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Standing at the Gates First
Unitarian Church of Des Moines 12/24/02 Reading There
is a strange irony in the usual salutation, “Merry
Christmas,” when most of the people on this planet
are thrown back upon themselves for food which they
do not possess, for resources that have long since
been exhausted, and for vitality which has already
run its course.
Despite this condition, the inescapable fact
remains that Christmas symbolizes hope even at a
moment when hope seems utterly fantastic.
The raw materials of the Christmas mood are a
newborn baby, a family, friendly animals, and labor.
An endless process of births is the perpetual
answer of life to the fact of death.
It says that life keeps coming on, keeps
seeking to fulfill itself, keeps affirming the
margin of hope in the presence of desolation,
pestilence and despair.
It is not an accident that the birth rate
seems always to increase during times of war, when
the formal processes of man are engaged in the
destruction of others.
Welling up out of the depths of vast
vitality, there is Something
at work that is more authentic than the formal,
discursive design of the human mind.
As long as this it true ultimately, despair
about the human race is groundless. Sermon
“Standing at the Gates” A
few weeks ago I received an e-mail from Shirley
Ragsdale, the religion writer for the Des
Moines Register.
She told me that the Register was reconsidering its long-standing
tradition of running a quote from New Testament book
of Luke as its masthead on Christmas morning.
Apparently some people on the staff were
thinking it wasn’t appropriate to be running a
Bible passage as a masthead on a Christian holiday
when the paper hadn’t been running scripture from
other faiths on their holy days. Fair
enough, I thought. She
asked me if I had an opinion on what they should
run. Instead
of the “Christian” masthead, she had suggested
that they run an article reporting the birth of
Jesus…as though it were a front-page news item. Interesting
idea, I thought…even if it did sound like
something the satirical paper The
Onion would do. Then
came a question that caught me off guard. If
she did write this article, she asked, would I be
willing to “fact-check” it? Fact-checking
the story of Jesus’ birth. Now
that would be a complicated assignment…especially
for a Unitarian Universalist. Which Gospel reading
would I use? Would
I fact-check according to biblical scholarship?
Or would I fact check according to
archaeology? And
what about the magical birth stories of other
religious traditions?
Would I talk about the string of strange
similarities in many of the births of messiah-types
throughout time? And,
after all, wouldn’t we be missing the point of
Christmas if we get too mixed up in “facts.” I
finally replied that I appreciated the questions.
I told her that I personally didn’t mind
that the Register
had been using Christian scripture as the masthead
on the 25th.
After all…it was Christmas.
But I did think it was appropriate to take a
closer look at the tradition in light of our
increasingly pluralistic Central Iowa population.
For lack of a better idea, I suggested they
simply print “Merry Christmas.”
And
I confessed that if she went with the article
approach, I would not be comfortable fact checking
for I honestly wouldn’t know where to begin.
Besides, I added, as I understand the story,
the birth of Jesus would not have warranted news
coverage anyway.
I mean, come on… the kid was born in a
stable because no one could spare a room…for a
pregnant woman!
Talk about flying underneath the social
radar. Mary,
on the verge of giving birth, relegated to the
animal’s quarters. Sounds
more like an opportunity for a 60
Minutes expose…or at least some cheesy
investigative TV news report.
I can see the promos now: “Coming
up at 10…Why was this woman denied a room just
hours before giving birth?
You’ll never believe where she had her
baby! Moooo!” Switch
the channel and hear another take:
“Stay tuned to Eyewitness News for the
story of a shepherd with an unbelievable tale of the
supernatural. [shot of wide-eyed guy saying:
“I was just standing there, out in the
field, and the next thing I know there’s all these
funny lights and someone was speaking to
me…telling me not to be afraid.
It was weird.”] We’ll have a live
interview with the man, right after the game.” No,
the birth of Jesus was probably not any more
newsworthy in his day than it would be
now…particularly during this “information”
age, a time when negativity and fear sell more
papers than possibility and potential.
When the lead stories are more typically
focused on the details of harsh reality or future
calamity or celebrations of the cult of personality
than on the possibility for change and redemption
and hope, particularly for those not in the
limelight or the privileged class.
For
example, it was only a few short weeks ago when the Register
featured an extended article, with pictures, about a
handful of “pro-war” demonstrators at William
Penn University.
Meanwhile, a Saturday afternoon rally and
peace march through the streets of Des Moines, which
drew hundreds of participants just a few days
earlier didn’t get one word of printed
coverage…much less a picture. Let’s
face it…the arrival of a so-called “Prince of
Peace” wouldn’t make for good copy at a time
when to be for “peace” is to be perceived as naïve…or
wimpy…or deluded…or un-American. Now,
I don’t want you to think that my emphasis tonight
is on media-bashing. After all, to verbally beat up the poor
folks just trying to earn their keep in the strange
world of infotainment is a stale and mostly
pointless endeavor.
And,
I don’t want our time together tonight to be
focused on bashing the policies of our popular
president…a president who, I have heard, has
recently become quite drawn to Unitarian
Universalism. Yes,
apparently he is intrigued by our principle of
“Inherited worth and dignity.” Seriously,
Christmas is not a time to be bashing anyone, right?
It’s a yearly time to remember the strand
of hope that connects us all together, regardless of
our politics or our class or our vocation or our
circumstances… the hope carried on the waves of
our shared breath. What
do I mean by “hope?”
I don’t mean hope the verb, which means a
wish or an expectation--I hope my team wins… I
hope my family gets along tomorrow… I hope we
don’t go to war….
The hope that is sometimes just a synonym for
blind optimism. I’m talking about hope the noun,
which means a feeling…a chance…a possibility. I’m
talking about the hope that remains even when it has
been buried beneath the rubble of our messy lives… The
hope that is always there…somewhere inside of
us… Hope
is just a chance…a possibility. This
is the hope implied in each and every birth. The
hope we share merely by being alive. The hope that,
as I see it, is the true meaning of
Christmas…because it is the true essence of the
message of a great moral teacher named Jesus.
So,
in my reply to Shirley Ragsdale, along with my
polite decline of her offer to fact-check her Jesus
birth announcement, I sent along the words to the
Sophia Lyon Fahs reading that Lori shared earlier:
“Each night a child is born is a holy
night. A time for singing, a time for wondering, a
time for worshipping.” Each
child…a blessed manifestation of life.
Each child…a precious creature of
possibility.
Each child…worthy of wonder and respect and
reverence. What
would this world be like if we did revere every
birth…every new human life?
What would this world be like if everyone
truly believed that each child has inherent worth
and dignity… My
guess is that resources would be much more evenly
divided…and people would be much more willing to
treat each other with kindness and respect…and
hope would be triumphant over fear because we would
all be making it so. Never
happen, you say? Not
with that attitude, I reply. Somebody
has to stand for hope in this beautiful, crazy,
mixed-up, violent world.
Why shouldn’t it be us?
Why
shouldn’t it be you? I’ve
heard a mental health professional quoted recently
who said that her job was not to “save” people
or to “save the world.”
She said, “All I can do—what I am called
to do—is to plant myself at the gates of hope.
Sometimes they come in; sometimes they walk
by. But
I stand there every day and I call out till my lungs
are sore with calling, and beckon and urge them in
toward life and love, toward beautiful life, and
love.”[1]
Planting
ourselves at the gates of hope. Sounds
like a good mission for any of us, whatever the
ministry of our lives, but what does “planting
oneself at the gates of hope” look like?
Maybe “planting” is a little tough.
What if we could simply stand at the
gates of hope?
Or at least walk by now and then. Just
a few months ago, I attended a training led by a
community organizer working with AMOS, the Des
Moines-area coalition of churches that is working to
build relational power and to nurture possibilities
for positive change in our metropolitan community.
The organizer said, “I know you may not be
able to fully give yourself to this idea yet.
But I encourage you to do your best to fake
it for a while.
You never know…you may be opening the door
for somebody else who really needs this…and you
may be opening the door for yourself.” I
imagine that the shepherds from the Christmas story
probably heard something similar when the angel
appeared to them.
“Fear not” the angel might have
said…and even if you are scared or uncertain,
”just do your best to fake it for a while.”
Aren’t
we all a little like those shepherds, standing out
in the fields of our lives, just minding our own
business…or at least trying to…?
When we see the colorful lights and sounds of
possibility…possibility for peace or forgiveness
or justice or redemption… do we talk ourselves out
of what we see? Do we focus instead on all the
reasons our hopeful vision must be a mistake or a
trick of the intellect?
It’s
easy to get discouraged, to believe that our effort
will have little impact…particularly when we see
our world as something we need to “save.” Throwing in the towel becomes the safest
option. Not trying seems like a better choice than
losing. And
we all know how to lose, don’t we? “My little
effort won’t do any good,” we say. “Why bother
at all?” This
resignation to defeat is one way that we deny
transformation because we deny potential…in
ourselves and in others.
Yes, individually we cannot “save the
world.” Actually
to try would probably do more harm than good.
But, as the psychiatrist says, we can
be greeters at the gates of hope, standing there
proudly and with purpose. And that may be the most
effective thing we can do. Standing
at the gates… Even
if we sometimes have to fake it. To
believe that to be present at the gates of hope May
be all we can do…and that is enough. Reminds
me of the story author Sue Monk Kidd shared in her
autobiography. She writes: “When
my daughter was small she got the dubious part of
the Bethlehem star in a Christmas play.
After her first rehearsal she burst through
the door with her costume, a five-pointed star lined
in shiny gold tinsel designed to drape over her like
a sandwich board. ‘What exactly will you be doing
in the play?’ I asked her. ‘I
just stand there and shine,’ she told me.” I
just stand there and shine. What
great Christmas advice for each of us.
What great life advice as well.
This
Christmas, and in the coming year, and in all the
years to come, may each of us find the means, the
courage, the strength, even what some would call the
sheer idiocy to stand at the gates of hope…to
stand there and shine.
We never know who may join us there…and
what may develop as a result. After
all, somebody has to stand for hope in this
beautiful, crazy, mixed-up, violent world.
Why shouldn’t it be us?
Why
shouldn’t it be you? Benediction
(Howard
Thurman)
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 peoples To
make music in the heart [1] Quoted in “The Small Work in the Great Work” a sermon by the Rev. Victoria Safford, Birmingham, AL; March 10, 2002.
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