Isaiah 58:6-9a
The Christmas I
Choose
James Sledge December
17, 2023
I don’t suppose I need to tell anyone that
it’s Advent and that Christmas is just around the corner. You would be forgiven
for not noticing some movements of the liturgical calendar. No one sends out
Reign of Christ or Trinity Sunday cards, and those days can come and go with
scarcely anyone being aware.
That’s certainly not the case with Advent
and Christmas. We didn’t have Advent candles in the South Carolina Presbyterian
church of my elementary school days, but I can’t imagine there is a
Presbyterian church anywhere that doesn’t have them now.
As you might imagine, I follow lots of
minister colleagues as well as some of the congregations they serve on Facebook
and Instagram, and those feeds are replete with all the varied way people are
welcoming in the season. There are a plethora of different themes for Advent.
Some churches have a tree in the chancel area. Some utilize purple candles and
banners while others go with blue, and some have one pink candle while others,
us included, go with all the same color.
Like us, most churches pull out special
music for the season. Some of the churches I’ve served always did an
Advent/Christmas cantata, often taking over the sermon slot on the third Sunday
of Advent. Here we had a wonderful performance of the Messiah last Sunday
afternoon, and there will be brass on Christmas Eve to help us celebrate the
birth of a Savior.
The coming of the Word made flesh
certainly deserves our worship and celebration. Something world changing has
happened. An old epoch closed and a new one began. The promise of God’s new
day, of a world set right, became visibly present.
No doubt many of you have your own way of
marking the season at home. Perhaps you read an Advent devotional or light your
own Advent candle on the dining room table. And most all of us decorate our
homes.
How many of you add fasting to your Advent
activities? Raise your hand. Nobody? Me either. That probably doesn’t surprise
anyone. I don’t know many people who use fasting as a significant part of their
spiritual life. Perhaps it shows up here and there in some folk’s Lenten
preparations, but not in Advent or Christmas.
That, and a little lack of context, may
let us miss what the prophet is talking about in our scripture today when he
says, Is not this the fast that I choose, to loose the bonds of
injustice, to undo the thong of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to
break every yoke? I think I know what is meant by loosing the bonds of
injustice and letting the oppressed go free, but what does any of this have to
do with fasting?
Unlike in our time, fasting played a
significant role in religious practice in Israel. It apparently was still the
same in Jesus’ day because he warns people not to look haggard and dismal when
fasting so that others will notice. And just prior to the passage we heard from
Isaiah, the prophet speaks of how religious Israel is but suggests that it does
no good.
Yet day after day they seek me and delight
to know my ways, says
the prophet. He speaks of how they delight to draw near to God. Yet
nonetheless, the prophet describes the people crying out God, “Why do we
fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
The prophet describes a situation where
the people point out their religiousness and then wonder why God does not seem
to be there for them. Look they say, “We do all the religious things we’re
supposed to do. We throw ourselves into religious activity with abandon. Our
worship is top notch. Why does God not seem to take note?”
In this context, the fast spoken of in our
reading today is a call to stop imagining that getting worship or religious
rituals correct will impress God. Is not this the fast that I choose… or
perhaps, is not this the worship that I choose, the spiritual discipline that I
choose, to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thong of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
The prophet warns
Israel about a religiousness that fails to transform those who practice it.
Getting all the details just so, trafficking in all the right symbols and
rituals, practicing the best prayer techniques, none of these matter if their
behaviors don’t align with God’s will, if they don’t construct the sort of
world that God desires.
There is a quote that floats around on the
internet which is purportedly from Father Richard Rohr, the popular Franciscan
priest who runs the Center for Action and Contemplation. I’ve never been able
to find the original source of the quote, but it certainly does sound very much
like Father Rohr.
Christianity is a lifestyle - a way of
being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we
made it into an established "religion" (and all that goes with that)
and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist,
selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is
one's "personal Lord and Savior…" The world has no time for such
silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.
It is incredibly easy to go through all
our Advent and Christmas activity, to get caught up in the wonderful music and
worship as we, rightfully, celebrate the birth of a Savior, and then return to
life as usual in January, not renewed and energized to live Christ centered
lives, but simply worn out. It is easy to do a stellar job of getting it all
just right but to live as though nothing has changed.
Especially in times like these, with unimaginable
cruelty and terror by Hamas, civilians being slaughtered in Gaza, and Christmas
celebrations canceled in Bethlehem over the horror of it all, it can be
tempting for Christmas to be an escape from reality, a retreat into the warmth
of familiar rituals and beloved carols. We can have a sanctuary of cheer and
goodwill that insulates us from the world, if only for a brief moment.
But then the
prophet speaks. Is not this the fast that I choose, is not this
the Christmas that I choose, to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the
thong of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
In one of those beloved Christmas carols
we sing every year, in the verse we use in place of the Kyrie during Advent and
Christmas, it says, “O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray; cast out
our sin and enter in; be born in us today.” What does that mean, for the holy
child to be born in us? What does that look like?
The medieval mystic and theologian Meister
Eckhart once reflected on Mary’s role in the Christmas story, how she was “the
mother of God,” the one who bears God into the world. He writes,
We are all meant to be mothers of God.
What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place
unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And what good is it to me if
Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for
the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my
time and culture? This then is the fulfillment of time: when the Son of God is
begotten in us.[1]
I have a pretty good idea what that looks
like. Mary sang about it on the first Sunday in Advent when she spoke of the
powerful being brought down from their thrones, the lowly lifted up, the hungry
filled with good things, and the rich sent away empty. We heard Zechariah
prophesy about it last Sunday when he spoke of a Savior who would “guide
our feet into the way of peace.”
And today Isaiah speaks for God saying, Is
not this the fast that I choose, the Christmas celebration that I
choose, to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thong of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
We are called to join our voices with
those of Mary, Zechariah, and Isaiah. We are to do more than just celebrate
another Christmas, we are to embody it, to proclaim it, to do whatever we can
to undo injustice, lift up the oppressed, and break the yoke. Then, as Meister
Eckart says, “the Son of God is begotten in us.”
[1]
Quoted in Barbara Brown Taylor, “Mothers of God” in Gospel Medicine, (Boston:
Cowley Publications, 1995) p. 153
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