When Joseph Awoke (a father at Christmas): some thoughts for the 4th Sunday of Advent

 

“When Joseph awoke, he did

as the angel commanded him.”

--Matthew 1:18-24

 

Who, over the age of 25, has not experienced that frightening moment when you wake up and suddenly realize: Oh my gosh! It’s almost Christmas! But, I’m not ready!  And suddenly--if you are like me—you rush out to the garage in search of lights you promised to hang a month ago, and the wreath that still needs to be put on the door. By golly, those Advent candles aren’t going to light themselves!... And has anyone seen the inflatable pug?

 It’s just not Christmas without the pug!

 In a desperate frenzy of activity, we set about doing everything the season commands. Wanting our house, our tree, our table to be just right!  Perfect, in fact. But there is always one more trip to HEB in search of gluten free ginger snaps for Aunt Lucy, or to Hallmark for a box of cards we still intend to write—Christmas is a season, you know; not just a single day!

 And the presents! Aargh. What size sweater does my sister wear? Would your bother like a new tie? With Snoopy on it? What about Aunt Hildy? Does she still smoke a pipe?  And I forgot to buy that tea your mother loves so much!

 

And just when it seems like it might come together, suddenly your niece announces she is vegan. Or someone else is added to the guest list and we need to borrow a card table from the neighbors, and get a few old folding chairs out of the garage… The chaos that comes with Christmas can be overwhelming. So much to do and if you put it all off long enough, so little time to do it.

 

Think about Joseph, he goes to bed one night certain of one thing: he is about to get divorced. But then an angel appears in his dream and everything changes.

 

Can’t you just see this humble old carpenter waking up and realizing he isn’t ready? Rushing about trying to make his house perfect for a new wife and this mysterious child of her’s—who just happens to be the savior of the world… When suddenly there is another messenger. Another command.  This time from Caesar; Everybody pack your bags and head home for a census! 

But I have plans for the holidays.

 

And again Joseph has to pivot, change plans, make new ones. A road trip. No problem.

 

But there isn’t any Trivago or AAA to help with reservations. But, surely God would provide a safe place for His son to be born, maybe even a room with a private bath and a view of the winter hillside.  I hear the night sky is full of stars and the gathered sheep look almost like drifts of snow this time of year.

 

And like most of us (especially fathers), Joseph had to learn that no matter how well you plan or hard you try, something (or someone) unexpected shows up and the best laid plans come crashing down like shards from a shattered ornament.  I am pretty sure if you asked him,  Joseph would tell you a stable full of animals and strangers was never part of his plan.  In fact, in his eyes, it probably seemed like a catastrophe, a sign somehow of his own failing as a husband and a step-father.  And yet, in the fullness of God’s plan, it was anything but; it was the fulfillment of His Word, of His love.

 

“Thus says the Lord:

Heaven is My footstool, and the earth My throne;

What kind of dwelling can you build for me?

What is to be my resting place?...

This is the one I approve: the lowly and the afflicted,

the one who trembles at My word.”  --Isaiah 66:1-2

 

God chose to enter into the world as an infant, vulnerable to the dangers and afflictions of the flesh and this world. That is the dwelling God chose, the dwelling He prefers. And no matter how we try to clean it up, sanitize it for Christmas cards, or Hallmark movies, God will always find a way to break through our plans, our desperate attempts to create a perfect Christmas, a perfect family, a perfect life… and through the vulnerability and chaos of our discomfort and failure and dysfunction, He will reveal Himself: a helpless baby lying in a manger, hungering for His mother’s tender breast, the warmth of His father’s gentle touch, offering us the chance to give Him not a gift card or a carefully wrapped present, but ourselves, our hearts, our love. That’s all… 

 

And so here it is, Christmas is upon us, those final days before the celebration. We have just celebrated the 4^th Sunday of Advent. We are at the eve of Christmas eve and yes company is coming, relatives, friends (folks you don’t know), and yes there are still cards to write and presents to buy and wrapping to be done.  But, instead of entering into the frenzy of it all, slow down. Take a breath.  And remember this: This Christmas don’t let the colored lights, and the glitter of the wrapping paper, the tinsel and the bows (and all your plans and expectations) blind you to the unexpected grace found only in the actual gift waiting for you right probably right where you least expect it.

 

What kind of king? What kind of Kingdom? Thoughts on the Solemnity of Christ the King.

What kind of king?

 

“Pilate said: So, then you are a king?”

--John 19:37

 

 

What kind of king gets scourged at a pillar and then nailed to a cross?  What kind of king gets abandoned by His friends and is dragged away and abused –helpless and alone?  Crowned with thorns and made to bear his own cross to the place of his execution…?  What kind of king do we have?  And yet we celebrate at the end of each liturgical year—the solemnity of Christ the King.

 

And yet for this solemn celebration, we read not about the resurrection, but about the trial and impending death of Jesus.  Perhaps to remind us what kind of King we have, and what we did to Him when He came among us. 

 

We were in Garland, Texas this past weekend and attended the vigil mass for Christ the King in a church we’d never been to before: The Good Shepherd.  A beautiful church. Being a stranger in a church can be a kind of blessing.  When you get too familiar with a place (or person) you may stop paying attention, stop noticing. And being someplace unfamiliar, puts us on alert. We can’t just blindly sleepwalk to the same old pew and settle into a narcoleptic stupor. The unfamiliar can open our eyes –maybe out of fear or anxiety, but also out of wonder. Suddenly, because of the new setting, or new faces and new voices, even familiar prayers can suddenly seem new and mysterious.   And in that unfamiliar setting, something new can break through; we might even finally hear the voice of God speaking to us through His words and through His people.

 

So there I sat in that unfamiliar place, surrounded by strangers, and feeling out of place, insecure, a little bit lost.  And when I heard Pilate asking Jesus: Are you a king?  I found myself looking around at the people around me, strangers, families, bored children and exhausted parents, ragged loners, and stoop shouldered elderly men and women… the rich and the poor, the very old and the very young, all of them come together, gathered, looking for something, hungering for something…

 

And it occurred to me: This is it! This is the Kingdom. Right here.  All around me.  The mother comforting her baby, the big sister helping her little brother, the father and the fatherless… exhausted and overwhelmed, the pious and the pitiful, the prayerful and the impatient.  Familiar and stranger, all of us… Gathered there like something out of the gospels; like those crowds that followed Jesus hoping for a miracle, hoping for healing, hoping for a sign; hoping for hope. Looking around I could see the merciful and the pure of heart, the meek as well as the peacemakers. I was sure some there were hungering and thirsting for righteousness, but I was also certain others were just hungering for dinner (since it was a vigil mass). But there they were… the Kingdom of God, and there I was (my wife by my side) sitting among them.

 

And sitting there, in that blessed moment I remembered something that happened just a few weeks earlier at our school Mass for All Saints day (Nov 1).

 

On holy days we usually have mass in our auditorium. When we do, I tend to be one of those teachers who stands by the wall, pretending to keep an eye on the students, trying to pay attention, while my mind wanders. So there I was, in a very familiar place, and falling into some very familiar patterns, trying to listen to the priest as he told us something about the beatitudes (which is the gospel for All Saints Day), but –as usual—finding myself distracted by thoughts of coffee and doughnuts… I remember he was making a connection between All Saints Day and the beatitudes and saying something about how there might be saints all around us, saints we never notice… I remember I liked what he was saying, but just as he was getting to his point, something happened.  At first, all I saw was one of the deans leap up from her seat and hurry to help someone. As I watched, I noticed two other teachers kneeling over a student who must have fainted. The dean rushed to them, and the school nurse was there, all of them helping this girl back to her feet, getting her up with such tenderness, such love, and such compassion. No hesitance, no fear. Without a pause, they simply stepped into the need of one of our girls.

 

That seems to me the perfect picture of a saint.  And that is what the kingdom of God looks like. A kingdom of saints… These were people I work with every day, people I often take for granted, but suddenly I was seeing them with fresh eyes, seeing them anew. Seeing them not just as coworkers and familiar faces, but as saints.

 

Perhaps it took being in a strange place, being startled out of the ordinary by the suddenness of a movement, for me to recognize it; to see the truth: the kingdom of God truly is among us.  We just have to wake up; just open our eyes and see it. See, the saints all around us. The merciful, the meek, the sorrowful and the helper… The kingdom of Christ is not like any earthly kingdom we can imagine. Not a place of splendor and riches. It is not a place of fame and fortune. It is a strange kingdom where to be first is to be last, and to live is to die to yourself and to follow a king who carries a cross. It is a place of saints hidden in the ordinary, saints who may be sitting on the pew right next to us, saints who walk always toward the need of another and never away. Always toward the king and His cross.   

 

Let this coming Advent be a time of strangeness. Let us all pray to be taken out of ourselves, out of the ordinary, even if it is just for a moment—so that we can see, and hear, and recognize the mystery of our king and His kingdom. A King who was born in a stable and slept in a manger, and who –if only we let ourselves see it—comes to us constantly, in the familiar and the strange, in the need of a stranger, or the kindness of a friend; there He is –if only we have eyes to see.

 

 

Thoughts on the Gospel for the 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time: The fairness of Love

 

And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying,

'These last ones worked only one hour,

and you have made them equal to us,

who bore the day's burden and the heat.'

 

--Matthew 20: 1-16

 

 

There is something quite comforting in the argument for fairness.  It asserts an equilibrium in the world that often doesn’t appear to be there, but that we think should.  The argument for fairness in any situation implies that there is a minimum to what we deserve: at least what is fair.  And what we see in this week’s parable from Matthew 20, is a story of fairness turned on its head.  It is exactly the ones who are demanding it, who have already received fairness.  They received a fair day’s wages, mutually agreed upon before they went to work. And yet, when they see that others have received the same amount for less work, they feel cheated.  They –in a sense—regret their agreement, regret the terms of their contract—so to speak-- and allow themselves to hope for more; then, in their disappointment, they complain about “fairness.”

 

Why? Because none of us truly wants what is fair.  We want something more, we want abundance, we want something like grace.  Perhaps even charity.  But we hide behind a word like “fair,” because it seems safe.  It announces that we are only asking for what we think we deserve, what we feel we have earned—what is fair.

 

But the thing is, life isn’t fair.  And—my thought is: we should be grateful.  I remember a night back in 1981-82, when I was driving home from work late at night.  I think it was when I worked backstage at the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.  (I like writing that.  Actually, I was working backstage at the Tower Theater, but that was the show they were putting on when I worked there.) Anyway, I was driving home about midnight on a Friday night after a long day at UST, and then a long night guarding the stage door at the Best Little Whorehouse… And as I drove down Memorial Drive in my old white Honda Civic (a stick shift, no AC, and only an AM radio), I remember stopping at the light at Memorial and Westcott.  I pulled up right next to a police car with 2 policemen already waiting at the light.  I looked over and nodded to them. One of them nodded back. I sat there for a bit, and then something happened, maybe I was changing the radio. KILT used to broadcast a concert from Gilley’s on the radio and maybe I had been listening to it and when it went off I probably started to change the channel, looking for something else. Anyway, clearly I got distracted and for some reason put the car in gear, let off the clutch and slowly and brainlessly drove right through the still red light --with a police car sitting right next to me. Very quickly I realized what I had done and slowed down as I expected the police car to flip on its lights and pull up beside me. But, instead after about 20-30 yards, the cruiser pulled beside me and one of the officers rolled down his window and gave me a tsk tsk gesture and a silly grin. Then, shaking their heads and laughing they drove on. Fair?  I should have been pulled over and given a ticket.  But, out of kindness, out of compassion, out of grace, the officers simply let me off with a very gentle warning.

 

None of us really wants what is fair. We want grace, we want compassion, we want love. We want to know that we were noticed and that we mattered.  We want to be appreciated so much that someone would give their life for us, if it came to that. We want the love of God to overwhelm us, because—and I think this might secretly be true of a great many of us—we don’t feel like we deserve it.

 

And so, in our insecurity, too many of us resent it when another person receives abundance and seemingly undeserved blessings. We resent the new employee who receives kudos and honors their first month on the job when we have done our job for years and never felt praised or even particularly noticed.

 

And yet, there is another element to this parable that might too easily be overlooked.  Like many parable, it begins with these words: The kingdom of Heaven is like…

 

The Kingdom of Heaven is like this… It’s not a place of fairness.  It is a place of blessing.  It is a place wherein the first will be last and the last will be first. What we must learn to realize is this: if that is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like—then that is a good thing, and we must learn to see the world, through that lens, we must learn to see our own life through that lens.  We must learn from the parable to refocus our attention on the truth.  Grace isn’t about fairness, grace isn’t about getting what we deserve, our fair share; grace is about love and if we just look at the Cross, we will get a beautiful reminder of how much fairness matters to God. 

 

The Kingdom of Heaven is like… a place where everyone is welcome, no matter when or how they come, and all will receive the same thing, in the same amount: the Love of God, overflowing, more than we could have ever imagined, or even hoped for.  Because God isn’t fair, God is love.