Stephen Bauman - Sermon Untitled (January 4, 1998)
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(scuffling) | 0:03 | |
(cough) | 0:06 | |
- | I remember periods of endless waiting. | 0:27 |
Very few kids had speaking lines | 0:31 | |
because the pageant was largely narrated. | 0:34 | |
Most of us simply stood around waiting | 0:38 | |
for our cues to walk into the story. | 0:40 | |
I think I was a shepherd, | 0:44 | |
although I'm not entirely clear on this. | 0:47 | |
I say a shepherd because I wore a robe, | 0:49 | |
I held a long rod in my hand, and I think | 0:53 | |
I was wearing some sort of headgear. | 0:56 | |
Plus there are a lot of us, and I know I wasn't an angel. | 0:59 | |
I have a very, very clear memory | 1:05 | |
that under no circumstances did I want to be an angel. | 1:08 | |
So I'm quite certain I was a shepherd. | 1:13 | |
My oldest brother, he was a king. | 1:18 | |
That was the best role. | 1:22 | |
That's what most of the boys wanted to be, the kings. | 1:25 | |
Not Joseph, interestingly. | 1:29 | |
He was a leading character, all right, | 1:32 | |
but he had to stand so perfectly still | 1:34 | |
for the whole story, and look so pious the whole time. | 1:37 | |
But the kings, the kings, | 1:43 | |
they got to wear the best costumes. | 1:46 | |
They got to look regal and haughty, | 1:49 | |
and walk into the scene as though they owned the world | 1:51 | |
as they presented their costly gifts, | 1:55 | |
and they had squadrons of the littlest kids | 2:00 | |
holding their robes and carrying things, | 2:02 | |
and pretending to be camels and slaves and whatnot. | 2:04 | |
Plus, they came at the very end of the story. | 2:08 | |
They were the climax, and there were only three of them. | 2:13 | |
The shepherds, there were maybe 10 or 20. | 2:19 | |
Same for the angelic hosts praising God and saying, | 2:24 | |
"Glory to God in the highest." | 2:27 | |
Lots of angels, and they wore those dumb wings. | 2:28 | |
They couldn't walk through doors, as I recall. | 2:32 | |
But the kings, they were something special. | 2:38 | |
Because I was still young | 2:46 | |
and inexperienced, I was a shepherd. | 2:47 | |
So was my other brother, the middle son. | 2:50 | |
We both must have been shepherds. | 2:53 | |
We both stood in lines waiting | 2:55 | |
as quietly as possible to walk on and pose | 2:57 | |
with appropriate wonder and amazement at the glad tidings | 2:59 | |
we were going to hear from the dumb angels. | 3:03 | |
I don't remember much else about the pageant itself. | 3:10 | |
Just the waiting. | 3:15 | |
We waited in line forever. | 3:17 | |
And I don't have to tell you that kids | 3:20 | |
are not naturally good at waiting for long periods of time | 3:22 | |
in neat rows, particularly if they're dressed funny | 3:25 | |
and have weapons in their hands. | 3:29 | |
(laughter) | 3:31 | |
So, numerous parents were recruited | 3:35 | |
to keep us shepherds and angels in line, | 3:37 | |
including my mother. | 3:44 | |
She was lurking around, keeping tabs on us boys, | 3:46 | |
making sure we'd be worthy participants | 3:50 | |
in this Christmas story. | 3:53 | |
That's about all I remember about the pageant itself, | 3:58 | |
and the reason even this little bit stays with me | 4:01 | |
is due to my mother's commentary back home | 4:03 | |
once the whole thing had ended. | 4:05 | |
We didn't hear about our acting ability. | 4:07 | |
What we did hear about was a small incident | 4:11 | |
my mother had witnessed involving my other shepherd brother. | 4:14 | |
Seems he was being picked on by another older shepherd | 4:19 | |
who was standing behind him in the shepherd's line. | 4:21 | |
Periodically, this more aggressive shepherd | 4:25 | |
would push my brother, tease him, | 4:28 | |
and step on his toes which were exposed | 4:30 | |
to our appropriately unclad shepherds' feet. | 4:32 | |
Evidently, my mother had been quietly monitoring | 4:36 | |
this development when she saw my brother, | 4:39 | |
with a growing rage at this humiliation, | 4:41 | |
turn around and with great force slam the heal of his foot | 4:44 | |
onto the toes of the elder shepherd. | 4:48 | |
Now, I knew that it happened | 4:52 | |
because of the howl that I heard. | 4:54 | |
I knew my mother knew my brother had done this. | 4:57 | |
At the time, I was surprised by her seeming lack of concern. | 5:01 | |
But now, as she was retelling the story, | 5:05 | |
it became clear that not only was she not concerned, | 5:08 | |
but actually, thought my brother | 5:11 | |
had properly defended his personal turf. | 5:13 | |
From this, I was to learn | 5:16 | |
that I should not be bullied by anyone. | 5:17 | |
Now you need to know, my mother | 5:21 | |
is fiercely proud of her three sons, | 5:22 | |
and she didn't want them to be pushed around. | 5:25 | |
Given my age, I certainly did not make | 5:31 | |
a conscious connection with the incongruity | 5:34 | |
of learning this lesson on the night we were celebrating | 5:37 | |
the birth of the child, Jesus, meek and mild, | 5:40 | |
about whom we sang, "Love came down at Christmas." | 5:43 | |
But something within me knew instinctively | 5:49 | |
that learning how to live and to love | 5:56 | |
was going to be a tricky proposition. | 5:59 | |
Hadn't I already been taught that Jesus | 6:04 | |
turned the other cheek? | 6:06 | |
And hadn't I been taught that fighting | 6:10 | |
was not the best way to settle an argument? | 6:11 | |
Yet here was my mother, of all persons, telling me | 6:14 | |
I had better be prepared to defend my personal turf. | 6:16 | |
Now, lest you get the wrong impression, | 6:24 | |
as my mother would be horrified to know | 6:27 | |
I was retelling this story, | 6:30 | |
she was not intent upon training physically aggressive kids. | 6:32 | |
Like many attentive parents, she was simply concerned | 6:37 | |
about our capacity to grow into persons | 6:39 | |
who were capable of standing up for ourselves. | 6:41 | |
And you know, I'm grateful for this concern. | 6:45 | |
It's been helpful to me in the church, don't you know. | 6:49 | |
But then, as now, it raises several questions. | 6:54 | |
Like, what is the relationship between | 6:58 | |
following the rules and justice and fairness? | 7:01 | |
Just what does it mean to love, after all? | 7:08 | |
Does love mean I'm supposed to be | 7:13 | |
walked all over by my boss or by an abusive parent | 7:14 | |
or spouse or by a racist society? | 7:17 | |
What does a rigorous, thorough going | 7:19 | |
understanding of love require of me? | 7:23 | |
And you can see with these questions | 7:25 | |
that right away, we enter into the thick of theology. | 7:27 | |
The fact is, our faith tradition, | 7:31 | |
the Christian tradition, is full of paradoxical answers | 7:34 | |
to questions like this. | 7:37 | |
You might remember how Jesus, turn the other cheek Jesus, | 7:40 | |
completely disrupts the temple activity at passover, | 7:43 | |
turns the money changers' tables over, | 7:47 | |
makes quite a scene, doesn't he? | 7:49 | |
Calls all sorts of people all sorts of names, | 7:50 | |
especially the people in important positions. | 7:53 | |
I suppose we could argue that he spoke truly, | 7:58 | |
but you know, he isn't a, quote, nice boy, unquote, | 8:01 | |
the way we currently use that phrase, is he? | 8:05 | |
On the contrary, he was quite a disruptive character, | 8:08 | |
and ultimately was condemned to death | 8:11 | |
as an enemy of the state. | 8:14 | |
That isn't what normally happens to nice boys | 8:16 | |
who grow up following the rules, is it? | 8:20 | |
So we come to see that his teachings reach | 8:29 | |
way beyond the surface preliminary, | 8:32 | |
trivial, even, | 8:36 | |
understandings we might first ascribe to them. | 8:38 | |
Turn the other cheek doesn't translate | 8:42 | |
as wimp in the current vernacular. | 8:44 | |
How faith is rife with paradox. | 8:49 | |
Take the message of the three kings, most likely | 8:54 | |
we think, as the story is told, Persian priests. | 8:57 | |
The Persians were not at this time | 9:01 | |
a particularly parochial people. | 9:03 | |
It didn't bother them that a world's savior | 9:05 | |
might be born of Jewish rather than Persian blood. | 9:07 | |
God's will was deemed to be written | 9:10 | |
on a larger page than that of a single people. | 9:12 | |
But as we heard in our Gospel reading, | 9:16 | |
this kind of expensive non-parochial thinking | 9:18 | |
was not much in evidence in Palestine at that time. | 9:21 | |
We read that news of Christ's birth troubled Herod, | 9:24 | |
and all of Jerusalem with him. | 9:29 | |
And all of Jerusalem probably means the ruling hierarchy, | 9:32 | |
including the leaders of the temple. | 9:35 | |
Herod and his clique symbolized | 9:37 | |
closed minded and defensive rigidity, | 9:40 | |
just as the wise visitors, the supposed kings, | 9:42 | |
symbolize an open universality. | 9:45 | |
The wise men came to Israel guided by a vision | 9:48 | |
that encompassed all of humanity | 9:51 | |
only to be encountered by a group of individuals, | 9:54 | |
led by Herod, who were enclosed | 9:57 | |
by a mentality of suffocating self-centeredness. | 10:00 | |
The wise men sought in the King of the Jews | 10:06 | |
a savior whose authority would expand | 10:09 | |
beyond established boundaries | 10:12 | |
to include themselves and all of the world. | 10:14 | |
However, the power elite was not open | 10:20 | |
to an idea of this type for obvious reasons. | 10:23 | |
It was only interested in preserving its own authority. | 10:27 | |
So you see, we see two forces | 10:31 | |
meeting each other in this tale. | 10:34 | |
On the one hand, we have the force of expansion, | 10:35 | |
inclusion, and universality. | 10:39 | |
This we might call Christ energy. | 10:41 | |
And on the other hand, we have | 10:44 | |
the force of denial, exclusion and fear. | 10:45 | |
This we might call world energy. | 10:47 | |
Well, this drama is no stranger to our own day, is it? | 10:53 | |
It's no stranger to us. | 10:58 | |
I suspect you feel that battle going on | 11:00 | |
inside of your own person much of the time. | 11:03 | |
But it's played out in our world with sickening regularity. | 11:06 | |
Several years ago, we witnessed a partial vindication | 11:12 | |
of this struggle in South Africa. | 11:14 | |
You wonder sometimes, don't you, | 11:16 | |
does religious truth ever land | 11:18 | |
in a powerful, tangible way in our world? | 11:20 | |
We debate sometimes, don't we, whether spiritual truth | 11:25 | |
has political relevance or social relevance. | 11:29 | |
Listen to these words of Nelson Mandela | 11:32 | |
and try to discern if he's talking politics or religion. | 11:34 | |
He said, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. | 11:40 | |
"Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. | 11:47 | |
"It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. | 11:52 | |
"We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, | 11:57 | |
"gorgeous, talented, and fabulous. | 12:00 | |
"Actually, who are we not to be? | 12:03 | |
"You are a child of God. | 12:06 | |
"Your playing small doesn't serve the world. | 12:08 | |
"There's nothing enlightened about shrinking | 12:11 | |
"so that other people won't feel insecure around you. | 12:13 | |
"We were born to make manifest | 12:17 | |
"the glory of God that is within us. | 12:19 | |
"It is not just in some of us. | 12:22 | |
"It is in everyone. | 12:25 | |
"And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously | 12:27 | |
"give other people permission to do the same. | 12:30 | |
"As we are liberated from our fear, | 12:33 | |
"our presence automatically liberates others." | 12:36 | |
Well you can see, can't you? | 12:41 | |
I know you can, that if you really lived that way | 12:43 | |
in the world, you most certainly would step on the toes | 12:46 | |
of those who thought they were the cat's pajamas, | 12:50 | |
those who thought they had a lock | 12:54 | |
on the truth, on the wealth, on the power, | 12:55 | |
on the intelligence, on whatever you could name. | 12:58 | |
And isn't that just the sort of thing | 13:02 | |
that gets codified into rules and regulations | 13:04 | |
and belief patterns of all sorts? | 13:07 | |
Then, when someone stands up for himself or herself, | 13:10 | |
knowing the truth that he or she is indeed | 13:13 | |
a beloved child of creation, | 13:16 | |
you better believe heads will roll. | 13:21 | |
You know in the bright light of day, | 13:32 | |
there's no mystery why the one who came | 13:33 | |
professing God's love and salvation for everyone | 13:36 | |
would be put be death as the state's enemy. | 13:40 | |
There's no mystery, is there, | 13:42 | |
when you really stop and think about it. | 13:44 | |
The implications of this universal savior | 13:50 | |
explode all of our human made distinctions and divisions. | 13:53 | |
Why, how could we possibly tell who was better than others | 13:57 | |
if color or sex or intelligence, | 14:02 | |
or beauty, or wealth, or height, | 14:04 | |
or weight, or language, or anything else | 14:06 | |
did not matter one wit in the eyes of our creator? | 14:09 | |
But rather than being a God of elites and favorites, | 14:15 | |
our God was revealed as the God of all humanity. | 14:18 | |
If that were true, how could we possibly | 14:24 | |
tell the difference between us? | 14:26 | |
Who is better? | 14:29 | |
This remains the radical proposition | 14:34 | |
for our world to digest. | 14:36 | |
Because truthfully, most of us still want to carve things up | 14:39 | |
in such a way that we have the advantage. | 14:44 | |
I mean, that's human nature. | 14:49 | |
I tell you that I know that exists within me. | 14:51 | |
I want the advantage. | 14:55 | |
We can't quite believe that if all others | 15:00 | |
are loved beyond time and measure | 15:04 | |
there is still an overflowing abundance for us as well. | 15:06 | |
But at its core, this is the message of our faith. | 15:12 | |
The love of God knows no bounds. | 15:21 | |
Each one of us, no matter who or what we are, | 15:25 | |
listen to this, each one of us, | 15:28 | |
no matter who or what we are, | 15:32 | |
no matter where we've been, | 15:37 | |
or what we've done stand outside of God's kingdom | 15:40 | |
except by our own choosing. | 15:45 | |
We were born to make manifest | 15:53 | |
the glory of God that is within us. | 15:55 | |
That is the abiding message | 15:59 | |
that lies at the heart of our faith. | 16:01 | |
For God's sake, let's finally get that right | 16:04 | |
in the new year. | 16:08 |
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