Holiness Where We Least Expect It - Even Here

 I have a different view of such things, I know, living close to the earth where insects and excrement, carcasses and scavengers all have a part to play in the life-beckoning movements of creation.  But when a popular though seriously corrupt and misanthropic political figure recently reintroduced the topic of “vermin” into our popular discourse I was once again drawn back to Wendell Berry’s astute (and quite theologically sophisticated) observation that, “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.”  The politician is sadly and destructively ignorant of the wonders of creation, and its holiness – including the parts he finds uncomfortable, disposable, or opposable.  The Advent season does its best to encourage us to wipe off some of that desecration to reveal again the glory to which we have blinded ourselves. 

 

Starting with people.  People – our fellow human travelers – tend to be the commonest targets of our desecration; which, for people of faith, is bizarre.  I’m not sure how we have overlooked it.  Scripture is replete with stories of God playing in the sandbox of misfits - having fun in their company and, through them, changing the direction of the world.   

 

A small tribe of Hebrews.  

Old forgotten women.   

Drunks.  

Prostitutes.   

Immigrants.   

Refugees.  

Shepherds.  

Criminals. 

 Physically “imperfect.”   

Social outcasts.   

Poor.   

Thick-headed.   

Morally compromised.   

The list goes on.  

 

 Routinely they are the heroes of the stories.  And if the stories, themselves, weren’t enough, songs are routinely sung to drive the point home.  Consider Mary’s song in Luke’s gospel – which parallels Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2 - about scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful, lifting up the lowly.  Consider the poetry of Jesus’ Beatitudes blessing the poor, the meek, the hungry, the persecuted; or his observation that the “last shall be first,” and “as often as you did it to the least of these [the imprisoned, the lonely, the hungry and thirsty] you did it to me.”  Scripture routinely recognizes the sacredness of the very ones we most commonly desecrate.

 

But as important as all that is, it fails to finally voice the Advent blessing. The paradox of our behavior is that while we “verminize” those who are different from ourselves who we naturally assume to occupy the moral center of the universe, we simultaneously assume that wherever we are is not where we are supposed to be.  We have thoroughly “heavenized” our expectations.  “Here” is bad; “there” is good.  So we sing about “flying away”, and how “this world is not my home”; we are only “passing through,” "when we all get to heaven" – hanging out on earth for as long as we have to, but getting to heaven as soon as we can.  All of which is to say that we consecrate wherever we aren’t, while desecrating wherever we are.

But again, I’m not sure how we have overlooked the contrary word of scripture.  To be sure, our geography changes.  The people of God move around.  We, to put a finer point on it, move around.  But always, the promise of presence.  When King David wanted to build God a palace, God responded, “I live in a tent so that wherever you go, I will be there, too; with you.”  When Jesus was preparing his disciples for his absence he told them, “I will not leave you orphaned.  The Holy Spirit will be with you.”  As the Book of Revelation is coming to a close with its vision of God’s realized intention, the seer reported, “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…and I heard a loud voice saying, ‘See the home of God is among mortals.  He will dwell with them…’”

And when, at Advent, we sing with the prophet Isaiah and the angel to Joseph about Emmanuel, we are clinging to the promise that “God is with us”.   

The sheer repetition of it prompts a repentant laugh.  All this time we spend desecrating the very people through whom God is speaking to us.  All this time we waste chasing after the God who has already determined to be present with us, where we are.  If it weren’t so sad it would be funny.

 

But in the light of these Advent candles, perhaps we can begin to see things – and each other – differently. 

Sacredness, holy presence, breaking out everywhere. 

Even here.  Even this politically corrupted, war torn, climate damaged, chicken littered, excrement fed, here.  

Even here.

In the Glow of Presence

The light on the communion table was always on in the sanctuary of my home church, illuminating the bas relief of the last supper set into the front. It became a kind of spiritual practice of mine, home from college for one kind of break or another, to borrow my Dad's keys, let myself into the darkened sanctuary, and settle into a back pew. Perhaps I prayed; perhaps I was simply quiet, absorbing the stillness into an otherwise frenetic life. I no longer remember. Perhaps I simply sat in the empty room, the silence interrupted by the creaks and groans of the big room settling into its own comfortable repose, the darkness pierced only by the muted glow of that table centered in the chancel. I never climbed the steps into the balcony. I did not want to look down from above it all. I preferred to look up to it, and its iconic scene. From my position in the back of the room, the subtleties of the details were blurred. But I knew the story, and could flesh out the characters in my mind - their animated conversation, some leaning in and some turning away. And Jesus at the center of the table with the bread and the cup. I don't recall how long I would stay - minutes perhaps; not likely an hour. But in those however-many-minutes I sat there I was transfixed by the capacious room, the edgy silence, the encompassing darkness, the gentle light at the forefront of it all that the darkness could not overcome; the presence. Eventually, I would whisper a grateful "amen", take my leave, turning the key behind me.

Over the weekend we dressed the house for the holidays. Nutcrackers stand guard here and there, a pair of iron reindeer made by a friend look down at us from atop the hutch. Advent candles anchor the table, while the tree, adorned with lights and the bric a brac accumulated over the years, anchors the room. Morning and evening I press the switch to illuminate the tree - the tiny twinkles imitating the stars yet visible through the glass behind.

But this year we also added something new. In truth, it's something fairly old - a nativity scene made by Lori's parents years and years ago, with its ceramic figures and wooden stable. We assembled the scene on the table in the sunroom, on the opposite side of the great room from the sofa and the fireplace where I routinely begin and end my days. And there, its soft light gently illuminating the scene, answers the twinkles of the tree like an antiphon of faith. I used to be a stickler for "accuracy", in such matters, withholding the wise men from the weeks of Advent, finally introducing them on January 6th - the day of the Epiphany. But I no longer carry that burden. Our scene is as crowded as Jerusalem was in that account narrated in the gospel of Luke that left no room in the inn. We have sheep and cows, shepherds and magi, camels, Mary and Joseph, all silently reverencing the mangered baby; all having come to "see this thing that God has done." And an angel.

And mystically, in the quiet of the early morning darkness and again in the settled dark of the evening, the sofa across the way becomes a pew in the back, a beckoning glow across the way centers my gaze. A nativity, or perhaps a Passover table. The sermon is the same:
    • Presence;
        • Emmanuel;
            • The Reign of God is among you;
                • "Don't be afraid;
                    • "This is my body..."
                        • "Take, eat and drink."
                           • "Good news of great joy for all people."
                                • "The Word became flesh and lived among us."

And in the gentle light, viewed from the far side of the room, we have seen his glory.
Amen.