My dad, as everyone remembers him.
This Sunday we examined a passage from Isaiah, in the light of grief and loss around the holidays, and how we are called to respond to the darkness around us.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (12/17/17)
Sermon
Good morning. I was sitting in a restaurant this week and
the song, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” came on the radio. This is
one of those secular Christmas songs that I never paid all that much attention
to when I was a younger person. Listening to this song as a grownup, I hear a
very sentimental song, colored by notes of sadness. In places, I think this
song has a certain mournful quality to it. As it turns out, Frank Sinatra
agreed with me.
The song was originally written for the movie, Meet Me in St. Louis. It was released in
1944 and very quickly became a favorite among U.S. servicemen who were serving
in Europe and the Pacific, separated from loved ones, not knowing if they would
ever make it home or see those loved ever again. No doubt, they identified with
the longing and sadness that’s expressed in the song.
Frank Sinatra is known to have recorded two different
versions of this song, first in 1950, with the same lyrics that Judy Garland
sang in the movie. Then in 1957, Sinatra recorded an album called A Jolly Christmas. Before recording that
album, Sinatra asked the composer, Hugh Martin, to change the last verse.
Sinatra didn’t like the line, “Until then, we’ll have to muddle through
somehow.” Sinatra asked Martin, “Do you think you could jolly that line up for
me?” The revised lyric is, “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.” I
imagine that both lyrics are familiar to most of you.
I first started paying attention to these lyrics when I was
in my early thirties. I can’t say for sure when it happened, but when I heard
the lines, “Through the years we all will be together / If the fates allow,” I
got a little bit choked up. I thought of loved ones who had passed away. I
thought of my elderly grandmothers, who probably weren’t going to be around
much longer. I was reminded of the Christmases when we had all been together. I
knew there wouldn’t be many more of those. So yeah, I got more than a little
bit choked up the first time I thought about those lovely Christmases from my
childhood and realized that they were gone. The song expresses a wish for joy
and happiness; at the same time it acknowledges that something has been lost.
When I hear that song now, it hits me even harder. My dad
died four years ago. Many of my other close relatives are dead, too. My mother
is still alive and well, but she lives in Philadelphia. The big, warm family
that I remember is gone. Now more than ever, the holidays remind me of all the
people who aren’t with me anymore.
I think this same sense of sadness and loss that I hear in
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” underlies this morning’s lesson from
the prophet Isaiah. The prophet begins by announcing that the Lord has anointed
him, sent him to “bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the
prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance
of our God; to comfort all who mourn.” So on the one hand, we have good news,
liberty and the year of the Lord’s favor, but on the other hand, this message
is being delivered to the oppressed, the brokenhearted, and the captives. The
prophet is speaking to a group of people who are broken; something is very
wrong here. Think about it: God doesn’t need to send a prophet to comfort God’s
chosen people when things are going well.
I know I’ve told you this before, but most biblical
scholars believe that the Book of Isaiah is actually the work of more than one
author. The original Isaiah was active during the mid-700s, BCE. Scholars
believe that this Isaiah was responsible for writing the first 39 chapters of
what we know as the Book of Isaiah. Chapters 40-55 were likely written by a
second author, probably in exile during the Babylonian Captivity. The remaining
chapters, 56-66 were compiled by a later author or editor, after the return from
exile.
Now you might think that the exiles would have been
thrilled about returning to Jerusalem, but the return from captivity was not a
happy homecoming. Solomon’s Temple had been destroyed and Jerusalem had been
abandoned. Neither were the exiles welcomed back. The exiles had been gone for
fifty or sixty years; the rest of the people of Judah had moved on in their
absence.
The exiles had children and grandchildren in Babylon: two
full generations of exiles in captivity. It’s possible that a young child,
taken during one of the later waves of exiles might have survived to return to Judah,
but the chances were slim. And it’s unlikely that anyone who lived in Judah when
the exiles returned would have remembered any of the people who were taken
captive fifty or sixty years before. What’s more, many of the exiles decided to
remain in Babylon—they were perfectly content with their lives as they were.
But the peace and order of their lives in Babylon would be upset when some of them
took the opportunity to return to their ancestral homeland.
Think again of the song, “Have Yourself a Merry Little
Christmas.” In particular, the line, “Through the years we all will be
together,” seems to fit the exiles very well. During the period of exile, they
were all together. But when they were allowed to return, that togetherness was
about to come to an end.
And the exiles didn’t
like what they found when they got back to Judah. As far as the locals were
concerned, these exiles were from Babylon. They could go right on back if they
wanted to. Nobody was stopping them.
Of course, the writer of Third Isaiah was probably one of
those exiles. And his exile community wasn’t happy. They felt like prisoners;
they were in mourning. They mourned for the Jerusalem that belonged to their
grandparents, the Jerusalem that they would never see, the Jerusalem that would
welcome them with open arms. That wasn’t the Jerusalem that the exiles found
when they returned. It seems to me that the exiles were oppressed by their own
expectations; they were captives to their own idea of what Israel would be like
when they got home.
I think that we are also broken, and in many of the same
ways that the Jerusalem exiles were broken. We’re living in a world that
doesn’t look like we imagined our future would look like, say, twenty, or
thirty, or forty years ago. We don’t feel as safe and secure in our jobs or our
relationships. Maybe we wonder if God has turned away from us. Or perhaps we
just wonder why we’re not living in the future we dreamed that we would. Do we
only see what we expect to see, or are we learning to see new things in new
places?
When I started seminary, I had visions of having my dad
play his bagpipes at whatever church I might serve. I imagined him playing the
pipes for my service of ordination and I imagined that he might come to
services on Christmas Eve and play for the congregation as they left the
church. My dad died on November 3rd, 2013. I was a senior in
seminary. I will never see that future in which my dad plays his pipes at my
church. But his death isn’t the end of this story.
That year, my plan was to drive to Philly and spend
Christmas with my mom. I got violently ill on December 23rd. On
Christmas Eve, I was still too sick to go to church. Physically, I felt a lot
better on Christmas Day, but I was too tired to drive across the Pennsylvania
Turnpike. Emotionally, I was a mess. I was really hurting. Normally, I keep my
pain to myself. But that year, when I was hurting, I reached out—I posted my
pain on Facebook. In a matter of a few minutes, I had four invitations for
Christmas dinner. Three were from members of my church family, the other was
from one of my best friends. I had been feeling all alone, like an exile from
my own past. But people reached out to me and invited me into their homes; they
invited me into the here and now.
This morning’s reading from Isaiah offers visions of hope,
while acknowledging pain at the same time. I’ve given you all the uncomfortable
parts about the Scripture and how those parts mirror our lives. But the reading
from the Gospel of John reminds us that God sends out messages of hope, and
sometimes those messages come from unexpected messengers—voices crying out in
the wilderness, voices like John the Baptist.
In 2013, my Christmas began with a lament. I was looking
for people who were gone. But my friends heard my cries and they adopted me
into their families on that day, because they recognized that we are all
children of God. I was looking for the Jerusalem of my past, but they reminded
me to look to the present. And when I did, I saw that I was loved and that I
was not alone. My church family invited me in and showed me God’s love.
Beloved, I’m not the hero of this story. Neither are the
folks who invited me in on Christmas Day. No, God is the hero of this story,
for it is God who sent Christ’s Holy Spirit to all of us, and it is through His
Spirit that we truly reach out to one another. So, if you are feeling isolated
and alone in this season, reach out; let people know that you are hurting.
Likewise, if you are feeling God’s love in this season, open your ears and your
hearts! Listen for the voice of the one crying out in the wilderness. And as we
reach out, in love, to those around us, we are reminded that we are all truly a
part of God’s holy family. Let us live into that joyous, grace-filled reality. Thanks
be to God. Amen.
Benediction
Now, beloved, as you depart from this place, remember that
we are called to be the Church, the body of Christ in the world today. We are
called to go forth and be instruments of God’s love and peace and love and reconciliation.
Do not return evil for evil to any person, but know that we are all loved by
God, and that we are called to reflect that love to everyone we meet. Go forth
and be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. In the name of Jesus
Christ, our Lord, let all God’s children say, Amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment