Monsters

I had no desire to talk about this.  I want to make this abundantly clear, from the get-go.  I had no desire to talk about violence and brutality in this world at this moment, because I have long internalized a thought from Simone Weil's book "Gravity and Grace" that my wonderful wife bought for me a few years ago.  I don't remember the exact quotation, but it went something like this:

When personal tragedies happen, why do you lose faith in God?  You know that tragedies happen all over the world, every day.  You hear about them on the news, you read about them in books, in newspapers, you are attuned to the fact that all over the world, children are dying.  Your faith in God remains unshaken.  So why is your faith in God crumbling when it is children who live close to you?

The weight of the shootings in Connecticut is heavy for us right now, because this is close to home.

But let's not forget that there are murders all over the world every day.  For example did you hear about this story?  It happened earlier this month.  29 Syrian schoolchildren and their teacher were killed when a mortar strike hit their classroom.  None of us batted an eye.  None of us said 'how terrible, those poor Syrian children.'  None of us noticed.  Not really.  They're children a long long way away.  We sort of say 'how sad' when we hear about it, but nobody posts statuses about how they're going to hug their own children a little closer after they heard about that Syrian elementary school.

Part of the reason that we're so devastated by this news is that it hits us close to where we live, and it calls into question the foundations of our lives.  It calls into question where we are safe, where we can feel safe, all that.  What do we base our safety on?  And more importantly, where are the monsters?

Where are the monsters?  The old maps used to have dragons on them where the civilized explored world ran out.  When you'd draw a map up, where the end of the world was, as far as your people had explored, then past that was where the dragons were.  Well, that's how we still feel about the world.  There aren't supposed to be dragons or monsters in Muncie Indiana, Poughkeepsie NY, or Winnipeg MB.  The monsters are supposed to be confined to the far edge of the map, where they won't bother anybody we like.

Well, it's a cute idea, and one that lets us ignore when monsters roar somewhere far far away, at the edge of our maps, in countries we can't pronounce, and that's where the monsters are.  Okay, simple enough.  But how do we feel when someone from this part of the world suddenly becomes a monster.  Someone like us, with a name we could pronounce, with a face that looks like he could live here, what do we do with that?

Well, as much as we may want to believe that the monsters are at the far far edge of the map, they're not.  I mean they are, but they're very much here, too.  We just forget about them.  I talked about this at length on Sunday, but I'd like to mention it again.  Remember when you were a child, and you were terrified of the monster under the bed?  Remember when it was bedtime, and you got your parents to look under your bed for you, and in your closet?  Remember when you got your parents to shuffle all over your room looking for non-existent monsters?  Do you ever remember them finding any?  Of course you don't!  Your parents never found any monsters because they spent an entire evening looking in the wrong places.

If you're familiar with the simpsons, I'd like to spin you a yarn.  Every year, they have a halloween episode, which is 'scary.'  That is, it's totally played for laughs, of course.  And you're not supposed to be scared by what you see or hear, because it's supposed to be funny.  But there is one episode of the Treehouse of Horror series that has a line that chilled me then, and it chills me now.  It sort of comes out of the blue in a comedy series, an animated series, which never really seeks to terrify.  But this line did.  And it still does.

It all happens during the episode "Hungry are the Damned," in which the Simpson family are abducted by aliens whilst enjoying a family barbecue.  And they are told by their alien captors that they will be cherished, worshiped, allowed to do as they please.  And they are given just a whole tonne of food.  Well, whilst they are on board the flying saucer, Lisa happens upon the alien cookbook.  And she is shocked to see that the title is 'How to Cook Humans.'  She runs, gets her family, and they confront the aliens.  Then follows an hilarious sequence in which alternating parties blow the space dust off of the cover of the book, changing it from "How to Cook Humans' to 'How to Cook for Humans' to 'How to Cook Forty Humans' to 'How to Cook for Forty Humans.'  The final upshot is that the Aliens were actually nice, seeking to do right by the Simpsons, but because of their untrusting nature, they are kicked off the saucer, and put back at their house.  As the flying saucer flies away over the rooftops, Marge turns to Lisa and says
"You see, Lisa?  This is what we mean when we say that you're too smart for your own good."
And Lisa, staring up at the disappearing saucer says:

"There were monsters on that ship, and truly we were they."

That line still chills me.  I still get the ol' goosebumps even writing it down.  Why?  Because it tells me what I don't want to hear.  I've spent a lifetime looking for monsters under beds, in closets, in attics, in the forests and dark bowers of man's domains.  It started with me looking for monsters under my bed and in my closet, and as I grew up, I started to look for monsters in Syria, in Columbine, in Sandy Hook, in Virginia Tech, so that I could console myself that the monsters were over there.  Somewhere, anywhere else.  But gradually, ever so gradually, the truth of what Lisa said dawned on me.  I've been looking for monsters in all the wrong places.  I've been looking for monsters under the bed my whole life, and never bothered to look in the one place that the monster was actually hiding.

In bed.  With me.

If I would have taken the time to look, I would have found all the monsters I could possibly hope to ever find.  Truly there was a monster in my house.  And he was in me.

I was the monster I should have been worried about.  And more importantly, I was the only monster that I could do anything about.  The fictional monsters, the faraway monsters, all they'd do was to absolve me of my Christian responsibility to confront the evil and pain and disaster in the world directly caused by me.  Because you know what?  I can think all day about what someone in Washington or Basra or Hartford should do to make sure that people don't murder each other.  I can think all day about what hospitals should be opened in places I'll never visit, and what metal detectors will be installed in schools I'll never go to.

Or, I can do the much more difficult job of looking for the monsters not at the edge of the map, not where I happen to know that they aren't, but where I happen to know that they are.  In me.  In my heart.

We're at the time of Advent, where it talks a lot about preparing our hearts for the coming of the Lord.  And John the Baptist talks a lot about repentance, about making straight the way of the Lord.  And what on earth does that look like?  Well, it has nothing to do with pointing out everyone else's problems ,and feeling comfortable doing it, nah, it has to do with the dragons and monsters that are in my own life.  The Christian ethos says that everyone's sin is their business, and that means that your sin is yours.  It's tough medicine, to be sure.

I can't control what happens in Washington.  I can't control what happens in Hartford, or in Basra, or in Tehran, or in Beslan, or any of these other places.  I'm lucky if I can control, for just a moment, the monster in the mirror at 3825 Hillsdale St.

I hope everyone can find some degree of peace over Christmas this year.  I hope everyone can find some space in which they are confident in who they are, in what they believe, and in a loving God who allows us to be free, with real consequences, but at the same time promises that like in good horror movies, the monsters don't win.  The monsters get defeated.  And the greatest of all monsters, death, is no exception.  That's what Christmas is all about, you know, that days and weeks like these don't win.  They aren't victorious.

I'm going to leave us all with the verse from 'for all the saints' that always gives me the chokies.  Happy Christmas everyone.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it.  It's dark right now, but Christ the light has come.

 And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,

Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,

And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

The true meaning of Christmas

If you were around on Sunday, you would potentially have been quite jarred by the inclusion of the reading for the first Sunday in Advent:  The triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  Here it is for you if you missed it.

Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King

²⁸ After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. ²⁹ As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ³⁰ “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³¹ If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”
³² Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. ³³ As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”
³⁴ They replied, “The Lord needs it.”
³⁵ They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. ³⁶ As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.
³⁷ When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:

³⁸ “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”^[a]

“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

³⁹ Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

⁴⁰ “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

The heck is this doing here? Why oh why do we have this reading here, at the beginning of advent? This is a Palm Sunday reading, isn't it?  Of course it is.  Here we are, at the beginning of Advent, the new church year, and we get a reading for Palm Sunday.  What the heck is this all about? Well, as jarring as this is, it should get your brain all moving around, because you know that something's amiss.

Christmas is the time in which you and I think about the baby in the manger in Bethlehem.  As we should.  No trouble there at all. That's what Christmas is all about.  And you and I, as the qulaity Christians that we are, we tend to get a bit upset about the war on Christmas that goes on every year.  And we want desperately to keep Christ in Christmas, and to be sure that everyone else does too.  Odds are that over the course of the month of December, you're going to end up thinking to yourself one of the following things.

-If you're not going to wish me a merrry Christmas, then I'm not going to shop at your boutique.

-The people who don't want to say Christmas should just go to work on the 25th of December if they resent Jesus being around so much.

- Happy holidays?  Season's greetings?  Bah humbug!

Ah yes.  As you will.  But let's say for example that we get everyone on earth to say 'Merry Christmas." Let's say that we could manage to get everyone on earth to focus on the newborn Christ.  So what?  It's not enough.  It never was.  If you want proof of that, check out this most excellent scene from Talledega Nights: the ballad of Ricky Bobby.

Ah, yeah, it's funny right?  Possibly the best grace to ever be captured on film.  It's fun to see Ricky Bobby praying to eight pound six ounce baby Jesus, with his little balled up fists, all cuddly, doesn't even know a word.  And as Ricky says, he likes the Christmas Jesus best.

-"When you say grace, you can say it to grown up Jesus, or teenage Jesus, or bearded Jesus, but I'm saying grace, and I like the Christmas Jesus best."

And why wouldn't you?  We all like the Christmas Jesus best.  You know why?  Because he's cuddly.  Because he's smaller than us.  Because he can't say a word.  Because he's full of potential, but is totally inoffensive.  If your entire idea is to get people to think that Christmas Jesus is great, well, they probably will.  They've got no problem with that.  People have very little problem with newborn eight pound six ounce baby Jesus, with baby God, all that.  They've only got a problem with him once he starts talking.  

Look at this whole scene for a bit.  Don't you find it funny and out of place that Ricky Bobby is praying for all sorts of insane things, that it's all about money, that he has to mention Powerade in every grace by contractual obligation?  Don't you find it strange that he encourages his children to yell at their grandfather, because they're winners, and winners get to do what they want?  And that he says and does all this almost in the same breath as he says grace, ostensibly to Jesus Christ?

But he's praying to Christmas Jesus.  Baby Jesus.  Little tiny baby God, who can't say a word.  Little tiny Baby God with balled up fists and a little fleece diaper, who can't tell you not to do what you're doing.  Have you ever wondered what the heck the cross is doing in this circumstance?  How did Jesus ever get executed if he was just a cuddly little tyke, who had balled up fists and a fleece diaper and all that? Well, as grandpa Chip points out, he was a man.  He had a beard.  And he had things to say.

We have this reading in here to remind us that it's not just baby God, who can't even say a word.  We have a God who became a man, the Word becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us.  You see, it's not just a matter of there being a child born into the world, it's a matter of who he is.  And who is he?  The word of God in human form.

Listen to what God says about Jesus on the mount of transfiguration:  'This is my son, in whom I am well pleased.  Listen to him.'  Do you get this?  I hope it's not escaping you, because it's important.  It's so important I can't overstate it.  The presence of Christ in the world is not one in which he's a baby in a crib forever.  He grew up.  He spoke.  And his words are of such profound importance that we're still talking about them today.  He is the word of God proper, the word of God that demands to be heard.  He is the word of God that has something important to say, and something important to do.  If you're planning on keeping Christ in Christmas, it can't be just as a little tiny Baby.  it has to be as a child who lives, grows, and speaks.  Who says incredibly inflammatory things that would shame Ricky Bobby down to his boots.  If you want to know what Christmas is all about, take some time over this busy festive season to seriously look at what Jesus does and says right after Palm Sunday's readings.  Right after what I quoted earlier.  Do you think this is the sort of man who would be thrilled with you calling out how hot your wife is at grace? Or who would love you to mention powerade?  Or who would be happy to hear that your kids yell at their grandfather?  

Highly unlikely.

The only God that would let you do that would be an eight pound six ounce baby God.  And that's how Christ was born, yes.  But did he stay that way? He did not.  Have you ever wondered why we have almost nothing whatsoever written about Jesus as a child?  Because he didn't stay a baby God for long.  He is the word of God.  And we need to listen to what he says.

PJ.