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| Ready for Christmas at Good Shepherd Faith |
I arrived at Good Shepherd Faith on the Second Sunday of Advent to find the place all a sparkle and glowing. (In large part thanks to Elder Neil..) After lighting the candles,
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| Lighting the Advent candles |
So I'd made a big mistake yesterday. I went downtown to do some Christmas shopping at Macy's. I had forgotten it was that one day when the very image of a Santa suit strikes terror into the hearts of even the most hardened and hardy New Yorkers. Santacon Saturday.....
One of my best New York memories was the year when a surging wave of Black Lives Matter marchers crossed paths with a wavering surge of drunk Santas. For a few blocks we had drunk guys in Santa suits chanting "Black lives matter." and a few had to be helped back to their original path. That's12/9
I arrived at Good Shepherd Faith on the Second Sunday of Advent to find the place all a sparkle and glowing. (In large part thanks t Elder Neil..) After lighting the candles, prayers, hymns and scripture, here was the reflection I shared with them....
So I'd made a big mistake yesterday. I went downtown to do some Christmas shopping at Macy's. I had forgotten it was that one day when the very image of a Santa suit strikes terror into the hearts of even the most hardened and hardy New Yorkers.
One of my best New York memories was the year when a surging wave of Black Lives Matter marchers crossed paths with a wavering surge of drunk Santas. For a few blocks we had drunk guys in Santa suits chanting "Black lives matter." and a few had to be helped back to their original path. Like they sing in the the Radio City Music Hall spectacular sequence, that's "Christmas in New York."
Getting ready. I was out to get ready. That's what we're up to these days.
Like Paul Simon sings:
From early in November to the last week of December
I got money matters weighing me down
Oh the music may be merry, but it's only temporary
I know Santa Claus is coming to town
In the days I work my day job, in the nights I work my night
But it all comes down to working man's pay
Getting ready, I'm getting ready, ready for Christmas Day
And that's what our gospel is about today...I always look forward to this day because it's John the Baptist coming back again. He's such an interesting character. Especially as a cousin to Jesus. We don't often think about the fact that his father was a priest in the temple. I mean the temple. He was, in essence, the son of what we call a tall steeple preacher. You couldn't be more establishment. He's like one of those rich kids who turn hippy or ran away and joined Occupy Wall Street. And he's out there in the desert in animal skins and a raw nature diet preparing the way for his poor cousin Jesus. Straight from the prophet Isaiah (and you can almost here Handel:
"The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
6and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
(For what it's worth, Isaiah was a court prophet as opposed to street prophets like Micah and Amos...)
One thing I want you to see is how specific Luke is about timing:
1In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
He wants to put all this in a very specific socio- historio- political context. To tell this story about a specific time and place. Because that's how God breaks into our world...it always takes the particular to reveal the universal. Jesus comes to us in the second year of Trump's Presidency when Cuomo was governor of New York and Di Blasio mayor of the city and Egan Cardinal of the city...you get the idea...
And by implication, God comes to us, the incarnation comes to us, Jesus comes to us, in the specific context of our lives. And let me tell you...the specific context of our lives, right now, today, is not easy...
My son last week at my birthday brunch asked me if I remembered a time in my life that was "so weird"...and I said, "Yeah, 1968...a sitting President decides not to run, Martin Luther King, Jr assassinated, leading Democrat candidate Bobby Kennedy assasinated, Democratic convention descends into chaos, mired deep in Vietnam and we wind up with Nixon as President...yeah, that was a rough year..."
(By the way, my band is doing a production of a 1968 album...of 12 people onstage, only 3 were alive i 1968. One who was 4, one who was 11...and me...)
So how do we respond, prepare in our day? How many here remember "Amahl and the Night Visitors"? It was an annual event for my family growing up. I saw a production last week that profoundly moved me. Onsite Opera staged it at Holy Apostles Soup kitchen. Right after a meal. The lead roles were all opera professionals but the chorus was made up mainly of current (and formerly) homeless people. (Once again, breaking our stereotypes..) Amahl's mother starts off wiping the tables and the opera emerges from the heart of the kitchen, which is actually the sanctuary of the church. OSO has partnered with "Breaking Ground," an organization that works to move homeless people from shelters to permanent affordable housing.(see http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/2018/12/amahl-and-night-visitors-from-soup.html )
That to me is a wonderful example of how an arts organization seeks to, as my Jewish friends say, "heal the world,""..preparing the way.."
A friend of mine in Ottawa, a former Occupier and tattoo artist, is working with others to fill backpacks with clothes and necessities, including hand knit scarves and mittens, for that city's homeless.
Years ago this church helped me create an annual concert for the homeless. It moved on to be on its own, but nevertheless was a creative cooperative effort.
We do what we can. In the ways that are appropriate to us.
I'll finish with these words of Paul Simon:
If I could tell my Mom and Dad that the things we never had
Never mattered we were always okay
Getting ready, oh ready, ready for Christmas Day
Ready, getting ready
For the power and the glory and the story of the
Christmas Day
And so I ask you? How are you getting ready for Christmas Day? What are your stories?
I get various answers. One man's wife has just lost her mother. Wondering how to celebrate Christmas a time of grief. i recalled the Christmas my grandmother died. The importance of family being together. Others of the importance as a place of quiet during a time bustling with activity. A single mother speaks one speaks of the importance of the Radio City Music Hall Spectacular to her daughter. And a young man is continuing to do his annual project of answering the letter to Santa of children from a housing project even though he is unemployed this year. We do what we can.
A time for coffee and cake and then back into the cold. Getting ready for Christmas....
l
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