Refugee Christmas

This has been a year for thinking about, praying for, debating, rescuing, and crying for refugees. The Syrian refugee crisis has stirred up compassion and fear throughout the world. Many have noted that there is a deep irony in being so close to Christmas and wondering what to do about refugees who have no place to call home, since Joseph, Mary, and Jesus had to flee persecution to find safety (see Matthew's account of the Christmas story -- it's not all pastoral peacefulness like in Luke and Charlie Brown).

My early formation in the church and in faith was strongly shaped by the experience of showing compassion and hospitality to refugees. My home church, Trinity Lutheran in Galesburg, Illinois, sponsored a Vietnamese refugee family in the late 1970's boat people crisis. The church helped them get a home, find work, adjust to the strange world of the midwest and its harsh winters, and make them feel as welcome as could be. Financial support coupled with time and gentle guidance meant this family could start a new life from the fragments of their lives that remained after fleeing their homeland in the face of unspeakable suffering.

My best friend, Rodney, and I stopped by one day to visit them and deliver a gift to welcome them. Their modest rent house was humbly and adequately furnished with donated furniture, much of it the then out-of-fashion mid-century modern stuff everyone was getting rid of for the awful stuff that passed as furniture in the 1970's. They greeted us with big smiles, warm handshakes, an effervescent gratitude, and almost no English. The family consisted of the older parents (I'm guessing they were in their 60's), an adult son, Binh, and daughter, Huong, and their cousin (forgive me, I can't recall his name).

The mother immediately had us sit down and eat whatever she was cooking. We couldn't tell what it was. Everything smelled strongly of garlic. After losing our inhibitions about eating "strange" food, we enjoyed it. Everytime we returned, the same thing happened. Eat, eat. Huong and Binh were very interested in learning more English. They had some immediate questions for us about certain words and phrases. We stayed about an hour and helped them figure some things out. They asked us to come back soon.

We came back the following week after school. We helped them with some more English and their questions about the puzzling things of American culture. We decided to come back weekly and help them learn more and more English. They often wrote down questions in a stenographer pad waiting for us to return and figure out what new words or strnage phrases they had encountered. We asked them to teach us some Vietnamese in return. We kept our notes and worked on the tonal sounds of the language. Not much stuck, but we did learn a few insults we could secretly hurl at teachers when the moment felt it needed it.

Christmastime that year was a crazy wild winter. Snow piled up to three feet. I worked my paper route and got frost bite on my cheek. I gave it up that spring. The refugee family struggled with the bitter cold and shoveling snow, a chore that can break a person. We weren't quite sure if they celebrated Christmas, if they knew much of Christianity at all, or what they knew about the American explosion of sentiment and materialism in late December. But they seemed ready to share in it.

My mother had a tradition of having an open house on Christmas Eve. Family and friends would stop by our small two bedroom apartment. My mother baked and cooked for days making fudge, divinity (if the weather cooperated), cookies, toffee, and more. Cheese balls and dips and punch. Mysterious mixed drinks for adults. Hot chocolate for kids. Candles everywhere. In my childhood experience at Christmas, other than the midnight candlelight worship service, this was the magic of the holiday. It was my mother pouring out her heart of love and hospitality in a way that made her feel she was honoring her parents and her self, a humble woman full of extravagant love.

That Christmas we invited Huong and Binh and the whole family to our Christmas Eve open house. We weren't sure if they would come or if they knew what to expect. About midway through the night, Binh and Huong arrived. Binh brought his guitar -- none of knew he had one or could play. After enjoying some sweets and soaking up the beauty of the night, Binh opened the case and took out the guitar.

To our complete surprise, he started playing and singing Silent Night. We sat and listened and wept and felt quiet awe. Some of us joined in singing when we could get some words out from our choked up throats. In the quiet candle glow of that evening, in that song, in the hospitality of my beautiful and now long dead mother, refugees changed my life. Of course they did. They knew better than we that we are all refugees, and Christmas is a story of good news for all who long for home, and who have not given up finding it again. It is a story of motherly hospitality that is God's open door to us, no matter what boat we arrived on, no matter how foreign we feel. It is that refugee Christmas when I learned: God is not the gate keeper of the promised land as much as the one who travels with us and fills us with a song of love and joy no matter where we are.

Rescuing Advent from Christmas

This is a tiny rant, or better, a non-urgent plea: Let's rescue Advent from Christmas. If you're thinking, "But Advent is the countdown to Christmas. It's how we get ready to celebrate Christ's birth. Blah blah blah." then you're the reason I'm writing this. OK, I doubt you actually thought, "Blah blah blah." That shouldn't be in quotes. But it is. This is a tiny rant, I can do that.

Here's my point: Advent is a time of its own in the seasons of the church year. It is an important focal point for spiritual formation and mature faith. It is a time to return our lives to hope, because God has acted in the past, and is active in the present, and will act in the future to bring peace, love, and a transformation of creation. It is a time to learn again that much of this life is about waiting, and the waiting can either be an awful drag filled with angst and confusion, or it can be filled with wonder, joy, mystery, and love. Not because Christmas day will come and make life bubbly for a day; rather, because God in Christ is our hope.

As it is now, most of Advent is observed as pre-Christmas warm-up time, and that's it. Advent workshops in churches often look like Santa's workshop. We see everything through the lens of the holiday that has come to crush all other holidays and seasons, and bear all the weight of our material and familial hopes and dreams, even if much of it is emtpy promises. And if all we get for our four weeks of Advent observance is time to shop and wrap presents that get used up and thrown away before all the Christmas candy is eaten, why bother?

The promise of the birth of Christ doesn't even come up in the Advent Sunday readings until the last week. The earlier weeks speak of the future reign of Christ when all will be made right, and how we can live in eager anticipation of that good news now. They tell us of the arrival of wild John the baptizer and initiator as a herald of repentance and preparation. They remind us that justice for the poor and oppressed and mercy for all us what we hope for, and if not, we need to break our hopes and form new ones. They promise that God will act to bring the reign of peace even when we have lost the capacity to believe it.

In our worshiping community, we are again observing an extended Advent, beginning three weeks prior to the first week of traditional Advent. This is rooted in earlier traditions of the season, when Advent was 6 to 7 weeks long in some places. It fits well with the readings already assigned for these Sundays, which image for us the unimaginable future reign of Christ.

This extended Advent has been one way to rescue Advent from Christmas. It lets us get into the blue hopeful mood of Advent before the flurry of holiday craziness sets in. It gives us more time than a short four weeks, one of which is lost to Thanksgiving holiday travel for many, others of which we can expect to see folks maybe once or twice because of that soul-crushing, unAdvent thing we live in December called "busyness."

So yes, a tiny rant, a non-urgent plea (non-urgent because if it were urgent and created stress and more anxiety it wouldn't really help speak to the Advent hope now would it?): Let's rescue Advent from our out-of-control Christmas frenzy. Let's make more of Advent than we have in the past. Let's slow down, set aside time and space to pause and find our hope again. God knows we need it.

Radical, Defiant Generosity (Sermon for Proper 27 B)

1 Kings 17:8-16

⁸The word of the Lord came to [Elijah,] saying, ⁹“Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” ¹⁰So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” ¹¹As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” ¹²But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” ¹³Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. ¹⁴For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” ¹⁵She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. ¹⁶The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah. 

Gospel: Mark 12:38-44

³⁸As [Jesus] taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, ³⁹and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! ⁴⁰They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
  ⁴¹He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. ⁴²A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. ⁴³Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. ⁴⁴For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

This might be a tall order for a sermon,

            but I hope to convince you of something radical.

Well, I think most of Scripture

            and most of what Jesus says and does and means is radical.

But I’m going to focus on one thing,

            and here is where it starts:

Being generous is an essential part of the joy of being human.

            Think about that for a second.

            What does it mean for you to be generous?

            When have you been able to give of yourself

                        and experience the deep, spiritual joy in it?

            Was it supporting your favorite charity?

            Parenting or grand-parenting and all that costs you?

            Giving to your church to ensure that many others

                        will know the love of God in Christ Jesus?

            Buying a hungry stranger a cheeseburger?

            Doing something from your work life pro bono?

            Maybe it was just being the loving person you are

                        without the usual limitations we place on expressing it.

But I’m guessing you know what I mean

            when I say being generous is an essential part

                        of the joy of being human.

Now think of a time

            when you needed or wanted to be generous

and you were unable to be.

Maybe when money was tight in a down time.

Maybe when someone else’s need was greater

            than your capacity to meet it.

Maybe when you were in a fearful place in life

            and it felt too risky to offer something of yourself

            because it might be judged or inadequate.

Think of what it feels like

            when you have nothing left to give,

            and what that does to your own humanity.

There are two widows in our biblical texts

            that have nothing left to give.

One is the widow that Elijah encounters.

            She lived during the reign of King Ahab.

            Ahab led Israel away from faithfulness to Lord God

                        to worshiping false gods,

                        gods who said you should live for yourself only,

                        gods who said we must plunder other nations

                                    to get what they’ve got

                        so they spent vast sums of money on military power,

                                    sums often taken from poor widows.

            Ahab was confronted by Elijah,

                        who said he must change his ways.

            And since he didn’t,

                        Elijah said there would be a drought, and there was.

                        Because of the lack of rain,

                                    there was a lack of food.

            And because there was a lack of food,

                        there was a hungry widow who had only enough food left

                                    for one meal for herself and her son.

That’s when Elijah appeared.

            Elijah said: Make me something to eat.

            Well, on a normal day, in good times,

                        this woman would have been glad to share some bread.

                        She would have enjoyed showing hospitality.

                        She would have loved the chance to be generous.

            But, between the terrible reign of Ahab

                        and the terrible drought God sent in response to Ahab

                        she had lost that one essential ingredient for being human:

                                    her capacity to give,

                                    her joy of generosity.

I’m convinced that Elijah comes to her

            not only to feed himself,

            and not only to promise her that she will have enough food

                        for herself and her son.

I’m convinced Elijah comes to her

            to restore her capacity for generosity,

                        because without it, her humanity has been diminished.

In what might otherwise seem like

            an act of selfishness and cruelty on his part,

            Elijah forces her to trust what he says,

                        feed him first, risk being generous when it is really hard,

                        and discover that God is restoring her joy,

                                    by providing more than she needs just for her family,

                                    but enough to be able to share with others.

Ahab and God’s judgment on Ahab in the drought

            had taken away her ability to be generous.

God in Elijah restored it.

Consider the widow at the temple with Jesus.

            Jesus said that the Scribes,

                        who loved to show off their wealth and their religiosity,

                        who loved to be treated as if they were most important,

                                    also love to steal houses from widows,

                                    which meant they abused the laws and their own power

                                    to take advantage of them and rob them.

           

Not only had they forced many vulnerable women and children

                        into lives of poverty and dependence,

                        they had robbed them of their capacity to be generous,

                        they had stolen their joy of giving,

                        they had diminished their humanity.

And then Jesus noticed,

            and made sure his students noticed,

            what this one widow who had been robbed

                        did in the temple:

                        She was generous.

                        She was exceedingly generous.

                        She gave what little she had, all of it.

            Jesus notices her for two reasons:

                        In giving her whole life,

                                    she reflects everything he had been teaching his students

                                    about what his life meant,

and what their lives meant in following him:

                                                self-giving love is what it is all about.

                        But the second reason he notices her is this:

                                    Her act of giving in the temple,

                                    the very temple that had robbed her

                                                and diminished her,

                                                is a defiant act of generosity.

                        It’s as if she is saying:

                                    No matter what you do to me,

                                    you can’t take away my humanity,

                                    you can’t take away my capacity to be generous,

                                                because I still have myself to give.

            Jesus loves this woman,

                        admires her action,

                        sees this is a teaching moment for us all:

                                    Generosity is often the most radical,

                                                defiant, bold thing we can do

                                                in a society that tries to take away our ability to give.

This is my tall order in this sermon

            during this time of year when we focus on stewardship:

                        I’d like to convince you that stewardship,

                                    organizing our lives in such a way

                                    that we can be generous with our resources and our lives,

                                    is a radical and defiant way of living

                                                in our society of greed and consumption.

I’m supposed to tell you

            that stewardship is about tithing,

            and supporting the church,

            and doing your part, and all that.

It is all of those things,

            but it is first something much deeper:

                        It is the refusal to let our world of grabbing all you can for yourself

                                    diminish our humanity by taking away our capacity to give.

We might be like the widows in the stories,

            where we have ended up with little in life.

There might be a bank that took our house.

            There might be an investment that fell apart

                        after corporate greed and maleficence ruined it.

We might be working long, hard hours

            for pay that doesn’t even cover the bills.

Or, we might have plenty

            but we can’t escape the constant barrage

                        of messages that convince us that the joy of living

                                    is found in buying, consuming, having.

We might have believed the false Gospel

            that luxury is better than love.

We all have experienced how our capacity to give of ourselves

            has been diminished,

                        either through lack of having, or lack of faith.

And the result is the same:

            Our joy of being human is diminished,

                        our ability to live the life God intended is robbed,

                        our participation in God’s kingdom is dulled.

So here we are again.

            We gathered in the name and presence and life of Jesus.

            He is the one who enacted the full joy of being human

                        by making his whole life an act of generosity.

            He is the one who gives of himself with such love

                        so that we can give of ourselves from the same storehouse of love.

            He is our Elijah:

                        meeting not only our need for bread,

                        but filling us with such faith

                                    that we always have something left to give.

            He is our good news because of how he embodied God’s love

                        by giving it to those in need,

                                    the hungry, the sick, the rejected, the failed,

                                    and us, who need to be generous to be human.

This is my tall order for the day:

            To have us see that living by the good news of Jesus

                        in whom we have love like the widow’s jar of oil,

                                    love that never runs out…

                                    to see that our lives of giving,

                                    our stewardship of all we have

                                                is a radical, defiant, joyful,

                                                loving, divine way of being human,

                                                like Jesus himself was divine and human.

                        Jesus feeds us with himself,

                                    so that we never run out of having something to give,

                                    we never lose the joy of generosity,

                                    the joy of human life itself.