Don Friesen
I'm back. And I thank you for your support and patience while I recovered from my various incidents and injuries. I confess to feeling a little annoyed when you elected to continue congregational life while my body was in the shop for repairs, but you not only continued, you flourished! Many of you stepped up to the plate, and special thanks go to Ghenette and Craig, who made sure things ran smoothly. Your support and love during my convalescence was uplifting! I thank you for your prayers, your visits, your gifts, your support and encouragement. I am truly blessed, by you and by God, many times over.
I'm not without a little anxiety, hoping that I'm up to the task, but I feel stronger, and positive, due in no small part to your love and support. My disposition is certainly more positive than that of a visiting speaker at a synagogue presided over by one Rabbi Levi Yitzhak. One day the synagogue was listening to a guest preacher, one of the wandering maggidim who made their living speaking in one town after another. Rabbi Yitzhak listened as the preacher enumerated the failings of the Jews, giving a vivid account of their sins and unworthiness.
When the sermon was over, the rabbi lifted his eyes, and his voice, in prayer. "Master of the Universe," he implored, "please give this man money!" The parishioners looked at him in shock. Their rabbi was praising such a maggid? Their rabbi one Levi Yitzhak famous as the compassionate defender of the Jewish people, was praising this man! The rabbi continued his prayer. "Obviously, Almighty, this preacher needs the few coins he is given for these bitter sermons. I beg you, please give him some other source of income, so he will no longer need to chastise Your children!" ("The Rabbi's blessing," told by Doug Lipman)
Blue Christmas Christians
I confess that I feel a little like the rabbi when I run across BlueChristmas Christians. "Blue Christmas" used to be but an Elvis Presley song, but increasingly Christian churches, Mennonite churches included, are sponsoring Blue Christmas services, the rationale being that Christmas celebrations make some people feel blue. Apparently too many cries of "Merry Christmas!" and non-stop carolling get on some people's nerves! While many celebrate and make merry, some Christians are in a blue funk! And churches are catering to this with ceremonies marking their misery!
Granted, the Advent and Christmas season is not immune to sadness and tragedy. Really bad things can happen at any time of year. For those suffering the recent death of loved ones, or for those whose families are in crisis Christmas can be a lonely and dreary time. The first Christmas after the death of a loved one is very difficult. It's understandable under those circumstances that one may have ambivalent feelings about Christmas, but for goodness sakes, it's not as if we've been singing Jingle Bells every Advent Sunday! Listen to the words of the hymn we just sang, "Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies". (Hymnal: A Worship Book, #216)> It talks about "shades of night," "dark and cheerless ...morn(ings)," and "joyless(ness)". It implores God to "pierce the gloom" and to "scatter (our) unbelief." Listen to the carols: "To us a child of hope is born". And listen to the Scriptures, to the Christmas story! You think you're blue? What about the holy family fleeing to Egypt to escape a tyrant capable and culpable of massive infanticide?
Even the Weeping Prophet is Praising God!
Christianity began with angels singing! And they weren't singing Elvis' Blue Christmas. They were "praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!'" (Luke 2:13-14)
Today's Scripture lessons are very positive and hopeful. Listen to the Apostle Paul, in Ephesians:
A Profusion of Praise and Blessing
Today is already the second Sunday after Christmas, but our Gospel reading is still focussed on the Christmas story. Oh, there are no shepherds, no angels, no baby, no manger, no magi from the east in this story no gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh but it's the Christmas story alright. It's John's Christmas story. The Gospel of John, unlike the other three Gospels, takes a less narrative, less visual, more philosophical approach to the story. Although John's treatment is more abstract, it too serves as a more-than-adequate antidote to a blue Christmas. Writes John:
Jesus' story of the Prodigal Son reveals a God who runs down the road to meet and embrace His child, then showers him with extravagant gifts and celebrates the occasion with a lavish feast! The father conveys a fundamental acceptance that moral failure cannot take away. God is lavish in His love, lavish in His mercy, lavish with His blessings, favours, and gifts.
What is interesting is that many of those who populate the Scriptures had more than enough reason to feel blue: four centuries of slavery in Egypt; years of wandering in a wilderness under dubious leadership; years of exile; years of being subjected to invasion and foreign rule. In the NT the Apostle Paul enumerates his own sufferings beatings, countless floggings, often near death (2 Corinthians 11:21-29) yet in our reading from Ephesians Paul tells of the "riches of ...grace that (God) lavished on us." (Ephesians 3:7-8) Paul, even in prison, expressed his joy (Philippians 1:18; 2:17), and urged everyone to rejoice (2:18; 3:1; 4:4, 10), and to think on those things that are "true, ...honourable, ...just, ...pure, ...pleasing, (and) ...commendable...." (4:8) These things are "worthy of praise," says Paul. (4:8)
I discovered that one of the Hebrew variants for the word, "praise" means "to belch forth" (ebn naba` naw-bah'), as in Psalm 145, verse 7: "They shall belch forth the fame of Your abundant goodness, (Lord), and shall sing aloud of Your righteousness." This word has the sense of something gushing forth, bubbling up, fermenting, and while we may prefer express our praise more discreetly and in a more genteel fashion, it's a rather vivid way of conveying a positive impulse that cannot be restrained!
A Pattern of Praise and Blessing
As Rabbi Yitzhak grew weary of the travelling maggid who castigated his congregation for its many failings and unworthiness, we too may tire of those things that make us feel small, that diminish and discourage us. Perhaps for those of us for whom this past month has been difficult today's Scripture lessons are a bit over the top. Forget lavish dollops of grace an adequate or even occasional serving would be just fine.
Today's Scripture lessons are very upbeat, but they are intended to instill in us a hope that remains secure in times of trouble, and there is a sense in which our Gospel reading does that in a even more fundamental way. The Gospel of John begins with the classic "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) The Greek word for the word, "Word," is "logos," from which the word, "logic," is derived. One could paraphrase John to read, "In the beginning was the logic and the logic was with God and the logic was God." (I am endebted to E. Markquart for this paraphrase and for the ideas in the paragraph that follows.)
Before the world began, suggests John, Jesus was the logic of God, the mind of God, the brilliance of God. There had to be some brains behind the creation of the cosmos. You need brains to lay out a plan, particularly such a monumental plan! In the beginning was the logic, and the brilliant logic became flesh and lived among us. The brilliant mind and logic behind the universe became embodied in humanity. The master intelligence behind the universe did not stay up in the abstract safety of heaven, far away from earth's suffering. God came down to this earth to enter fully into the human condition and to reveal to us the logic or pattern that permeates the creation that God pronounced "Good!" (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25) Very good! (1:31)
The biblical theme of incarnation that God became flesh is one of the central themes of our faith and is a profound comfort to those of us who find it difficult to see any redemptive pattern to human existence. It's like those three-dimensional pictures in which are embedded images that are not apparent upon first glance. You have to keep looking at it, until suddenly you see the embedded image! Mind you, some of us stare at them until a migraine mercifully rescues us from this exercise in futility!
Some of us may be deaf to the comfort of Christmas because, overwhelmed by difficult circumstances, we grow frustrated with the seeming randomness of the difficulties that beset us. The Christmas story told in the Gospel of John, however, assures us that from the beginning there was the Word / Logic / Pattern of God, and while we may not glimpse the pattern with great clarity, it promises to provide perspective to our life, faith, and vision. That in itself is a great blessing.
Rachel Naomi Remen, who wrote a book entitled, My Grandfather's Blessings, has imparted much wisdom about blessing and isn't shy about the many blessings she has received. A blessing is not dependent upon good fortune, and Remen herself suffers from Crohn's disease. She got the disease when she was but a teenager, and when the medication she had taken since the age of fifteen no longer worked, much of her intestine was removed surgically at the age of twenty-nine and she was left with an ileostomy. The appliance left her feeling, in her own words, "hopelessly different, permanently shut out of the world of femininity and elegance." Nurse specialists had to change the appliance, an elaborate ritual that left Remen feeling awful. One day a woman about her own age came to do the task. It was late in the day and unlike the other specialists she was not dressed in protective clothing. In fact, she had on a silk dress, heels, and stockings, as if ready for a date. She performed her task in an unhurried fashion, however, and in the most simple and natural way, without putting on gloves. She had washed her hands carefully before she touched her patient, but her hands were soft and gentle. Her willingness to touch Remen made a deep impression. "In ten minutes," Remen writes, "she not only tended my body, but healed my wounds and gave me hope." This young woman didn't give back Remen's intestine, but she gave her back hope! ("The Holy Shadow," Table Wisdom, 1996, pages 245-251)
Blessings exist even in the most unpromising and unexpected places. "Wisdom," writes Remen, "lies in engaging the life you have been given as fully and courageously as possible and not letting go until you find the unknown blessing that is in everything." (My Grandfather's Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging, 2000, page 27)
Blessings need to be received, and no doubt we have been given many more blessings than we have received. I have certainly been blessed, my complaints and determination to be a curmudgeon notwithstanding. Someone compared blessings and our inability to receive them to a busy airport, where aeroplanes are placed in a holding pattern, stacked up with no place to land. We are encircled by blessings that are waiting for our attention and acknowledgement. Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972), one of the leading Jewish theologians of the twentieth century, reminded us that "just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy."
Fifty-two Weeks to Bless and to Receive Blessings
It would be sad if we have come to feel entitled to what has been given us by grace. It's sad if we become so caught up with what is missing in the world that we do not bask in the blessings we already have. It's a sad reality that we focus more on learning how to fix life than on learning to celebrate life.
We have almost fifty-two weeks ahead of us to focus on our blessings, to nurture our appreciation of life as it is, and an acceptance of much in life that we cannot change or understand. When we feel blessed, we can bless others, in things as simple as a brief touch, a warm smile, a visit, a phone call, or the willingness to listen.
Ann Weems wrote a poem very appropriate for a new year, saying:
(Ann Weems, "Kneeling at the Manger")
This year is a special one for our congregation to celebrate, because for fifty years we have marked our blessings through worship and community life, and tried, as best we could, to be a blessing to others. This is a year to celebrate our blessings, and to leave behind our regrets. May this new year be an occasion to grow in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and humanity, humbly grateful for our many blessings.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing.... (God) ...chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.... (God) destined us for adoption as his children, ... according to (His) good pleasure, ...to the praise of His glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption, ...the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us." (Ephesians 1:3-8) And on and on it goes, Paul writing again of God's "good pleasure" (1:9), of God's "plan for the fullness of time" (1:10), of the inheritance (1:11, 14) we have in Christ, and of "our hope" (1:12) all of these lavish gifts given for "the praise of (God's) glory". (1:14)
It's hard to be blue after that rush of superlatives! And Paul is not alone he's joined by Jeremiah, of all people. Even the weeping prophet can't hold back. The most morose, reluctant prophet lays aside his complaints to invite God's people to "sing aloud with gladness, ...and raise shouts for (God)" (Jeremiah 31:7) whom, Jeremiah says, will "gather ...the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labour...." (31:8) "With weeping they will come, but with consolations God will lead them back. (31:9) This is good news! They will "sing aloud ...and be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, ...the oil, and ...the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again." (31:12) This is Jeremiah talking! What self-respecting curmudgeon would utter such beneficence! He goes on to talk of dancing and merriment and bounty (31:13, 14), and then the greatest promise of all: God will "turn (our) mourning into joy". (31:13) God will comfort us, exchanging our sorrow for gladness. (31:13) Try to fit that passage into a blue Christmas!
"The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. ...to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.... The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, ...full of grace and truth. ... From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ...grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." (John 1:9, 12, 14, 16-17)
Other translations render verse 16 in the following ways:
Quite a profusion of blessings, favours, gifts and graces! It shouldn't be all that surprising because the Bible bears testimony in many other places to the extravagance of God. The feeding of the 5,000 (Luke 9:10-17), for example. That's a lot of people to feed! It could have been a blue, blue event, what with only two loaves of bread and a few fish to feed this lot, but God intervened! Intervened lavishly! "And all ate and were filled," says Luke. (9:17) No need to add water to the soup! People left that gathering stuffed! There was even food left over! Baskets of it! A bit excessive, perhaps, on the miracle side, but such is the nature of God, revealed yet again when Jesus provided wine at a wedding. (John 2:1-12) This was hardly a food staple; it seems a rather unnecessary miracle, yet Jesus supplied the liquid provisions for the celebration, provided it in better quality than what had come before, and in embarrassing quantities! Such is the nature of God.
"When the song of the angels is silent;
I would like to add a verse to her poem, saying that "when the manger is darkened and still," the spirit of Christmas continues, urging us to celebrate life and its blessings, and to trust more fully in the One Who assures us that we are not alone in doing the work of Christmas.
When the star in the sky is gone;
When the kings and princes are home;
When the shepherds are again tending their sheep;
When the manger is darkened and still;
The work of Christmas begins
To find the lost
To heal the broken
To feed the hungry
To rebuild the nations
To bring peace among people
To befriend the lonely
To release the prisoner
To make music in the heart.
Quotations of Scripture are from the New Revised Standard Version, unless otherwise noted.