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December 2, 2007 Rev. Steve Gehlert When I was younger I loved to watch Monty Python's Flying Circus. I can still remember so many of the sketches, and the throw away lines, that people still use in the midst of conversations, with varying degrees of success, as they try to be funny. One of my favorite features was when John Cleese would appear, sitting behind a desk like a TV announcer, but not, I learned from the internet yesterday, just any announcer. He was there as a "continuity announcer," someone who gives information about a program that's just been seen, tell viewers what channel they're watching, and what they're about to see. That's why it's even funnier to me now, to remember him saying, in complete deadpan, "and now for something completely different." We need different. Especially at this time of year. Why? Because it's Advent, maybe the most predictable season of the year. We know what we're going to do - we've done it so many times before. We'll light the candles, one a week for four weeks. We'll go out and buy lots of presents, all the while complaining that Christmas has become too commercial. We'll go to a Christmas concert, sing some carols, decorate a tree. We'll write Christmas letters that brag about what we or our kids have done, send cards or post a Christmas blog. We'll eat a feast, attend a party or two, and exchange presents with the appropriate "oohs" and "ahhs." Then we'll take down the tree and get back to normal. Ho, ho, ho, and then ho-hum. Please don't misunderstand: I'm not being cynical. This is my favorite time of the year. I can't get enough of Advent and Christmas. I love the preparation, the traditions, the celebration. But I worry about the hollowness of it all, and the artificiality of it all, and the predictability of it all. Christmas seems to have lost its power to surprise, shock, and transform. I recall an old joke where someone asked, "Are you going to have the usual turkey this year?" to which came the reply, "No, we're going to buy a new one." Where is John Cleese when we need him, coming in and proclaiming, "and now for something completely different"? Well, long before Monty Python, there was the prophet Isaiah, who said something very similar. To paraphrase Isaiah, "Come, let's go up to God's mountain, and learn God's ways." That's different. Yet there's more "They shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks; nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Transform weapons into gardening tools. Stop waging wars. That is something completely different. The words aren't unique to Isaiah. This same text appears in Micah. Both of these biblical prophets considered it a vital message that the people needed to hear, and so both proclaimed it. They're right! It's a vital message people needed to hear, a vital message people still need to hear. A saying often attributed to Albert Einstein goes something like this: doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results is the definition of insanity. To keep thinking that we know all we need to know is to avoid going to God's mountain and learning of God's ways. To be preoccupied with the trappings of Christmas without spending any time really observing Advent is to forget that we are preparing our hearts for a new indwelling of God's Spirit. Instead, we're just having a good time and living out some wonderful traditions. Nothing wrong with that per se, but it's hardly going to transform us, is it? The challenge, then, is to approach Advent with new hope and new vision - to dare to go up to the mountain of our God with open hearts and open minds, and go there with the people who are most difficult for us to go anywhere with: with people of other nations, of other communities, with people who look different from us and act differently from us, who speak differently, who are different, with people who've not done what we want, who we disagree with, who've done things that anger us. Because those are the people with whom God wants us to make peace. Because if we can't make peace with them, the peace, the shalom God wants for all people, will never come. Because if we can't do that, we're doomed to having a Christmas that may be beautiful on the outside, but doesn't have much substance to it. So, what's it mean to take this to heart? It could mean writing a letter to someone in the government and perhaps to another world leader, and tell her or him to turn the weapons into plows. Except…the meaning of this passage goes much deeper than gun control or disarmament. It's first of all about transforming more serious weapons than that - weapons that we all have. Bombs and tanks, grenades and land mines are horrible things designed to kill people. But before they come into play, there are attitudes that hurt people, that work to destroy them. There are the words said to the object of our scorn, that can wound forever. There are words that tear down, even destroy, that person in the minds and hearts of others. We have so many weapons to choose from: subtle sarcasm, hostile glares, silent snubs, ignoring, whatever fits best to diminish the one we hate, in their own eyes, or in the eyes of others. We can become so adept at doing that, so masterful at teaching others to hate the one we've chosen to hate. But Isaiah calls us to learn the ways of the Lord because the destruction works both ways. What've we won if we're able to say to ourselves, "Now I've got someone else despising him! What've we won if our heart is full of spite, knotted up with desires for hurt or revenge twist, and a hard coldness takes over? We've done more than freeze out the one we've decided to hate. We've frozen out something in ourselves - frozen out life, and love, and grace. We're destroyed too, when we live to destroy. We die too, when we live by death wishes, not just with actions but also with words. We all have those emotions, those feelings, and with them, potentially, those brutal, destructive weapons, and thus we all have the potential of changing them, letting them become something else. Perhaps the real challenge that Isaiah places before us is to transform the attitudes that make us want to beat one another up in the first place - the attitudes that make us want to hate one another, want to hurt one another, want to destroy one another. Through him, God is calling us to go and offer everything that keeps our hearts and souls at war, everything that makes us wish evil, tempts us to do evil, toward others, everything that causes us to put up barriers, exclude, hurt, or destroy. God says, "give me that, and let's transform it all into love, acceptance, cooperation, and understanding." As we begin our Advent journey, let us go up to the mountain of our God. This morning, let this table be that mountain. Let this be a time when we begin to ponder what to do with the hate in our hearts, what to do with the enemies we've frozen out or tried to destroy. Let's not pretend that we can eat this meal and have it be the gift God wants it to be for us, if we try to do it with hate in our hearts. This the table of our Lord, who prayed for his enemies, and those who persecuted him. Let us dare to give up our tools of destruction - things like charm, cunning, dishonesty, pride, anger, and mistrust. Because if we will, God can transform us into those who will reap a harvest of peace. And that would be something completely different. |
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