KING: A BETTER IMAGE OF A PASTOR

Inspiring, admired pulpit orator or street-level change agent?

OUT OF THE PULPIT. Most images of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday the nation observes today, depict the pastor/civil rights leader behind a pulpit or before a great throng of adoring people. But I prefer the more rare pictures of this Christian minister being manhandled, hand-cuffed, or intimidated by local government authorities serving vested, bigoted white interests.


POWER IN THE STREETS. King's witness and power come as much from his stand in the streets with unnamed people with whom he identified and for whom he gave his life as from his pen and pulpit. My favorite photo of King was taken in 1958 in Montgomery, Alabama. In it, sheriffs are twisting the minister’s arm behind his back and forcing his head down onto a counter while his wife, Coretta, looks on. He was arrested for "loitering"; the charge was later changed to "failure to obey an officer."


PASTOR [GASP!] ARRESTED. This image of King and others like it were intended to scandalize him, to discredit him in the eyes of most people who do not think a pastor should stoop to disobeying governmental authorities. Instead, such photos called attention to unjust authority and corruption. Question: when was the last time we read of a Christian minister being arrested for any issue of peace and justice? Plenty of ministers have been arrested for fraud or other immoral behavior. But help me recall those who have so irked the powers that be regarding peace and justice that the fallen principality we call "government" has had the audacity to lay hands on them? I know of only one: Darren Cushman-Wood, a United Methodist Pastor in Indianapolis who works with the Jobs with Justice effort in downtown Indianapolis. I applaud his efforts. He has inspired me to lay aside my own reticence for the sake of justice for all.


STATE OF THE DREAM. King’s dream of a nation of races reconciled, diversity embraced, and poverty rolled back gets mixed reviews today, at best. True, Americans who voted in 2008 elected Barack Obama as President. Still, fear, hatred and "tolerable" levels of oppression fester beneath a relatively smoother social surface. Civil rights and equal opportunity still do not come voluntarily. They must be articulated, demonstrated, and enforced--particularly in the face of a conservative Supreme Court that continues to bleed away their power. Those who six years ago voted (again) for a President who promised to install judges to uphold “conservative moral values” unwittingly voted to install jurists who have proven records of rolling back civil rights and civil liberties for people of color. As if that is not a moral value?


VIETNAM AND IRAQ. Each MLK Day since George W. Bush attacked Iraq under false pretenses, the thought occurred to me that King would have not been silent about or acquiesced to the Iraq War. Based on his outspoken perspective on the Vietnam War (a perspective largely based on that war’s impact on poverty and economics), I doubt many would want to hear what Martin Luther King, Jr. would have had to say about the Iraq War. King’s stand against Vietnam was very unpopular. Some of his close associates felt he should not speak out against it. But his last speech on April 3, 1968 was a vow to stand solo, if need be, as a black civil rights leader against war. I know of only handful of pastors who have spoken against the Iraq War or any other. Fewer still who take it to the streets.


WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR? The image of a pastor--white, black, Latino, etc.--in American society is too closely associated with a suit in the pulpit. Let us not mistake our call to interpret and articulate prophesies with being prophetic. Let us not think we have delivered our soul when we have delivered our sermons. Let us not accept a generous paycheck from a congregation that buys clergy silence and keeps pastors on the sidelines of unjust and pressing local, national and world events. Let us put our words into action. Let our calling be expressed fully--in action, in solidarity, in the messiness of community conflict, in speaking truth to power (and not just from behind the pulpit). Jesus points the way. Martin contemporized Jesus' precedent. What are we waiting for?

A CHOICE IN LISTENING

To live the possibilities of newness, we have to send the foxes packing 

FROM HENRI NOUWEN  The following writing by Henri J. M. Nouwen reflects great possibility along with the soul work necessary to live in newness throughout 2012. It is from Nouwen’s book Here and Now:


"I HAVE A GIFT FOR YOU!" “A new beginning! We must learn to live each day, each hour, yes, each minute as a new beginning, as a unique opportunity to make everything new. Imagine that we could live each moment as a moment pregnant with new life. Imagine that we could live each day full of promises. Imagine that we could walk through the new year always listening to a voice saying to us: ‘I have a gift for you and can’t wait for you to see it!’ Imagine.”


CONFRONT THE OLD “The problem is we allow our past, which becomes longer and longer each year, to say to us, ‘You know it all; you have seen it all; be realistic; the future will be just another repeat of the past. Try to survive it as best you can.’ There are many cunning foxes jumping on our shoulders and whispering in our ears the great lie: ‘There is nothing new under the sun…don’t let yourself be fooled.’”


SELF-FULFILLING “When we listen to these foxes, they eventually prove themselves right: our new year, our new day, our new hour become flat, boring, dull, and without anything new.”


GOD WITH YOU “So, what are we to do? First, we must send the foxes back to where they belong: in their foxholes. And then we must open our minds and our hearts to the voice that resounds through the valleys and hills of our life saying: ‘Let me show you where I live among my people. My name is ‘God-with-you.’ I will wipe away all tears from your eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning, or sadness. The world of the past has gone (see Revelation 21:2-5).”


CHOOSE TO LISTEN “We must choose to listen to that voice, and every choice will open us a little more to discover the new life hidden in the moment, waiting eagerly to be born.”

EPIPHANY

A reflection on the visit of Magi and other unorthodox strangers

THE LAST TO ARRIVE? It is likely that in most of our households the nativity crèche and figurines of the first Christmas story are by now stored away. But in some ancient Christian traditions, today is the day that the figures of three wise men, or Magi, are finally placed at the nativity scene. Their arrival, told in Matthew 2:1-12, completes the entourage of people who are drawn to the Christ child. In the fullness of Christmastide and in the light of the star, the journey to adoration of the Christ child is nearly complete.

FROM BEYOND THE REALM. The arrival of these mystery people from some distant place signals something new that has forever broadened, opened, and heightened the trajectory of grace. The trajectory of grace now emphatically includes Gentiles—all those not heretofore considered a part of the story of salvation. The advent of the Messiah, spoken of in Old Testament prophecies (like Isaiah 60) and in the Magi being led by a star to Bethlehem, signals that something long hoped-for and anticipated has come to be: the promise of grace and the way of grace is open and inclusive. From this day forward "whosoever will" may come.

UNLIKELY PEOPLE, UNUSUAL MEANS. Epiphany celebrates that God’s light draws unlikely people to grace by circuitous means. Perhaps now more often than not, people may see light and respond to grace from odd places and by unorthodox means. Praise God for people who have been reared within orthodoxy, who have for generations been brought near to Biblical faith, who are faithful to the means of grace as they have been taught. Praise God, also, for the fact that grace is just as likely to shine its light in unlikely places, on unlikely people, and bring them by unlikely paths to the foot of the Cross. Epiphany celebrates such "appearings," such small and great invasions and in-breakings of grace as part and parcel of the Kingdom.

WELCOME OR THREAT? Epiphany also celebrates the fact that the child is, in fact, born King of kings. This is signaled not only in the Old Testament (like Psalm 72), but in the declaration of the Magi and in the gift of gold they present. The prospect that a child has been born "king of the Jews" sends Herod’s regime into a search and seizure mode. The announcement that a new King is on the scene is simultaneously welcoming and threatening. For those living off the spoils of the present reign, who have invested in and count on the continuance of present power arrangements, the news of a new king is unsettling, threatening, undermining. For those who long for justice, for mercy, for inclusion, for place, for peace, for dignity, for a tomorrow, for equitable economy, for fairness, for a second chance, or for just a chance, the news of a new King is Good News, indeed.

IT WON'T BE COMPLETE WITHOUT YOU. I wrote earlier that the journey to adoration of the Christ child is nearly complete. Nearly. It is as nearly complete as our own trek and arrival. Have you made the journey in your heart? Place yourself among the unlikely figures who hear the Good News or who have been drawn by some light. You are no less out of place than anyone else. I am no more worthy of being there than the next person. But have we been drawn? If so, then let us do the only thing one can do in the presence of divinity, in the presence of unparalleled royalty—let us be silent, let us be grateful, let us bow in reverence, let us prepare ourselves to be forever changed. Let us be amazed at grace. And let us turn it inside out in a lifetime of bearing grace to all who are drawn to His light.

A BENEDICTION. May your journey ever lead you to the wonder of the God’s gracious gifts. May God’s light ever draw you, guide you, comfort you, challenge you, send you. May grace guide you from morning to evening, day by day, until, at last, either His Kingdom has come or you have come into His Kingdom. Amen.

LAST TO ARRIVE

Shall we take our place at the continuing gathering 'round the Babe of Bethlehem?

At the end of the Christmas season and on the eve of Epiphany (January 6, which marks the visit of the Magi and God's light to all people), I think about the continuing, unusual draw of unlikely people to an unlikely place in the heart—Bethlehem—and I offer the following poem:

First, census-responding throngs

swell the local populace,

burgeoning homes and hostels

with not-so-welcome guests.

Then, a man and pregnant young woman

arrive, seeking vainly for a room.

Bedding down in a stable,

their boy is born among livestock.

Later in the night, gnarled shepherds

traipse in, finding their way

to the mangered newborn,

just as an angel had told them.

How much later we do not know, Magi

come with gracious gifts,

following a star that draws them

from beyond any traceable map.

And later still, from the four corners

of earth and time, we make our trek.

Are we the last to arrive

at the gathering in Bethlehem?

Years from now, until the end of ages,

more will be drawn and find the One

whose birth angels once proclaimed

and so shall forevermore.

CAN I BE INTERRUPTED?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls us to consider the place of interruptions in our life

“We must be ready to allow ourselves
to be interrupted by God. God will be
constantly crossing our paths and
canceling our plans by sending us
people with claims and petitions.
We may pass them by, preoccupied
with our more important tasks…
When we do that we pass by the
visible sign of the Cross raised
across our path to show us that,
not our way, but God’s way must
be done. We must not assume that
our schedule is our own to manage,
but allow it to be arranged by God.”
-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together

TEN LORDS A LEAPING

On the Tenth Day of Christmas...

FOR THE PERSON WHO HAS EVERYTHING. Ever give or receive one of those "for the person who has everything" gifts? What about a gift for a person who has nothing? Or for a recently-appointed leader? Or for a couple just beginning their life journey together? Or for a community just plotting its course or a nation begin birthed? Today’s gifts are perfect for these occasions. Opening them, we hark back to something familiarly old and are invited to embrace something promising enough to dramatically reshape our future.

CENTERING COVENANT. According to tradition that this old English song is part of a clandestine catechism, the "Ten Lords a Leaping" are the Ten Commandments. They did more than anything else to form the Hebrew people into a distinctive and cohesive people. The Decalogue gave them unique identity. It truly made them peculiar among neighboring nations. And when nothing else seemed able to hold them together, the Ten Commandments did. The Ten Commandments formed the core of their covenant with the unseen Yahweh, the exclusive relationship about whom is the first of the Commandments. Through the Ten Commandments, they became principled in their actions, successful in their dealings, and enduring in their posterity.

LOOK FOR THE PRINCIPLES. How we approach the Ten Commandments makes all the difference in how or if we incorporate them into our lives. I learned them mostly as prohibitions and this is how most people think of them. A bunch of "Thou shalt nots" is the lingering and negative impression. Another approach is to explore the provision of each commandment. What does each commandment affirm about life? What does it uphold as valuable? What does it preserve and promote? Look for the covenant principles behind the "Thou shalt nots."

WHO BREAKS WHAT? E. Stanley Jones talked about the fact that we do not break the Ten Commandments, or any other God-given precepts. Instead, we break ourselves upon them. The commandment holds; we yield. Richard Foster puts forth the image of a life-giving river with boundaries. When the boundaries are observed the river provides for many aspects of life. When the banks are flooded and breached, it becomes a rampaging torrent leaving chaos in its path. So it is when we go beyond the Commandments. The boundaries are not set because we cannot be trusted; it is that covenant life simply cannot survive beyond them.

THE LETTER VS THE SPIRIT. What happens with the Ten Commandments in the New Testament? The encounter with the rich young man in Mark 10 is indicative of the way Jesus interpreted the Ten Commandments and the Law. Keeping them minimally or self-righteously may well miss the mark. There is something beyond the letter of the law that is life-giving; there is a spirit of the Commandment that invites us to an authentic and growing relationship to self, others, and God. It is this life in the Spirit, with its hallmark of love, that brings the Ten Commandments into the realm of provision and affirmation of all that is life-giving.

READ & REFLECT. Journaling/prayer possibilities: Open the Ten Commandments and read them separately and thoughtfully. What likely principles or life-affirmations can you discern behind each one? How are you incorporating the Ten Commandments into your life? Which of the Commandments have implications for you in relationship to the larger community? Offer thanks for the Commandments and for the Spirit who brings them to life within us and within our communities.

MERCIFUL DESIGN. Charles Wesley wrote the following lyrics in reflection of the Law of God:

Father, Thy merciful design
We see and joyfully approve;
Thou kindly dost Thy laws enjoin
To make us happy in Thy love.

With joy we own the gracious end
For which Thy laws were all bestowed;
Thou dost each command intend
Our present and eternal good.

A BENEDICTION. May you find God’s commands gracious in intent, directive in decision-making, and sweet in fulfillment. May the open to you a freedom not found elsewhere or before. Amen.

My 2011 Top Ten

Everybody seems to be doing a year-end Top Ten. Okay, I'll chime in. 


These are persons or events that most captured my attention and imagination during 2011.

1. Anna Hazare. This 21-century Gandhi-esque man led a nonviolent protest against government corruption in the autumn that engaged millions of Indians.  His fast and savvy actions led to a major breakthrough on anti-corruption laws in the world's largest democracy. Best low-profile story of the year.


2. Tahrir Square. Nothing captured my imagination like the freedom movement in Egypt this past spring and summer.  The drama and dynamics of this peaceful movement brought about the downfall of US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak and brought hope for an authentic democracy.


3. Libyan liberation. It started nonviolent, but turned bloody quickly and ultimately relied on limited air support from NATO allies.  The initial impact is that the dictator Gaddafi is gone and there is hope for an emerging democracy in Libya.  Most importantly, Libya's future is in the people's hands.  I think President Obama's handling of this was stellar.


4. Greece in protest.  Partly because Becky and I waded through the middle of one day of the protests in Athens (our eyes burning from tear gas haze), and partly because what happens in Greece impacts much of the rest of the Eurozone.  All of Greece is in angst amid austerity measures and a terrible economy.  The heart of the birthplace of democracy is aching.


5. Occupy Wall Street.  At the beginning of the year, no one could have imagined it: a group of mostly young people decided that since Wall Street influence occupied our government leaders they would occupy Wall Street for the sake of the 99% of Americans. Their extended and ameobic protest would spark a world-wide movement. I participated in the initial Occupy Indianapolis day and spent time with Occupy London protesters in October.


6. Gabby Giffords.  I was on a fundraising bicycle ride in Vietnam when Gabby Giffords and her entourage was attacked with deadly violence--a violence derived directly from politician- and news media-fomented venom.  Condemnation was swift and widespread. For a while, at least, the tone of public discourse changed. I think this episode marks the beginning of the end of the Tea Party's ascendance and credibility.


7. Inept Congress.  House Speaker John Boehner and the conservative bloc of the House of Representatives have demonstrated and symbolized all that is broken in American political process at the moment.  But they aren't alone.  Time for a radical change in Congressional process.


8. Last Shuttle flight.  American space flight has captured and fueled my imagination since I was a young child.  The last shuttle flight in late summer signaled the end of an era for America and for me.  What's next?


9. Penn State sex scandal.  This tragic ordeal reveals so many layers of cover-up, complicity and unreported sexual abuse that are more usual than we want to believe across the nation.  May healing come to the boys (now young men) who were abused. May justice and, after that, mercy come to all who perpetrated or failed act to end these abuses.


10. Out of Iraq.  Over 4,000 American lives, over 100,000 Iraqi lives and over a trillion American taxpayer dollars late.  President Obama kept an important promise by getting US troops out of Iraq.  But the fact that none of the politicians who led America into this fiasco have been held accountable is a travesty.  That, too, is a legacy of President Obama.  But many of us shall not forget who insisted on this greatest and most costly foreign policy blunder in US history.

Four Calling Birds

A Reflection for the Fourth Day of Christmas

[This is from a book I self-published a few years ago.  Twelve Days: A Spiritual Journey offers daily readings and reflections from Christmas to Epiphany using the traditional carol as a framework. This is the reading for the December 28th, the fourth day of Christmas.]

"On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me… four calling birds."

Four Calling Birds = the Four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which convey the Good News of God reconciling the world in Jesus.

Read: Isaiah 61:1-2; Luke 7:21-23; John 20:30-31

PUTTING AWAY CHRISTMAS ALREADY? Still celebrating Christmas? Still basking in the afterglow of the Word (logos) become flesh? As we start to put away Christmas decorations, and as the gifts we have received merge into our wardrobe or take their place in the household to become part of the fabric of living, keep the candle of Christmas glowing. We have received greater gifts. And we are yet to receive more!

GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD. Open the gifts for the fourth day of Christmas: the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Calling birds, indeed! Good News like no other. It is a story told from four different perspectives that is above all other stories. It is a story--a meta-narrative--in which we can find ourselves and through which we can live our own stories authentically.

JUBILEE BEGUN. Pay close attention to the Scripture readings today. Isaiah 61 describes the year of Jubilee, a comprehensive and radical personal and social reordering of life according to God’s reign. Jesus proclaimed Jubilee fulfilled in his coming. Luke 7:21-23 offers confirmation to the followers of John the Baptist that, in fact, Jesus is the Good News for which generations of people had longed. John 20:30-31 makes clear that the Gospel writers did not--could not--capture it all. It also makes clear the intent of the Gospel writing itself: that we may believe and have life through Jesus Christ.

WIDENING THE IMPACT. What Christmas implies and promises, the Gospels write large by walking us through the life of Jesus with heart-opening lucidity. The Gospels document and detail evidence that the hopes and fears of all the years were, indeed, met in Jesus Christ. The birth narratives in Matthew and Luke conspicuously hint at the broad, troubling, and grace-bearing impact Jesus would have. And John’s eloquent introduction sets the stage for a story in which "as many as received him, to those who believed on his name, he gave the right to become the children of God."

FOUR DISTINCT PERSPECTIVES. The four Gospels make no attempt to reconcile differences in details or to paint a seamless, air-brushed picture of Jesus. Each is written from a different perspective for a different audience at a different time and from a different place. The fact that they are individually so raw and make no pretense at orchestrating events so as to present a united front seems to argue for their authenticity and believability. Though incredibly diverse, the common threads and penetrating message of the Gospels witnesses to something that has forever changed the world.

AWAKENING TO WHAT I KNEW. I grew up saturated with stories from the Gospels. It was a gift unappreciated and taken for granted. I didn’t awaken to the radical nature of the Gospel message and its claims upon my life and the community of faith until I was well into my twenties. I am still waking up to this gift, still being converted by the challenging invitation, still being apprehended by the call. I am still realizing this is, indeed, Good News for all humanity, for every person, even for me.

THEIR TERMS, NOT MINE. The Gospels are Good News on their own terms, not mine. Only as I let go of my flimsy excuses, shallow attachments, grandiose notions, self-serving interpretations, and less-thancertain certitudes, the Gospel finds me and I find my home in the Gospel. Our own stories are significant when they find their place in the Story. Every person takes his or her place in the Gospels; we must to decide, however, how the Gospels tell our stories.

Tomorrow: "Five Gold Rings" - The five books of Torah (the Pentateuch): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

The Work of Christmas

Howard Thurman suggests "next steps" after Christmas

"When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart."

from The Moods of Christmas

Christmas is for Adults

My poem reminds the adults amongst us to let the season change us

I wrote the following poem just a few years ago, when our house was full of kiddos--they're now young adults.  I was thinking about the possibility of Christmas making a spiritual change in the hearts of adults, not just children.

It is not enough to say
"Christmas is for children."
So it is, and ever so.
But it is especially for adults,
those routinous creatures
with furrowed brows wrapped
in self-absorbing pursuits.

These lamentable beings need
Christmas if they are ever
to be whole again.
They are so forgetful of
things that matter
and so clamorous for
things that don't.

Christmas, if it can pierce
their thick facade and
deflate their oversized egos,
may touch a forgotten place--
an abandoned but still
life-giving place--
in adult souls.

Christmas invites children
and adults alike to a place
where room is made for
a Child and that Child
is adored and honored
as a gift, a hope--even salvation--
for one and all.

Chesterton's Take on Christmas

The rotund English Catholic and prolific journalist pumped up Christmas like few have before or since

"It is in the old Christmas carols, hymns, and traditions--those which date from the Middle Ages--that we find not only what makes Christmas poetic and soothing and stately, but first and foremost what makes Christmas exciting. The exciting quality of Christmas rests on an ancient and admitted paradox. It rests upon the paradox that the power and center of the whole universe may be found in some seemingly small matter, that the stars in their courses may move like a moving wheel around the neglected outhouse of an inn.” — G. K. Chesterton

Settling for a Little Togetherness at Christmas

I've backed off of most of my holiday insistences in favor of something more profound.

What more can be said of Christmas that has not already been said, written, sung, drawn, or dramatized? Nothing, really. And yet I keep trying simply because it inspires and possesses me so. As I see it, there will always be rich angles and new perspectives and cultural combinations that somehow bring the ancient stories and traditions into intriguing if not new light. This is why I keep writing of Advent and Christmas.

Year by year, I try to pay attention to the way I anticipate Christmas and experience its traditions. I note that my observance of Advent and Christmas and my perspective on them keeps evolving, even if subtly and slowly. 

Some things about the holiday that I once held passionately—even self-righteously—have faded in importance to me. For instance, I'm not as much a stickler for trying to convert people to observe Advent. Once convinced that if folks only knew about the tradition--its rich roots and spiritual promise--and had practical tools with which to observe it, they would.  I was wrong.  For whatever reason, most churches I know and most people I know--including my own family—don’t really care much for the practice of Advent, even if they dutifully observe it. Though I grieve this a bit, I am slowly letting it go.

Most people I know, more or less just join in the predominant anticipations and preparations for Christmas that are typical of mainstream American culture.  For better or worse, American Christmas seems to defy any specific tradition or order.  What I sometimes call kulture krismas is a diverse, eclectic, inconsistent, and conflicting mix of themes and practices and meanings that more or less get at the heart of Christmas in one way or another.  However it is approached or practiced, most of us usually “get it” sometime between the 1^st and 31^st of December. 

While I still think “we’re missing so much” and “we’re watering down meanings” and “this is too secular,” these days my level of Christmas holiday satisfaction seems to be determined less by “appropriateness” and more by “togetherness.”  So we miss lots of opportunities to express and experience the depth of this season; what matters more right now, at least to me, is being together—belonging, being present to and with and for one another.

While I'm not sure either of these family traditions will continue, there are a couple of  activities our clan seems to be engaging in repeatedly for now.  One is attending the homeless memorial service on the first day of winter each year. At least part of our immediate and extended family go to Christ Church Cathedral on Monument Circle at 11 am on Winter Solstice to join with homeless advocates to memorialize all who died in Indianapolis due to their homelessness during the year. It’s somber, but also clarifying and challenging. I suppose this practice as much as anything else brings Christmas into focus for us individually and together. Whatever else happens afterward, that is something of a conscience marker.

We’ve also gotten into the habit of going to a movie together on Christmas night. After all the gatherings are over and the presents are unwrapped, we pick out a movie to see together and take it in.  Sometimes the movies are poor, but we share the experience and have fun talking about it afterwards--sometimes for years.  None of us will ever forget seeing the movie “Meet the Fockers” one year. Bad movie. Stupid movie. Raunchy movie. But we have the most fun laughing about that experience every year now.

Don't get me wrong, our family has layers of family traditions.  But I think we've turned a corner from keeping tradition for tradition's sake.  I'm learning that when insistent traditions unravel or lose their meaning, go for togetherness. Just maybe out of the richness of a valued  and intentional presence to one another, something new and wonderful--even inspiring--might begin.

ADVENT - WAKE UP CALL

Nazi resistor Alfred Delp saw in Advent a call for radical awakening from self-sabotage

WAKE UP, O SLEEPER.  Father Alfred Delp was condemned as a traitor for his resistance to the regime of Adolf Hitler and hanged in a Nazi prison in 1945.  Shortly before his execution, the Jesuit priest wrote a piece now titled "The Shaking Reality of Advent" (in Watch for the Light). To one who was going through such fire, Advent was no serene welcoming.  It was a radical shaking to awake out of a self-sabotaging, illusory sleep.  At the same time, Delp points out that awakened ones should not now act anxiously or rashly.  Instead, live and act in anticipation of the next Advent and the surpassing value and new order it brings.  Here are a few excerpts:

TIME TO GO TO WORK. "If we want to transform life again, if Advent is truly to come again -- the Advent of home and of hearts, the Advent of the people and the nations, a coming of the Lord in all this -- then the great Advent question for us is whether we come out of these convulsions with this determination: yes, arise! It is time to awaken from sleep. It is time for the waking up to begin somewhere. It is time to put things back where God the Lord put them. It is time for each of us to go to work, with the same unshakable sureness that the Lord will come, to set our life in God's order wherever we can. Where God's word is heard, he will not cheat our life of the message; where our life rebels before our own eyes he will reprimand it."

THOSE WHO LOOK TO THE LORD.  "The world today needs people who have been shaken by ultimate calamities and emerged from them with the knowledge and awareness that those who look to the Lord will still be preserved by him, even if they are hounded from the earth."

A TIME FOR RENUNCIATION.  "Advent is a time when we ought to be shaken and brought to a realization of ourselves.  The necessary condition for the fulfillment of Advent is the renunciation of presumptuous attitudes and alluring dreams in which and by means of which we always build ourselves imaginary worlds.  In this way we force reality to take us to itself by force -- by force, in much pain and suffering."

A TIME OF PROMISE.  "At the same time, there is much more that belongs to Advent.  Advent is blessed with God's promises, which constitute the hidden happiness of this time.  These promises kindle the inner light in our hearts.  Being shattered, being awakened -- only with these is life made capable of Advent.  In the bitterness of awakening...the golden threads that pass between heaven and earth in these times reach us."

WE HAVE RECEIVED A MESSAGE.  Delp describes three promises we receive in Advent: (1) the angels annunciation, "speaking their message of blessing into the midst of anguish, scattering their seed of blessing that will one day spring up amid the night, call us to hope...  Advent is a time of inner security because it has received a message."  Delp challenges each of us to be such an angel of annunciation wherever possible.

DO WE HAVE A READY HEART?  The second promise of Advent is (2) the blessed woman: "Advent's holiest consolation is that the angel's annunciation met with a ready heart.  The Word became flesh in a motherly heart and grew out far beyond itself into the world of God-humanity."  Delp compares Mary's readiness and bearing of a great truth, a great liberation, to our own lives: "We must remember today with courage that Mary foreshadows the light in our midst.  Deeper down in our being, our days and our destinies, too, bear the blessing and mystery of God.  The blessed woman waits, and we must wait too until her hour has come."

WE HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY.  The third promise of Advent is found (3) in the voice and message of John the Baptist: "These John the Baptist characters...cry for blessing and salvation.  They summon us to our last chance, while already they feel the ground quaking and the rafters creaking and see the firmest of mountains tottering inwardly...They summon us to the opportunity of warding off, by the greater power of the converted heart, the shifting desert that will pounce upon us and bury us."

JUST BEYOND THE HORIZON.  "Space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness.  But just beyond the horizon the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing.  There shines on us the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment to come... It is all far off still, and only just announced and foretold.  But it is happening..."

BROKEN ANY CHAINS LATELY?

If chains shall be broken, we will have a hand in breaking them. Enough hand-wringing. Let's do what we know is right and just.

Luke shares words attributed to a pregnant Mary: "He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty." Luke 1:53

How does that happen?

Has it happened?

Is it yet to occur?

How are we to receive, understand, interpret and apply this and the other radical liberation statements in Mary's Song (Magnificat)?  I reject the notion that this is merely literary flourish, that it is not to be taken literally.  Too much of Old Testament prophecy and the words and actions of Jesus echo it (or it echoes them).

And, while we're at it, how do we get from who Jesus was and what he did to what Jesus makes possible for us and calls us now to be and do?

"Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother," we sing in the stirring Christmas anthem "O Holy Night," "and in his name all oppression shall oppression shall cease."  Amen!  

But, tell me, if Jesus has done this, or made this possible or started the process, what part do you and I have in it?  Is it just hope-so someday?  Is it an eventuality?  Is it "stand back and wait for God to do something?"  I don't think so and most serious Bible scholars don't think so.  But the vast majority of the church has played a some-day, hand-wringing game for two millennia.   Too often the church has invested more of its energies in church empire than in "Thy kingdom come," leaving people victimized by dominating people, institutions and systems to fend for themselves or hope for something better in the world to come.

If chains shall be broken, we shall have a hand in breaking them.  If oppression shall cease, it begins with us to stop oppressing and pretending like we aren't implicated and complicit in oppression on a global scale.  If the hungry are to be filled with good things, it should be through those of us who follow Jesus, who say we take him seriously, who will lay aside our over-the-top wealth and act now to fill the hungry with good things.

Today, there are more people enslaved in our world than ever before.  Millions of people--many of them under age 14--labor in virtual slavery, are trafficked in the sex industry, or are used as pawns in paying off someone else's debts.  Learn about 21st-century slavery and the new abolitionist movement at www.notforsalecampaign.org. Get involved.

Enough games-playing.  Enough excusing.  Enough hand-wringing.  Enough hope-so.  Enough obfuscation.  Enough putting off.  It's way past time to do what Jesus did and instructed his followers to do.  Do that; that's all that's required.


Let's break some chains.

ADVENT, EMPIRE & SEEING ANGELS

Context is everything. Without it, a basic grasp of Nativity--then and now--is lost. But what happens when we locate the story among undocumented aliens surviving at the margins of empire? 

Dorothee Soelle, in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent & Christmas (Plough Publishing, 2001) writes:

"How and under what conditions had people lived then in Galilee? Political oppression, legal degradation, economic plunder, and religious neutrality in the scope of the religio lictia ('permitted religion') were realities that the writer Luke kept in view in his story, which is so sublime and yet so focused on the center of all conceivable power."

"At last I saw the imperium from the perspective of those dominated by it. I recognized torturers and informers behind the coercive measure, 'All went…to be registered' (v. 3). Finally I comprehended the peace of the angels 'on earth' and not only in the souls of individual people. I understood for the first time the propaganda terms of the Roman writers who spoke of pax and jus when they really meant grain prices and militarization of the earth known at that time (all this can be confirmed by research today)."

"Of course my rereading was politically colored. I too was surrounded by propaganda ('freedom and democracy'). While in the narrative I heard the boot of the empire crush everything in its way from Bethlehem to Golgotha, I saw the carpet bombings in the poor districts of San Salvador right behind the glittering displays on Fifth Avenue in New York..."

"In Paul the causes of misery are called the reign of sin. Without understanding this imperium ('reign') in its economic and ecological power of death, we also cannot see the light of Christmas shine. Living in the pretended social market economy, we do not even seem to need this light!"

"Whoever wants to proclaim something about this light has to free the stifled longing of people. An interpretation of the Bible that takes seriously concrete, everyday human cares and does not make light of the dying of children from hunger and neglect is helpful in this regard. By showing up the incomparable power of violence in our world today, it deepens our yearning for true peace."

"Luke refers to the praxis of transmission and proclamation. The frightened shepherds become God’s messengers. They organize, make haste, find others, and speak with them. Do we not all want to become shepherds and catch sight of the angel? I think so."

"But without the perspective of the poor, we see nothing, not even an angel. Yet, when we approach the poor, our values and goals change. The child appears in many other children. Mary also seeks sanctuary among us. Because the angels sing, the shepherds rise, leave their fears behind, and set out for Bethlehem, wherever it is situated these days."

Risk of Birth

An Advent poem by Madeleine L’Engle

This is no time for a child to be born,

With the earth betrayed by war and hate

And a comet slashing the sky to warn

That time runs out and the sun burns late

That was no time for a child to be born,

In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;

Honor and truth were trampled by scorn –

Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?

The inn is full on planet earth,

And by a comet the sky is torn –

Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

from Watch for the Light, an excellent collection of Advent and Christmas essays and poems by Plough Publishing