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On
the Friday after Thanksgiving, my nephew (or to be
genealogically precise, the man who married my wife’s niece)
was the 60th person in line at Wal-Mart at 5:15 in the
morning. Unlike some men who wait until 5:15 on Christmas Eve,
John wanted to get in early and get out cheap. As to whether
early birds catch more worms, he had little comment. But for
those of you giving worms for Christmas, if you get there when
Wal-Mart opens on the Friday after Thanksgiving, the worms are
likely to be fatter and the prices are likely to be lower.
Because
there isn’t much time, you know. Given that Thanksgiving was
later, the season is shorter. Not all that many days shorter.
But every day counts. Which should make children happy, given
that they are the impatient ones. As for me, I wouldn’t mind
an extra week….could make good use of an extra week….and
would pay a decent (if not princely) sum for an extra week.
Because in a world filled with doom and gloom preachers who
publicly rail against the pressure to get it all done, I am
one of those Christmas junkies consumed by a desire to get it
all in.
Advent,
as I said in my Steeple Notes epistle, is all about waiting.
For Christmas to come. For Christ to come. For Christ to come
again. Or for all the good things that were supposed to follow
Christ’s coming to finally happen. Advent comes to our part
of the world when the days are fewer, shorter and colder,
providing their own blanket of realism about how long we’ve
been waiting and how weary we have gotten in the process.
For
some, like Kim Holt, waiting is a personal thing. Doris Hall
told me to read her story in last Wednesday’s Free Press.
Kim Holt is 43 years old and still looking for Walter
Wonderful. She thought she’d found him once. In fact, a
friend said: “He’s ready with a ring.” Which he was. But
he gave it to the other girl….the one who, unbeknownst to
Kim, was carrying his baby. Then, several years and a divorce
later, he came back. But not all the way back. Kim dated him
for over five years. And during the good times they talked
openly of marriage. Except that with each passing year, there
were fewer and fewer good times. So they split.
Kim is
trying to be flexible. But she has expectations. She wants a
man who is honest, comfortably employed and financially
responsible. But she also wants a man who attends church, can
hold up his end of the conversation, and who will open an
occasional door and provide some occasional laughter. And
while she is not adverse to intimacy, Kim doesn’t believe
that a relationship ought to begin with intimacy. So she
waits.
As
do others. People wait for all kinds of things. Some wait for
winds to shift, tides to rise or fortunes to improve. Others
wait for ships to come in, health to come back, opposition to
come around or children to come home. And then there are those
who take Isaiah seriously enough so as to wait for animals to
bed down together, enemies to break bread together, and all
the nations to stream up the mountain of the Lord together.
But we are far from there. Some even say we are further than
we have ever been from there.
For
a while, it is easy to wait while expecting the best. But time
has its way of wearing us down so that we wind up, instead,
expecting the worst. Our figures of speech betray us. We talk
about “waiting for the axe to fall”…..or the “sky to
fall” (thank you, Chicken Little). Then there is that
strangest of all euphemisms that speaks of “waiting for the
other shoe to drop.” It’s like the comedian who announced:
“I’ve got bad news and terrible news. Which do you want
first?”
Enter
the Chicago Cubs….and, as a number of you have added this
week, the Boston Red Sox. I really thought this was the year
when these two teams would end the waiting, answer the longing
and utterly confound their following by engaging each other in
the World Series. Which, by definition, one of them would have
to win. True, it would take seven games. And the seventh game
might last 24 innings. But one of them would eventually win.
During
the build-up which preceded the playoffs, I heard a pair of
sportswriters (one from Chicago and one from Boston) debate
which team had waited longest and whose fans had suffered
most. The writer from Chicago said that the people of Boston
could afford to be patient longer, given the relatively high
level of success (although not ultimate success) the Red Sox
had enjoyed in recent seasons. But the Boston writer countered
by saying: “Sure, we came close. But closer is harder. You
folks in Chicago have been on the bottom so many times,
you’ve made a strange kind of peace with it….even coming
(in your own way) to enjoy it. Besides, you don’t go to
Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs win. You go to Wrigley Field
to sit in the sunshine, drink beer and watch the ivy grow.
Winning would only mess with your heads, getting you all
confused about what’s really important.”
But
I took even greater interest in the rationalizations for the
respective plights of the two teams. Red Sox fans believe
their team is cursed, and that the curse has been in effect
since the year the Sox traded Babe Ruth to the New York
Yankees. In other words, Bostonians say: “The problem is not
with us, but beyond us. Or above us. A curse comes from the
outside. Meaning that it can’t be overcome, but has to be
exorcised….as in cut out.” Which explains why Red Sox fans
stick pins in dolls, burn old uniforms and perform funny
dances at midnight around Fenway Park. Their goal is to defeat
the demons….drive out the devil….that sort of thing. It
also explains why Red Sox fans (along with Red Sox writers and
owners) occasionally pile all their anger on one scapegoat and
drive him clean out of town. Ask Bill Buckner, an otherwise
gifted and talented first baseman. With a World Series in the
bag and the champagne corks all but popping in the clubhouse,
Bill Buckner once let an easy ground ball roll through his
legs. And, from that point forward, the glory
unraveled…..one sad string after another.
And this
year, with the hated Yankees all but dead in the water, Red
Sox manager Grady Little left a visibly-tiring Pedro Martinez
on the mound to face two batters too many. Which is how it
came to pass that Pedro got pounded, the Sox got pummeled, and
Grady Little got fired. Never mind that Grady Little produced
the best team in recent Sox history. The curse got him and the
exorcists finished him off. I mean, he had to go.
Cubs
fans, by contrast, do not see themselves as cursed, so much as
stupid. “Why must we wait forever for success which never
comes our way? Because we don’t deserve it, that’s why. We
botch it and blow it. We fumble and bumble it. We smell it,
only to screw it up. Not just our players, but our fans.”
Take
this year. One game to win to get to the World Series. Three
opportunities to win it. Our best two pitchers….maybe the
league’s best two pitchers….ready and rested. Game six,
all but in the bag. One down in the opposition’s eighth. An
opponent lifts a high, floating foul fly down the left field
line. It drifts closer and closer to the stands. But there is
still room for Moises Alou to catch it. Two outs, all but
certain. Eighth inning, all but over. Victory over the
Marlins, all but assured. And Moises Alou is named after the
guy who defied even greater odds in the eighth inning of the
battle between the children of Israel and the armies of Egypt.
But as Moises reaches for the ball, so does Steve Bartman (a
loyal Cub fan sitting along the left field foul line). Steve
leans over the railing, not catching it….but not letting
Moises catch it either. Ball falls. Cubs fall. Hope
falls….flatter than a pancake. And the wait goes on.
Well,
sooner or later, it gets to you. Which is when frustration
sets in. Followed by doubt. To which John the Baptist could
attest. One day he is down at the river, immersing up a storm.
Suddenly this 30-year-old adult male Galilean shows up.
Immediately, John knows who he is. In fact, John is so sure of
who he is that he suggests a little role reversal.
“Jesus,” he says, “maybe you should be the baptizer, and
me the baptizee. I know who you are. I know why you’ve come.
I’m not even worthy to lace up your loafers. I’ve been
roaming the river district, telling people to repent because
the kingdom is at hand. And here….today….in person….the
kingdom shows up.”
Now, not
all that many months removed from the river district, John
(who is cooling his heels in Herod’s prison) sends some of
his people….yes, John has people….to see Jesus. And
John’s question is this: “Are you the one, or should we
keep looking?”
So what’s
the problem? It’s a results problem, don’t you see?
Insofar as John can see, there aren’t any. Or there aren’t
enough. So he thinks to himself: “Maybe I was wrong.” And
while John may have been the first to think it, he certainly
wasn’t the last. It’s an honest question. If the kingdom
is here….and if Jesus is its reigning monarch….shouldn’t
it go better than it does?
Last
Wednesday morning, we got into the question of predestination
at my crack-of-dawn,
isn’t-it-amazing-that-50-guys-show-up-at-6:30-a.m.-study
group. And since our token Presbyterian wasn’t there to
defend the Doctrine of Predestination (did God know in advance
he wasn’t going to show?), the rest of us….good Wesleyans
that we are….decided there is a lot of room for both human
freedom and human error in the equation. And while God may
want certain things to happen, both human freedom and human
error can screw up God’s plans royally. Which was when I
suggested that the older I get, and the longer I hang around
places like this, the more evidence I see that there is a
plan….that there is movement toward the plan….and that God
does seem to be in the business of steering us in the general
direction of the plan. Not what you’d call tight steering.
In fact, there seems to be an inordinate amount of “play”
in the wheel. But history is not careening haphazardly, nor
are things out of control utterly.
At least,
that was a conclusion that sat well with the rest of the
group. Then the old clock on the wall said 7:30. And at 7:30
we pray. And at 7:31 we all fold up our chairs and stack them
in the corner. Which was when Scott Wilkinson….who is ever
thoughtful when it comes to matters and mysteries of the
Spirit….came up to me and said: “Bill, as concerns this
business of divine steering, do you ever find yourself wishing
that God did it more often and more forcibly? I mean,
couldn’t God respect our free will and still apply a heavier
hand to the wheel of history?”
And I had
to tell Scott I didn’t know the answer to that. But I also
told him that I often felt that way. And still do. Were you to
make me “God for a day,” I’d find some way to push my
agenda a little harder than God seems to.
Annie
Dillard tells of the pastor whose pulpit prayer included some
wonderful petitions for the betterment of life in this world.
Then, before signing off, he included these words: “But thou
knowest, O God, that we ask for these same things Sunday after
Sunday. So we confess to you our discouragement that so little
progress is made.” Said Annie: “His prayer was so
painfully honest that I knew I had finally found a preacher
who knows God.”
Frankly, I
do not know why….if God is truly in charge….that things do
not go better or happen faster. But when John raised a similar
question to Jesus (“If you’re the one, tell us what
we’re missing”), Jesus said: “Look again. Look closer.
Pay better attention. Things are happening.” Which,
apparently, was good enough for John. And, most days, is good
enough for me.
When Jesus
tells John’s people what to look for, it’s not big,
grandiose stuff. As concerns signs of the kingdom, Jesus
points to people who couldn’t see much, seeing
more….people who couldn’t climb out of bed in the morning,
playing Ring Around the Rosie in the town square….
Previously untouchable lepers kissing their wives and hugging
their children…..and the poor, hearing a good sermon for a
change. And I suppose if you’re blind, lame, poor or your
skin used to be all scales and scabs, that’s big time stuff.
But can you build a kingdom on it?
Apparently,
Jesus thinks you can. He doesn’t care whether it’s “big
time stuff” or not. As concerns the kingdom, it breaks
through in little ways. But it breaks through. As if to
illustrate his point, he talks about a seed that nobody can
see growing. But it’s in there. I mean, it’s already in
there. You aren’t going to see it come to maturity all at
once. In the version we sang last Sunday: “First the blade,
then the ear, then the full corn shall appear.”
No, you may
not see it. But neither are you going to be able to stop it.
It’s like that dandelion that finds a crack in the asphalt.
Or creates a crack in the asphalt. Not only does it have
presence, but there is an inevitability to its appearance.
Look, the
parable says, you can be sleeping….you can be sighing….you
can even be sinning. But the kingdom is growing. The point has
less to do with the gradualness of its growing than with the
surety of its growing. In the Greek, “automate he ge
karpophorei” we read that the seed “bears fruit
automatically.” There is not a hint (says Robert Farrar
Capon) about crop failure, any more than there is a concern
about the machinations of the devil or the knuckle-headedness
of humanity. Which means that the kingdom cannot be stopped by
the curses of evil outsiders. So there, Red Sox. Neither can
the kingdom be stopped by the ineptitude of fumble-fingered
insiders. So there, Cubbies. Good things will come. In fact,
the world has been designed in such a way so that good things
can’t help but come.
Better yet,
says Capon, the kingdom story is a local story. The kingdom is
planted here. On earth. In earth. Amongst earthlings. To which
he adds: “If the gospel is a love story, it is a story of
earth wedded rather than earth jilted.” God is marrying
history. And humanity. Which is why Jesus is often referred to
as “the bridegroom.”
Which
should be good news to Kim Holt (the 43 year old who can’t
seem to find a man). Although, just one week ago, she met a
man at her brother’s hair salon. I mean, who could be safer
than someone hanging out at your brother’s hair salon? So
when he asked for her phone number, she gave in and gave it to
him.
The next
night he called her at 11:30 p.m. She told him she was already
in bed. “Well,” he said, “I thought I’d just come over
and hold you for a little while.”
“I
don’t know you,” she said. “You can’t just meet me one
day and tell me you want to come over and hold me the next.”
To which he
said: “Women don’t usually tell me no.”
To which
she said: “So let this be your first time.”
*
* * * *
My friends,
December is cold. Life is hard. And waiting is lonely. And
while God’s kingdom cannot be stopped, the fruits of God’s
kingdom are sometimes a little tardy. But the good news is
this. The one who inaugurates the kingdom comes to hold us
while it matures.
Note:
As concerns information about the Boston Red Sox and
Chicago Cubs, much of it reflects a lifelong passion for
baseball games and pennant races. While I am well aware that
the columnist George Will has written about the perils of
being a Cubs fan, I did not take time to consult him during
the writing of this sermon. I thought it better to let him
grieve in private.
As
concerns the parable of the seed growing secretly, I am
heavily indebted to Robert Farrar Capon and his marvelous
trilogy on the parables of Jesus. In this particular case, the
parables relating to seeds are contained in The Parables of
the Kingdom, from which I quote:
Note
that the kingdom is presented as the very thing sown. The
kingdom is not the result of sowing something quite different
from itself. Rather, the kingdom is present, in all of its
power, right from the start. Moreover, by the very force of
the imagery of sowing, the seed is clearly to be understood as
having been sown in this world….squarely in the midst of
every human and earthly condition. This emphasis on the
kingdom as a worldly rather than an otherworldly piece of
business is also present in the Parable of the Sower, but
Jesus’ repetition of it here makes me want to underscore it.
In
any case, we have too often given in to the temptation to
picture the kingdom of heaven as if it were something that
belonged more properly elsewhere than here. Worse yet, we have
conceived of “elsewhere” entirely in heavenly rather than
earthly terms. But this little story of the seed growing
secretly represents scripture’s insistence to the contrary.
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