One Story, Many Stories

It's a warm, happy scene every year.  The baby rests comfortably in the manger with Mary and Joseph hovering near by.  The animals sit and lay, quiet and attentive, in the stable which, until recently, had been occupied only by them.  The shepherds (if there's room for more than one) sit quietly, watching the baby intently with unwavering and unblinking eyes.  The Three Kings - one on bended knee, one stooped over, the other leaning back in awe and all three representing an appropriate diversity of ethnic origins - are offering their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

If you got the deluxe set, there's an angel that may hover overhead somehow or kneel nearby.  And in the really fancy ones, the angel holds a banner that reads "Glory to God in the highest."

It's the Christmas Creche, a perfect scene from a single, perfect night.

Except …

It was far from perfect.  Meaningfully so, in fact.  The scene we make is cobbled together from three gospels and a lot of imagination, not all the characters were there at the same time, it wasn't really that kind of stable, there … well, I could go through the list of things biblically "wrong" with the scene as we've assembled it, but I did that last year (and each year), so let's just cut to the point I also try to make each year: does it matter?

It's a beautiful way to draw people into the story.  And maybe the details aren't as important as the meaning, at least on Christmas Eve.  There's plenty of time to explore the story the figures  represent.  It's just that we need to do that: explore the story.

We have at least half a dozen manger scenes or creches at our house and I love them all.  I don't know that I realized how much I loved them all until this year when we were given a beautifully carved wooden set.  Each figure is a square pillar with the character carved in the top and biblical quotes about them written on the sides of the pillar.  The tops are all angled so that when you put the figures together, they gently slope upwards from the baby to the star.  It's impossible to describe it in any way which could do it justice.  But the thing is, everyone in the scene fits together perfectly.  And when someone's missing, it's pretty obvious.

That's what started me thinking about how important it is to explore the story.  So I wondered about the magi.

There's some obvious detail things, like how Matthew's gospel (where we find their story) doesn't say there was only three.  We assumed that from the three gifts.  Matthew doesn't name them either, nor does he say they're kings, only magi or wise ones, and, given that they had to travel, it's a certainty they didn't arrive at the stable that night.

But here's two things I wonder about.  "There, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was" (Matthew 2:9).  That sounds like the star moved as they followed.  The light led them to Jesus, it wasn't just a stationary marker, like a buoy.  It led them to Jesus.  (For the best "Star of Bethlehem" ever, watch the St. Paul's Art'n'Kids video The Christmas Story on YouTube.  Now that's an active star.)   You have to look for the light and be ready to follow it.

And second, the magi weren't Jews, they weren't even from the local area.  They were from the mystical "east."  To be blunt, they were foreigners, in every way.  Yet, it's revealed to them, and through them to us, that this is the promised one.  That sounds to me like Jesus is for everyone, for "all the nations of the earth."

That's what Epiphany is, really, The Big Reveal.

Jesus is here.  The Light, the Word made Flesh, Emmanuel (meaning God-with-us) is here.  Have you seen the light?  Do you see Jesus?

Bigger than snow globe

My love likes her Christmas decorations.  Correction, she loves her Christmas decorations.  Every year, Christmas explodes at our place. 

We have a number of Christmas themed snow globes around our house.  Alright, more than a few (some are still in their boxes downstairs).  Some are elaborate scenes with what looks almost like snow and they have a wind-up music box.  Some are simpler, and smaller, with glittering flakes that catch the light.

My favourite is a tiny, simple scene of Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, huddled together in a small glass globe not more than two inches across, while sparkly pieces of glitter float around them.  It's that "special moment" in time, perhaps what the shepherds saw, or the stable animals.   It's so simple.  And so pristine, protected by its glass shell. 

Just the way we like our Christmases.

But that's just the "Christmas" we make.  The one we prepare and package, order and organize to conveniently fit into our holiday schedule.  It's a special moment in time, sure, and it can make many memories, but when we put away the snow globes, the six trees and the three cupboards worth of decorations - or is that just at our house? - we're putting that Christmas away, too.

Christmas, real Christmas, is bigger than that.  

Argue about the origins of Christmas traditions all you like, the accuracy of the story, the arbitrary date, the pagan customs, the commercialism of today's festivities, but Christmas is bigger than all that, too.

Christmas, for me, is a reminder of a bigger story, a story of life since the beginning, a life we're living now and a life ahead.  It's about how our relationship with God, and each other, was and is, and how it can be changed for the better by love.

For as much as we mark yearly commemorations of the birth and death and resurrection of Jesus, and we mark certain days as moments in the story of his life, they're all surely less important than the life itself.  Struggling as we were, since the beginning, in our relationship with God and each other, it was that life, that daily living of love, compassion and grace, that became our example for living.  In living, Jesus showed us how we can make life better.

And how we've struggled with that since.  And often failed.  But perhaps that might partly be because we mark these "moments in time" and celebrate them without truly realizing that they are "moments for time."  The love that came down at Christmas, to paraphrase Christina Rosetti's poem, didn't stay in the stable.  That love lives, and we can give it life each day, as it gives us life, every day.

I have an "annual commemoration" of Christmas: I watch the 1951 classic film of A Christmas Carol.  In it, there's a wonderful moment when Scrooge first meets the Ghost of Christmas Present.  The Ghost, a grand, jovial sort, tells him this: "Mortal! We Spirits of Christmas do not live only one day of our year.  We live the whole three-hundred and sixty-five.  So is it true of the Child born in Bethlehem.  He does not live in men's hearts one day of the year, but in all days of the year."

The Christmas story is big.  It's life, every day.

The End is Near-ish

I wanted to begin with a little joke, like "the end is near - again!"  It's that time of year,   not the calendar year (a little early for that), but the church year.  The advent season is coming soon, and that begins the church year with the anticipation of the coming of Jesus.  So, these last few weeks before that, as we come to The End, we hear scripture readings in church that remind us of, well, The End.

Luke tells the story of the disciples admiring the impressive beauty of the Temple, only to be interrupted by Jesus prophesying that it will one day be rumble (Luke 21:5-19).  Furthermore, there will be false prophets and doom and destruction and they'll be hated, attacked and persecuted and killed.

You can just imagine the disciples saying "wow, Jesus, thanks for the encouragement."

But there's more, Jesus says: "not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls" (Luke 21:19).

"Well then," the disciples might say, "that's okay then."

No, they probably wouldn't.  Not if they're anything like us.  And I think they are, that's why Jesus picked them.

We find it so easy to focus on the trials and tribulations of the getting to The End.  And why wouldn't we?  We're surrounded by them.

We don't need to imagine war or famine, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis or typhoons.  We can watch them on television, presuming that we are among the lucky ones not to be experiencing them in person.  Also thanks to television - and movies, too - we do imagine seven-headed dragons, horsemen of the apocalypse, great beasts and other computer-generated creatures.  We seem to be good at the destruction part.  Almost a little too comfortable with it, with coming to The End.

Maybe "comfortable" is the wrong word, maybe "familiar" is better.  Either way, I guess I'm wondering how we got to be so familiar with cataclysmic endings and not wondrous beginnings?  Every end is followed by a new beginning, how do we then find it so hard to imagine The Ultimate New Beginning?  We can certainly imagine The Ultimate End.

That's just it, though.  As we come closer to The End, the experience is behind us.  We know what we know.  But we don't know what we don't know because we don't know it … to paraphrase former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

This "new thing" God promises will come after The End, we don't know it like we know the other.  We have hints and we have imaginings, but we have only the language and experiences that we've had to guide us and those are simply not enough.  This is something new.  This needs - demands - hope.  Not wishful thinking, but certain hope.

Perhaps hearing about The End and then experiencing the anticipation of Advent and the new beginning of Christmas is good practice.  What will the new beginning be like?  Wait and see.

Remember, to live

In the Bible, there's a tiny little book near the end of the minor prophets section of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament), only a couple of chapters.  It doesn't get dusted off very often.  It's the book of the prophet Haggai.

If you're not familiar with it, it's not surprising.  If he's lucky, Haggai gets read in church once every three years - this year on November 10.  Maybe you could do Haggai a little favour and go read his book.  The whole thing might take you four minutes.  Then someone might remember him.

It's too bad,  too, because Haggai says a couple of really smart things.  Maybe they're things we hear elsewhere, but Haggai has some context worth remembering.  He was writing about 520 BCE.  That's about sixty-six years after the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple, sending many of the citizens of Jerusalem off to live in Babylon (referred to as The Exile), and eighteen years after Cyrus and the Persians conquered Babylon and sent the exiles back to Jerusalem and authorized the rebuilding of the Temple.

But the rebuilding was not going well.  The remnant who had remained behind and protected the ruined Temple and the returning exiles didn't exactly see eye to eye, there was conflict with the Samaritans and there were a variety of other "interferences."  So, while homes and business got built, the Temple kind of sat and waited.

So.  Here's Haggai.  He reminds all the Hebrews that God is with them.  "My spirit abides among you; do not fear," God says through Haggai (Haggai 2:5).  And he inspires them with the hope that God has promised them a great future.  This new house may not look like much, especially compared to the old one, but it will be : "The latter splendour of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts."  (Haggai 2:9.)

But is Haggai really talking about the Temple or about the people?  That remnant that was left behind protected the foundation, those that returned had a vision to build anew, together with God they can make something greater.  But they had to work together.  And in that, more than a Temple is built.  

God lives in how we work together and play together and relate to each other.  In living God's love to each other, we create a future full of "prosperity," not financial wealth, but the prosperity of healthy, whole living.

It's a thought, perhaps, to hold on to around Remembrance Day.  In remembering, we do not celebrate or glorify, but honour and respect.  We re-member, or reconnect, not, perhaps, with a personal experience, but with the awareness that what was sacrificed on all sides in conflict brought us the freedom and opportunity to create new. 

"Lest we forget" isn't just a call to remember the past, but to honour it by living into the prosperity of the future as best we are able.  In Kohima, in northern India where it borders Myanmar (formerly Burma), there is a memorial to a decisive 1944 battle.  On it are these words attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds: When you go home, Tell them of us and say, For their tomorrow, We gave our today.

Reformed or Reforming?

I've been away.  That's my excuse.  Everyone needs a holiday sometime.  Except maybe Martin Luther.  He was one busy guy ...

Well, it's here.  The day that so many people look forward to, that rolls around every year on October 31.  Children love it.  There's decorations and costumes and parties.  There's fun and games.  And don't forget the chocolate.

That's right, it's Reformation Day.  Woohoo!

I'm sorry, is there something else on October 31?

While The Reformation, the historical period which gave us Protestantism, had shown signs of its coming earlier, it's generally considered to begin with Martin Luther on October 31, 1517.  That's the day Luther nailed 95 Theses, his

propositions that challenged the Roman Catholic church and its doctrines, to the door of the church in Wittenburg, Germany.

Wycliffe, Hus and others had tried to bring reform to the church before Luther, but it wasn't until Luther - and Zwingli, Calvin, Knox and others after him - that it really got traction.  There were certainly many issues that sparked the fire.  Luther, for instance, famously challenged the selling of indulgences (people could pay money - lots of it - in lieu of doing temporal penance for sin), but reformers had three "great" principles on which their theology rested.

First of all, scripture (the Bible) was the sole authority on matters of faith, life and conduct.  Teachings and traditions of the church were secondary to the truth of the Bible.

Second, we are justified (meaning to be made "right") before God by faith alone, understanding this to be in the context of God's gift of grace.  As Paul writes: "saved by grace through faith and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8.9).  Works are important in this life, but it is faith, through grace, that brings us to God.

Third, the belief in "the priesthood of all believers."  We are all ministers and need no one but Jesus to bring us to God.  We have leaders, but the power of the priesthood should be nothing more than that.

As a result, reformers rejected the authority of the Pope and a host of other church teachings.  Of course, they couldn't seem to agree on much more after that and Protestantism fractured into a variety of individual denominations.

And then there's what was happening in England at the time with Henry VIII that resulted in the Church of England and anglicans around the world.  But that's another story.

In fact, there's way much more to this Reformation story, of course, like the reform movement's revolutionary use of media.  The new printing press made the mass production of leaflets possible.  Or the religious wars (shouldn't that be some kind of oxymoron?) that followed, like The Thirty Years War.  It's fascinating stuff and there are many very thick books that record the history of the period.

But that's what bothers me.  Most authorities suggest The Reformation ended about 1750.  It's a historic period consigned to the distant past.  We can say that the period of The Reformation was 1517-1750.  Period.  What have we been doing since, then?

Regardless of which denomination of christianity you are part of, regardless of which faith you follow, even of no faith at all, doesn't it strike you that asking questions and challenging things we believe to be fundamentally wrong - literally "protesting" - and consciously trying to reform our thinking with the world around us, these things are always necessary?  Shouldn't we always be "reforming" our faith as we reform our lives?

Jesus does not call us to follow with blind faith, but with eyes open, hands out, minds and hearts working together.  Jesus' example is one of challenging systems and structures that hurt people and impair relationships.  It's one of justice, sincerity and respect.  Through these things, Jesus' example shows us that, before God, unity and conformity are not the same thing.  Regardless of the labels we use, that's an example I get behind.

So, where's God?

It used to be so much simpler, didn't it?  Life.

And by "used to be," I mean those biblical days when the world was flat, you could fall off the edge of it and the sky was a big dome, above which God lived.  The rules were simple, if many, very black and white (or carved in stone, I guess, would be a better expression) and ruthlessly enforced.

C'mon, I said "simpler," not "better."

But we wondered.  And we figured out the sun was more than a light in the dome God switched on and off, and stars were other suns and the earth turned and moved around the sun and there were other planets and, oh, by the way, the earth was round.  And we figured out how to measure things beyond what we could see and we began to wonder about the universe and how vast it was.

Here's a really cool thing.  A couple of weeks ago, NASA announced that, sometime last year, the Voyager 1 probe became the first human made creation to leave our solar system.  Kind of.  They think.  That far out, it's harder to figure where the edge of the solar system is exactly, but they're pretty sure that Voyager 1 has passed into interstellar space, the space between stars.  That's 11 and a half billion miles from our sun, give or take a mile.

Also last year, scientists managed to take a picture, using visible light, of the smallest thing ever: the shadow of a single atom.

What a great year for science.  We demonstrated how vast and how tiny the universe can be.  All in the same year.

So, where's God?

Like I said, it used to be so simple: God was "up there," just on the other side of the dome, watching over us.  Heaven was above, hell below, and everything had its place.

Then, as we got smarter and the world became more complex, it seemed like God was just getting further and further away, both metaphorically and experientially. 

But, God says, here I am, one of you.  And Jesus teaches us how to find God in each other, in creation and in the relationships that connect us, living in the great web of life.

God is both big enough to fill the universe and yet small enough to fill our hearts.  God's love is great enough to be for all and yet it is best expressed in how we share it with each other.

We may seem to be insignificant in relation to the size of the universe and yet we are each significant to God. 

And Google, apparently.  A friend of mine who uses the Night Sky app on her phone, posted this on Facebook the other night: "I opened my Night Sky app tonight and I got this message: 'Night Sky is calibrating the Universe to your location.'  Guess I'm not so insignificant after all!!"

That's the paradox isn't it?  While we are perhaps like the shadow of a single atom in comparison to the universe, we are nonetheless one of those very atoms that connect together to create it.  Thank you, God.

GOD is with us, we are not alone

It doesn't seem like more than a few weeks ago that we were reading Luke's account of Jesus calling the first disciples.  They were fishermen who left behind their families, their boats and their lives on the sea to follow Jesus and navigate the more unpredictable waters of sharing Jesus with people.

Jesus mit den Jüngern im Sturm - Waldemar Flaig (1932)

And here we are this week with the story of the disciples crossing that same sea when a storm comes up.  They have to wake Jesus, who's asleep in the back, because they are afraid.  Jesus calms the storm and asks them if they have no faith.  Their response is to be amazed and wonder “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?”  (Luke 8:25)

So who then, I wonder, are these "disciples?"  They're experienced fishermen (who, by the way, weren't catching anything the day Jesus first met them - he sent them back out to "the deep water" for fish in Luke 5).  Really?  And they're that afraid of the storm?  They're "disciples" of Jesus who call on him to save them, but are then so amazed that he does that they wonder, "who is this?"  They've been following him for three chapters and he's done some pretty amazing stuff already.

Doesn't seem like Jesus picked well, does it?

But he picked very well, indeed.  He picked ordinary, imperfect, everyday people like you and me.  

We, along with the disciples, will see Jesus do some amazing, wondrous things.  We, along with the disciples will continue to learn about love and compassion and grace.  We, along with the disciples, will share that with others in how will live.

We, along with the disciples, might come to recognize the point of Jesus' question in the storm.  Even in the moments when it seems we are most afraid, we are not alone: God is with us always. 

I think Jesus calmed the storm not as a display of his miraculous power, but out of frustration that the disciples didn't believe that God would see them through this.  It isn't the stormy weather that needs to be calmed, but their fear.  Surely, we might think, experienced fishermen would remain calm and do what they knew could be done to pass through the storm.  But their fear was too great.

Our's is too, sometimes, and we call out to God, just as the disciples woke Jesus.  

God's peace is not the absence of conflict or storm, but faith that God is with us at all times, in all places.  That faith calms our fears, inspires our hearts and minds, and strengthens our hands.

Jesus will always be reminding us - and the disciples - of this.  Even as he left them for the last time.  "Remember," Jesus says, "I am with you always to the end of an age" (Matthew 28:20).