After the Angels Have Gone

 

Landscape with the Flight into Egypt, Adam Elsheimer, 1609

We have heard the Christmas story of shepherds abiding in their fields, of angels in their glory, of a mother and child warm in a room full of fragrant animals. After the angels have gone, and the shepherds have returned to their flocks, the holy family is quiet. 

And then a series of strange events interrupt their peace. First wise men appear, bringing gifts for a king - not a newborn child - and they include not only gifts of royalty but gifts of royal burial. Anticipation indeed, to match Mary’s dread, as she had treasured the words of the archangel Gabriel in her heart. This as yet unsuspecting child will do something great and like Achilles will not have a long life but a glorious one. 

But then an angel does return, in a dream to Joseph, warning him to take Mary and Jesus and flee from Herod into a far land.

What calls to me today about all this is that the magi are pilgrims and the family are refugees. 

People move; that’s what they do. They come here to southern Arizona, for example, for all sorts of reasons: they are coming for a better life or a job or the climate or a family reuniting. 

They come as immigrants, seeking to become new Americans. They come seeking asylum, seeking a respite from danger, persecution, violence. They come as resettling refugees, some leaving behind persecution or war, civil strife, or natural disaster. Some stay; some move on.

But all of them are worthy of respect, and welcome. And they receive it here, from some. For others, Scrooge’s retort “are there no workhouses?” still sums up the operative philosophy.

What would we think if we discovered we had been harboring a king? Making welcome for awhile the hope of the universe, the promise of ages, the one to come not simply for his own people but for all peoples of the earth?

The magi, it has been pointed out, are the first Gentiles, the first representatives of the nations and peoples outside of Israel, to bear witness to who Jesus is. It is the first epiphany. Other epiphanies follow, as when Simeon and Anna bless the child at his Presentation or when Jesus is found in the Temple discussing theology with the rabbis even before his Bar Mitzvah.

For now the baby is sleeping. But he will awake. And what he will bring, as he gathers people to himself, is an extraordinary revolution. For no one, from now on, will really be a refugee - for we will all be at home in our father’s house, his father’s house. But for that to happen we must join the party. Begin the celebration. Start the work. Build better than just back better, build new on old foundations something profound and deeply rooted. The kingdom this child will proclaim has been proclaimed in the stars; now it must become true in ourselves.

What that means in our time is making room - making room in our hearts and making room in our communities, for those who come to us with strange news, like the magi, or wonder, like the shepherds, or a song of glory, like the angels, or like a group of people traveling to a new home. 

May they find it with us, if God calls them to turn aside and settle here, even if only for a while. May they find food for the journey, companions for the way, if their pilgrimage takes them farther. 

And may we, returning home again after our own journeys, exiles, pilgrims, refugees, find our last true home with that child, who began life so quietly and yet so wondrously.

• Jeremiah 31:7-14

• Psalm 84

• Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a

• Matthew 2:1-12 , 13-15

• https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Christmas/Christmas2.html 

When the Song of the Angels Is Stilled

When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and the princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flocks, The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among people, To make music in the heart.

(Howard Thurman)

https://fcjsisters.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/when-the-song-of-the-angels-is-stilled-howard-thurman/

http://edgeofenclosure.org/holyinnocentschrstms1a.html

Hope in a Dark Time

MATTHEW 2:13-15

And when the wise men were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:
And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. (Matthew 2:13-15)

Hospital bed counts are surging; pandemic deaths are on the rise; and yet there is hope in a dark time. The vaccines are beginning to appear and county by county decisions are being made, and health care givers and others are receiving their first dose of two. (These are still experimental vaccines. Nobody knows how long immunity lasts, and it certainly does not mean letting down your guard - or your neighbors - on mask, distance, outdoors, sanitize your hands - just before you touch your face), or test, treat, trace... 

Ian Rankin wrote a book just before the pandemic hit his native Scotland, A Song for the Dark Times, with an epigram from Bertolt Brecht:

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.

And sometimes it feels like that is the best we can hope for - but we have friends, from the past, and hopefully from the future, who know how it feels. We meet some of them in the story of the three kings, notably magi, Mary, Joseph, and a child. They are briefly near each other, as the planets Saturn and Jupiter have been briefly near each other this past couple of weeks, but soon they are headed in widely different directions: the magi back to their own country, the holy family headed to the land of the Nile. There they will sojourn until they get the word Big Herod is dead.

But as we learn, there is a little Herod, or two, waiting in the wings. And that may be so in our own dark times too. 

What we do have, as they had, is the faithfulness of God, and his keeping his promise, in extraordinary ways. We do not expect this Messiah, the one we get in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. If we needed another hero we may be disappointed. And he does not just make it all go away like magic. 

Mask, distance, outdoors, wash hands; test, trace, treat... still. And for months to come. 

What will we have learned? What will we have left behind? Whom shall we be mourning by then?

In the dark times,

there is singing:

"Nations will stream to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawning".

"A light to the nations and the glory of your people"

"The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never overcome it."

Prophets and apostles, and the ever ending casts of Messiah, and we too, are singing -- in the darkness, but not simply of the darkness. Like the wise virgins in the parable that very child will later tell, we keep our lamps trimmed and burning, not because the darkness is not there, but because it is - and we have hope.

Hope in a dark time.

• Jeremiah 31:7-14
• Psalm 84
• Ephesians 1:3-6,15-19a
• Matthew 2:1-12 , 13-15
• https://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Christmas/Christmas2.html

A Song for the Dark Times. Video intro with the author. https://youtu.be/FQ3PWZ7D2lU

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/46223-motto-in-the-dark-times-will-there-also-be-singing

The Great Conjunction

Astronomer friends in our neighborhood told me not long ago where to look in the sunset sky for something phenomenal: two planets converging night after night, coming closer together, forming one brilliant light above the crescent moon in the sunset. It formed and forms an unforgettable sight, one bound to become even more remarkable as the winter solstice approaches. It is called the great conjunction, as the light of two planets, Jupiter and Saturn, is superimposed.

2000 years ago magi (Wise Men) may have looked upon a similar sight: two planets growing closer together, forming a brilliant spot in the sky.

Why for them was this a birth announcement? Why did it tell them to pack up and go to Jerusalem? When before had far away nations paid homage to a son of David?

A child who is born became king of the Jews yet Solomon in all his wisdom never saw stars like this and never was so arrayed — and Jesus was and is so arrayed, but in the glory that came to him on the cross. It is not far from Jerusalem to Bethlehem; it is not far again from the Church of the Nativity to the Church of the Resurrection. 

The wise men Herod sent on their way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem went bearing gifts for a king.

The king they sought later bore a cross through the marketplace streets of Jerusalem— buying and selling shouting in bargaining going on around him, soldiers driving him from the pavement below Herod’s Palace to the rocky prominence of Golgotha, to place him on the cross. 

And yet this was the fulfillment; the fulfillment of the sign in the sky that drew the wise to Jerusalem to pay homage to the child who would become king.

 

And what was an earthly pilgrimage had as pilgrimages do portents beyond our planet. For the child born to reign was not to have a kingdom of this world as Herod held but one whose realm was cosmic. This child would set the world free; invite all people to come into the right relationship with each other, with creation, with all things. As the psalmist sings, 

“He shall deliver the poor who cries out in distress, and the oppressed who has no helper. He shall have pity on the lonely and poor; he shall preserve the lives of the needy. He shall redeem their lives from oppression and violence, and dear shall their blood be in his sight.” (Psalm 72:10-14)

What makes this king worth celebrating, warming hearts of children and all who look to the stars in the sky is not his majesty but his service, and the liberation from sorrow, the release into joy, that his coming calls forth from us, cause for wonder, love and praise.

“They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.” (Isaiah 60:6) 

Written for the Arizona Daily Star, in anticipation of the Epiphany. 

(https://tucson.com/the-great-conjunction/article_2beb7163-51cf-53a4-83ec-6ea71021f44a.html)

https://lowell.edu/the-great-conjunction/

Henry van Dyke, The Story of the Other Wise Man (Harper & Row, 1895)

Breathe

The trees breathe. They exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen, and the water vapor that hangs high among the redwood branches is inhaled and exhaled too. The trees are old, on the campus of my college, and their ancestors have lived through the ages, and among the ravines dinosaurs, and later, grizzly bears, walked not long ago. 

Above the ravines the old trees looked down. And then at age eighteen I walked among them, unsuspecting. Crossing campus was easy if you did not stick to the paved roads. Those were lit; unlit were the paths that student feet had made as they blazed impromptu trails from A to B. During the day it was easy enough to find your way. 

The university had scattered buildings widely at the edge of the woods. To get to a class might mean a walk of a mile or a mile and a half, across country, up or down hill. And so one night I set out from the dorm where I lived on a day-familiar path through the trees.

In the night I came to a place where I could not see my hand in front of my face. I tried. With my feet I could feel the level path, and sense-memory my way through a gap in the grove. But then, there was a pause. As if the trees had been breathing, and now held still. 

So I stopped. And listened: to nothing. Then I moved to the side, just a little bit. I was in the right place again. The breathing resumed. 

In the morning I retraced my steps. It turned out I had been about to collide with a crotch-high spike of remnant redwood stump in the middle of the path. But the breathing of the trees had stopped, and so did I. 

John Leech

Santa Cruz, California.

For “Readers Write: The Woods”, The Sun, deadline January 1, 2021.

https://thesunmagazine.submittable.com/submit/64697/readers-write

State of the planet is not good

"The state of the planet is: broken."--UN secretary general on December 2nd.

The planet is burning. The planet is freezing. The planet is drowning. The planet is asphyxiating. The planet is poisoned.

Humanity must turn away from its headlong course of environmental suicide. What humanity has brought about, humanity can also help to heal.

The defining task of humanity for this century is to heal its relationship with the rest of nature. “There is no vaccine for the planet.”

That was the message in the 'state of the planet' address by the UN secretary general.

What can we as people of conscience, as people of faith, as citizens and human beings, do to bring healing to the planet?

We can begin by hands-on action such as community gardens, recycling, and careful use of resources, and work within our community organizations, civic associations, and religious congregations, not only to act locally, but to advocate policies that address the climate emergency: goals of carbon neutrality, food security, adaptation and resilience.

John Leech

Foothills

As printed in the Letters to the Editor, Arizona Daily Star, Tuesday, December 8, 2020, A5.

The State of the Planet

"The state of the planet is: broken."--UN secretary general on December 2nd.

The planet is burning.

The planet is freezing.

The planet is drowning.

The planet is asphyxiating.

The planet is poisoned.

Humanity must turn away from its headlong course of environmental suicide.

What humanity has brought about, humanity can also help to heal.

The defining task of humanity for this century is to heal its relationship with the rest of nature. “There is no vaccine for the planet.”

That was the message in the 'state of the planet' address by the UN secretary general.

What can we as people of conscience, as people of faith, as citizens and human beings, do to bring healing to the planet?

We can begin by hands-on action such as community gardens, recycling, and careful use of resources, and work within our community organizations, civic associations, and religious congregations, not only to act locally, but to advocate policies that address the climate emergency: goals of carbon neutrality, food security, adaptation and resilience.

* * *

António Guterres (UN Secretary-General) on the State of the Planet

2 Dec 2020 -  Speech by António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, on the State of the Planet at Columbia University (New York City).

http://webtv.un.org/live-now/watch/ant%C3%B3nio-guterres-un-secretary-general-on-the-state-of-the-planet/6213596409001/

As submitted as a letter to the editor of the Arizona Daily Star on Friday 4 December 2020. JRL+

Meeting Jesus again for the last time

 Matthew 25:31-46 

I’ve been wondering. What did Jesus really look like? Did he look like a king? When we celebrate the feast of Christ the King - a feast celebrated just before Thanksgiving - do we think of him on his throne, the nations prostrate before him at the end of time? Or do we think of him hungry, homeless, naked, thirsty, sick, a prisoner, in need of our help?

The season of Advent, which begins four Sundays before Christmas Day, heralds the once and future king: the arrival of the infant Child and the One who comes again on clouds of glory at the consummation of time. In the “scene beyond dreams” of Matthew 25, Christ on his throne gathers the nations before him and says to some of them “I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick or in prison and you visited me.” To others, “... and you did not.” When did we see you? The people ask, in evident surprise. “As much as you did for the least of my family you did to me.”

A friend of mine had a funny job: he called it "talking to murderers." To make it even funnier, that is what he did. He got in his car, said good-bye to his wife, drove over the hill, and went behind bars, into a maximum-security state prison. And there he would listen to someone say, “When I get out of this place, I'm going to find the guy who put me here, and I'm going to kill him.” And then, they would ask my friend, are you going to tell them I said that? And my friend would say, yes. Because that was his job: he was evaluating their psychological fitness for parole. Over the years, it got kind of wearing. Talking to murderers. Being alone with them locked up in a little room while they told you what they did, what they had done, what they were planning to do.

When Emma Lazarus wrote the poem "the new Colossus" that is on the base of the Statue of Liberty, she left out a few things. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses” and “the wretched refuse of your teeming shore" - but she didn't say, “Give me your murderers, give me your rapists, give me your armed robbers.” But that is what Jesus got, when he said, “I was in prison and you visited me.” That is who he meant. 

Before my friend told me about his job, I found out about someone else who would, a combat veteran, who, after Sunday mass, got in his car, said good-bye to his wife, and headed to that same prison, where he would talk to murderers. He did it, I discovered, because of something in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25. “I was in prison and you visited me.” Jesus didn't say, “I won't look very nice. You won't recognize me. I stink and I will scare you. You will be afraid of me.” No, he did not say that. 

We don't expect to see the face of Christ in someone so reprehensible. But I don't think Jesus left anyone out. His kingdom takes all kinds. Even us. Even the wretched refuse of our lives.

And somehow in those wretched awful people and the wretched awful parts of our own lives, still he is king.

Still when we get to the end of time and stand before the throne of God, we will find ourselves looking at - ourselves... and the worst of us, the worst of human nature, redeemed in what can only be divine strength. 

For he embraces us, as we are. He does not crown us or condone us. No: when he is talking to murderers, rapists, and armed robbers, he does not say, “Never mind, forget it, it does not matter, you do not matter.” He says, “I love you nevertheless.” 

And so I love your friend too, this one over here, who has seen more firearms than many a prisoner has ever seen, the one who came to visit me, the old veteran of a lost army, who heard what I had to say in the gospel: “I was in prison and you came to see me.” Wretched? But somehow redeemed. Only one king can do that, the one whose arrival we anticipate during Advent.

“Coming to meet Jesus for the last time”, Keeping the Faith, Arizona Daily Star, December 6, 2020, E3. (Original title: Meeting Jesus Again for the Last Time)

https://tucson.com/meeting-jesus-again-for-the-last-time/article_10b7de00-0e9a-5adb-8762-1e0bb400af1a.html

State of the Planet

"The state of the planet is: broken."--UN secretary general this morning.

The planet is burning.

The planet is freezing.

The planet is drowning.

The planet is asphyxiating.

The planet is poisoned.

Humanity must turn away from its headlong course of environmental suicide.

What humanity has brought about, humanity can also help to heal.

The primary task of humanity for this century is to heal its relationship with the rest of nature.

That was the message this morning in the 'state of the planet' address by the UN secretary general.

What can we as churches, as people of God, do to bring healing to the planet?

* * *

António Guterres (UN Secretary-General) on the State of the Planet

2 Dec 2020 -  Speech by António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, on the State of the Planet at Columbia University (New York City).

http://webtv.un.org/live-now/watch/ant%C3%B3nio-guterres-un-secretary-general-on-the-state-of-the-planet/6213596409001/