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My
least favorite subject in school was poetry. I disliked it even more
than math. My childhood disdain continued into adulthood. Poems that
rhymed were goofy. The poems that didn't rhyme, I couldn't understand.
Why would I waste time reading something that made me think? In my
estimation, poetry was pointless.
What I learned
about the poets behind the poems led me to conclude that
most of them were nuts. I still say that many of them are
nuts, but over the years I've softened my assessment. Reading Izzak
Walton's, The Complete Angler, I was taken by the poetic, prosaic
style by which Walton probed the heart of the angler's soul. In
college, I took a course called Religious Classics. I was introduced
to Francis Thompson and his masterpiece, "The Hound of Heaven"-a
poem that described God's unrelenting pursuit of us with "…
those strong feet that followed, followed after."
I wouldn't say
that I "love" poetry, but life experiences have helped
me to at least "appreciate" it.
Emily Dickinson
and Walt Whitman were great American poets whose styles and personalities
couldn't have been more different. Emily was shy, quiet, reserved,
and seldom left Amherst, Massachusetts. Whitman, on the other hand,
was a bold, energetic man who wrote earthy poems about the human
condition. The Dickinson family's idea of a good time was occasionally
going to the beach for a nice picnic. When it struck his fancy,
Whitman also went to the beach, took off all his clothes, and ran
along the beach, shouting his poetry into the wind.
A literature
professor familiar with both poets posed a question. What would
happen if, after spreading their red and white-checkered picnic
cloth and arranging the place settings and food, Whitman jumped
over a sand dune and landed in the middle of the Dickinson's picnic
spread? Would their surprise encounter inspire more poetry?
Today we are
half way through Advent, and gearing up for the big push to Christmas.
There's a lot to do between the 10th and the 25th. To sharpen our
focus, we come to church to separate the essentials from the non-essentials,
and reflect upon the historical fact of Christmas. The Sundays of
Advent are cozy and comfortable… until Malachi and John the
Baptist barge in on our picnic, scaring us half to death with their
wild-eyed ranting about Something on the horizon that will soon
be unleashed on the world.
This talk about,
"enduring the day of the Lord," is depressing.
With so many things going wrong in the world, why put another nail
in the coffin of the Christmas spirit? We didn't come to church
to hear this! Can't you wait until our shopping is done and Christmas
is over?
Before you blame
me, you need to understand that I didn't pick the scriptures. For
a very long time now, the church has said that we must see faces
in the mirror at Advent before we see the face of Jesus at Christmas.
John the Baptist's
prepared the way for the Lord's coming. Luke gives a lot of historical
detail as he sets the stage for John's message:
"In
the fifteenth year of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was
governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother
Phillip ruled some hard to pronounce places, and Lysanius ruled
Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the
word of God came to John in the wilderness."
Luke isn't simply
giving facts about who ruled what and when. Strong men ran the political
and religious world, but God's word didn't come to them. It didn't
come to the Emperor's palace or the temple. God's word came to a
"Walt Whitman-of-a-man" dressed in camel hide preaching
in the wilderness.
John took over
for Malachi who lived 500 years earlier, who said that repentance
from sin was necessary before the advent of the Lord. Malachi asked,
"Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he
appears? Whose knees won't turn to jelly? He is coming with a refiner's
fire and fullers soap to give you a sound scrubbing." It doesn't
sound appealing, does it? It won't be a warm, Saturday night bath.
"For he
is like a refiner's fire…" My father worked in a foundry
all his life. He took me to watch the men pour molten metal into
the casting molds. Blast furnaces super heated the ore and the impurities
came to the top. It was removed and when it cooled, it formed a
cinder-like material called "slag." "For he is like
a refiner's fire and fuller's soap." You wouldn't bath a baby
with fullers' soap. It was a harsh, strong, lye-based soap used
to bleach cloth.
Preparing for
Christmas with cleansing by fire and soap is not particularly appealing,
but we need a bath-all of us. It is not for hygienic purposes. The
cleansing that Malachi and John prescribed was the cleansing of
the soul. To endure the coming of the Lord requires a spiritual
bath.
I college I
took a class which spent a month in Bogotá, Colombia. In
our orientation we were told to shower every day. In the minds of
Colombians, North Americans are dirty. Cleanliness is so important
to Colombians that they will shower three times a day. It was up
to us to change the image of America. But we can be "zestfully
clean" on the outside and filthy inside.
Someone told
me he couldn't stand listening to preachers during the Christmas
season. I said I couldn't stand a lot of them myself. When I pressed
him about why, he said, "I'm sick of preachers bashing Christmas
materialism and consumerism and ignoring the real reason for the
season. What's wrong with devoting a day to giving presents, offering
your fellow man a helping hand, taking a Christmas basket to a poor
family, singing nostalgic songs, and forgetting about how messed
up the world is?" "Nothing," I replied. "It
just that Christmas isn't a day. We don't just follow Jesus one
day out of 365. The spirit of generosity and giving isn't about
Toy's For Tot's, dropping a few bills in the Salvation Army bucket,
or giving a handout to a street person. It's a way of life that
Jesus came to teach us."
The color of
Advent is purple. Purple is the color of repentance. Repentance
isn't feeling sorry. Repentance is taking the hard inward look at
our sin, our pride, our self-righteousness, our jealousy, our prejudice,
our hypocrisy, and the selfishness that is at the root of it all.
Repentance is the decision to turn away from self and head a different
direction-the one that Jesus has set for us.
Who can endure
the day of his coming; who can stand when he appears? For he is
like a refiner's fire and fullers' soap. He will scrub away all
of the dirt and pretentiousness that keeps us from the wonder of
knowing who Jesus is and what he came to give.
I'm not sure
I would call it a spiritual ritual, but at this time of year we
watch classic Christmas films…. "It's a Wonderful Life,"
"White Christmas," "The Miracle On 34th Street. One
very popular type of film portrays dysfunctional families trying
to make it through the holidays in one piece. I watched one Friday
night-"A Christmas Story." Another is "Christmas
Vacation," where Clark Griswold wants a traditional, old-fashioned
Christmas. He wants best for his family and himself, but all of
his plans turn into disasters before they can be realized.
We identify
with these stories. We are not the only ones whose Christmas plans
fall apart. A loved one is not impressed with that special gift
you went to great lengths to find, and your feelings are hurt. You
have warm thoughts about your children while buying them gifts,
and then you scream at them for something insignificant. You max
out your credit card at Best Buy, and on the way home you turn off
the radio when the station makes appeals to help the less fortunate
at Christmas. Extended family comes together and someone says something
that reopens old wounds.
I used to be
a little Pharisee. Now I'm a big one. On Christmas Eve, our extended
family gathered at my grandparent's home to eat and open gifts.
Some of my relatives didn't go to church, not even at Christmas.
I remember how superior and smug I felt when we walked in, fresh
from the Christmas Eve service and smelling of candle smoke. I thought
we were better. I thought God liked us more than those who didn't
bother to honor him. If anyone was entitled to a Christmas blessing,
it was us.
There are all
kinds of grievances and grudges and grime we bring with us to Christmas.
Each year we come, hoping that maybe this will be the one where
everything goes right, and there will be no disappointments, and
no post-Christmas let down. It can happen, but not if we simply
come and behold him with better intentions.
God is not telling
us to stay away until we clean ourselves up. It the cleaning was
up to us, we would never get close to God's son. Only fire and soap
to remove the grime.
In the movie,
Life or Something Like It, there is a street prophet named
Jack. Every day he stands at the corner of Fourth and Sanders in
downtown Seattle. Standing on a wooden crate, he arched his back,
threw his arms up and head back and starts prophesying. "I
see and say," is how he began.
A TV reporter
named Lanie walked by Jack's pulpit and threw some money in his
coffer. Jack prophesied to Lanie that the Seattle Seahawks would
beat the Denver Broncos 16-13. He said it would hail the next day,
and on Thursday, Lanie would die. Like everyone else, she thought
Jack was a lunatic, but then he looked into her eyes and said, "Prophets
don't joke." When the Seahawks won 16-13, and it hailed the
next day, Lanie decided it was time to repent and turn her life
around.
Prophets don't
joke. The message of Malachi and John the Baptist isn't, "God
is coming and man, are you going to get it." The message is,
"Something better in store for the world. Something better
in store for us." There will be a judgment waiting for all
of us. Thank God it will not be at the hands of another human being.
God will do the judging, and God is a good judge.
God's desire
is not to terrorize us, burn us, or scrub us until there is nothing
left. Malachi and John tell us that God's judgment has love at its
heart. God judges us to save us because he loves us. God loves us
into repentance, and changing directions so we can get rid of everything
that keeps us from experiencing the joy of Christ's birth.
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