Advent 2: Hunger and Satisfaction

Advent 2: Malachi 3:1-4/Luke 3:1-6

But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can hold out when he appears? Malachi 3:2

A few years ago I was driving my kids home from a school activity. Along the way, I asked them to help me understand a few things about this time of year. I am generally the chief provocateur when it comes to questions of cultural icons and their power in our society. And I was in the mood to provoke. So, I engaged my kids with the classic parental question: what is at stake in the arrival of Santa? “Gifts, of course”, they replied. “Sure”, I continued, “but gifts come from many people – grandparents, for example – so again I ask, why Santa?” The conversation in the car went silent long enough for me to negotiate a few tight corners. “Because,” my eldest finally contended, “Santa is the one who is supposed to bring us what we want, the things that really get us excited.” There was a general agreement among the siblings. I began to raise a follow up question but we had made it home. It was time to worry about other things.

My kids had provided the kind of answer that I have come to expect when it comes to a season of the year known for the giving and receiving of gifts. The air is thick with advertising. Our better nature is prompted to stock up on items for all our loved ones. It’s better to give, than receive, right? There is a long history of critique from within the church concerning the commercialization of religious celebrations and season. This is not the time to rehearse these critiques; except to say that one nagging appraisal that is especially appropriate in the days of Advent focuses our attention on what it is we want or expect at Christmas. My kids expressed their wish to have their desires met in the form of things that get them excited. Can we truly expect anyone to get excited about God when presents are in our dreams and wishes?

I read something this week from the Oxford scholar, Graham Ward, which gave me pause in light of my questions around desire and Advent. Ward commented that, “grace requires a hunger, a sense of what one lacks, recognition of vulnerability, weakness, the need for redemption. Salvation cannot operate where there is nothing needed or where there is satisfaction with what one has”[1]. Satisfaction and need: these terms form part of our narrative around how we navigate a world of wants, a world where our desires draw us to tangible reminders of our worth to ourselves, and our worth to others.   Yet what of hunger, vulnerability, and salvation?

Let’s consider the use of ‘hunger’ for a moment. It is the word Ward uses with relation to grace; it denotes longing, stretching for something, moving towards a goal; the goal of our desire. When the prophet Malachi wanted to express the anticipation of the arrival of God’s messenger, he used the language of endure, as in, “who can endure the day of his coming.” Endure is not really the best word to capture what the prophet is getting at; better perhaps is contain or hold. Malachi is challenging God’s people: who of you, he contends, can contain or hold the gift that God will send? The simple response is nobody, at least, not in reference to how God provides. Consider: when God gives, God does so in abundance (think of the diversity and beauty of creation). God overwhelms. This is both a word of judgment and a sign of grace. We want, we desire, we long after; and God overwhelms us with what we most need. Not always what we want; but in giving us what we need we learn to desire what God gives. 

This is the wisdom of Advent: that so often we want and desire things with a hunger that should be orientated towards other, more difficult gifts: like the gift of ourselves in service to others, and the gift of our abundance for the benefit of the common good. How about hunger for justice, peace and goodwill? Yet even if we were to hunger after such things, the one thing we cannot hunger enough for is the one thing that eludes us until the hereafter: union and friendship with God as the bearer of all good gifts and the giver of life in all its fullness. Everything else we desire leads only to something else to desire; not so with God. God completes, God encompasses our true end as human beings. It is perfectly good to desire things that bring us joy, items that can be celebrated with family or friends or even just in our own life. The thrust of Advent’s proclamation is not that we should abandon what brings us joy in our life; rather, the message is that our deepest satisfactions and our deepest joys are discovered as we deepen our walk with God. 

What Malachi and John the baptizer after him drive home for us as the church, is this: we, that is, human beings and all creation, are truly being human when we hunger or stretch for life with God. This is what it means to hope. God comes to us, and fill us, overflowing our lives and our community with God’s presence made manifest through life with others. The alternative is to hunger or desire something that lacks the gift of goodness and the promise of friendship: items or states of being that decay, or break or simply dissolve over time. As humans, we want life to contain something, to mean something. But who can contain what God brings? Will it break us, overwhelms us, destroy us? 

Having our lives re-oriented in a Godward direction, I dare say, is not painless; it requires of us to loosen our grip with regards to our sense of security and our fear of death. We must face our submission to the power of wealth and its related cousin, the illusion of salvation at the hands of technology. We must contend with shifting values and corruptible ideals. And we do so under the promise of a God who cannot be contained or held but who contains us, hold us, in love so that we might grow together in that love. 

Gifts are fine; gifts are signs of charity and friendship. Yet, Santa cannot bring what only God can in the flesh of Mary’s child: the gift of our salvation, the gift of redeemed humanity, and the promise to overcome our sin and death through the human body of this child.  It may not sound like much of a life when compared to the insatiable hunger generated by the marketplace; however, where else can we discover true human living if not in the God who created us and sustains us moment by moment? This Advent may we strive after God through prayer, service and joy, so that when Christmas arrives, we will recognize the babe born to Mary as the source of human satisfaction.

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[1] Ward, G. S. (2009). The politics of discipleship : becoming postmaterial citizens. (Grand Rapids, Mich., Baker Academic), p. 266.

Two Cities, Two Performances: a Homily for Christ the King

Christ the King (Evensong)

When (Jesus) entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”
Matthew 21:11

It takes two. Two disciples fetch two donkeys; according to St. Matthew, the city of Jerusalem into which Jesus rides has two meanings: at once the holy city and ‘the city that kills the prophets’ (Mt. 23.37). Even the people make up two groups: the whole city who ask ‘who is this?’, and the crowd that responds knowingly. And of course there is Jesus: Son of Mary, Son of God. The entire episode that we commemorate today on Christ the King sunday almost collapses under the weight of these pairings.

‘The whole city was in turmoil’, St. Matthew records. Turmoil is too mild for the meaning of its Greek original. St. Matthew uses a word that is reserved for a violent movement, a shaking or disturbing of the world[1]. The word translated as ‘turmoil’ can also mean earthquake. Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem is of cosmic, earthshaking significance. It is a time of crisis, a moment of decision. The two donkeys carrying the man of two natures into the city that is at once holy and deadly populated by those who celebrate the arrival and those who question it; something is bound to happen.

Centuries ago, the great African saint, Augustine of Hippo, spoke of two cities. He said, 

two cities have been formed by two loves . . . The earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self . . . The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of the rulers; the other says to God, ‘I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.’[2]

The two cities are not two separate entities like New York City, and say, Boston; but two performances[3]. That is, two patterns of human living in a single world of God’s creating: one pattern shaped and formed by the story of salvation enacted by God in the human life of Jesus – a story played out in history through the concrete existence of God’s people, the church; the other pattern, shaped and formed by the story of sin, of our insatiable desire to take, possess and control people, places and things. This is a world of scarcity that like evil and sin, is overcome by the abundance of God’s goodness and love. Two paths of life: one of abundance and life, the other of fear and scarcity. 

Two donkey’s two natures; two cities; but we are not done yet. There is one more pairing: Life and death. To this destiny, Jesus rides on; to this destiny, we must decide: will it be city and reign of God, or will we settle for the illusion of self-control?

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[1] seíō [to shake, tremble], seismós [shaking, earthquake]

[2] Augustine, City of God, Book XIV, 28

[3] William Cavanaugh, “From One City to Two”, Migrations of the Holy, p. 49.

A Sermon for All Saints (but not for 'politics as a kind of choice') -- Washington National Cathedral

Sunday after All Saints: Rev. 21:1-4, 22-22:5

What issue is most important for you? The card that I was handed included a litany of election-year concerns: the economy, immigration, defense spending and the like. It was Friday night, it was cold, and it was dinner time, so I replied: do you want to know who I’m voting for? A sigh of relief came over the underdressed political volunteer. Well, I said, I’m not a citizen so I don’t have a vote, but if I did it would be for the President. The relief turned to a smile. I must have said the right thing. In hearing my response, the partner of my interlocutor typed something into her iPad, and soon after, they moved on to my unsuspecting neighbors. I closed the door with the sense of having done something political. 

In truth, I had actually only submitted an opinion, an opinion of political flavor no doubt, but not an action that would constitute the doing of politics. The idea that politics has grown to include the answering a few questions, voicing a preference for one candidate over another, or placing signs in the front yard; the idea that such actions contribute to the good order of a society is, I’m afraid, a symptom of a deeper problem. I have in mind the idea that the height of citizenship is the power of choice, the power, that is, to decide amongst a host of competing candidates, issues and even, pundits. Don’t get me wrong, the freedom to vote is itself a bastion of a society that recognizes the proper place of human life within a social order that practices justice and equity for its citizens. It’s not the fact of voting that is troubling; it is that we are invited to believe that our choice on Tuesday is all that matters. 

In making such a claim, I want to avoid advocating a kind of political irresponsibility. Politicians can serve well, and politicians can serve poorly; sometimes the vision of a President can be disastrous, and on occasion a President can generally contribute to helping to shape society towards being more just, more generous, and more caring. But how much of this results from what takes place on one day in November, well, that is where we are let down by the so-called, ‘political process’. Why? Simply this: the idea pumped into our lives from all angles is that Election Day is about our exercise of sovereignty, about a kind of freedom in the form of personal liberty and about the accountability of the government to our private interests. In other words, it’s about being a consumer more than anything else. Politics, if it is reduced to the power of choice, closely resembles what we do when we shop Amazon or the cereal aisle. Yes, some products are better than others, and we can have a discussion about them, but built into the idea that we are exercising some God-giving right when we make the purchase is the related notion that in making this decision, we have practiced the most human of actions: to choose. In a world without certainty, where truth is relative and humans are always in a state of re-invention, choice is all we have. And if this is so, then our political engagement is in danger of becoming just one more choice is a world where our desires are endless and so are our options. 

Too harsh, you say? Too cynical? Okay, maybe I am being a bit cynical; however, let me now make matters potentially worse by saying something religious. If political activity is not principally about decisions, what might it be about? Here I might be accused of being old fashioned, but I stand within the long tradition of folks who see the purpose of politics as a kind of vision-in-action, that is, an intricate pattern of social ordering and support that promotes human flourishing. Politics, in this sense, is about setting the conditions so that together we can live the life becoming of us, which is simply to live fully in the social world that we find ourselves. Whatever governmental policies or programs that make this possible, is, in my books, good politics. Anything else that contributes to the promotion of some groups over others, that assist the wellbeing of the ruling class while negating the most vulnerable, well, this is a sign of a corrupt political activity. You know good politics when you see people thriving in generosity and friendship; you know bad politics when the only thing that matters is the private interests of a few and their continued hold on power.

The kinds of things I have just said may not on the surface sound particularly religious, at least, until we grasp the vision-in-action that constitutes the reign of God. The church asserts on this feast of All Saints’ that we have a specific and constructive vocation: to be a people gathered, that is, to be a political community, constituted by God though the concrete life and death of Jesus of Nazareth, in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Such a politics recognizes that it is proper and necessary for human beings that we grow in justice, peace and fortitude. And it is proper and necessary for human beings that we receive the gifts of faith, hope and love in order that we share in the friendship of God and the community of friends that the church calls, ‘all the saints’. Consequently, it matters in terms of our politics that we recognize our place within the vision of St. John in our reading from the book of Revelation: a vision of a city where God is Sovereign, a city that has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light; a city where all the nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it; a city where the gates are never shut to anyone. This vision is not one we choose or that is sold to us by pundits or political action groups. Yet it is no less a political vision for our own city, this nation and the world. The politics of this city of God is ordered towards our wellbeing, it is found whenever we walk the path of justice animated by love. In other words, the city of our God is not a vision of the future, but is what is made present when our lives take on the pattern of Jesus’s life. Such a life is defined by living in loving obedience to God and openness to the world even though to do so is to challenge the authority and violence of those who trade in fear, greed and ultimately, death.

To live this way will make your politics peculiar. It might mean that we practice our citizenry through means other than choosing one candidate or other; it might mean living politically, that is, being the kind of person whose life is ordered in a way that you contribute to the growth and wellbeing of others. It might even mean that we forsake the pageantry and plasticity of the established political system, and actually get out and start being with other people for the sake of friendship and in order that we learn how to be just. To do so reflects the vision of God’s gracious rule over the city where all the nations come together as citizens of heaven destined for a life of flourishing as friends of God. For the Christian, this is a life that has already begun, and a life that we will take into the voting booths this Tuesday. For Election Day is indeed about our politics; the question is, will we have the courage to be political after we make our choice?