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

Servant King based upon John 18:33-37 preached at Keswick-Ravenshoe Pastoral Charge November 22, 2015

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?”  Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

(Play) Hallelujah Chorus

Today is known as Reign of Christ, or Christ the King Sunday.  This is the final Sunday in the church liturgical year, the one in which we return to the picture of Jesus immediately prior to the crucifixion, and examine what it means to use those words.

All today’s lessons carry images that speak of the kingship of God. King David’s final words are God’s beginning words, that God will keep a long-standing promise to send Israel the ideal King. The Psalm reminds the people of their part in keeping the Covenant.  The Epistle leaps all the way to the projected end of history to see this King returning amid shouts and choruses, adulation and coronation.

Then there’s the Gospel lesson. Ouch. Surely there’s a better Gospel text for the celebration of a King, isn’t there? And I will be honest, I resist the words Christ, King and Reign. You will notice I don’t use the words very often, and even when I do a part of me responds quite negatively. For me they are a vestige of Empire in which a faith promotes violence and coercion, and every time those words are used in liturgy – for me it reinforces that image of violence and oppression in our Christian history.

Since this was a long week away in studies, I cheated a little on sermon writing, and drew from a sermon by Rev. Thomas Hall. He reminded me of theologian Frederick Buechner and his writing. So drawing from Tom’s example, let me sketch the Gospel text in a more contemporary way.

Close your eyes for a few moments, and imagine yourself in a room with a man who stands in front of a desk with his hands tied behind his back. He has been roughed up quite considerably, his upper lip puffed out, one eye swollen shut, bruises and cuts on almost every visible part of him. You are almost sick from the stench, realising he has not washed for some time. His feet are bare - big peasant feet, though he himself is not big. He stands bent in an awkward way, because of the way his hands were tied.  If there were just the two of them, Pilate thinks, he would give him bus fare and a couple of bucks for a hamburger and fries, and send him back to the boonies; but you and the guards are watching, on the wall sits the official portrait of Tiberius Caesar, his fat, powdered face and rather disgusting imperial smile, so Pilate goes through the formalities.

"So, you’re the man, the king of the Jews," Pilate says.

The man says, "My kingdom is not of the human world," but the combination of his strong accent, which Pilate barely understands – combined with his swollen mouth and broken teeth, makes it almost impossible to understand.

Pilate turns to the side behind his desk and crosses his legs. A pigeon flutters off the sill and floats down toward the cobbles, a rustle of wings. Standing by the door, one of the guards is surreptitiously scratching his nether regions, the other picking his nose and staring at the ceiling. Smoke from Pilate’s cigarette drifts across the desk - the picture of his wife, the gift from Caesar, the clay plaque with the imprint of his first son’s hand on it. Pilate squints at the man through the smoke and asks his questions.

The scruffy homeless man has said he came to bear witness to the truth. Pilate says, "What is truth?” The man with the split lip doesn’t say a blessed thing. Or else perhaps his not saying anything is the blessed thing. The soldiers stopped their fidgeting, not a sound in the room, just Tiberius grinning down from the wall like a pumpkin, and the smoke from Pilate’s cigarette drifting across the desk and into the face of the scruffy man.

“Are you the king of the Jews?”

“Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me? Are you actually speaking for yourself, or as usual, have others told you what to speak?”

Pilate, trying to control the conversation, responds “Am I a Jew?”

Jesus says “My kingship is not of your world.”

“So are you really a king?”

Jesus says “You are the one who keeps saying that I am king.”

I think Pilate realises that in fact he is not really in charge…the scruffy homeless guy is in charge. When Jesus says that his kingdom is "not of this world," he isn’t talking about heaven or some other time. He means now, that his kingdom, unlike that of Pilate or Caiaphas is not dependent upon the methods and means of Caesar’s world.

And notice that there is a second kind of trial going on outside at the same time.

"You’re one of them, aren’t you? His followers?"

“Who me? Not a chance."

"But I remember, you’re the one who tried to defend him."

"Listen, I’ve never laid eyes on him."

Out there the disciples’ courage suddenly fades, and in the end Peter finally denies the truth of Jesus, and loses control. On the inside the one who is in a formal trial is asking the questions, is in control. What a contrast! Outside in the darkness, the followers of Jesus are being questioned about the truth of their lives and their world is falling apart, coming unraveled. (Open eyes)


Well, that’s the Gospel lesson for the day. Christ the King in a setting that offends us -  a bedraggled, half-naked former refugee, his back still bloodied from a nasty whipping, and now standing before the Roman authority. Some soldiers in mock, have forced a crown of thorns down upon his head. And now the question: "Are you King?"

So why this passage? What is it about this trial that makes it the best portrayal of Christ as King?
 

I think part of my resistance to using those words – King, Reign, Lord – is how they have been separated from the person of Jesus in modern culture. Particularly in North American culture. There was a time when the word ‘christos’ hadn’t come along – that was a somewhat later development in the history of the movement…the followers were simply “People of the Way”. Eventually the figure of Jesus the Meshiach, the ‘anointed one’, acquired the title Christos, which in Greek also meant anointed one. He became Jesus the Christ. Yet he did not ever claim any of those titles for himself. Along the way, as Jesus became the Christ and Constantine made Christianity the ‘state religion’, in a convert or die kind of way, Christianity became associated with Empire, not  only throughout Europe, but all over the world – and the church always went into the other countries first, ahead of the military or hand in hand with them.

In recent years, it seems to me there has been a shift again, a divergence of Jesus and Christ. As the influence of Christendom and the Constantinian model of Empire wanes, the strident voices calling themselves followers of Christ get louder, and they are the ones who least follow the Way of Jesus. So my faith is undergoing a shift and that’s why I avoid the words. But perhaps I need to reclaim them, even briefly in a different way for this Sunday.

In the Hebrew understanding, a King was also a Judge, and the early Hebrew word for Judge, shofet, meant the ‘one who makes right’, the one who restores the balance of right against wrong. So it helps in working through my own theology to equate King and Judge in the sense of making something right.

I believe, as one who tries to follow the Way, that the person and teachings of Jesus do contain truth  - not a truth that only we can claim, but universal Truth. In the presence of this Truth we can only stand in silence, because his gaze beholds us, judges us, sees us through and through. There is silence. Because we also know what is right, even if we fear to do it. In the Lord of the Rings stories, by J.R.R. Tolkien – a strongly Christian writer – there is a point where the young hobbit Frodo realises what his task is – that it leads to the most fearful of all things, the loss of his life – and he says to the Queen of the Elves “I know what I must do. It’s just that, I’m afraid to do it.”

Jesus does not give a truth to Pilate; he doesn’t talk about the theology of salvation; he simply stands there as the embodiment of Truth. Pilate knows what is right and wrong, but he is afraid to do it. Jesus knows what he must do, and he does it. He doesn’t do it with great fanfare, he hands himself over to those who are weak, and offers his answer, not with words, but in an Act of love. He claims nothing for himself as a King, he claims no titles, yet he makes right. Faith and Truth meet in a Roman execution. There, Truth is laid out before the world.

So we live our lives as if Jesus is the king of the Realm which we choose to create together with him. No matter how frightened we are, no matter how small we may think we are. We are people of the Way, followers of Jesus, known as the Christos, the King.May it be so.

Sources:

1.      The Truth About Jesus The King a sermon based on John 18:33-37
by Rev. Thomas Hall

2.      Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring  J.R.R. Tolkien.

“For Just a Cup of Coffee” A sermon based on 1 Samuel 2:1-10, Mark 13:1-8 preached at Keswick-Ravenshoe United Church November 15, 2015.

1 Samuel 2:1-10  Hannah prayed and said,

“My heart rejoices in God; my strength is exalted in God. I am laughing at my rivals, because I rejoice in God’s salvation. There is none holy like God, there is no rock like our God. Don’t talk so very proudly, don’t let arrogance come from your mouth; for God has knowledge, and by God actions are weighed.  The bows of the mighty are broken, and the feeble put on strength.  Those who had plenty of food have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are now filled and hunger no more. The barren woman has borne seven children, but she who has many children is forlorn.  God kills and brings to life; God brings down to the depths of darkness and lifts up again. God makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. God raises the poor from the dust and  lifts the needy from the ash heap; they sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth belong to God, and the world stands on them.  God will guard those who are faithful;  but the wicked stumble about in the dark, for not by might can anyone live. God’s adversaries shall be broken to pieces; God will thunder in heaven. God will make right of all things;  strength will be given to God’s king,  the anointed One will be set above all.”

Mark 13:1-8

As he walked away from the Temple, one of his disciples said, “Teacher, look at that stonework! Those buildings!”

Jesus said, “You’re impressed by this grandiose architecture? There’s not a stone in the whole works that is not going to end up in a heap of rubble.”

Later, as he was sitting on Mount Olives in full view of the Temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew got him off by himself and asked, “Tell us, when is this going to happen? What sign will we get that things are coming to a head?” Jesus began, “Watch out for doomsday deceivers. Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities claiming, ‘I’m the One.’ They will deceive a lot of people. When you hear of wars and rumored wars, keep your head and don’t panic. This is routine history, and no sign of the end. Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Earthquakes will occur in various places. There will be famines. But these things are nothing compared to what’s coming.”

Yes, this is my red Starbucks cup. It is going to sit on my desk as a reminder of a few pertinent truths.

Over the last couple of weeks, there has been a firestorm back and forth on Facebook, about – get this – the colour of the new Starbucks cups for the Christmas season, and how they don’t represent Christmas. The fanatic pseudo-Christian pastor who started this stated that Starbucks is part of the War on Christmas. He said the cups don’t have any snowflakes or Christmas designs, they aren’t Christmas-y enough. He said they are “taking the Christmas out of Christmas”. Some people have gone into the stores and insisted that servers write “Merry Christmas” on their cups. 

In response, a whole lot of people, me included – have been responding with a defense of Starbucks as a business, not in the work of promoting any faith stance, but a general holiday; that Starbucks cups have never had any kind of Christian motif on them anyway; that Starbucks DOES sell Advent calendars, and Christmas coffee. Starbucks has also been collaborating with local charitable organisations in different places, providing food. Now, Starbucks food is pretty classy – I can recommend the cranberry dream bar, for those who love gooey frosting-y things.

The fuss was started by Josh Feuerstein, a video rant from a self-described “disciple of Jesus”. He’s been doing things like this for years. In this case, he claims that Starbucks hates Jesus. How Jesus has become associated with snowflakes and reindeer and Santa and all that other stuff isn’t clear. Starbucks "hates Jesus," Feuerstein ranted, because the multi-billion dollar international coffee conglomerate decided to change its Holiday cups from red with winter logos, to red. Just plain red. Which makes Jesus cry.

He is also the guy who phoned a Florida bakery to order a cake with the message: “We Do Not Support Gay Marriage.” When the bakery refused to fill the order, he and his followers cried discrimination and harassed the small business until it was forced to close temporarily.

Feuerstein’s extremism is part of his public persona. Appearing on CNN last week, he says he knows America is a Christian nation because Barack Obama had to pretend to be Christian to get elected. He is a sometime pastor, strongly anti-gay, a racist, and a gun nut. And it’s clear he has no idea what the Gospel message is.

Just a couple of examples of the lash back at Feuerstein:  three Starbucks cups, and a photo of a homeless man sleeping on a bench, and the caption says “If you’re more offended by these, (pointing to the cups) than by this (pointing to the man), then you’re part of the problem.”

Then there’s one of someone giving an African child a simple cup of clean water, and the caption is “Yeah, that Starbucks cup is a real problem.”

So how does this in any way connect to the two texts this morning?  

Hannah is a woman who has been unable to have a baby. She is married to Elkanah whose second wife, Peninnah, has children. Hannah is ridiculed by Penninah, and even though Elkanah loved Hannah, he gave her lesser gifts on the days of sacrifice in the temple because she had no children.  Hannah sits in the temple and prays and prays to God to give her just one child. And the miracle happens. Hannah becomes pregnant. 

And we hear Hannah sing, a song which we will hear again in Advent, when Mary learns she is pregnant, when Zechariah sings of finally having seen what had been foretold. And we hear it again when Jesus talks about how the realm of God will be.

The last will be first and the first will be last. Now, we tend to read these things as if they are all carried out by God with no human interaction. So we have to put Hannah’s song into context – the God of the early peoples was a God who made things happen for good or ill.  But that isn’t what I hear in this text at all. What I hear is a text about complete reversals of fortune. Hannah is speaking about God’s realm, where those who are hungry are fed, and the rich have nothing; where those who are considered the dregs of society are lifted up, and those who pushed others down and oppressed them are now in a different position.

I’d like to read you some of that text again, but a different version: “The weapons of the strong are smashed to pieces, while the weak are infused with fresh strength. Those who were well-fed are out begging in the streets for crusts, while those who were hungry are getting second helpings. God puts people on their feet again, and rekindles burnt-out lives with fresh hope, restoring dignity and respect to their lives.”

Three years ago there was a statue called Homeless Jesus, designed by Timothy Schmalz, a Canadian sculptor. It depicts Jesus as a homeless person, sleeping on a park bench. His face and hands are hidden under a blanket, but crucifixion wounds on his feet reveal his identity. The statue has been described as a "visual translation" of the passage from Matthew in which Jesus tells his disciples, "as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me". The first casts were offered to St. Michael's Cathedral in Toronto and St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, but both churches declined, citing issues of restoration on their buildings. In 2013 the original sculpture was installed at Regis College, the Jesuit School in Toronto School of Theology.

In 2013 the first cast was installed in the United States, at the St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Davidson, North Carolina. The rector, Rev. David Buck, says "This is a relatively affluent church, to be honest, and we need to be reminded ourselves that our faith expresses itself in active concern for the marginalized of society". In an interview he said "We believe that that's the kind of life Jesus had. He was, in essence, a homeless person.”

For me, this is where the hoopla over a red coffee cup collides with both texts. What is really important is not whether a secular business organisation opts for a plain red cup; what is really important is not the big fancy buildings which eventually will be gone. What is really important is what we do to others and the world. What is really important are those people on our streets, in our cities, homeless and hungry; drowning in a frantic run to get away from war, lining up to come to a place where they can just have a life. The texts are both about complete reversals of what we think the world is to be, an upside-down version of how we define our world. In the Mark passage Jesus says “You have no idea what’s coming.” And it’s true this is a piece of apocalyptic literature as we read on. But it’s with a point – that for all that humanity tries to do to hold power, it will be turned upside down.  The realm of God will come, where the hungry will be fed, the thirsty given good clean water to drink instead of sewage, where women don’t go missing, where homes and work can be found so that all people have some dignity; a place where the human worth of every person is the first and most important thing; a place where people don’t end up living on the streets, or needing food banks, or handouts; a place where there is no bombing or killing.

It’s too easy to get sidetracked by things like the colour of a cup, and then persecuting people out of our own fear. It’s just too easy – and maybe that’s why it happens. Really turning the world upside down, tearing down the walls of injustice and oppression, and treating all people as if they have value and worth – is really really hard work most of the time. But it is the realm of God.

And Hannah sings that it happens, that somehow the wrongs inflicted on the world are reversed and put right; she offers a caution about making judgments, of ridiculing others, because we don’t know when fortunes will be reversed, when one who is wealthy will lose all, or when one who has been poor and homeless will be able to make a start again. We don’t know, we can’t know. Through Hannah’s song the imbalances of the world are put to rights.

Well, I got really worked up over this one, because there is a side of me which does make judgment; I read the trash about the cup and the war on Christmas and think “Seriously??? Really??? Is that all you have to worry about??? Why are you so afraid??? Why don’t you get out and really follow Jesus, even in the simple act of offering a cup of coffee to someone who really needs it, and yes even in a red cup.”

A cup offered to someone who needs. A simple thing, but it can be so much.  In ‘A Christmas Carol’, the Ghost of Christmas Present offers Scrooge a cup – filled with the milk of human kindness. Instead of seeing the cup as a war on something, why not see it as the opposite – the very thing which Hannah sings about, the very thing Jesus makes reference to – a reversal of what is now, a reversal of all those things we consider permanent. Why not see the cup as the vehicle of making change?  Offer someone who could really use it, a simple cup of coffee – and go from there.

Author Maren Tirabassi, whose books I read and who has become a friend via Facebook, is a gentler soul than I, less harsh in judgment. She has written a poem, and I believe catches in it the needs of many people, and how a cup of coffee can be a catalyst for change.

“This is my Christmas cup of coffee.
Yes, it is in a red cup and I like it rather strong
so I can make it very sweet and light and I want to sip it slowly
because today someone is willing to listen to me,
and hear any loneliness, any grief, any sorrow.

The star shines in kind eyes, not really in either
the brand name of the store, (though I smile)
or the words of a story, told out in pageant, sermon,
or so-called live nativity.

And the stable is this coffee shop –
for it always happens in some latte or manger
where no one ever expects something holy to be born.

There are so many people
watching over their laptops by night,
and, while my friend listens to me,
I eavesdrop on all their angels.”

May it be so.

Sources:

1.      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeless_Jesus

2.      Rev. Maren Tirabassi, Pastor, Union Church of Madbury (United Church of Christ), New Hampshire.