“Sing a New Song” sermon preached at Keswick-Ravenshoe Pastoral Charge December 27th, 2015

Colossians 3:12-17  

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another, and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as God has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Let the peace of Jesus rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. Be thankful. Let the word of Jesus dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God; and whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of Jesus, giving thanks to God through him.

“Sing a new song unto the Lord, let your songs be sung from mountains high.

Sing a new song unto the Lord, singing Alleluia!”**

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Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own, to make amends in!
``I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!'' Scrooge babbled, as he scrambled out of bed. ``The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!''
He was so flustered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would barely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.
``They are not torn down,'' cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, ``they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here: I am here: the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will!''
His hands were busy with his garments all this time: turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.
``I don't know what to do!'' cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect fool of himself with his stockings. ``I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world!'' 

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He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows: and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk -- that anything -- could give him so much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's house, for dinner.

******************************************************************************“Merry Christmas, Bob!'' said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. ``A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit.''

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

Advent and Christmas – a journey from the desert of John the Baptist to a small cave behind an inn; a call to repent, to examine our lives and ourselves, to change our lives.

We stopped along the way, at a place called Hope. Hope in something new, hope for a future, hope that we can change, hope tied up in a star, a comet, whatever, leading the way and lighting the path.

The second stop was Peace – the outgrowth of Hope, that the world can change, that we can change the world so that it is a place where all can live, and grow. Hope that we can change.

Still led by the Star, we heard a young woman sing a song as old as earth, a song of Joy – and yet a radical song where the accepted order of things is turned upside down, where the poor and destitute are fed and clothed, where work and education and health care and shelter is available for everyone – and where the rich are no longer first nor in control. The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. In Mary’s song, she says “The rich shall be sent away empty.” 

The last part of the road, where we encounter Love – love in all its richness; love of companionship, love of friendship, the love of life, the love of the world and the love of the call into the world. Love manifested in a child, a baby – not only a baby, but one born into the poorest of circumstances, to two people with a tiny income; who arrived too late to even find a room in the hotel, and instead had to shelter in the space where the animals were kept.

…and yet – because of this one child, so many things changed. Mary and Joseph sang a new song – a song which encompassed hope, peace, joy, and love. Angels sang a completely new song, one they had never sung before; the shepherds too, sang a new song – something they had never heard, yet in the depths of their souls, they knew.

So too, on Christmas morning, an old man bounced out of bed. He too had been on a journey – one in which parts of his life were brought back to him; his cruelty about the poor around him, suggesting they could die and decrease the surplus population, complaining about the taxes laid on him to support factories and poorhouses; who had no time for family or friends. His journey took him through celebrations – seeing that while he had no joy in his life, those so much less affluent could find immense joy in the very act of living. His journey took him right to the doorstep of his own physical death, and showed him the result of the lost chances to use what he had to make the world a better place. Each of the spirits who visited him pointed out the chance of reclamation, of redemption.

So on Christmas morning, he bounced out of bed, literally singing a whole new song, and dancing a whole new dance. He stepped off on the road of Advent, and found along the way, the meaning of Hope, Peace and Joy – and most of all, Love. Love of family, love of neighbour – indeed, he has learned who his neighbour really is.  There is no outright mention of religion in this story, not really, except right at the beginning in the words of Marley – was there no poor home to which the light of the star might had guided him, if he had lifted his eyes instead of always looking down. Yet the word is as clear as can be.

Ebenezer Scrooge, the wealthy old miser who hid in his office even on the death of his partner, is redeemed. He has learned what his poor assistant already knew. One does not need money to be happy; but with money and no humanity, one cannot ever hope to live.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel is considered one of the foremost Jewish theologians of the 20^th century.  He said that the time for the coming of the realm may be far off, but the task is plain: to retain our share in God in spite of peril and contempt. There is a war to wage against the vulgar, the glorification of the absurd, a war that is incessant, universal. Loyal to the presence of the ultimate in the common, we may be able to make it clear that human beings are more than just human beings, that in doing the finite we may perceive the infinite.

“The greatest problem” he said “ is not how to continue but how to exalt our existence. The call for a life beyond the grave is presumptuous, if there is no cry for eternal life prior to our descending to the grave. Eternity is not a perpetual future but actually a perpetual presence. The seed of eternal life has been planted in us. The world to come is not just a hereafter but also a here and now.”

There’s a little song Rabbi Heschel composed, and I believe it’s the song Scrooge sang as he bounced out of bed that Christmas morning: “Just to be is a blessing, just to live is holy. Just to be, just to live, is a blessing, is holy”

Let’s sing: 

Sources: 

1. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

2. From "Sing a New Song", by Daniel Schutte.

The Ghosts of Christmas Part II: Past, Present, Future December 20, 2015 Keswick-Ravenshoe Pastoral Charge

“The Spirit of God is on me, because I have been anointed to proclaim good news to the poor. I have been sent to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.”

For most of us, Christmas is a time we associate with family, friends, good feelings, food, wine, laughter, a time of reflection, celebration, affirmation, joy, whether or not we are religious. They are all positive emotions, and for most of us, they put us in a more generous and better frame of mind, we are little more open to others, a little more patient - we come a little closer to what Christmas is supposed to be about, and what we are called to be about.

Now Christmas is almost upon us. For some, this will be a time of great joy, with family home - grandchildren and maybe even great grandchildren. For some it will be a time of great sadness - a loved one gone, no food on the table, no gifts for children, fractured families, anger and hurt, illness, loss of work. The ghosts of other Christmases come to haunt - just around the edges, a lingering loneliness, remembering times as a family when we ourselves were children.

Dreams are strange things. We can do things in dreams that we can’t do during our waking hours. When I worked in World Outreach at the national UC office, one of my roles was computer management, I often solved problems while dreaming, went to work the next day and tried out the solution. Musicians tell stories of memorising pieces of music in dreams, or composing in dreams. Our minds keep on working while we are asleep. Dreams tell us things about ourselves that we aren’t always able to face otherwise. There are lots of logical explanations, but it is still miraculous what the mind can do, and how it can help us see ourselves. And the line between dreams and reality is often negligible.

Charles Dickens, at the beginning of the industrial revolution, wrote stories about the abysmal conditions in which many people lived. “A Christmas Carol” is probably the best known, and its message is timeless. For Scrooge, Christmas Eve might have been described as a nightmare. He certainly thought it was a nightmare, at least at the beginning. Had the visitations stopped after Marley, or maybe after the first of the three “spirits”, he would have written it off as that particular piece of mouldy cheese he’d eaten earlier in the evening with his thin gruel - and nothing would have changed. He would have gone back to sleep, no different.

But those ghosts – Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come – do make their appearance, and Scrooge is confronted with his own life in review.

 The Ghost of Christmas Past, a spirit of age, yet appearing young – and shining with a light so bright Scrooge cannot bear it, and asks for it to be covered. Truth can be hard to look upon directly.

``What!'' exclaimed the Ghost, ``would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!''

So we travel into Scrooge’s past. We see a small boy, sitting in a classroom at boarding school, while his classmates go home for Christmas. His mother died giving birth;, and in grief, his father rejected the baby. A little bit of this boy hardens up and closes away.

The same boy, older and more mature, stands alone in the same schoolroom. His sister comes to tell him he can come home for Christmas. “Father is so much kinder than he used to be” she says “that I wasn’t afraid to ask him once more if you might come home.”  We find hints of abuse, of deep anger and hurt, we never quite know exactly, but the suggestions are there. This sister died, giving birth to Scrooge’s nephew. And Scrooge rejects the nephew as his father had rejected him.

A Christmas party – every year Scrooge’s employer closed down the business early, pushed all the chairs out of the way – a feast was laid on, and there were fiddlers, singing and dancing – and Christmas celebrations. And finally we see him, confronted by the woman he has loved, as she lets him free of his promises to her. Another idol  - one of gold – has replaced her. It is telling that when she leaves, Scrooge lets her go, not having the will to let go his obsession with money.

Christmas Present is a spirit of great energy, generosity and compassion. “You’ve never seen the likes of me before, have you?” he asks. In the Albert Finney musical version of the movie, Scrooge finds himself getting quite giddy on a drink the spirit offers him – he says “I’ve never tasted the likes of this” to which the spirit replies “Yes, I supposed you haven’t. It’s called the milk of human kindness”. As the Spirit goes down the city streets, sprinkling Christmas water from his torch, Scrooge asks the Spirit if there is any special flavour in the water. The spirit answers that there is a special flavour in any meal kindly given, but especially a poor one. When asked why a poor one, the spirit responds ”It is needed the most.”

We see how little Scrooge knows even about his clerk, Bob Cratchit - that Bob had children, one of whom was ill. When Scrooge asks if Tim the child will live, he is given back his own words “If he’s going to die, he should do it, and decrease the surplus population.” As this spirit moves on, he leaves Scrooge with one particularly pertinent message. Under his robe huddle two scrawny, thin and sickly children with hands like claws. “This one is Ignorance” says the ghost “and this is Want. Beware both of them, but particularly beware Ignorance.” Asking if there are no services for them, the ghost answers with Scrooge’s words “Are there no factories, are there no poorhouses?”

It never ceases to strike me how relevant this message is even today. We all know people who have been hurt by life, through no fault of their own, but who carry the grief, who close themselves off, or make something else more important. Scrooge is not, in fact, a particularly complicated man. He has simply reacted to the hurt and disappointment in his life by building protections for himself.

The interesting thing about Scrooge, is that he punishes himself as well. He piles up money, but spends little. He lives in virtual poverty, both of body and of soul. The money itself isn’t important. In his pursuit of the accumulation of security he shuts out everything which could touch him - even losing the woman he loves because she is content to live on a modest income, and be of service to others. He has no idea of the causes of poverty and trouble around him; he even resents that he is taxed to support institutions for the poor and destitute. Yet he has more than he ever needs for himself, beyond all comprehension.

Remember Jesus reading from the scroll of the Torah, the words of Isaiah, “The Spirit of God is on me, because I have been anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. I have been sent to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.” Remember Scrooge’s first encounter with the ghost of his friend and partner, Jacob Marley. Remember the long, heavy, ponderous chains Marley dragged - and the length and weight of the chains Scrooge had forged for himself in life - and those were the words Marley used - forged in life. Is this not exactly the message of the Gospel - “it is required of every person”, says Marley, “that their spirits must go forth into the world in life”, and if they don’t, they are chained and crippled beings, prisoners of their own making, blind by their own hands, weighted down and oppressed by the chains forged in life.

The last visitation, Christmas Yet to Come, demonstrates the consequences of not being aware, not being attuned to the world around, not being engaged in the world. A father walks slowly home from a graveyard; a small chair sits empty, with a small crutch beside it. It is not because of anything Scrooge did that the boy died, but precisely the opposite - he didn’t do anything. He minded what he thought was his business and the rest of the world minded theirs, or so he thought. Along the way he lost track of the world - the poor and marginalised, the hungry and mentally ill, the sick and bereaved, the lonely and hurt - they are precisely our business - Ignorance and Want are our business.

Scrooge sees a man dead, and someone stealing the very slippers off the body’s feet. He sees his belongings being sold off by his own housekeeper. He finds himself in a graveyard, seeing his own name etched on a gravestone. The reality of his existence comes crashing in on him: “I am not the man I once was, I am a new person, I will keep Christmas in my heart. Tell me these are not the shadows of things that will be, but the shadows of things that may be”. Whatever we do or don’t do - either by action or by inaction - there are still consequences. Cause and effect - everything has some kind of consequence, some kind of result. We cannot be disengaged from the world if we are Christian. We cannot be Christian and not take action. To be Christian means to be involved.

I can’t help but align these three spirits with the words we sometimes use in the service of communion – the mystery, and the hope of our faith: “Jesus has died. Jesus is risen. Jesus will come again.” Christmas Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Yet to Come. What we were, what we are today, and what we may yet be.

Christmas in all of life, the birth of the child in our hearts, and what may grow. Thanks be to the one who calls us into life. May it be so.

The Ghosts of Christmas: Part I “Scrooge and Marley” preached at Keswick-Ravenshoe Pastoral Charge November 29, 2015

Psalm 25

To you, O God, I lift my soul. In you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me. Do not let those who look to you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

Teach me your ways, and lead me in your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long. Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!

 God is good and upright; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. The humble are read in what is right, the teachings are the way of humility. All God’s paths are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep the covenant and the law. For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.  Who are they that are in awe of God? They will be taught the good ways. They will live in prosperity, and their children shall have the land. The friendship of God is for those who are in awe, and the covenant is made known to them.

My eyes are ever toward God, for he will rescue me from the traps and snares. Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. Relieve the troubles of my heart, and bring me out of my distress. Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins. Consider how many are my foes, and with what violent hatred they hate me. O guard my life, and deliver me; do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you. Redeem Israel, O God, out of all its troubles.

Luke 21: 25-36

 “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.  People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.  Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the realm of God is near.  Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.  Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

 “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly,  like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

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Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.

"Mercy!" he said.  "Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?"

"Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, "do you believe in me or not?"

"I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"

"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.  It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.

"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling.  "Tell me why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you? Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?  It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"

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"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said "I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow -beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!"

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As a young man Charles Dickens expressed a distaste for certain aspects of organized religion. He pointed out even then that the church’s rigidity on people’s full lives, incuding pleasure, caused people to stay away from church. Yet he honoured the figure of Jesus, and was characterized as a professing Christian with deep religious convictions.Dickens disapproved of Roman Catholicism, and 19th-century evangelicalism, and was critical of what he saw as the hypocrisy of religious institutions and philosophies, all of which he considered deviations from the true spirit of Christianity.

During the industrial revolution, Dickens wrote about the abysmal conditions in which most people lived. Whole families were consigned to work in factories, children did not go to school, wages were minimal, and those unable to work or who lived on the streets were carted off to asylums or poor-houses where they generally died. Dickens was a journalist, and highly critical of those who controlled the economy. He believed Christian charity and concern had been pushed aside in the name of progress and greed.

In the first part of “A Christmas Carol” we meet two men of wealth - Scrooge and Marley, - and two men of little means – one despised and even hated, the other used and oppressed. Opposite Scrooge and Marley are Fred who is family, and Bob Cratchit, who for this story is ‘everyman’, whose life is hard, whose child is ill and dying, and yet who remains full of Hope, and Christmas is for him a time to celebrate and give thanks. This is a morality play in which wealth is no guarantee of happiness, and poverty is no means of despair, and the judgment of humans is turned upside down in the eyes of God.

Scrooge is portrayed as a stunted soul, who walls himself off from the world to avoid personal pain. The acquisition of money becomes his one purpose. He cannot fathom how his nephew Fred, and his clerk Bob Cratchit, can find joy in life even while poor - yet he remains unaware of the poverty of spirit he carries himself, despite his monetary wealth. In fact, Scrooge’s living quarters reveal his stunted soul – for he does not use any money for himself. The acquisition of money for the sake of its acquisition has become who he is.

In the wail of Marley’s returned soul we hear the wail of the Psalmist, calling out to God as Marley does to Scrooge. “Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions….” “I am lonely and afflicted, relieve the troubles of my heart, and bring me out of my distress.”

If we read the full story of King David, we find that he has the opportunity to look back on his life – as a boy, the confrontation with Goliath, the King Saul who was his sort-of mentor; and then later as King, his greed and dishonesty, rape and murder – he has a chance to beg God not to hold those things against him, to help him turn around.

Marley has not done so, not realized his single-minded focus on only being “a man of business”, until it is too late. So he says, “It is required of every person that their spirit must go forth in life, walk amongst other human beings, connect with other human beings – and if the person does not do so, the spirit is condemned to go forth in death, dragging the chains of greed and corruption invisibly formed in life – and be unable to offer any help any assistance.”

It seems to me, if I believed in hell, that this would be hell – to realise the potential of our lives, but come to that realization too late. Marley has no opportunity to ask forgiveness, and repent – repentance meaning seeing the errors of one’s ways, and turning in a different, better direction.

Allow me to paraphrase Dickens a little – or perhaps bring the story into today.

“You were always a good man of business, Jacob.” says Scrooge.

“Business!!!” cries Marley “Humanity was supposed to be my business; charity, compassion and mercy, kindness and forbearance, all were supposed to be my business. The dealings of my occupation were but a drop in what was the great ocean of my true business. At this time of the rolling year”, he says “I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow human beings, my eyes turned down, shutting them out and pretending I didn’t see, or that it didn’t involve me? Instead of looking up to that Blessed Star which led others to a poor and humble abode. Not even to be aware that no regret can make up for missed opportunities in one person’s life.”

This statement of Marley’s echoes the thoughts of Martin Luther, who believed that the theology of merit” in the church, which rewarded people for good works, actually further impoverished those already poor. He also believed that the raw power of any superior group would always exploit the lesser group for its own greed. Dickens assessment of the conditions in England are precisely drawn from Luther’s assessment of the failure of the church to live up to itself. For David the Psalmist, Martin Luther the reformer, and Dickens the writer – there is the matter of a covenant with humanity, broken – for our covenant with God means that we are the extensions of God in the world. If we do not take that seriously, the covenant is broken by us.

Today, we are faced with many situations which in some ways parallel the world of Dickens and Luther. We don’t allow child labour in our own countries – and yet we allow and exploit it in other parts of the world, so we can have cheap goods for ourselves. Think Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will help some businesses, but what about those who are displaced from their work, or poorer places on the other side of the Pacific? We exploit people who, truth be told, we do see as lesser than ourselves – so we don’t mind if they are consigned to poverty. The tiny amount earned from the work they do goes into a family pool of funds….often at the expense of education or health. We exploit our own in some ways, paying them below a living wage and ignoring the fact that many have to work two or three jobs to live. And we don’t lift our eyes up to the star, and a poor and humble abode.

And today we are faced with, yet again, another influx of people desperately running for their lives. As Christians, what should be our response? Worry about our own safety first, and then everyone else next? We hear people complaining about “looking after our own”, the homeless and the veterans – and yet they are often the ones who don’t do much even for the homeless or the veterans, for whom it is convenient to keep looking down, looking away. Over against that we have even those who are poor, offering what they can to help others who they perceive need assistance. We forget that Jesus himself was a refugee – his parents took him and ran from Herod. Although the Gospel stories as we go along into Epiphany tell us of Mary and Joseph taking Jesus and running to Egypt, my guess is that a whole lot of people ran into Egypt to escape Herod. And Egypt accepted them. And I don’t think it’s any accident that the story tells us they ran to the country which had made slaves out of their ancestors.

Luke’s Gospel is a good example of what is called apocalyptic theology, the coming of the end times. Wars, famines, people fearful of what is happening in the world. And Jesus says all of this will continue, none of it will pass, until the word of hope, peace, the worth of all human beings, has happened. Marley echoes the Gospel – “for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is actually capable is fully developed. Not being aware that any Christian spirit, working even just in its own little sphere, will never be able to do all the things of which it is capable in one life. Not to know that no amount of regret can make up for opportunities missed.”

Marley says clearly he was so focused on one tiny part of life, that he blanked out all those instances of the breaking in of the realm of God where he could have had a part and made that realm more possible. Now he is doomed to keep reliving those times when he could have been paying attention and was too busy with himself. The chains which bind him and which he must carry are all those lost opportunities. 

The Psalmist, David, was lucky – he had the chance to turn his life around, despite his transgressions and his age. Scrooge was lucky. Somehow, even though Marley had been denied the chance for redemption, he has somehow been allowed to return, and offer Scrooge the possibility of repentance. Scrooge, the man whose heart had been so weighted down by despair and pain that he cut himself off altogether, and could not see the coming. In the Gospel, Jesus says take care that you don’t get side-tracked by things in this life, don’t let your heart be weighed down with despair, be alert for signs of the coming realm.

And Scrooge, when faced with the very real work of change, does the completely human thing and says he thinks he’s rather pass on the opportunity, and just remain the way he is.

And yet – the light of hope and redemption shines through – he will be given three more chances to reverse the course of his life, and make amends. So we go forward with the largely unwilling Scrooge, on this walk to Bethlehem – with the light of Hope on the road. May it be so.

Sources:

1. “A Christmas Carol” Stave 1. Text, spelling, and punctuation as published by Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, E.C., London, 1890, from 1881 photographs of the author's original 66-page Chapman and Hall manuscript and compared with the genuine First Edition {brown cloth}. 

2. “Blessed Are the Poor?”, Pamela Couture. The Churches Centre for Theology and Public Policy.

3. “The Ghosts of Christmas” Fran Ota, sermon December 2005