Archive for December, 2011

I held Madonna in my hand–a small figure from our Nativity. Her head was slightly bowed; posture tipped forward, as if bowing her heart, as well. I studied her, something of her form speaking to me about myself.

Running home to Mom and Dad . . . Returning to the nest . . .In a culture in which renting rooms is no longer widespread, and relationships lack stability, adult kids are returning home to live with their parents, who have become their economic safety net. But when Mom and Dad are deceased or unsafe as living companions or unwilling to have those kids come home, homelessness abounds.

It wasn’t until I served in an interim role at a Lutheran church that I really understood the significance of liturgical seasons like this one. Since that time, I have come to appreciate the historical (since the beginning of the early church) and global practice (with Christians from around the world) of joining the common prayers and reflections of a given season in the church calendar.

In Luke 1:72-73, Zechariah recognizes that Jesus will be one who God uses “to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.” This last line helped me remember that God enables me to minister 1) without fear 2) in holiness and righteousness 3) before him 4) all our days.

If you’ve ever seen the movie National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, then you’ve caught a small glimpse of me around the Holidays in the character of Clark Griswald. I start listening to Christmas music around October, and begrudgingly take down the last of my decorations mid-February. I stretch the festivities to their breaking point, and then do one final yank for good measure. It’s been this way since I was a kid: the anticipation, the impatience, the joy…the sweaters. The only difference now, as an adult, is that I am forced to constantly combat the advertising and consumerism that tries to usurp the simple happiness I am trying to so desperately retain from my childhood.

A Reading from St. Augustine 

We believe in him that he was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. Each birth of his, you see, must be considered wonderful, both that of his divinity and that of his humanity. The first is from the Father without mother, the second from mother without father; the first apart from all time, the second at “the acceptable time;” the first eternal, the second at the right moment; the first without a body “in the bosom of the Father,” the second with a body, which did not violate the virginity of his mother; the first without either sex, the second without a man’s embrace. (ACCS IVa:56)

Early church writers like Augustine juxtaposed seemingly incompatible ideas to illuminate the miracle of the birth of Christ. Lingering in this tension between the eternal and the temporal, we receive a glimpse into the mystery of the eternal love of God as revealed in history.

A reading from John Chrysostom

But why was the Christ child sent into Egypt? The text makes this clear: he was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, out of Egypt have I called my son. (Hos 11:1.) From that point onward we see that the hope of salvation would be proclaimed to the whole world. Babylon and Egypt represent the whole world. Even when they were engulfed in ungodliness, God signified that he intended to correct and amend both Babylon and Egypt. God wanted humanity to expect his bounteous gifts the world over. So he called from Babylon the wise men and sent to Egypt the holy family. 

Besides what I have said, there is another lesson also to be learned, which tends powerfully toward true self-constraint in us. We are warned from the beginning to look out for temptations and plots. And we see this even when he came in swaddling clothes. Thus you see even at his birth a tyrant raging, a flight ensuing and a departure beyond the border. For it was because of no crime that his family was exiled into the land of the Egypt.

Similarly, you yourself need not be troubled if you are suffering countless dangers. Do not expect to be celebrated or crowned promptly for your troubles. Instead you may keep in mind the longsuffering example of the mother of the Child, bearing all things nobly, knowing that such a fugitive life is consistent with the ordering of spiritual things. You are sharing the kind of labor Mary herself shared. So did the magi. They both were willing to retire secretly in the humiliating role of fugitive. (The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 8.2.)

Two thoughts come to mind: first, how may I become mindful of “the long-suffering example of the mother of the Child” in my spiritual journey? Second, I’m reminded to pray for those who know to well the countless dangers of following Christ in a hostile world—in particular to pray for those Christians living in Egypt and Iraq.

I am intrigued by how often in recent years I have heard the phrase “communal discernment.” I hear it in congregational settings, on retreats, and at regional church gatherings. Sometimes the phrase arises with great hope. A year ago I attended a three-day conference for leaders from ten different Christian denominations. To a person, communal discernment excited them. “When we practice communal discernment in our committees, relationships grow stronger,” said one seasoned leader. “We begin to see possibilities we never thought of before,” affirmed another.

“It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves” (Acts 15:28,29, JB 1). This is how it was put in a letter from the apostles and elders in Jerusalem to settle a controversy at Antioch. This biblical statement affirms the remarkable reality that our decisions can be made conjointly with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has been given to us as a gift (Acts 15:8,9, JB). Our belief that we can rely on the Spirit’s guidance in making life choices grounds the Christian practice of discernment.

When my mother died a year and a half ago, my siblings and I went through her things and found her diaries. She had kept diaries for years and years—those diaries with four lines for each day and three years in one book. All my nieces and nephews, my brother and sisters, looked up their birthdays and noted my mother’s record of their births and their weight and length and gender. “Bob called this morning and said that Sharon gave birth to a baby girl early this morning. She is 7 lb. 8 oz. Mother and daughter doing fine. They named her Suzanne Lea. Gray, cloudy day today again.” My mother never hid those diaries, nor did she need to because while she faithfully recorded events and the weather, she never wrote about her personal reactions or her feelings around events and circumstances that happened. We all tried to read those diaries, but soon lost interest.