Texts:
Isaíah:35 1-10
Matthew 11:2-11
Good morning. I feel privileged to be here before you all on this last Sunday before Christmas, as we await in quiet joyful expectancy of the coming of the birth of Jesus, Emanuel, of God who has come to dwell among us.
On this, the first day after the winter solstice, after six months of each day being shorter than the previous one, now the days begin to grow longer. Thus there is the juxtaposition of the earth spirituality traditions celebrating the return of the sun with Christian tradition of the coming of light into the darkness. And I do love how this comes together in the song of Zacharias, father of John the Baptist, where he declares, “because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring on high has visited us, to go give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace.”
We do live in the midst of darkness, we have seen the light, and we do need a guide to walk in the way of peace. So we continue today with the fourth and final theme of advent, which is peace.
We know that peace of which we speak in 8th Day is not simply a warm fuzzy feeling, is not of niceties to not offend, or simply an absence of conflict or of war. We know as Isaiah states (ls 32:17), “justice will bring about peace,” and, as Pope Paul VI said, “If you want peace, work for justice.” And justice is that which allows the fulfillment of the inherent dignity that all human beings have, which includes basic human rights such as the right to life, food, clothing, shelter, health care, education, social services, just wages, and the right to migrate when necessary (taken from Pacem in Terris encyclical, Pope John XXIII, 1963).
We also know that an essential element of our faith is that God dwells among us and seeks to act in each moment in time, each period in history, and often does so in mysterious ways. One of these is the way in which the birth of Jesus takes place.
We read in the gospel of Luke how the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would become pregnant and give birth to the one who would be called, “Son of the Most High.” She is startled and puzzled but then accepts and assents to this charge in her life, saying to the angel, “You see before you the Lord’s servant, let it happen to me as you have said.”
In the Gospel reading for today, from Matthew, we read Joseph’s reaction to the news that his betrothed is pregnant. He thinks of divorcing her quietly, to spare her disgrace, when again there is an angel who comes to him in a dream and assures him that marrying Mary is good and right to do.
Thus a miraculous birth and a coming of God dwelling among us ensue. And so, as the genealogy at the beginning of the chapter, showing 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus shows, Jesus is placed firmly within the lineage of Joseph, even though Joseph is not his biological father.
I think of parents who I know who are not the biological parents of one or more of their children. One is a brother of my wife, who married a young woman who was pregnant by another. Instead of rejecting her for this, he took her to be his wife even greater care so that she would not be dishonored and so that this child would have a loving father. Nine years later he continues to be the very proud father of this child.
In our extended church community we have many adopted children as well, including Grace and Gabriela from Guatemala, Paulo, Eliana, and Viviane from Brazil, and Elizabeth from China. Then there are people like Ann Barnet and Fred Taylor who have taken into their hearts and their lives the whole of the poor and marginalized children of the city.
It is hard for me sometimes to grasp what Christmas truly means in the midst of all the hype and confusion, and sweet sentimentality that accompany it (which I don’t find at all within the Bible; it’s like the world within the doors of this church and the world outside are two distinct ones). But I think it means a radical shift in the way the world is, what our priorities are, and recognition of what is truly important and life giving. It is about a radical shift from individual interests and rights to a concept of well being for all, and from societies where wealth, position and power are what count, to a society where the unmet needs of those who are poor and marginalized take precedence. It is the announcement of a new life that has to do with taking on the other into your life and seeking that transformation towards the common good of all, regardless of who they are, where they live, or what they do. It has to do with what the young, pregnant Mary announces in that powerful time of sharing with her older pregnant cousin Elizabeth, “The Lord has scattered the proud in their imagination of their hearts, has pulled down the princes from their thrones, has exalted the lowly, filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”
In the struggles of the people for a better future for those who the dominant ways of the world would leave disposed and on the margins, it is a social and moral imperative for us in the United States also to be on the right side of history. In the words of Jesuit priest Ignacio Ellacuria, murdered along with seven others in El Salvador 24 years ago, "There is no humanity without a shared solidarity."
Most of you know that I was in Honduras last month as part of a human rights and elections observer. It was a powerful time of shared solidarity as I went with a mixed group of 40 people from North American peace and justice organizations and Salvadorans from groups committed to change. We travelled together, from El Salvador to Honduras, on an old school bus, over pothole filled roads through mountains and the tropics many, many hours to meet with people of organizations committed to nonviolent change in Honduras. This culminated with us observing the Honduran general elections in a remote, conflictive area of the country where the people are especially desirous of change.
We witnessed the growing firmness of the Honduran people to convert the country into a sustainable land that works for all instead of a country run by the elite and by multinational corporations that has made Honduras the second poorest country in the hemisphere and the most violent one. We learned of the National Front for Resistance, which is a broad nonviolent movement that arose in response to the 2009 coup (which had at least the de facto support of the U.S. Government, including military and material support). This coup resulted after the at first conservative president Mel Zelaya had a wakeup call, started listening to the social movements and began to implement changes such as an increase in minimum wage, educational reform, better health services, and a return of land to farmers who had been defrauded of it. But the dominant powers intervened before this incipient democracy took hold too firmly and ousted Zelaya, with soldiers taking him from his home in the middle of the night to a U.S. air base from which he was flown, still in his pajamas, to Costa Rica.
This National Front for Resistance in turn worked very intelligently and creatively with broad political, social, and economic sectors of the country to form LIBRE, the “Liberty and Re-foundation” Party to seek to steer the country away the neoliberal feeding frenzy of the coup regime that is driving the country into further poverty, more chaos, and more environmental degradation. The LIBRE party then managed to present the first major challenge ever to the two traditional parties (that lead, except during the numerous times of military dictatorships) during the November 24th General Elections. I feel sure that LIBRE would have won, had it not been for fraud, intimidation, murders and threats against party candidates and their supporters, and the use of state resources and apparatus by the coup government in the electoral campaign. Even so, a toehold for change remains and a previously unknown spirit of unity among the people remains. And I ask myself also if Honduras might be a place to which I might return to support this hope.
I want to share with you some images of people who are my heroes (from Honduras and El Salvador). Some of them are martyrs, while others openly recognize that they would have much more likely have been killed if it was not for international solidarity (and we thus know that this solidarity is not an empty gesture). On the matter of martyrs I know that many here have difficulty grasping their significance as positive force, as people who gave their lives as they embodied love. We do know of Martin Luther King, of Ghandi, of Nelson Mandela, the four North American religious sisters killed in El Salvador, but this is mainly outside our experience of the majority of us as white middle class Christians. But we do have some, like Eve Tetaz who has given up her body to be imprisoned many times, and many others who work out of a joy for life that leads them to seemingly insurmountable challenges, who can give us an idea of what it means to be fully given over to the other. And, of course, we have our Lord Jesus Christ who did not give into the temptation to avoid the way of the cross.
I want to wrap up, then, by summarizing what I have gathered as the causes of peace. Peace comes when we actively seek to know those who we might see as adversaries and manage to win them over, as is Martin Luther King’s concept of the beloved community. Peace comes when we learn to be content with what we need, and not with what we might desire beyond that. Peace comes when we enter into the heart and the lives of those suffering with unmet needs of those whose dignity is denied. Peace comes when we can look into the heart of our enemies and recognize our common humanity. Peace comes when forgiveness is possible and punishment, if ever necessary, is done only with dignity. Peace comes when we cease to be afraid of change and of sacrifice and can always see the needs of others as important as ours. Peace comes when we do not covet the resources of other lands, do not exploit those who we see as different from us, do not deny to people of other lands the same privileges and opportunities we claim for ourselves, or steal from the inheritance of future generations. Peace comes when the use of violent means to resolve differences is rejected outright.
And peace comes when we embrace with tender mercy the life and teachings of that little child born in Bethlehem long ago, nurture him, follow him, and never again sacrifice God upon the alter of our false gods.
As you view these photos and reflect, I want you to hear John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s song Happy Xmas, announcing peace in Vietnam, and in the world, if we want it.