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December 17, 2006
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Zephaniah 3:14-20,
Philippians 4:4-7, Luke 3:7-18
“Fearsome and
Fairsome: Reflecting the Bounty of God”
There seem to be more “Blue Christmas” services this year -- acknowledging times
of sadness and depression we endure. Christmas brings out the best and the
worst in us. We even sing, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in
thee tonight.” I look for “Red” and “Green” Christmas as well. On this third
Advent Sunday we are released momentarily -- from “purple” to “pink” candle --
from agony of delay, to ecstasy of arrival! Of promises coming to pass! Hopes
and dreams! Opportunities and possibilities! This is "Gaudete” Sunday. All
are commanded to “Rejoice!” Rejoice in spite of it all! In midst of it all!
In face of it all! No matter how awful rather than awesome “it all” may be for
us now.
Christmas burns “red” with the flames of Pentecost Day – as Luke is forever
linking joy with the Holy Spirit: “My spirit rejoices,” Mary responds, as the
Spirit is proclaimed to her! Mary’s aunt Elizabeth, mother of John, is
“filled with the Holy Spirit.” In Mary’s presence there is with Elizabeth a
“leaping for joy” in her womb! The book of Acts sums up, “the
disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit!”
Christmas turns curiously “green” as well.
Christmas bursts with birth -- with signs of new life -- renewal of all
creation. Even in coldest and hardest ground of winter, even on longest nights
of the year, seeds of Camus’ “invincible summer” are taking shape, taking root,
living and growing in us as well! In the imperative tone of this day, let us
“Regret!” But also “Rejoice!” Let us “Be Blue!” But also “Be Red!” “Be
Green!” “Be emptied!” That we may again “Be filled!”
This Sunday reflects the full bounty, the
goodness and richness of all God provides. Thanks to Paul Lowe for this poem by
Rumi, the Sufi poet –
Abundance is seeking the beggars and the
poor,
Just as beauty seeks a mirror.
Beggars, then, and the mirrors of God’s
bounty!
And they that are with God are united with
Absolute Abundance.
This Sunday brings out in us, as proclaimed here
by John, a response both fearsome and “fairsome.” We know how freely and
unconditionally God’s provision is meant for all of God’s children. We also
know that we, perhaps individually, most definitely as church and nation, have
received -- and now fight to keep and protect -- so much more than is our “fair
share” in all the world. Do we not even ask others to go to war to keep “our
way of life” from the world?
Do we not suffer what Dorothee Soelle calls the
“polycratic fear” of knowing we are living at the expense of others? Our lives
are too “good” to be true? We do not deserve such advantage over so many
others? Comeuppance is due us?!
Do we doubt that were John preaching to us today, he would remind us that in a
world seen as a single village of 100 people, 5 persons (all US citizens!) would
control 32 percent of the wealth?! 80 persons would live in
sub-standard housing – 24 without electricity! 67 would be able to read,
but only 1 (one in a hundred!) would have a college education! 50 (half
the world!) would be malnourished. 1 would be starving to death, another dying
of AIDS. 33 would drink safe water.
Talk about “Blue Christmas!” John would remind
us -- if we never have lived through a war, or the loneliness of imprisonment,
or the agony of torture, or a famine – then we are luckier than some 500 million
persons in this world! If we are free in this season to go to synagogue,
mosque, temple, or church, without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death
-- then we are luckier than some 3 billion persons in this world! If there is a
meal in our refrigerator, if we are dressed and wearing shoes, if we have a bed
and a roof above our head – then we are better off than 75 percent of the
persons of this world! If we even have a bank account, money in our pocket, any
coin at all in our piggybank -- we belong to just 8 percent of the provided-for
persons of this world!
All that may be seen as the “fearsome” side of
John’s preaching this day. But John – cousin of Jesus and the very one whose
public ministry Jesus assumes when John is arrested and beheaded – even John
does not leave us without hope on this day! We can move from fearsome news to
fairsome! As we wander this transforming wilderness through our hurting
world. Many come to John to be baptized into this world. At the time
there is no church or religious institution to seduce them out of the world!
Even we “brood of vipers,” we “mainline” religionists of our day -- may find
courage not “to flee from the wrath to come!” Not to live and in gory fear
of the “Left Behind!” But, rather, courage to “bear fruits worthy of
repentance!” Even in these dead winters of our lives and hearts.
John taps into our courage to see whatever time
left to us as the time of our promises --our hopes and dreams, opportunities and
possibilities coming to pass! We rejoice in what time we are given! Given to
get on with what we always have longed to do with our lives! Given to see, at
last, we are as gifts of God -- made in the image of God! We are God’s own
self-offering -- without fear, without condition or qualification – for those
who need God’s justice and mercy the most! Mercy for those who need mercy,
justice for those who need justice. For by the grace of the one Image-Maker, we
have come to see we all are made in one image – no matter how different we are!
All are provided for from one source! And God is not done with us yet! Is
that right? Will you say it with me?
John gives us courage to “get it!” as we say!
To see the “Big Picture” of God, to see in God’s own “Great Mirror.” God,
according to our “Gathering Thoughts” from Rabbi Rami Shapiro this morning,
makes “millions upon millions of tiny mirrors,” and places one in each of our
eyes! So that when we look into the eyes of any other – any other on earth! –
We “see the Whole World there, and the One who created it!” The One who creates
it again – for us all! --every day.
The “fairsome” side of the fearsome John leads
us to ask for ourselves, as those whom John addresses -- “What then should we
do?” What then should we do?! In our own time and place! Our nation and the
world our nation is living off of! That is John’s fearsome and fairsome
Advent question of us – How shall we make ourselves and our world ready to
receive this promised gift of new life? New creation? How do our
fears address us – so love may address our fears the more? How does love
address our fears of living beyond the world’s means?
John’s response is as clear as Micah’s familiar
orders to us: In all things -- Do justice! Love Kindness! Walk humbly with our
God! We are not helpless or hopeless! There is much we are able to do –
starting with our very own resources. John might state our orders by his three
examples -- Share! Care! And, Be Fair! Share! Care! And, Be Fair!
Love for John is the work of fairness. Of Jubilee! Life and love, justice and
joy, peace and plenty always go together! The fearsome and fairsome coexist --
and “Fairest Lord Jesus” is not just a song!
There is something scandalous and subversive
about our “rejoicing” this day. It is not contingent upon our conditions and
circumstances. It flies in the face of life’s inexorable logic. It defies even
common sense. Because our rejoicing derives not from our premises but from
God’s promises! Our rejoicing reflects what Sojourners community calls,
“believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change!”
Because joy is based on promise, it proceeds from something deeply and richly
“imaginable” within us – a sense of our own fulfillment in God’s sight – how God
both “mirrors” and “magnifies” our souls!
Paul Tillich says, “Joy is nothing else than an awareness of being fulfilled in
our true being.” Self-aware, self-accepted, self-affirmed, and next week
self-activated – those are the words with which we are lighting the Advent
candles. Yet what we find in our mirrors and magnifiers necessarily can be
scary to us! As with the dialogue this “old woman” carries on with her
mirror in Susan Griffin’s Words for Meditation this morning. When she is
small, she is “afraid of the dark,” afraid of being “devoured!” Yet as she
grows, her very “bigness” frightens her! Where can she hide any more?!
So she comes out of hiding and proclaims her presence! She even takes joy
in herself! Yet she is fearful of fooling herself.
“No one else sees what you see,” says her mirror. “No one else can tell
you if what you see is true.” That’s right! Nobody else can tell us
if what we see in ourselves, our own “image of God,” is true! Only we can
decide to believe our own eyes! Our own ears! Our own hearts and
souls. The very thought of how long our process of self-fulfillment is
taking begins to frighten us of every birthday! And of the re-birthday of
spirit that Jesus offers us each at Christmas.
We know, with intense urgency of John the
Baptist, there are things we have always wanted to do which we are afraid of
doing. And we know time is running out! “Do not be afraid” becomes the
recurrent word of angels to us this season! Seize every time! Live with every
fear – even of death, even of change. Fear keeps us honestly human. We make
“fearless self-inventory” this season. We must become responsible for our own
fears, or our fears will be used against us!
A teacher of peace, justice, and conflict
studies at a Mennonite college warns us, “We are fed a steady diet of fear. We
are told we must get ride of Islamic fundamentalists, undocumented immigrants,
and those who challenge the traditional family, because they will all destroy
our way of life! ‘Be afraid,’ we are told. ‘Be very afraid.’ “And so we are,”
the teacher continues. “That fear consumes our energy and renders us totally
self-absorbed. That fear makes us absolutely certain about our own ‘truth,’
creates an ‘us’ against ‘them’ mentality, and provides justification to heap
untold misery on ‘them.’ That fear controls and imprisons and enslaves us to
those who feed it to us.”
She agrees with Henri Nouwen that “those who can
make us afraid can make us do what they want us to do.” Yet fear only
“engenders fear. Fear never gives birth to love.” “At its best,” the Mennonite
teacher concludes, “fear holds up hands in self-defense. At worst, those hands
become fists. Love reaches out with those hands in receptivity and invitation.
Love reverences the humanity of every being, whether it is a terrorist, an
abusive marine, or my theological nemesis!” Or even, we might add, that person
we find in the mirror! Amen.
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