It was the best of times, it was the
worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was
the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of
Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the
winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we
were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in
short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest
authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the
superlative degree of comparison only.
So
begins Charles Dicken’s story, The Tale
of Two Cities. I ask you, on this second Sunday in the season of Advent,
are these not the times in which we live.

People living in high places have no qualms
about transferring billions of dollars to the wealthiest one-percent, or
discrediting and desecrating sacred institutions of democracy, or exploiting
their power for personal pleasure, or waging preemptive wars in the name of
peace, or inflaming Jerusalem in some new orgasm of violence. “We will bomb you
into oblivion,” Donald says. And he means it. As if to reward him the stock
market climbs to new heights. These are the best of times. These are the worst
of times. It is an age of wisdom and an age of foolishness.
Stay woke my friends. Stay woke. Can
you hear the voice of John crying in the wilderness? After the killing of
Trayvon Martin the black community’s response was “stay woke.” Become aware. Be
aware of the ways which racism, sexism, class-ism, militarism, economic and
environmental violence, and the desecration of sacred places like Bears Ears
National Monument affect the way we live. Stay woke to what is happening in our
communities and the world in which we live. Stay woke.

The birth of Jesus is not about a
strange event that happened once upon a time in village far, far away, long,
long ago, when a child was born. The birth of Jesus is the story of the
enfleshment of God. That is what the word “incarnation” means. It means “going
into flesh.” The Spirit going into flesh. And, Mary’s flesh magnified the Lord.
Robert Frost gave voice to this
powerful promise of hope in a poem in which he wrote:
But God’s own descent
into the flesh meant
as a demonstration
that the supreme merit
lay in risking spirit
in substantiation.
Spirit enters flesh
and for all its worth
charges into earth
in birth after birth
ever fresh and fresh.
We may take the view
that it’s derring-do
thought of in the large
was one mighty charge
on our human part
of the soul’s ethereal
into the material.
Frost, a prophetic poet, believed the
greatest enterprise of life is our penetration into matter, carrying spirit
deeper and deeper into matter.
The meaning of the incarnation and the
doctrine of transubstantiation is the celebration of the mighty charge of the
ethereal into the material. The Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us full
of grace and truth.
What does all this mean to you and me in
practical terms? What am I trying to tell you about the promise of peace? We
have just witnessed seven murders in ten days in Wichita. The habits of
violence are deeply ingrained in our culture and in us. It is fair to ask if
peace is possible. Like the prophet Habakkuk we stand on the ramparts of the besieged
city and ask, “Is there any word from the Lord?”
My friends in the Satyagraha Institute
tell me there is. They offer these three steps, which they call three key
principles for peace:
1. Change happens one person at a time. A
community will change only to the extent that individuals in the community are
willing to change. And we, each one of us, can be instruments of change. We can
create ripples of change that will alter the nature of our relationships and
our communities and our nation and the world.
2. The path to change requires face-to-face
interaction, meeting, and dialogue. If we want to
be agents of change we need
to spend quality time with others who can help us work through difficult
questions. Nothing can replace the power of studying, eating, reading, talking,
walking, working and relaxing with others.
3. Deep change, like fast-acting yeast, takes
time.

Rev. David Hansen
No comments:
Post a Comment