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:
- “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}.
- “Blessed Are the Poor?”, Pamela Couture. The Churches Centre for Theology and Public Policy.
- “The Ghosts of Christmas” Fran Ota, sermon December 2005
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