary understand? And how little do we understand about her?

Here’s an Advent challenge for us, particularly for those unacquainted with meditating on Mary the mother of Jesus: this season, from time to time, pause to think about the Christmas story unfolding through the life of Mary.

We do know that whatever happened in those days, Mary was at the beginning of it, and we are told that she treasured all these things in her heart. (Luke 2:19, 51) Let us also ponder that first Christmas season and treasure it. Remember Mary, and see Christmas through the eyes of the mother of Jesus.

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Breathe a Word

Second Sunday in Advent  |  Isaiah 11:1-10

Falls In The Rocks

…The wolf also shall lie down with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them…They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

The words are famous. It is strange how some words affect us, stay with us. Sometimes we have heard words so often that we are unable to hear them any longer because we are sure we know what they mean.

Take the messianic image in verse 4: with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.

Most of us hear these words and we think of overwhelming power. Yet the prophet is telling us about the power of words themselves, power in the breath of God, in a whisper.

Jesus did not live up to expectations. He taught, he touched, he brought healing to sick people, and he only occasionally became angry. The kingdom of God was ushered in with quiet words and humble grace. No lightning, no hellfire.

I want to change things directly by the use of power. Like most of us, I wish I had more power to apply to the world around me. Yet, the imposition of power only reinforces its object, hardens it, like steel in a forge or diamonds under the crushing weight of the earth.

God waits, watching the world change little by little by the choices of single souls. It is like the power of water to carve rocks, fluid and seemingly soft and ultimately irresistible.

When we want change, the world tells us to scream and to shove, to force our will on those around us.

God does not scream. God is whispering.

This season why not try the way of greater power: a quiet word, a gentle response. We may find that we are acting with the power of God.

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The Christmas Thief

First Sunday of Advent  |  Matthew 24:36-44

Advent this year marks not only the beginning of the liturgical calendar but also the beginning of year A in the Revised Standard Lectionary. The Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Advent is Matthew 24:36-44.

Flying.JPGThe passage is full of familiar images, most of all the image of a thief coming in the night. We do not know when the Lord will come, we are told, and so we are urged to remain awake and vigilant.

There is something extremely odd about the point of view here. Jesus, the Messiah, is telling the listener about expecting the coming of Jesus, the Messiah. We understand, with two thousand years of hindsight, that he was talking about a second coming, a return, a moment in which God would not only be made manifest within history, as with the first incarnation, but would break into and change history. At least that is more or less the mainstream view of this passage and of others similar to it. There are other views within Christianity, including the idea that God is already present, that the second coming followed directly on the first: the Spirit came like a thief, unexpected, unlooked for.

We might consider some other ideas that flow from the passage.

Generally, the second coming of the Messiah is described by much of evangelical Christianity as an event that the whole world will experience all at once. The clouds will part, and Christ will return. In the meanwhile, let’s consider another more immediate way of thinking about it—that the second coming could be experienced as a very personal event, internal, spiritual. We understand that we do not know at what hour Jesus will return for all of us. Could it be that Jesus is also saying that we do not know at what hour God will come to each of us?

Think about the possibilities.

Instead of looking for an experience of clouds, trumpets and angels, suppose we begin to expect some spiritual event, unforeseen in its shape and scope, some moment of sudden personal contact with God. Suppose we expect it each day and each night, every day and every night, over and over. Might not such an expectation move us from being one spectator among millions one day to being a soul participating each day with God in a sudden God-moment? Might not that be life changing?

Consider the very intentional image of God coming as a thief. We take from it the idea of God appearing at an unforeseen moment. What if there is another reason that Jesus chose to use the image of the thief? Yes, a thief is unexpected, or even if expected, still surprising in the chosen moment. There is something else that a thief does, something that is more intrinsic to the reality of a thief: a thief takes something. A thief is not a thief without a theft.

What does God want?

We might say worship, but in the end that answer trivializes God into a child-like being who simply wants our attention. Besides, true adoration cannot be taken, but only given. We might say love, but God is already love, if John understood anything at all. What then might God want from us?

What do we want from our children? Love? Obedience? Those are good things, but if we love our children as God loves us, then what we want is to see them grow, to see them achieve, to see them become the people we know they can be. We want to steal away anything that would hold them back.

So what would God steal?

One answer may be that God comes to take away the things that make us stumble, the things that limit our humanity: our fears, our regrets, our failures. There are some who call such things sin. It makes no difference to the thief what they are called. This thief comes to take away some of the things we hold most dear: our small ideas, our limited apprehension, our uncommitted embrace of life and of God.

Perhaps God wants to finish what God started, to steal a moment with a child who has finally grown up. God, our Christmas Thief, wants to take away the last impediments to our amazing life.

The best part? We don’t know when it will happen. So stay awake. Pay attention. Expect God to show up any time.

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A Subtle Shift

Memory is a tricky thing. Long after an event, we are left with our memories of it. Tree Book TreeMore to the point, we are left with our memories of the details, what people did or did not do, what certain people said or perhaps left unsaid. The past is gone, but our understanding of it is very much alive, growing, changing.

The same is true of stories. That is what memories are, in a way, a collage of imprinted and recorded actions, words and feelings that have been formed into a narrative in our minds, our story. Though we think the past has happened, in our minds it is still happening. The past never stops changing.

Take one of the most famous of stories, Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. It may be no one knows just how old the story is. The final written form, so far as the scriptural version is concerned, was recorded centuries ago, all the bits jotted down. Yet, it keeps changing.

Ask anyone familiar with the story, and that includes many people who think that they really are not, and each person will tell you a slightly different version. Among those who are familiar with the story, you will hear something more fascinating: they will add something to it.

Take the serpent, who in later retelling becomes the devil. It isn’t the devil in the original story. It is just a wily serpent, a wild animal, more crafty than any other, but an animal, one who talks. We shouldn’t be surprised that the serpent talks. After all, a little later in the story, God is walking like a human being would walk in the garden.

The point is that there is a subtle shift between what we actually read and what we say is in the story, just as there is a subtle shift in our memories between what happened and what we remember. What we remember is not what happened. That may be for the better. We may remember difficult events in the past through the filter of forgiveness, or simply with more perspective, and without even knowing that we are doing it. That shift may be a blessing, sometimes a very great one.

The same kind of subtle shift in the stories that form us can likewise be a blessing, bringing more meaning and substance to our understandings. The shift can also be a curse, undermining our ability to hear what the stories are really telling us.

Eve and Adam reached a point when they ate the forbidden fruit. No actual apples are mentioned, not really, and nobody in the garden says anything about sin, original or otherwise. They reached a point when they gained self awareness and a sense of moral conscience. Interestingly, in our own lives we call that moment maturity, not the Fall.

Likewise, there may be something older and simpler even in the written form of the story itself, something before the shift, so to speak. God tells the woman that she shall have children, though it will also bring pain. God tells Adam that he shall work, and that it will be difficult, but that his work will feed him and his family. Later, all three things, awareness of our mortality and childbirth and work, begin to be called consequences and curses by theologians.

I suggest we might consider a slightly different shift, one that may be more helpful in our lives. Just as the human race at large, an eon ago, gained a sense of mortality and of morality and of self awareness, each of us as individuals go through the same process. Once we embrace our own mortality and step out of the garden of our youth, we find two things that will sustain us and that will remain after us: our children and our work. Neither is a curse. Our understanding and appreciation of each flows from our maturity. Neither our children nor our work depend upon sin, original or otherwise. Neither are consequences of our flaws; instead, each is a means to reach beyond our flaws and our limitations.

Our family and our work, that is what we have. We may also want to allow another subtle shift: our family may be more than our biological relatives, and our work is more than our job. We have the people near us, and we have the work we do around, among and sometimes despite them. Whether these things are blessings or curses will depend on our point of view, our memories, and all our subtle shifts.