01.08.12; Rev. David Williams
This is a great week to be in the virtue industry. The moment that
ball drops in Times Square and the odometer rolls over on another year
of our lives, those of us who are in the business of being good are
briefly rolling in gravy.
Because out there in the world, people hope for a life that will be
different in the New Year. They’ve said that they’re finally going to
get around to doing the things that for some reason they just couldn’t
get around to doing in 2011. And so we realize that our midsections
are never going to get toned if we eat only Little Debbie Snack Cakes
for breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, high tea, and dinner, plus
that little sumthin’ sumthin’ right before bed ‘cause we’re feeling a
bit snackish.
We’re never going to feel physically well again if our only exposure
to aerobic activity is watching it on ESPN 5 for five hours straight
on a Sunday evening. Yes, we may be deeply vested in the life
changing banter we get from the beefy guys at the Sportcenter, and
eager to hear their analysis of the results of today’s Extreme
Downhill Waterpolo National Championships. But calories don’t burn
themselves vicariously, and coupling that with the Little Debbie Snack
Cakes really aren’t doing us any favors.
Now, in a brief moment of culturally-induced clarity, we’ve realized
we need to go down another road. The virtue industry knows this. And
so during this week after the new year, our media is always
supersaturated with marketing for diet plans and exercise machines and
gyms. The ads jabbering in the commercial lulls of the morning news
show my wife watches as she gets ready for work have changed.
During one single commercial break this week, I counted four ads for
diet plans. There was one in which substantially slimmer pop star
Jennifer Hudson warbled inspirationally as newly slender people smiled
in front of pictures of their former selves. What she was singing
sounded like Christian Contemporary Music, but given the focus of the
camera, I think the lyrics had something to do with her thighs. There
was another one in which a middle aged woman who had been surgically
altered to look like Marie Osmond circa 1977 spoke earnestly into the
camera in a room filled with pastel furniture and suffused with warm
light.
And in between those ads, there was another ad, in which young, fit,
and smiling people danced around and waved huge fistfuls of
multicolored Twizzlers at the the camera. Because after you’ve been
good, well, what harm could a one pound bag of Twizzlers do? The
problem, of course, is that if you are intending to make a lasting,
deep, and substantial change in your life, consumer culture cannot
help you.
Consumer culture exists to serve up the right now, the immediate, the
quick fix for four easy installments of $19.95. But it will not
change you, not permanently. It does not want you to change
permanently. It wants you back down that same path again next year,
credit card in hand.
Real transformation does not involve going back down that path. And
welcoming in real transformation is part of the purpose of the story
of Epiphany in the Gospel of Matthew today. Matthew’s Gospel is told
from a deeply Jewish perspective, and the story of the arrival of the
wise men from the East reflects a completely different tradition than
that of the one from Luke that we retell every Christmas. From that
perspective, what mattered was affirming how the birth of Christ
reflected an anticipated change in the order of power in the world.
To do this, Matthew relentlessly places the events in the life of
Jesus into the context of Torah and the writings of the prophets.
The arrival of the wise men from the East marked just such an
affirmation. It’s worth noting that these wise men were not kings in
their likely native lands of Persia or Babylon, despite what we’re
singing today. The word used for them in Matthew’s Gospel is magoi,
which can be rendered “wise men” but is more accurately rendered as
“astrologer.” The only other place in the New Testament where this
word is used is in Acts 13, verses six and eight, and there, it gets
translated as “sorcerer.”
As the story goes, when these three wizards in the Jerusalem court of
the Herodian dynasty, it causes a bit of panic. They’ve shown up to
honor the birth of a king, bringing gold from Griffindor, frankincense
from Hufflepuff, and myrrh from Ravenclaw. This meant trouble for
Herod.
The Herodian dynasty had been in power since the year 76 BCE. The
family business was being in power and holding on to power. Herod
Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee and the province of Perea, had
learned all about the family business from his father, Herod the
Great. He’d watched his father’s unwaveringly obedient attitude
towards Rome. He’d seen the fortresses that his father had built
throughout the Judean countryside to insure obedience. He’d watched
his father execute not just those who opposed him from outside the
family, but also one of his own wives and three of his sons. Like his
half-brother Herod Philip, he kept power in the family by making a
point of marrying his own niece. Reading through the Herodian family
tree, the most natural response is “Ewwww.”
The grip that Herod and his literally incestuous kin had over Judah
was powerful, and any change meant a threat to that bitterly won
control. Yet the negative form of power that Herod embodied was to
be completely opposed by the child who had been born in Bethlehem.
Though the magi first travel to meet with Herod, and are affirmed in
their journey by the reflections of the priests, who recall the
teachings of Isaiah, what matters is that their destination is not the
seat of power, but a humble home far from the center of power.
The movement of these wise men towards Bethlehem was driven by their
ability to observe interpret the signs of transformation. Having
discovered the true nature of that change in Christ, they continued to
be open to signs of the direction they should follow. Instead of
being taken in by the hypocritical and self-serving power of Herod,
they listened to the more subtle warnings given in their dreams.
Having left corrupt power behind them, they did not return to it, but
chose another road.
In this season when we find ourselves more aware of the passing of
time and yearning for something new, to move past the powers of the
past that have kept us as broken as the Herodians kept Judah, there
are lessons worth learning from the wise actions of those magi.
Seek the True. There are countless stars that shine around us and
seek to guide us. Wealth and power, physical desire and endless
trivial distractions, all of these things shine as bright as the
fortresses and palaces and decadent indulgences of Herod. They draw
the attention of our eyes, and the hunger of our hearts.
But though we walk those centers of power daily, they cannot offer us
joy. They only offer more hunger, and more fear, and more grasping.
The bright light of grace and forgiveness offered by Christ is
something utterly different.
Be Attentive. Be attentive to that place where our loving and
infinitely-creative God is working to transform you. If you’re paying
attention to your own life, to the places where you’re living into
being the human being God made you to be, then you’ll be more likely
to be aware of those directions you need to travel to encounter real
and living change. Here, we all need to avoid our attentiveness
being clouded by either cynicism and complacency.
If we’re in a place of struggle or hardship, weighed down by broken
relationships or shattered hopes, it’s easy to give up on the
possibility of encountering deeper joy in life. Cynicism congeals
like a scab across our spiritual wounds, and we hide behind it and the
dark comfort of its hardness. From that place, you do not look, and
you do not seek, because you have given up. If you are not open to
the possibility of a gracious transformation that shines before you,
you’ll miss it.
If we’re in a place where we’re comfortable in our lives, we can
easily drift into a life where we do not grow. We simply move along
in a blind pattern, repeating the rote actions of our day-to-day, as
thoughtless as an ant following a pheromone trail. If you are not
attentive to the necessity for growth that comes with real life in
Christ, you’ll just roll on past it.
Be attentive, then. In order to change, we have to be oriented towards it.
Don’t Go Back. When you encounter that place of transformation, don’t
go back. Take another road. When you’ve encountered transforming
grace, be aware that those places of controlling power in your life
will want you to come back their way. Addictions and old resentments,
self-loathing and unresolved angers, these things can be eager to
recast control over your life. Those patterns of thinking cling as
ferociously and desperately to power as Herod. Don’t return along
that path, and allow the Herods of your own spirit to destroy the
possibility of the new. Let whatever new grace God has lead you to
encounter change the way of your walk.
This is easy to say, of course. But translating that intent into
lasting action, not falling back but moving forward, that’s not an
easy thing. Even the parts of our pasts we most despise are
ourselves, and dying to that self is not an easy thing. It is not
like a purchase. Unlike commodified change, change based on a
material transaction, it involves relationship. It is not done alone,
but by a self changed by faith in God and love for neighbor, drawing
support and strength and guidance from both.
Every moment God has given us offers that potential for change and
transformation. Be attentive for it, seek what is truly good, and
when you’ve found it, don’t go back down that old dark road.
In this New Year, let it be so, for you and for me, AMEN.
No comments:
Post a Comment