Gotta Get them All

Christmas eve 2016 sermon

Interesting how stories and rumors evolve.  Our scripture today is a familiar one, but did you notice, there are no tales of how the sheep and the cows were there.  We assume they were, but that part of the story has been added on over the years.  No talking either, sorry Kermit, but it’s a lovely idea and it points to God’s Dream.

I had a dream this summer.  I wanted to lure in teenagers and young adults to church so that they would find it meaningful to be here on Christmas eve.  I asked one young adult how to make this happen and he said, “make the church a Pokestop!”

For those of you who know what a pokestop is, you know that’s easier said than done. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a place where you can find a wild pokemon and catch it.  What’s a pokemon? It’s a little creature that has been around for 20 years now, a pocket monster, and very cute but fierce when in a fight.

Well, it’s not as old as Star Wars, and certainly not as old as Kermit, but it has a universal appeal.  Who wouldn’t want a cute little creature that is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, smart enough to not need paper training, and loyal to a fault.  Whether it is the famous Pikachu, Far-Fetched or Mr. Mime, they attracted 231 million people in the month of June alone.  What church wouldn’t like that popularity?

Now I could have spent money and bought a lure for Christmas eve, but that seems rather manipulative and sneaky.  And while all of creation is welcome in God’s dream and so that means all creatures are welcome in God’s church, I wouldn’t want Team Rocket to come blasting in here to battle us all.  Fights are the opposite of God’s dream for the world.

But surprisingly enough, when I thought about it, we already are like the game.  The church is what would be a Pokémon centre, a healing place to recharge.  We are also a Pokémon gym, where people can come to train and strengthen their Pokémon and help them level up. 

But wait a minute, we have no pocket monsters here, right? Are you sure?  Remember that they can be found anywhere, they are loyal protectors, and that they need to be trained and given experience in order to grow and mature.  They are quite small, and are always with you wherever you go.  The more you use them, the better they become at strengthening you and protecting you from the trials and worries of life.

Right now, they are desperately needed.  Our year of 2016 has been a rollercoaster for many of our families and friends.  We could use a little more protection, a little more connection, a team to help us work through the challenges we face.  It seems like that peace on earth, that big dream of God’s, is even rarer than ever.  What could help us get through our days?

They are something rather old-fashioned, that’s been around for a long time, that has been a part of many legends and stories, and has been the inspiration of quests and adventures.  One CBC guest said this week that they are desperately needed to help our world survive.  And they’ve been on the endangered species list for a long time.  Disregarded, disrespected, laughed at, sneered at and generally ignored.  But our best stories have been inspired by them. 

Whether it’s Star Wars or the Star of Bethlehem, they have been at the core of the best of humanity and when people are at their worst, they are conspicuously absent.

They are simply put, values.  Good old fashioned values.  There’s lots of them, you probably know some already.  We light candles in advent to four of them: Hope,  Peace, Joy, and Love.  What about Respect? Kindness? Honesty? Compassion?  Some of them have old-fashioned names like Temperance which could help prevent fentanyl deaths, or charity which would help the food banks.  Some of them were used by the ancient knights, like courage or respect for people who are weak or poor or vulnerable.  Our bible is like a pokedex with many examples, and they are all gifts: wisdom, knowledge, faith, leadership and more.

Values are tiny, and hard to see.  They need to be nurtured and trained to get stronger.  They need to be tested with others.   They need encouragement and support.  And they can grow mightily. 

We need them more than ever.  What would the American Election have been like if everyone had used truth?  Look at the difference compassion and hospitality made to the folks fleeing the forest fires last summer?  If God’s dream is to be realised, where greed and anger and resentment and pride will be defeated, it will be because we remembered to reclaim the gifts we have been given, our own collection of loyal defenders and protectors and guides who help us do right.  It will be because we have respected those guides, trained them, healed them, nurtured them and found places to help them get stronger.  It will be because we have learned how to use them to make this world closer to God’s dream of peace on earth, good will to all.  And that is something all of us can rejoice in!

Lock her up!

Scripture: Luke 1:46-55

I can just imagine that being the reaction by certain individuals if they had a modern Mary, mother of Jesus, speaking this outrageous song, known as the Magnificate, in public.  They would want to shut her down and tell her to be quiet.  They would tell her to stop being political, or stop being a man-hating feminist.  They would buy the cutesy Christmas cards of Mary looking at an adoring baby and bypass Mary the soap-box preacher dressed in rags.

Mary is a powerful dynamic speaker in a time when women didn’t count much.  The fact that someone took the time to record her name and her words is amazing! Even today when girls aren’t seen as worth educating in some cultures, often one girl will make her voice heard despite those handicaps.  It’s something teen age girls often do.

I first learned about teen age girls as prophets when I read of Hermione Granger and her passion for house elves.  Elves, in the Harry Potter world, are treated like possessions and slaves, and are disrespected by the wizarding world.  They are invisible, and not worthy of fair treatment by their masters.  Hermione is outraged by this and tries to empower them, not understanding their culture or their point of view.  But she has a passion to see justice done, and will do whatever she can.

J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, once said that teen-age girls are full of passion and want to make a difference in their worlds.  They become crusaders for justice and equality.  Some of the first Methodist women preachers in Canada go back to the 1800’s, and in 1819, their average age was 19!  So we have young ladies like Malala Yousafse, who was only 17 when she won the Nobel peace Prize.  She was inspired by Emma Watson, who struggled with being treated with disrespect because she was female, and who decided she would be a feminist when she was 14. 

Emma Watson cared about world issues because of the character she was playing in movies, the character of Hermione Granger, again, beautifully written by J. K. Rowling.  Rowling’s writing is full of deep conversations of what makes life worth while, and there are many times when she does not shy away from gritty descriptions of life.  Rowling lived in poverty, and was a single mom.  There were some days where she struggled with depression and suicide, but all this became part of what makes her stories resonate with youth and young adults.  They inspire joy that even young people can make a difference in addressing big issues.

We so often mix up joy with happiness, and I think that we need to rethink what we are looking for this Advent.  Are we looking for joy, which is lasting, or happiness, which can be fleeting?  Mary’s song is full of joy, but her life, if the Gospels can be trusted, was not a happy thing.  Fleeing violence on one hand (Matthew’s story of the trip to Egypt), and social judgement on the other (Luke’s tale of visiting her aunt in another region of the country, away from gossiping eyes), she lived a hard life as a young poverty stricken mother.  With prophesies from temple officials that her baby would die in a way that would pierce her heart, she did not expect happiness in life.  She did experience joy.  Joy rooted in Justice.

Our society is becoming increasingly a place where justice and equality is publicly supported but privately trashed.  We fail to think about the difference between a lasting joy rooted in values and principles compared to happiness which is often rooted in things or places or people.  The great wine, the excellent tv, the newest kitchen counters and cupboards, and so on.  That kind of happiness doesn’t stand up to the grittiness of life.

It’s called sentimentality.  The idea that we can get our ‘fix’ from short-term easy solutions for happiness.  We want cheap and easy answers that we don’t want to have to think through.  It’s much easier to yell, “Lock her Up” and go along with the crowd than think about the intention behind such a statement.  Should women be locked up just because they want to have a political career?  Should feminists like Emma Watson have to listen to threats, insults and disgusting comments?  Should men feel the pressure to keep being tough at all costs for fear that someone would take away their “man card” whatever that is?  The truth is that we live in gritty times and there are no easy answers to what we face.  If we want an easy life, we won’t have a joyful life.  If we want a just life, lived to high values, it won’t be easy. 

Life is not easy.  We are wounded, blind, foolish, ill, weak in the knees, unsure of our way, and wondering if we will ever reach the end of our journey.  We long thirstily for good news, for hope to sustain us on our long trek to a place where we will feel at peace.  Isaiah and Mary have joy because they said yes to the invitation to participate in God’s vision of justice. Both call us again and again to reject the simple solutions for a grittier just relationship with the world.  It begins with you and me remembering to be open to God’s action.  We wait for Justice and equality, for fairness, for healing, and for hope, we wait for God to prepare a highway through the desert of our lives.  Waiting is not simple, it isn’t happy, and it is not what we want to do.  But in this season of Advent, we are called to wait and be open to God’s transforming actions in this hurting world.  May it bring joy us all.