With Apologies to Lawrence Ferlinghetti

On this Sunday in Advent, in the Year of our Lord 2017, I have been inspired by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem “I am waiting,” and the story of Jesus’s birth as told to us in the Gospel of Matthew:

It’s four in the morning, and

I am waiting for my case to come up

and I am waiting

for a rebirth of wonder

and I am waiting for someone to really discover America

and wail,

and I am waiting

perpetually and forever

for a new rebirth of wonder

and I am waiting

and I wonder if you are wailing and waiting too

I wonder if Joseph wailed when Mary told him she was with child and he was not the father

and I wonder if Mary wept knowing that her fate was in a man’s hands and he had the power of life and death over her and her child

and I wonder if like me they too were waiting for a new rebirth of wonder

and I wonder why God chose some no-count couple like Mary and Joseph,

living in some backwater hamlet named Bethlehem

to make his grand divine entrance onto the world stage

when Caesar lost his cool and Herod sent his soldiers

to slaughter every Hebrew boy child under the age of two

and I wonder if the real point of the Christmas story

isn’t to shake us loose from the powerful paradigms of disbelief

that pull us away from acknowledging the presence of God

in this and every other place on this this blessed planet

we call our home

or is it really God’s home and

there is nothing that is not holy

and no one who is not sacred and God comes in this most peculiar way

just to say, “Hello”

and in the soft innocence of a child to tell us

now is not the time to surrender to the

lethargy of indifference

or the dullness of disbelief

or the safety of the status quo

for you too have found favor in the eyes of God

and in the wildness of holy love

there no is shelter from the storm

no room in the inn

no safe routines of convention and common sense

for now, today, you must choose

between the hopes and fears of all the years

and the only compass God will give you or me or any Mary or Joseph is

love

which God promises is wiser than the wisdom of humankind

and stronger than the strength of the all the armies of all the empires

that ever marched

and all the bombs that ever fell on upturned faces

then or now  or ever

so go with Mary, be a Joseph,

let your love loose in some

new derring-do

and experience your own

rebirth of wonder

Rev. David Hansen