January Rant

Been a while since I’ve posted; busy, moving, tired and sick. Or perhaps it’s just too much reading and chocolate. Anyway, nice to be back.

It’s been said that an infinite number of monkeys typing for an infinite number of years would eventually produce all the works of William Shakespeare. For all I know this may be true, but consider some of the practical problems. For example, how would you keep so many monkeys on task? Whipping’s inhumane, of course, not to mention distracting, so you’d have to use bribes. Can you imagine how many tropical republics would have to be continually harassed and destabilized to ensure a constant and infinite supply of bananas. And consider all the things that would be produced before they got around to Shakespeare. They’d be spitting out Russian place names and surnames in a few days, of course, then barbecue assembly instructions, political speeches and airport security regulations. Hmmm, kinda makes you wonder what the CIA has really been up to in Latin America for the past whoknowshowlong. (Oops, paqshs me a nither banakna.)

And, while we’re on the subject of monkeys at keyboards, who the heck has been rewriting the words to the old hymns? I don’t mind finding a “she” for a “he” once in a while, and I’m willing to admit it would be nice to have a gender neutral pronoun for God. A “you” for a “thou” or a “thee” and dropping the “st” on the end of “couldst” and “wouldst” are also more than defensible. But Amazing Grace doesn’t need amending.

The other day I heard about a version of that old hymn in which the opening line “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!” had been “fixed”, by substituting the word “child” for “wretch”. I’ve also seen “someone“ and “soul” used to defang and declaw this confessional image. This hymn is autobiographical, written by John Newton who had been a slaver and who, by his own reckoning, had destroyed the lives of 20,000 African men, women and children. He knew very well why we need grace, and why we need saving; not because we’re souls or someones, and certainly not because we’re children, but because we are wretches. If people don’t know they are wretches perhaps they should just sing a different hymn. Might I recommend “I’m a Little Sunbeam”. It’s very nice and inoffensive, and I think there might even be actions. But whatever they do I hope they won’t stop typing. We could use another Shakespeare play.

Sounding grouchy? Well, it’s January, and -34°. I’ll be better by the next time I post.

The year usually ends well for me.

In December I have a birthday and, for no good reason, people mark this occasion by giving me gifts. Now, I’m the sort of person who generally resists cultural convention, but for some reason I’ve embraced this one. Then, later in December, Jesus has a birthday and I get more gifts. Very strange indeed, but again I have chosen to accept this custom without protest. The result of all this is that December has become books and chocolate month for me. This past December, for example, I received 12 books (3,884 pages) and enough chocolate to support my habit till June.

Moral: When you discover a cornucopia don’t ask questions. Just quietly settle yourself down at the big end and hope nobody notices.

Of course, I’ve been trying to figure out how to blog you all a share of my chocolate but, alas, it can’t be done. I can, however, share my books, or at least the thoughts stirred up.

The first book I’d like to mention is A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut. A note on the cover proclaims, “[This] may be as close as Vonnegut ever comes to a memoir”, and, if it’s the closest he ever came, it’s certainly the closest he’s going to come. This was the last book he wrote before he died.

People sometimes assume that if a pastor likes an author he or she must be a Christian author. Well, Kurt Vonnegut definitely was not. In fact one of the things I love most about him is that he showed no sign of being religious at all. But he was a godly writer, and a modern day prophet. That is, one who has a gift for seeing the truth, and an ironbound commitment to declaring it, regardless of the consequences. Every time and place needs prophets, and my generation has needed them more than most.

Vonnegut’s first big success was Slaughterhouse Five (1968). It’s a witness to his experience as a victim of the bombing of Dresden, February 3, 1945. This was a British atrocity, as he recalls it, the worst massacre in European history (135,000 slaughtered in one night). “I, of course, know about Auschwitz,” he writes, “but a massacre is something that happens suddenly, the killing of a whole lot of people in a very short time”.

As I said, we need people who can see what’s true and will say it no matter what. Vonnegut was such a person so he was often vulgar, shocking, crass and, of course, a master of ironic humour. For example:

On present day war - “Why can’t the people in the countries we invade fight like ladies and gentlemen, in uniform and with tanks and helicopter gunships?”

And on a past war – “Now, during our catastrophically idiotic war in Vietnam, the music kept getting better and better.… No matter how corrupt, greedy and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED

FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

WAS MUSIC

A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut is well worth reading as an intro to all his other works. But, to read further you have to be able to read tough stuff.

One day, when he was 82, Mr. Vonnegut asked his son what he thought life was all about. His son, a pediatrician, replied, “Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is”.

Regardless what we think of his writing, Kurt Vonnegut seems to have had some considerable success as a father.

I love the inclusiveness of Christmas.

Every year we hear more complaints about the Christmas season. It’s too: long, commercial, secular, expensive, meaningless, confusing, tiring, sentimental, and “it’s not like the Christmases I remember”. But, above it all, there rises one perennial complaint, “Jesus is being excluded”.

Now, I don’t want to be difficult, but I’ve tried to pay particular attention this year, and I did hear Jesus carols in the mall, lots of them. And I saw manger scenes in public places, and got wished “Merry Christmas” in stores. I don’t know who started this thing about Jesus being left out of the celebration, but it isn’t happening where I live.

Of course, I did see and hear lots of things that have little to do with Jesus. But I guess I’m just more accepting than I used to be, and those things don’t bother me. I mean, let’s be realistic. When a red-nosed, mutant, rangifer tarandus becomes the leader of the team that pulls a flying sleigh someone’s gotta write a song about it. And, when some alien power commandeers a snowman and leads a pack of preadolescent children on a rampage through the inner-city, surely it rates more than a one-off in the National Enquirer.

You know what I really think is happening here? I think, when we complain about Jesus being left out, we’re really complaining about too many others being included. There’s something in us, particularly in us religious folk, that doesn’t want reindeer, snowmen, Santa, trees, coloured lights, turkeys, and particularly partying pagans to spoil our celebration. We just don’t want to share. We want Jesus all to ourselves. And this is because there’s something in us that doesn’t quite get it.

This Jesus who came to Bethlehem and started the whole thing has no desire to be exclusive. He invited dirty old shepherds and pagan astrologers to the party. And I think he delights to see snowmen, reindeer and Santa (even with a Coke bottle in hand) joining the parade. And I think we should know this since the very last thing he did before he left us was to tell us to go everywhere in the world and extend the invitation to everyone. (Matt 28:19-20)

In the classic movie version of A Christmas Carol, when Scrooge says, “An ant is what it is; and a grasshopper is what it is; and Christmas is a humbug”, he was so close. The truth is, Christmas, like an ant and a grasshopper, is what it is. Which is to say, it’s bigger than Scrooge and bigger than we are, it’s not our party, we are invited guests, and it’s not for us to say who gets to come. Christmas is radically inclusive. It must be, it included me.

A few years ago Edmonton’s Christmas baby – I didn’t even know there was such a thing – was born to a Moslem patient, of a Moslem doctor, in the practice where my wife works. Everyone, including the doctor and patient, thought this was wonderfully ironic. But the fact that everyone thought it was ironic was really the only ironic thing about it. The very first Christmas baby was Jewish.

Some Christmases are just better than others.

It only takes a few moments of reflection to notice that Christmas is a time of deep contrasts. It’s the celebration of family affection when we miss our loved ones most deeply, the festival of commercial excess when privation is most keenly felt, and the birthday of the Prince of Peace when strife and conflict seem particularly inappropriate. Though loneliness is always unfortunate, and want and war always unacceptable, they seem particularly so at Christmas.

Upon further reflection, however, we observe that the feast was ever thus: the King of Heaven laid in a manger and celebrated by common shepherds and exotic magi, the Saviour of Israel ignored by the priests and teachers of the law, the peace offering of God fleeing as a refugee before the murderous rage of a paranoid king. And even the winter solstice festivals that Christmas displaces are celebrations of contrast: warmth and cold, dark and light, fear and hope.

Last Christmas was the hardest we have ever experienced in my family. A handful of people were in the process of driving us from the ministry in our church in Victoria, and we were facing the uncertainty of unemployment and relocation. Our friends were sharing in our suffering and the church was grieving the loss of its pastor and also facing an uncertain future. One family, in the centre of the action, was so hurt by what was happening that they didn’t even manage to put up a tree. It was a dismal time.

By contrast, however, this Christmas has been one of the happiest we’ve had in many years. Most of our family was in Edmonton celebrating with us. This included our youngest, our daughter and her husband and two children, and our eldest and his wife and five month old baby girl. And our second child, who couldn’t be with us, was in Ontario having a good Christmas of his own. God is good, and life just doesn’t get much better than this.

So, I’d like to hear a bit about your Christmas. What’s been great and what’s been hard? And, over a lifetime, what’s made Christmas dark or light for you? Click on comment and let me know. And I pray, whatever Christmas was for you this year, the coming year will be a great one.

God’s blessings to all,

Dan

Scrooge and the Grinch have always been part of the story.

I told you I had no plan and now it’s December 20^th and we haven’t yet seen any shepherds, stars or magi. Goodness, we’re still in Nazareth. So, in case you didn’t know or had forgotten, Mary and Joseph did manage to work things out and get married, and they were away in Bethlehem when the baby came. They were temporarily homeless, living under a bridge, and Jesus was born in a dumpster, and his first cradle was an old shopping cart. Well, not actually, but you get the idea. God will go to any length to be close to the poor.

When the king heard that this little wonder-child had been born (Matthew 2), he got nervous. To be fair, considering some of the things Mary had been thinking and even saying recently (Luke 1:52 in my last posting) he had every reason to be nervous. But, instead of trying to work something out, he just sent soldiers to kill Jesus. Jesus got away, but the soldiers killed a lot of innocent kids. Kings often do this sort of thing, and that king did it more than most.

Have you’ve ever wondered why Christmas is never quite as grand or good as it should be; why there’s always someone or something messing it up? Personally, I think it’s just that there’s something in the world, in people like Herod, even in you and me, that fears what’s good. And when something really good comes along it’s almost like the world, the rulers, and even you and I are allergic to it. It seems like a foreign, alien thing, and something in us tries to expel it. Some people don’t seem to have much of this reaction, children for example, but most of us, by the time we’re grown up, have been fooled so often by bad things that pretend to be good, we just can’t trust the real thing.

Well, whatever the problem, it’s been there from the beginning. I’m not sure how I got past resisting this thing myself, but somehow I did. I’m not sure how anyone else can get past it, but somehow they must. It’s just too good to miss. I wrote a poem about it a few years ago and here it is, a little Christmas gift, an invitation for you.

Merry Christmas!!!

The Invitation - Dan Colborne

'Twas the night before Christmas, a long time ago,
And they didn't have sleigh bells, they didn't have snow.
No stockings were hung by the old chimney flue;
'Twas the night before Christmas, but nobody knew.
Not a carol was sung, not a wreath on a door,
'Cause no one had ever had Christmas before.
No children lay dreaming of sweet sugarplums
That night before Christmas, the very first one;
Not a sign of a special event, not a trace,
But a wonderful birth was about to take place.

Now, shepherds were watching their sheep, right close by,
While, far away, Wise Men were watching the sky,
When angels appeared to the shepherds to sing
Of a Bethlehem stable, a manger, a king.
And a star seemed to say to the Wise Men somehow,
That a new king had been born in Israel just now.
So they stopped watching sheep, and stopped searching the skies,
And they hurried to join in this birthday surprise.

The shepherds told everyone that they had seen,
Angels and angels, and how they had been
Invited to come to a stable in town,
To worship a baby, pay homage, bow down.
They said, "He's a king!", but some replied, "Is he?"
Some came to the party, but some were too busy.

And, there was a king in that country already,
And he liked his job, and he wanted it steady.
And so, when the Wise Men came by with the news,
King Herod came down with a case of the blues.
See, he was the kind of a person who'll come
To a party, but only to spoil the fun.
And he came to the party; it ended in tears.
But the story’s continued through two thousand years.

Till, strange as it seems, each year, in December,
The whole world takes time out to stop and remember,
That Christmas that happened so long, long ago,
In a land without Christmas trees, stockings or snow.
And we think of that child who was born in that stable,
With never the sound of a carol or sleigh bell.
And all are invited today, as before,
To come to the stable, to worship, adore.

But some are too busy, and some are too clever,
Some plan to come later, some plan to come never.
And some are afraid for the throne they hold onto,
And others, for no reason, simply don't want to.
Some come to the stable, but will not adore him.
The birthday boy's here, and they choose to ignore him.

But, wise men and women don't miss it or fear it,
They recognize good news the moment they hear it.
They're quick to respond, be they shepherds or kings,
And they fly to the stable as though they had wings.
And children delight in a birthday surprise,
For practically all little children are wise.
They abandon their hearts to rejoicing with ease,
And they come as if born on the wings of the breeze.
But this invitation is specially for you.
We’re off to a party! Please, won't you come too?

Dan Colborne

Copyright 1991

The Iron Maiden

When we think of Mary, a girl of 14 or 15, we imagine she was a child like the young adolescent girls we know, but in her culture she was a young woman, old enough to have a husband and a family. She was also a child of a politically oppressed people, steeped in the revolutionary scriptures of the Old Testament. Perhaps we need to imagine her as we might imagine a young Moslem woman in the Palestine of today. Indeed, the verses we are about to consider suggest that she has hopes and dreams for her people, very political hopes and dreams.

Upon becoming pregnant, Mary went to visit her relative Elizabeth and stayed with her till after Elizabeth’s son, John, was born. This was a woman who’d been told the child she would bear “will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah,… to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Elijah was a prophet of the Old Testament, but he was also the leader of a rebellion, a man of battle. 1 Kings 18:40 There is something going on here that we traditionally miss. There’s a very real political tension here that Luke certainly understood, as did his first century readers.

What follows Elizabeth’s greeting of Mary is the passage we call the Magnificat. It’s beautiful poetry, but it’s not simply a hymn to be sung in church. It’s a declaration, a manifesto, composed of Old Testament texts drawn mostly from the Psalms, expressing the hopes and dreams of a dispossessed and suffering people. If we will read the following verses through this lens, especially 50-53, we will see why Jesus was feared and hated even from infancy, why Herod sought to kill him, and why the Roman and Jewish establishment eventually did.

Luke 1:46-55 And Mary said:
"My soul glorifies the Lord
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations
will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me —
holy is his name.
50 His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
55 to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers."

This young girl, Mary, is not the trifling little flower some have imagined, but a woman of strength and substance. This is a revolution that will shake the world to it’s foundations. And the battles are not just metaphors, they're the real thing. Both these babies, John and Jesus, will die violent deaths. The rich and powerful don’t go down without a fight.

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

Luke 1:39-40 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth.

Luke tells us that shortly after she became pregnant Mary went to spend some time with her relative, Elizabeth. Surely we might have expected this. Think how many untimely teenage pregnancies have resulted in timely vacations. It would soon be obvious to everyone in Nazareth that a miracle was happening to Mary, but they must have assumed it was a miracle of the usual kind. She was betrothed to Joseph and, in the absence of a strenuous disclaimer, they must certainly have concluded that he was the father. This was more than an embarrassment in Mary’s culture, it was a shameful thing, but time would still the wagging tongues.

Luke says almost nothing about Joseph, but we can well imagine that the situation was hard for him too. And Matthew tells us that, assuming what any normal person would assume, Joseph was working out how to break off his betrothal when, in a dream, an angel let him in on the holy secret. (Matthew 1:18-20) Did Joseph immediately believe, once and for all? I doubt it; that’s not how belief usually works. But he did take Mary as his wife, in effect confirming what everyone already “knew” about him.

So, how can we explain this? Perhaps he was a man of unusual faith and courage. Perhaps he was a man of unusual insight and compassion. Or, perhaps, he was just a usual man, but much in love. Love does make even the most usual people do the most unusual things.

Even God so loved the world that he sent his only son, and all that that entailed. Mary so loved God that she received him, and all that that entailed. And Joseph so loved Mary he received them both, and all that that entailed. So what if the world rejects Joseph, and Mary, and Jesus, and even God; this is a love story and, as the Apostle Paul will eventually observe, “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things". 1 Corinthians 13:7