💙
Oh
do I like to be right!
Get
me in an argument, get me explaining something, try to contradict me...I don’t
like to be proven wrong – ask my children, or my husband Tim. (Tim?...)
Augsburg’s,
Sunday and Seasons, begins their section on ‘Preparing for Christmas:
Preaching’ stating:
“Preaching
during the 12 days of Christmas calls us to reflect on a paradox of this season:
the good news is both cosmic and local. Woven throughout the Christmas lessons
are threads of the universal and the specific.”
This
too has been evident in our readings and hymns through Advent. The texts have
us waiting for the Messiah, and praising that we are waiting for the return of
the Messiah. We hear of the end of time, the kingdom of God in its fullness –
and yet at the same time are called to bring the kingdom now. We speak of God
as beyond and yet coming in a baby. In this time of being a Christian we
already know the final days of the baby’s adult life; our Christmas hymns
include all kinds of imagery from the season of Lent – a constant reminder that
this life – was a life born to die.
The Messiah is quite a paradox - 100% God, 100% human -both
can't be true? both are.
I think Lutheran theologians Braaten
and Jensen describe it best, that God became human because of a love for the
created creatures, enough to set aside Godhood to be fully human, to die -not
as a sacrifice or atonement- rather out of love, a choice of love; so that
human hearts might see/feel and receive love; ‘that one should die for me.’
The story of a baby is to worm its way into human hearts, to change peoples' hearts for the coming of the
reign of God now--- freedom in the fullest sense of wholeness- brought about by
an experience of relationship, God’s love for us. We have heard many times the
stories of parents besot with love for a new born baby. It boggles the mind
however, to consider that death and the grief at losing a loved one, actually
has the power to draw out one’s love for that person in a visceral way
(sometimes more than when the person was alive).
In the snippet from the Romans text, is the gospel in a sentence;
talking of a specific person Jesus, and the cosmic in the same breath. This
ending is to emphasis the completion of God’s promises to God’s people. The
paradox of wholeness is that it is impossible to bring about unless it
embraces/grows in utter brokenness. The paradox of Law/Gospel contains a
tension where the shared point is relationship - with God, humans, and when
these are in order, creation will be healed and stop groaning (this is totally
a one sentence explanation of Pauline theology from Romans).
At
first glance a paradox is a statement/image/thought that seems contradictory or
impossible, but in actuality is possible.
Often a paradox is a logic problem that seems to go against our
intuitive inclination.
For
instance: We can be healthy, but not well. In order to be dying, one actually has to be
living.
A
line from a St. Francis’ hymn tells us that: It is in giving that we receive. Others have commented that the more we give,
the more we have.
We
live in paradox. At no other time in the church are the paradoxes so obvious. The texts, seem to be like a snowstorm of
paradox after paradox, smothering us. At first hearing, the Samuel and Romans
texts don’t even sound like Advent or Christmas texts. 4th Sunday of
Advent texts have not been heard at Resurrection for decades... this is usually
Christmas Pageant Sunday. That is one reason they sound a little strange. The
other is that the ideas are cosmic, not necessarily specific, until the time has
come for them to be so.
We
live in paradox. Those of us who have been in Lutheran congregations for some
time regularly hear Lutheran language that emphasizes the paradox. We speak and
teach of Law/grace, simultaneously being saint/sinner, living in a state of freedom/bondage.
In Eucharist we speak of the Body and blood of Christ, yet elements are bread and wine.
Bishop
Elizabeth Eaton recently spoke to the members of the ELCA and reminded them
that the Lutheran church is “a church of
both/and in an either/or world.” This reflects a church that can hold more than
one truth in tension: we have freedom in Christ, but because of this freedom are
bond to one another. Faith may be a personal experience, but it is relational and
lived in community.
Advent
is a season that illustrates the paradox.
We hold to the possibility that there is:
Hope
in sadness, peace in chaos, freedom in bondage, liberation in captivity.
Lutheran
Theologian Gordon Lathrop wrote in a book for pastors on the topic of
spirituality: “Pastors ought to know about thinking, honouring, even loving
two or more contrary ideas at the same time, refusing rigid intolerance while
not losing their courage to express conviction.” I believe this is true for
all of us. Lathrop goes on to
suggest that ability to do this – to entertain the possibility of holding
contrary ideas in tension- actually opens one’s heart to the practice of
hospitality.
Each
week in Advent we have received a practice to help us journey through the
Season: the practice of attention and imagination, the practice of gathering
and sharing Word, and the practice of simplicity.
Today’s
practice is a little different – although we are reflecting on paradox, I can’t
really ask you to go and practice it. Paradoxes
just are. What we can do however, is practice accepting paradox and be okay with
-even welcome- the tension of holding seemingly opposite ideas at the one time.
There
have been a number of instances in my ministry where I have practiced what a
colleague calls, ‘being theologically orthodox but practically liberal.’ What
this means is that despite a theological perspective I hold to be true, in
practice I might act opposite or outside of my belief for the sake of the
other. It might be: giving communion to someone who is not Christian, baptizing
a child even if the parents aren’t baptized, marrying people in the church even
though their reason has nothing to do with God, keeping views silent so that
there might be teaching moments from the inside- change little by little, or providing
a blessing or prayer for issues/circumstances to support a person even if the choice
being prayed about does not sit well with me at all.
I
can do this because I have practiced accepting paradox. It allows me freedom to
welcome – give hospitality to people who come: people often on the fringes,
people who want conversation on matters of spirituality, people wrestling with
God or an idea of God, people who are exhausted of what is and seek something
different, people who want to be loved and accepted and belong and participate
first, before committing – to experience rather than get tied up in the logic
and the paradoxes. It is not always a comfortable place to be, but in the
discomfort, I rest calmly in the acceptance of paradox, that I continually wrestle
with tension, faith and practice, and it is good. I agree with feminist Letty M. Russell who
wrote that, “hospitality is the practice of God’s welcome by reaching across
difference to participate in God’s actions bringing justice and healing to our
world in crisis.”
I
leave you this morning with a thought to take us back to the starting point of
this sermon – that the Good News is both cosmic and local. Author Kaitlyn
Schiess in her book, “The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake
of Our Neighbour,” wrote: the
discipline of hospitality might be the greatest example of this idea I’m
desperate to advance: our political beliefs and advocacy are not primarily built
on grand, sweeping claims to which we mentally assent; they are often built on
ordinary impulses and biases that we inherit and absorb in small, everyday
actions.”
I
invite you to embrace paradox, practice accepting paradox, so that we might
grow our capacity for hospitality. Our big dreams, God’s big dreams, the
fruition of faith, the visions and prophecies of the prophets, this great story
of a baby born -who grows and loves the world so much, and chooses to die to
express that love...so that we might understand... are grand and sweeping
visions - cosmic; but our world is changed (not through the big dreams) but
through the hospitality that we offer through ordinary impulses, biases we
inherit, paradox we wrestle with, and our everyday actions.
Accept
paradox and in so doing bless your neighbourhood -and the cosmos- with hospitality.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment