December 23, 2007 Des Moines
Advent 4
Romans 1:1-7
Prayers of the People
It's cold out there, God, in more ways than one. Sure, there is snow blowing and windows frosting and teeth chattering and lips chapping; but more numbingly there are neighbors not speaking and employers not caring and spouses not listening; people shout instead of speak, ignore instead of attend, judge instead of inquire, tighten their fists instead of open their arms. It's cold out there.
And sometimes in here – in the oftentimes vacant and drafty halls of the spirit. There are those times we sit and wait, but nothing seems to come. There are those times we intently listen, but nothing interrupts the silence. We pray, sometimes – desperately camping out at the doorway of heaven -- and ache for clear and recordable answers, but... Well, it's cold in here, sometimes.
Hold us, then, we pray. Take our estrangements and our fears, our disappointments and our disillusionments, indeed our broken and bickering world into your arms, O God, and hold us.
We offer into your keeping also those ill and grieving and stressing and searching, that you might hold them, as well, in your comforting, healing embrace. And in your warmth, enable us to better recognize and more joyfully relish the little blessings that grace our days -- the birthdays...the anniversaries and celebrations...the accomplishments , little or large, that remind us of your gifts at work within us...
...And the gift of grace, itself, as we have come to know it in Jesus Christ our Lord – whose birth we celebrate, whose light enables us to see, and whose very words enable us to pray. Amen.
Grace to You, And Peace
Gift giving has gotten easier and
more reliable than ever since the advent of the gift card. Gift cards are
always the right color, always the right size, and never have to be exchanged.
And you can get gift cards for virtually anything. Everybody, it seems, now
offers them. In fact, according to a
recent press release, one of the most "Talked About Christmas Presents of
2007" is likely to be "The Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery Gift
Card."
“The gift
card works for everything from Beverly Hills plastic surgery consultations to
nonsurgical rejuvenation with Botox and skin fillers to the center's
signature procedures such as tummy tuck, Beverly Hills breast augmentation, and
liposuction. It even can be used to give mom the renowned Rodeo Drive Mommy
Makeover as a Mother's Day gift.
Some people receive the gift card and then come in from out of town,
doing cosmetic surgery travel." [1]
So, there
you go! Now, if you are detecting at least the gentlest brush of my tongue
against my cheek, don't think of this as a put down of plastic surgery. If that's your thing, I'm in your corner. Smooth, tuck, lift or enlarge yourself to
your heart's content. I'm just thinking
what my reaction would be if I received one of these cards as a gift and hadn't
asked for it. Ouch!
I suppose
my larger lament has to do with concerns about why this industry has become so
popular -- that it has to do with the ever-intensifying pressures in our
cultural to look perfect, flawless, ageless.
In a way that's no longer confined to teenagers, we simply aren't very
tolerant of imperfections, or kind to those who have them. We are preoccupied with beauty -- as defined
by wraith-like models in carefully staged ads, and can be so ungracious toward
those we deem to be lacking it.
But then
there seems to be a general shortage of grace in our lives these days. Grace,
and also peace. We spend so much of our
time these days afraid and on the defensive -- our turf, our values, our
political persuasions, our very personhood under siege. Alert, protective, and
constantly under stress -- and more than a little resentful at those who seem
to get more despite working less; surrounded by arguments at work, shouting
heads on television, and impolite fingers on the freeway -- who can be
surprised that we've gotten a little cranky?
We walk around closed up tight as a fist; eyes scanning for the next
assault; emotions, critiques and verbal retorts cocked and ready to fire.
So you can
see, perhaps, why Paul's salutation caught my attention. Paul, a
servant of Jesus Christ...To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace.
Oh, he says some other things in the middle of all
that -- about himself as a person God set apart to deliver this gift; about the
Christ anticipated by the prophets, and in whom the gift took on clarity and
presence. And goodness knows Paul said a
whole lot of things after these short sentences. He is, after all, writing to people he's not
yet met, and some introductions are in order.
But it is
this simple gift extended that enchants my attention like a Roman Candle arcing
light-bursts in the deep of night. Grace, he holds out in one hand; peace he
offers in the other. And isn't that the
whole of the story? Grace and peace. "Here is your gift," God says to
the world in Jesus Christ: "grace
and peace."
"Here is your gift,"
Paul says to the Romans: "grace and peace."
And I am
speechless.
I think of all the gifts that
most of us are in the process of giving this week, and I do not disparage a one
of them. I will treasure the shirts and
sweaters and gadgets and books that come wrapped with a card addressed to
me. And I will see through their
objectivity and recognize the love and affection behind them that is the
deeper, truer gift. But reading these
words makes me realize that what I could really use this Christmas -- perhaps
like you -- is grace; grace in the face of my own ineptitude and too-frequent
ability to cause another pain; and peace in the midst of this polarized,
militarized, often cruelly competitive world.
What we couldn't do with a little grace and even the smallest experience
of peace!
But we
shouldn't think that Paul found the words any easier to use. The Rome to which he was writing was a
conflicted place -- a hostile environment filled with political intrigue,
economic greed, personal fear, international jockeying and religious suspicion.
Rome advertised a certain kind of "peace," but what they had in mind
was a "get out of line and we will squash you like a bug” kind of
peace. Suffice it to say that the
"peace of Rome" bore no resemblance to the "peace of
Paul." Coercion and constraint are
not at all the same as grace and peace.
But though
we are not in Rome, we are still trying to fit in. Still we are trying to measure up -- still
trying to squeeze into those jeans that everybody tells us we are expected to
wear -- and it feels suffocating, sometimes, and, well, impossible. All those social expectations; religious
expectations; stylish expectations; all those rules; all those ways we are all
still busy trying not to be naughty, but nice in order to qualify for Santa's
list.
What Paul
keeps trying to teach us is that the gospel message is this: It's not what we have, it's not what we wear;
it's not what we do -- or have done; it's rather who God sees us to be.
"Grace
and peace," Paul extends to us, and I think of all the situations right
now that could use a little grace --
· the drunken uncle who spoils the
family gathering,
· the estranged daughter who may or
may not show up,
· the shrill aunt who preferably
won't;
· the sullen teenager,
· the short-tempered spouse,
·
the
self-recriminations over what we could have said or done different.
Grace, Paul writes -- that breathtaking gift of merciful
grace -- and peace. Ah! What would it be like to find them under the
tree? What would grace even look like?
There was some
controversy about the baptism in Michael Lindvall's fictional town of North
Haven, MN and the 2nd Presbyterian Church.
Angus MacDowell, the silver-haired elder and pillar of the congregation,
approached the pastor the week before Thanksgiving to say that son Larry and
daughter-in-law Sherry and their newborn baby, who live in Spokane, Washington,
would be visiting Thanksgiving weekend and Angus was hoping the pastor could
"do the baby" that Sunday.
Pastor Battles assumed that Angus was talking about baptism and went on
to offer a careful clarification about the integrity of the sacrament, and how
it would be nice if Larry and Sherry had a church where they lived where the
baptism could take place. Without saying
a word, Angus simply turned and left, leaving Pastor Battles to believe the
question was settled. In a way, it
was: Angus simply convened a special
meeting of the elders who voted 9-0 in favor of the baptism and presented the Pastor
with the verdict. So, on the Sunday
morning after Thanksgiving, Pastor Battles "did the baby."
"This
congregation has an odd little baptismal custom: the pastor...always asks, 'Who stands with
the child?' and then the whole extended family of the little one rises and
remains standing for the ceremony."
When the question was asked that day, “up stood Angus in his blue serge
suit and his wife, Minnie, and Sherry's folks from Mankato and a couple of
cousins.”
"After
church, everybody rushed home to turkey leftovers,” and Pastor Battles “went back into the
sanctuary to turn off the lights. A
middle-aged woman, dressed Salvation Army style, was sitting in the front pew
with a black plastic purse in her lap.” As Pastor Battles would later tell it,
“I knew her as someone who always sat in the very last pew, as close to a door
as possible, but I did not know her name.
She seemed at a loss for words and was hesitant about looking at me for
very long. She finally said her name was
Mildred Cory and commented as to how lovely the baptism was. After another long pause she said that her
daughter, Tina, had just had a baby and, well, the baby ought to be baptized,
shouldn't it?
I suggested
that Tina and her husband should call me and we would discuss the
appropriateness of baptism. Mildred
hesitated again, and then catching and holding my eyes for the first time,
said, 'Tina's got no husband; Tina's just eighteen and she was confirmed in
this church four years ago. She used to
come out for the Senior High Fellowship, but then she had started to see this
older boy out of high school.'
She hesitated
for a moment, gathered her courage, and let the rest of the story tumble out
fearlessly: 'Then she got pregnant and
decided to keep the baby and she wants to have it baptized here in her own
church, but she's nervous to come and talk to you, Reverend. She's named the baby James,' she said,
'Jimmy.'
I said that I
would bring the request to the church board for approval.
When the matter
came up at the meeting, there was a moot question or two about why in the world
Tina Cory was keeping the baby. I had
started to explain what everybody already knew, namely that Tina was a member
of the church...and that I didn't know who the father was. They all knew who the father was, of
course. This is a small town. The father
was young Jimmy Hawthorne, who had recently and quite suddenly chosen a career
in his nation's armed forces and was now completing basic training at Fort
Bragg" as a convenient alternative to parenthood. "A few questions were asked as to
whether we could be certain that Tina would stick to the commitment she was
making in having her child baptized. The
Angus Larry affair had set me in a feisty mood and I remarked that she and
little Jimmy were, after all, right here in town where we could give them
support. I did not have to say, 'and not
in Spokane'; they all thought it.
The real
problem was the picture of the baptism that we all had in our heads: Tina, pimples on her chin, little
Jimmy in her arms, big Jimmy long fled to North Carolina, and Mildred
Cory the only one who would stand when the question was asked. It hurt to
think of it, but they approved it, of course.
The baptism was scheduled for the last Sunday in Advent.
The church was
full, as it always is the Sunday before Christmas. The rumored snow had not yet come, though the
sky was heavy with it. After the sermon,
the elder who was to assist me in the baptism stood up beside me at the
baptismal font and read the words I had written out on a three-by-five card: 'Tina Cory presents her son for baptism.'
Down the aisle
she came, nervously, briskly, smiling at me only, shaking slightly with
month-old Jimmy in her arms, a blue pacifier stuck in his mouth. The scene hurt, all right, every bit as much
as we all knew it would. So young this mother was, and so alone. One could not help but remember another baby
boy born long ago to a young and unwed mother in difficult circumstances.
I read the
opening part of the service, and then asked, 'Who stands with this
child?' I nodded at Mildred slightly to coax her to her feet. She rose slowly and my eyes went back to my service book. I
was just about to ask Tina the parents' questions of commitment when I became
aware of movement in the pews. Angus
MacDowell had stood up in his blue serge suit, Minnie beside him. Then a
couple of other elders stood up, then the sixth-grade Sunday school teacher
stood up, then a new young couple in church, and soon, before my incredulous
eyes, the whole church was standing up with little Jimmy.
The
unexpectedness of this departure from the routine...quieted...even little
Jimmy.” As the baptismal words were
spoken, “the water rolled back into the thin wisps of baby hair, down the
bridge of his nose, and onto his cheek.
Every eye was on the child, who was for the moment everybody's
baby.
The Scripture
reading that morning had been some verses from 1 John: 'See what great
love God has given us that we should be called children of God... No one
has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and God's love is
perfected in us..." [2]
That may well be what
it looks like: grace, as it were, and peace. Merry Christmas.