Are you the real thing?

One of my favorite Christmas movies is A Christmas Story. Set in the years of WWII, it is about a boy named Ralph Parker and his hope of getting an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle for Christmas (with the compass in the stock … and this thing which tells time). While this desire for the Red Ryder BB gun occupies the main story line along with the protestation refrain of “You’ll shoot your eye out,” there are a number of subplots in the overall story. One subplot involves Ralphie awaiting the arrival of his Little Orphan Annie Secret Society Decoder Ring for which he had consumed “gallons of Ovaltine” to get. After sending in those Ovaltine labels and checking the mail every day, Ralphie’s decoder ring finally arrives. That evening, he and his brother Randy tune in the family’s radio to listen to the Little Orphan Annie show. At the end of each show, Pierre Andre (the announcer) would give out the secret message for the members of Annie’s Secret Society to decode. Finally Ralphie would get to be in on the message. He writes down the code and takes it to “the only place an eight year old boy could get any privacy” – namely the bathroom – so that he could decode the message. After feverishly working to crack the code (all the while having his little brother pounding on the door to use the only bathroom in the house), Ralphie uncovers the secret message: “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.” “A crummy commercial?! Son of …” well … never mind (those of you who've seen the movie know how that quote ends!). What makes us laugh about this vignette is that we’ve all had a Ralphie moment just like this. We've all had a time when we set our expectations of a situation or a person very high only to have it come crashing down around us.

In today’s Gospel reading, John the Baptist is having a “Ralphie moment.” Last week's reading was "John the Baptist - the Early Years" where we heard John preaching a very fiery message of repentance and casting an image of the one to come as a Messiah who would come with power and judge the world. He would gather the wheat into the granary and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire! John’s image of this powerful figure who would destroy the wicked and reward the righteous is disquieting on one hand but on the other it’s a rather attractive idea. Let’s be honest with ourselves, we can all look around us and see that the world isn’t right. We see bad things happening – downright evil things happening – all around us. There is something comforting in an image of a Messiah who’s going to come down here, clean up this mess and set things right. This is what John had preached. But now John is in prison and he hears about Jesus’ ministry … and it doesn’t square up with the Messiah image he had been touting.

This Jesus of Nazareth was not acting like the Messiah John expected. He didn't come bursting onto the scene to stick it to the man by confronting the leaders John condemned – the Pharisees and Sadducees. Instead, Jesus was paying attention to the last, lost, little, least, and lifeless – all the marginalized people who in the eyes of the world were “nobodies.” Children, widows, the poor, the sick, the disabled, the dying and dead – all of these people were getting Jesus’ attention and he was giving them hope and a future where before they had none. This wasn’t what John wanted to see. And so John sends his disciples to question Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” In Greek, the statement is a bit more harsh because the word for "another" implies an opposite as in "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for someone totally different from you?" John wants to know if Jesus is the real thing or an empty promise.

Jesus’ response was to quote the signs of the Messiah from Isaiah: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Jesus doesn’t give them a neat “yes” or “no” answer. Instead, Jesus puts the ball back in John’s court and tells his disciples to test the authenticity of his ministry by what had been foretold in Hebrew prophecy and what they see and hear about Jesus. Decide for yourselves whether the man and the message are congruent.

The congruency of the promise and the person meet a deep spiritual longing in all of us. We live in a world full of “crummy commercials” of empty promises and hype over substance. We are now living in a time of transition which sociologists call “post-modern” and ecclesiologists (those who study the Church) label as “post-Christendom.” The post-modern/post-Christendom world view stands in contrast to the modern/Christendom one. There is debate about the definition of post-modernism but there are two characteristics which are emerging. First, the post-modern world view carries a deep distrust of institutions as opposed to a modern view which generally trusts institutions. Institutions have a tendency to fail us; however, the modern person will tend to cut the institution some slack where the post-modern won't be as quick to let the institution off the hook.

The second characteristic is the post-modern experiences truth in this world as conditional rather than absolute as the modern does. A modern person would say truth doesn't change - truth is just that ... truth. The post-modern would argue that truth changes over time. Where the modern would quote the Declaration of Independence saying "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal" as an absolute truth, the post-modern would argue that when this was written it only meant white, property owning males and the definition of "all men" has been modified to include more people during our history (a changing face of truth).

I believe much of the polarizing “culture wars” playing out in our country today are a clash between these two fundamental views of modernity and post-modernity: whether one trusts or distrusts institutions and whether one sees truth in this world as absolute or conditional. It's not about liberals versus conservatives as much as it is about moderns and post-moderns. In light of this changing world view between modernity and post-modernity, how does Christianity fit? What does it have to offer? I suggest what Christianity has to offer is something which bridges these two world views by going deeper into the spiritual longing they both have: the longing for something authentic.

Christianity is not about being an institutional religion; it is about a lived relational authenticity: a real relationship with God and with each other. This is precisely the authenticity Jesus offers John and his disciples. It is the authenticity we are to offer the world as the Church – the Body of Christ.

People coming into our church today, this congregation right here, are seeking authenticity and asking a question of us similar to that which John asked of Jesus: “Are you the one or should we wait for another?” or perhaps, “Are you the real thing or should I keep my 7AM tee time on Sundays at Hollow Creek Golf Course?” People want to know if this Church is the one they can count on to be real: the Church which walks the talk of faith, the Church which lives the teachings of Jesus and doesn’t just give them lip service, the Church which cares about the same “nobodies” Jesus cared about … the last, the lost, the little, the least, and the lifeless, a Church which believes eternal life starts now and not just when you die.

Authenticity has always been our spiritual hunger. Christ embodied the realness and fullness of God for our sake and we are called to do the same for the world as the Body of Christ. In a hurting world full of empty hype, broken promises and “crummy commercials” do we have the courage to be the real thing for Christ’s sake?

Advent 2 / St. Nicholas Day 2009

“… the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins …”

Two days of observance in the Church calendar have come together this year. It doesn’t happen very often, but today we are observing both the Second Sunday of Advent and the Feast of St. Nicholas. Normally, if a saint’s commemoration falls on a Sunday, the day is moved on the calendar; however, I felt it was particularly appropriate to observe St. Nicholas Day and keep it on December 6th. I did, however, retain the readings for the second Sunday in Advent. At first glance, it might seem a strange contrast to have John the Baptist preaching a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” and talk about St. Nicholas too. However, the Greek word for repentance is metanoia meaning to change one’s thinking or change your mind. If our observance of St. Nicholas Day today can bring about a change of mind about who Nicholas really is, then I believe we will have a clearer understanding of both the saint we honor and the significance of the coming of Christ at Christmas.

At this time of year, we hear much about St. Nicholas. “Jolly old St. Nicholas, lean your ear this way. Don’t you tell a single soul what I’m going to say. Christmas Eve is coming soon, now you dear old man, whisper what you’ll bring to me, tell me if you can.” “His eyes - how they twinkled! His dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, and the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;” “He had a broad face and a little round belly, that shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.” Our culture has plenty of images of St. Nicholas but what do they have to do with the real person? Well … absolutely nothing! Popular culture has woven an image and embellished the story of St. Nicholas to the point where he’s barely recognizable – in essence, St. Nicholas has been hijacked and I think it’s time the Church takes him back!

The true story of St. Nicholas begins in the village of Pantara on the southern coast of what is now Turkey in the late third century. His wealthy parents, who raised him to be a devout Christian, died in an epidemic while Nicholas was still young. Obeying Jesus’ words to “sell what you own and give the money to the poor,” Nicholas used his whole inheritance to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering. He dedicated his life to serving God and was made Bishop of Myra while still a young man. Myra is mentioned once in the Bible in the 27th chapter of Acts where Luke tells of Paul’s journey to Rome and says, “After we had sailed across the open sea off Cilicia and Pamphylia, we put in at Myra in Lycia.” Bishop Nicholas became known throughout region of Lycia for his generosity to those in need, his love for children, and as Myra was a safe harbor along a rocky coastline he is also known for his concern for sailors and ships.

Under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who ruthlessly persecuted Christians, Bishop Nicholas suffered for his faith, was exiled and imprisoned. When the Emperor Constantine came to power and halted the persecution of Christians in 313, Nicholas was released from prison.

Being a bishop in Myra in the early part of the fourth century, he no doubt encountered the Arian controversy – a view which was eventually deemed heretical that Jesus was not divine, but was only human. There is evidence he attended the Council of Nicaea in 325 which would take up the Arian controversy and led to the writing of the Nicene Creed. There is a source which tells of Nicholas losing his temper at the Council of Nicaea. Nicholas was so angry at an advocate of Arianism that, overcome by apostolic zeal, he struck his opponent (there is a fresco of this incident at the Soumela Monastery in Turkey). Not everyone appreciated this blow for Arianism, and the presidency of the Council decided that Nicholas was no longer allowed to wear the ornaments of a bishop. Therefore, Nicholas is shown without mitre on Greek icons. The fact that this embarrassing anecdote survives lends it some credibility and causes us to remember that Nicholas was very human. After all, how would you like to remembered: for being generous or smacking your opposition?
Nicholas died December 6, 343 in Myra and was buried in his cathedral church. In 1087, after the village of Myra fell under the control of the Muslim Saracens, his remains were transported to Bari, Italy where he was buried in the Basilica of St. Nicholas.

Many of the legends surrounding St. Nicholas come to us through oral tradition. One enduring story tells of a poor man with three daughters. In those days a young woman’s father had to offer her prospective husband something of value—a dowry. The larger the dowry, the better the chance that a young woman would find a good husband. Without a dowry, a woman was unlikely to marry. This poor man’s daughters had no dowries and were therefore destined to be sold into slavery. Mysteriously, on three different occasions, a bag of gold appeared in their home-providing the needed dowries. The bags of gold were said to have been tossed through an open window. As the story of Nicholas moved into northern climates, where windows would be covered by December 6th, the story was modified to say that Nicholas tossed the bags of gold down the … chimney.

The story of Nicholas’ generosity and the other legends which grew up around him captured the imagination of the Church to the point that by the middle ages, he was as well known as Jesus and the Virgin Mary. In England, over 400 churches bore his name and while the Reformation attempted to remove the veneration of saints from the church, it couldn’t quite get rid of St. Nicholas. As our ancestors came to America, they brought stories of him under the name of Pere Noel, San Nicola, and Sinter Klaas … the latter of which would be morphed into the name Santa Claus.

The true story of St. Nicholas tells of a devout man whose aim in life was not to point to himself, but rather to Jesus Christ. He would be shocked and dismayed to see how our popular culture turned him into the focus of Christmas rather than the Christ child. One definition of Sin is to “miss the mark.” We miss the mark if we make Santa Claus and gift giving the sole focus of Christmas. From this we are called to repent – to change our minds. St. Nicholas, beloved and revered for centuries by the Church, lived a life marked by compassion and generosity which reflected the Light of Jesus Christ. To reclaim St. Nicholas for the Church and celebrate his feast day today, rightly changes our hearts and minds so that we may prepare ourselves for the real gift of Christmas – the gift of God’s only Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.