Posted Sermon - 2009_12_20 - "Merry Carnival"

“Merry Carnival”
Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:39-45
4th Sunday of Advent; December 20, 2009

What images and feelings come to mind when I say, “Christmas morning”? Do you see wide-eyed little children coming down the steps and squealing with glee as they see the beautiful tree girded by brightly wrapped presents and twinkling lights? Do you smell the pine needles? Do you hear the carols coming from the radio? Do you smell the adults’ coffee as they attempt to open their eyes after a late night of last-second preparations? What do you see, or smell, or hear? What do you feel?
Now do this again. Only this time respond with the images and feelings that come to mind when I say, “Christmas Eve Service”. Do you see the image that the worship reinforces of the little holy family gathered around the glow from the newborn’s rough wooden cradle? Is it a dark sanctuary you remember, punctuated with little pools of flickering light from each person’s hand-held candle? Can you feel the pleasant closeness of the cold church walls and the breath of the other carolers on either side of you in the pew? Are people serious as they sing silent night? Is the organ somber, and are the pastor’s words measured?
How can Christmas morning and Christmas Eve be about the same event? Does God want us to experience something sacred as we rip our way through the crinkly gift wrap of a bright winter morning? Or does God intend for us to celebrate the birth of Jesus with soberness and gravity? How has the celebration of the savior’s birth become so divided? You know once upon a time, Christmas was not celebrated as a division of light and dark; joy and sacredness, but instead it was celebrated, even in church, as a great reversal of status:
As late as 1685, in the Franciscan church of Antibes, lay brothers and servants “Put on the vestments inside out, held the books upside down,…wore spectacles with rounds of orange peel instead of glasses…blew the ashes on each other’s face and hands, and instead of the proper liturgy, chanted confused and inarticulate gibberish.” (more)
Cross-dressing, wearing animal masks, wafting foul-smelling incense, and electing burlesque bishops, popes, and patriarchs mocked conventional human pretensions. A donkey was even ridden into the middle of the church service as the priest, choir, and congregation brayed at the top of their lungs.
What do you say: should we try that at our Christmas Eve service this year? Forget the boring old candles and carols—who can bring in a donkey Friday night?
What made the medieval church in Europe do this? Did they see something in the Christmas story that we don’t see today? Did the nativity speak to them in a different way than it speaks to us? Yes, it likely that they did see something different than we do. After all, culture has changed a lot since then.
Medieval peasants did not worry about Christmas lists and finding a parking spot close to the door of Macy’s like we might. Their society was more stratified than ours: Once a peasant, always a peasant. So when they looked at the dialogue between Mary and Elizabeth, when they took in the radical meaning of what God does in the annunciation—they marveled. A teenage, peasant woman—neither a queen nor even a decent married girl—was about to give birth to the Messiah! When they heard the words of Micah foreshadowing Christ’s humble origin…
But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to rule in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days.
…they understood that God’s lot was cast with people like them—the poor, the low-class, the “littlest” clan of Judah. And knowing that God has shattered all human pretensions to greatness and power by coming as a baby instead of a warrior-king, frankly made them go a little crazy with joy.
The topsy-turvy services that took place in the European cathedrals of old were a way of demonstrating that God has already began to do that which Mary exclaims. God had already:
…shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
It may seem a little off putting to us today, for we know that our pastor’s are unlikely to do anything too outlandish from the Christmas pulpit. But two things can be learned from those old style services. First, Christmas is about the great reversal of status, and part of our joy in all things Christmassy should come from knowing that—now that Jesus is here--nothing is the same. Secondly, all of us are also included in God’s Great Reversal here in our own time and place, though we may have to look around to see how. Can we make our celebration a little more oafish; where and how do we take part in God’s great reversal today?
Nearly ten years ago now (Matthew) I stood on a bluff above the confluence of the Ruak and the Mekong rivers in Southeast Asia known as “the golden triangle”. For decades, if not centuries, “the Golden Triangle has been one of Asia's two main illicit opium-producing areas. It is an area of around 350,000 square kilometers that overlaps the mountains of four countries of Southeast Asia: Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand” (Wikipedia). As (he) I stood there, the Thai farmer who was serving as (his) my guide told (him) me that this region was experiencing a “great God-given reversal”. He said that it had become a rich bread-basket of the region. Where heroin, and other hard drugs made from poppies, once flourished, wheat and other grains now grew. For a long time that scene remained just a distant memory to me (him), but the other day the “great God-given reversal” cited by the farmer came much closer to home.
In back-to-back news reports, one national and the other local, (he) I heard another story about the opium trade. The national news featured an interview with the director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Afghanistan Poppy Eradication Czar. In it, he spoke about the relative success of turning poppies into pomegranates in the more dangerous parts of Afghanistan. He described how well-meaning farmers there have begun to grow other crops since his first visit in 2003. And he also described the challenge of opening up the region’s markets to the new products. Immediately after his interview, the local news came on and described two drug seizures. 3 kilos of Heroin was seized on I-70 on Monday (worth more than 1 and ½ million dollars). The drugs, made from opium poppies, were bound for Columbus, Ohio.
The juxtaposition of the stories reminds us all that we cannot think of God’s reversal as far away and remote. All three stories are about just one of the great reversal’s in our world today. Former drug-growing areas of Thailand were once reclaimed for wholesome agriculture, and though I am not sure how things stand there today, it is clear that lessons learned in the Golden Triangle are being applied to the same problem now in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The problem of illicit drugs remains, and yet God is bringing about the great reversal in our own time and in places just down the street from us. There are faithful people in all of our cities, including nearby Columbus, who work day in and day out with the addicts that use the heroin and opium. There are soldiers and farmers; statesmen and scientists who grew up in the small towns around us who are part of God’s reversal in places as far away as Thailand and Afghanistan.
The powers that exist behind the scourge of drugs—whether criminal or state-sanctioned, whether externally oppressive or internally coercive—are being laid low, even as we speak. God has made an example for us of how he intends to change the way the world is. What joy that Christmas is not just about how many presents are under the tree, but it is also about how the gift of a child 2000 years ago inspires people today to know that God is with us, and that hope is both already here and immanently on the way.
We celebrate the coming of the Christ child because he turns the world upside down. Mary’s song proclaims that this upside down world has been inaugurated by Jesus’ incarnation. No wonder the medieval monks and peasants celebrated Christmas with buffoonery and costumes; role-reversals and charades. What difference might it make to our celebration of Christ’s coming if we did the same?
(Put on the hat) So, I bid ye little ones of Judah a Merry Carnival …AMEN