Long before Jesus Christ died on the cross, long before he was pierced for our transgressions, 16th century poet Edmund Spenser suggests that the Son of God was pierced, was wounded by love of us:
O huge and most unspeakable impression
Of Love's deep wound, that pierst the piteous hart
Today's post, like yesterday's, emphasizes the strength of Christ's condescension, that he would give up all the power and glory of heaven to become an infant. As Paul writes in Philippians 2:6-8:
"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness."
This text, while insisting that Christ did not consider it too much to stoop down and save us, does insist that we consider the cost of Christ's humility and self-emptying. Before he was ever pierced in the side at the cross, before he was ever nailed to the cross, how much was God wounded by love of us to take such great cost on himself for our great benefit?
Thursday, December 7, 2017
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Thursday, December 7 - Is Not He Too a Servant, and is Not He Forgot?
Malcolm Guite, in his anthology of poems for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, selects lines from The Ballad of the White Horse, by G.K. Chesterton, a British journalist from the early 20th century. Chesterton once decided to write an epic poem about Alfred the Great, the British king who lived in the 800s A.D. Many legendary tales depict Alfred's defeat of the Vikings, and of his Christian unification of England. One of these tales has to do with the king when he is a fugitive, anonymous, and no doubt looking too shabby to be recognized to be King Alfred. He comes to a fire where a woman is preparing cakes. She takes him for 'a beggar, such as lags looking for crusts and ale'. With pity, she invites him to serve her by keeping an eye on the fire, saying 'there is a cake for any man if he will watch the fire."
By himself, King Alfred ponders that he has become the least of serving men, then suddenly realizes that this is what God has done as well. Here is the excerpt from Book IV in Chesterton's poem that Guite includes in his book, Waiting for the Word, and it is King Alfred who is speaking:
And well may God with the serving-folk
Cast in His dreadful lot;
Is not He too a servant,
And is not He forgot?
For was not God my gardener
And silent like a slave;
That opened oaks on the uplands
Or thicket in graveyard gave?
And was not God my armourer,
All patient and unpaid,
That sealed my skull as a helmet,
And ribs for hauberk made?
Did not a great grey servant
Of all my sires and me,
Build this pavilion of the pines,
And herd the fowls and fill the vines,
And labour and pass and leave no signs
Save mercy and mystery?
For God is a great servant,
And rose before the day,
From some primordial slumber torn;
But all we living later born
Sleep on, and rise after the morn,
And the Lord has gone away.
On things half sprung from sleeping,
All sleeping suns have shone,
They stretch stiff arms, the yawning trees,
The beasts blink upon hands and knees,
Man is awake and does and sees -
But Heaven has done and gone.
For who shall guess the good riddle
Or speak of the Holiest,
Save in faint figures and failing words,
Who loves, yet laughs among the swords,
Labours, and is at rest?
But some see God like Guthrum,
Crowned, with a great beard curled,
But I see God like a good giant,
That, labouring, lifts the world.
Guite takes note that the key verse from the start of this excerpt is this one about God: "is not He too a servant, and is not He forgot?" From there, the first four stanzas are about God appearing by turns as a gardener, an armourer, a herder for fowls, and worker among the vines. Servants, constantly tending, yet unthanked and anonymous. Later, Guite draws our thoughts helpfully to those who serve:
"Chesterton, was of course, writing when not only the upper class but most English middle-class families had servants. Most of his readers were people who awoke to fires that were already lit, rooms already swept, tables already laid. But, unlike many of his contemporary writers, Chesterton also numbered among his readers some of the servants who had to get up early to light these fires and sweep these rooms and lay these tables..." (27)
Then, Guite draws our thoughts to those who serve in our own day:
"Most of us could no longer be accused of taking our servants for granted, but this poem still gives us a double challenge. The ones who serve us, who prepare our ready-meals, sew our clothes, light our fires - not by kneeling on our own hearths but by drilling and toiling in danger for the oil we burn, or working all day in factories and packing plants - these people are even more ignored and unthanked than the domestic servants of Edwardian Britain. For we have outsourced their labour, that we might keep them at a convenient distance, and so not be confronted by their humanity. As we begin, through Advent, to make the many purchases that seem to be a necessary prelude to Christmas, it may be that this poem will prompt us to remember to give thanks and to pray for the 'great grey servant(s)' who have put these goods in our hands." (27-28)
Perhaps it is fair to ask: how many degrees of separation are there between us and the ones who grow the food we eat during this season, or the gifts we purchase? How hidden from us are these hidden servants, and how easily forgotten? And then perhaps Chesterton might ask us again of God as he comes to us in Jesus Christ: is not he too a servant, and is not he forgot?
One final thing: the "Guthrum" of the final stanza refers to the pagan Viking king in opposition to Alfred. Guthrum is described here merely as a typical picture of human authority: the well-manicured, crowned king far removed from the peasantry. By way of contrast, a god like Guthrum is seated atop the world, in a grand tower of Babel, whereas Alfred's image of God is undergirding the world in a quiet and loving way. One more contrast might be made. Guthrum's god is dour, while Alfred's is merry. Guthrum avoids the thought that there is nothing beyond this world by killing: "Wherefore I am a great king, and waste the world in vain, because man hath not other power, save that in dealing death for dower." (Ralph Wood, Chesterton, 164) Contrast Guthrum's words with these words from Alfred, in which he describes how the Incarnation reorders all customs and calendars:
The giant laughter of Christian men
that roars through a thousand tales,
Where greed is an ape and pride is an ass,
And Jack's away with his master's lass,
And the miser is banged with all his brass,
the farmer with all his flails;
Tales that tumble and tales that trick
Yet end not all in scorning -
Of kings and clowns in a merry plight,
And the clock's gone wrong and the world gone right,
That the mummers sing upon Christmas night
And Christmas Day in the morning.
In other words, the Christmas story, that God really did become a human, creates a new sort of deep, resilient, comedy, quite distinct from Guthrum's tragic outlook. The comedy of Christmas 'roars' through a thousand silly, earthy tales, the stories of our lives, and far from pulling the rug out from under them, undergirds them like Alfred's good giant, and those stories we tell and the stories we live find their way back into the story of Christmas: "that the mummers sing upon Christmas night and Christmas Day in the morning." Stories like that of the woman making cakes by the fire. In the same way that she was never very far away from King Alfred, neither are we very far from the Son of God - the forgotten, yet present, always labouring, under-girding, serving King and Lord Jesus Christ.
By himself, King Alfred ponders that he has become the least of serving men, then suddenly realizes that this is what God has done as well. Here is the excerpt from Book IV in Chesterton's poem that Guite includes in his book, Waiting for the Word, and it is King Alfred who is speaking:
And well may God with the serving-folk
Cast in His dreadful lot;
Is not He too a servant,
And is not He forgot?
For was not God my gardener
And silent like a slave;
That opened oaks on the uplands
Or thicket in graveyard gave?
And was not God my armourer,
All patient and unpaid,
That sealed my skull as a helmet,
And ribs for hauberk made?
Did not a great grey servant
Of all my sires and me,
Build this pavilion of the pines,
And herd the fowls and fill the vines,
And labour and pass and leave no signs
Save mercy and mystery?
For God is a great servant,
And rose before the day,
From some primordial slumber torn;
But all we living later born
Sleep on, and rise after the morn,
And the Lord has gone away.
On things half sprung from sleeping,
All sleeping suns have shone,
They stretch stiff arms, the yawning trees,
The beasts blink upon hands and knees,
Man is awake and does and sees -
But Heaven has done and gone.
For who shall guess the good riddle
Or speak of the Holiest,
Save in faint figures and failing words,
Who loves, yet laughs among the swords,
Labours, and is at rest?
But some see God like Guthrum,
Crowned, with a great beard curled,
But I see God like a good giant,
That, labouring, lifts the world.
Guite takes note that the key verse from the start of this excerpt is this one about God: "is not He too a servant, and is not He forgot?" From there, the first four stanzas are about God appearing by turns as a gardener, an armourer, a herder for fowls, and worker among the vines. Servants, constantly tending, yet unthanked and anonymous. Later, Guite draws our thoughts helpfully to those who serve:
"Chesterton, was of course, writing when not only the upper class but most English middle-class families had servants. Most of his readers were people who awoke to fires that were already lit, rooms already swept, tables already laid. But, unlike many of his contemporary writers, Chesterton also numbered among his readers some of the servants who had to get up early to light these fires and sweep these rooms and lay these tables..." (27)
Then, Guite draws our thoughts to those who serve in our own day:
"Most of us could no longer be accused of taking our servants for granted, but this poem still gives us a double challenge. The ones who serve us, who prepare our ready-meals, sew our clothes, light our fires - not by kneeling on our own hearths but by drilling and toiling in danger for the oil we burn, or working all day in factories and packing plants - these people are even more ignored and unthanked than the domestic servants of Edwardian Britain. For we have outsourced their labour, that we might keep them at a convenient distance, and so not be confronted by their humanity. As we begin, through Advent, to make the many purchases that seem to be a necessary prelude to Christmas, it may be that this poem will prompt us to remember to give thanks and to pray for the 'great grey servant(s)' who have put these goods in our hands." (27-28)
Perhaps it is fair to ask: how many degrees of separation are there between us and the ones who grow the food we eat during this season, or the gifts we purchase? How hidden from us are these hidden servants, and how easily forgotten? And then perhaps Chesterton might ask us again of God as he comes to us in Jesus Christ: is not he too a servant, and is not he forgot?
One final thing: the "Guthrum" of the final stanza refers to the pagan Viking king in opposition to Alfred. Guthrum is described here merely as a typical picture of human authority: the well-manicured, crowned king far removed from the peasantry. By way of contrast, a god like Guthrum is seated atop the world, in a grand tower of Babel, whereas Alfred's image of God is undergirding the world in a quiet and loving way. One more contrast might be made. Guthrum's god is dour, while Alfred's is merry. Guthrum avoids the thought that there is nothing beyond this world by killing: "Wherefore I am a great king, and waste the world in vain, because man hath not other power, save that in dealing death for dower." (Ralph Wood, Chesterton, 164) Contrast Guthrum's words with these words from Alfred, in which he describes how the Incarnation reorders all customs and calendars:
The giant laughter of Christian men
that roars through a thousand tales,
Where greed is an ape and pride is an ass,
And Jack's away with his master's lass,
And the miser is banged with all his brass,
the farmer with all his flails;
Tales that tumble and tales that trick
Yet end not all in scorning -
Of kings and clowns in a merry plight,
And the clock's gone wrong and the world gone right,
That the mummers sing upon Christmas night
And Christmas Day in the morning.
In other words, the Christmas story, that God really did become a human, creates a new sort of deep, resilient, comedy, quite distinct from Guthrum's tragic outlook. The comedy of Christmas 'roars' through a thousand silly, earthy tales, the stories of our lives, and far from pulling the rug out from under them, undergirds them like Alfred's good giant, and those stories we tell and the stories we live find their way back into the story of Christmas: "that the mummers sing upon Christmas night and Christmas Day in the morning." Stories like that of the woman making cakes by the fire. In the same way that she was never very far away from King Alfred, neither are we very far from the Son of God - the forgotten, yet present, always labouring, under-girding, serving King and Lord Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
Wednesday, December 6 - Nicholas of Myra, Part One
Adam English has written a lovely book called The Saint Who Would be Santa Claus about St. Nick, Nicholas of Myra. The highest praise I can give it is this: I've read elsewhere that the Santa Claus we have is largely derived from a combination of the 19th century poem, "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and Coca-Cola advertisements from the mid-20th century. English's book brings us to Turkey in the mid-200's A.D. and competently accustoms me and allows me to imaginatively inhabit that world, to the point that Santa Claus' prevalence in my community this time of year has once again become, appropriately, strange. Bravo, Professor English, bravo.
His storytelling is superb. One senses while reading English's book that the modern reader who encounters the primary sources about Nicholas of Myra directly would shrink from them. The ancient middle-eastern world of Nicholas comes across as harsh. The medieval world that gave rise to Nicholas' biographies appears rose-tinted as good people like say, Nicholas, come across as flawless and super-human - Saint Nicholas! - which in turn would seem to lead to the rise of the cult of saint veneration that Protestants have tended to loathe. English knows his readers well. Like a good teacher, like a good storyteller, he knows that when we travel back to the medieval era when biographies of Nicholas were written, and then try to get even further back to the ancient era when Nicholas actually lived, we are trying to enter two very different worlds from our own. But as he leads us step by step with careful historical guidance, he leaves us in a place where we can befriend Nicholas as he has and learn to follow Christ with him.
In other words, English doesn't just want us to have a slightly deeper appreciation for today's Santa Claus. He wants to introduce us to the real Nicholas of Myra. I was delighted to find that this book about Santa Claus that I sort of forced myself to read is one of the more trenchant, absorbing, escapist in the best sense of the word, introductions to this ancient culture which, as English convincingly writes, gave us one of the golden ages of the Christian faith. And Nicholas, seemingly, was right there for it all.
The ancient world encouraged child-bearing yet discouraged affection toward children. The infant mortality rate was just too high. When one in three children die, there is a 'wait and see' attitude that is only pragmatic. Life expectancy was between 21 and 25 years old and four out of every one hundred men lived past fifty. It is telling that the legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were abandoned children who defied the odds. Adults mattered in the ancient world. Not children. But because death was such a reaper as this, large families were monetarily rewarded, while small families and infertile couples were taxed. Girls as young as fourteen could marry and begin to have families.
Moreoever, this was a world with no mutual funds: people were more vulnerable to total devastation from a bad crop or a spell of poor weather. Nicholas had the good fortune to be born to parents who were "financially prosperous, socially secure, and religiously committed." (42) He was born in Patara, a southern town in what is now Turkey. It was on the coastal trade route, where he would have had access to corn, wheat, barley, and cheese. We don't know his parents names, but we know he was raised in the Christian faith. This was still a frontier religion when Nicholas was born, although his grounding in the gospel of the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ was firm, a hallmark of the ministry of the Apostle Paul, who had himself preached the gospel in this town while on his journeys. Nicholas' youth saw the transformation of the religious landscape in Patara on account of Gregory of Neocaesarea, or Gregory the Wonderworker. When he was ordained bishop, there were said to be only seventeen Christians in all; when he finished, there were only seventeen pagans. (45) As this landscape changed, Christian communities went from meeting in homes to free-standing chapels, basilicas, and shrines. There were people from this community who died to keep the faith. English describes the quality of Nicholas' life:
"He had a strong moral compass and avoided "public life," where he might be obliged to take oaths, swear by the genus of the emperor, or participate in pagan ceremonies; he abstained from "economic activities" where he might be tempted by cutthroat competition and greed; he closed his ears to the profane and vulgar talk of "uncultivated people," he kept his eyes from "the lust of women," and kept his heart from "theatrical performances." Instead," Michael (his biographer) says, "he nurtured continence." He kept alive "the lamp of virginity" - a phrase that implies more than sexual purity. Moral integrity, compassion, politeness, humility, and self-control also counted as marks of holy virginity. Purity was holistic, involving mind, body, and soul and requiring the doing of certain things and the avoidance of others." (46-47)
His education would have introduced him to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey as well as the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides. He would have memorized large sections of Greek literature and composed speeches and responses to prompts. (48). Nicholas had a great upbringing, not least due to his parents, who tragically died when Nicholas was 18 years old, perhaps due to a plague. Nicholas' life had been touched by love, sturdiness, discipline, and grief.
The sole beneficiary, Nicholas received a hefty inheritance. We're told of how Nicholas wrestled with the "temptation" of this inheritance. He would call to mind Proverbs 11:17: "the person who has compassion on the indigent and on the poor does good for his soul." He would read how the first believers took care of one another and provided for one another's needs: "From time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need" (Acts 4:34-35) Beyond even this, Christians were supposed to provide for anyone in need. Tertullian (160-220), in explaining the Christian way to outsiders, described a movement in which people did not only provide for family, but also provided food and shelter for orphans, widows, and prisoners. In short, Nicholas was soaked in this perspective on wealth, and was thus on a prayerful lookout for something to put his wealth to godly use... (to be continued on December 11)
His storytelling is superb. One senses while reading English's book that the modern reader who encounters the primary sources about Nicholas of Myra directly would shrink from them. The ancient middle-eastern world of Nicholas comes across as harsh. The medieval world that gave rise to Nicholas' biographies appears rose-tinted as good people like say, Nicholas, come across as flawless and super-human - Saint Nicholas! - which in turn would seem to lead to the rise of the cult of saint veneration that Protestants have tended to loathe. English knows his readers well. Like a good teacher, like a good storyteller, he knows that when we travel back to the medieval era when biographies of Nicholas were written, and then try to get even further back to the ancient era when Nicholas actually lived, we are trying to enter two very different worlds from our own. But as he leads us step by step with careful historical guidance, he leaves us in a place where we can befriend Nicholas as he has and learn to follow Christ with him.
In other words, English doesn't just want us to have a slightly deeper appreciation for today's Santa Claus. He wants to introduce us to the real Nicholas of Myra. I was delighted to find that this book about Santa Claus that I sort of forced myself to read is one of the more trenchant, absorbing, escapist in the best sense of the word, introductions to this ancient culture which, as English convincingly writes, gave us one of the golden ages of the Christian faith. And Nicholas, seemingly, was right there for it all.
The ancient world encouraged child-bearing yet discouraged affection toward children. The infant mortality rate was just too high. When one in three children die, there is a 'wait and see' attitude that is only pragmatic. Life expectancy was between 21 and 25 years old and four out of every one hundred men lived past fifty. It is telling that the legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were abandoned children who defied the odds. Adults mattered in the ancient world. Not children. But because death was such a reaper as this, large families were monetarily rewarded, while small families and infertile couples were taxed. Girls as young as fourteen could marry and begin to have families.
Moreoever, this was a world with no mutual funds: people were more vulnerable to total devastation from a bad crop or a spell of poor weather. Nicholas had the good fortune to be born to parents who were "financially prosperous, socially secure, and religiously committed." (42) He was born in Patara, a southern town in what is now Turkey. It was on the coastal trade route, where he would have had access to corn, wheat, barley, and cheese. We don't know his parents names, but we know he was raised in the Christian faith. This was still a frontier religion when Nicholas was born, although his grounding in the gospel of the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ was firm, a hallmark of the ministry of the Apostle Paul, who had himself preached the gospel in this town while on his journeys. Nicholas' youth saw the transformation of the religious landscape in Patara on account of Gregory of Neocaesarea, or Gregory the Wonderworker. When he was ordained bishop, there were said to be only seventeen Christians in all; when he finished, there were only seventeen pagans. (45) As this landscape changed, Christian communities went from meeting in homes to free-standing chapels, basilicas, and shrines. There were people from this community who died to keep the faith. English describes the quality of Nicholas' life:
"He had a strong moral compass and avoided "public life," where he might be obliged to take oaths, swear by the genus of the emperor, or participate in pagan ceremonies; he abstained from "economic activities" where he might be tempted by cutthroat competition and greed; he closed his ears to the profane and vulgar talk of "uncultivated people," he kept his eyes from "the lust of women," and kept his heart from "theatrical performances." Instead," Michael (his biographer) says, "he nurtured continence." He kept alive "the lamp of virginity" - a phrase that implies more than sexual purity. Moral integrity, compassion, politeness, humility, and self-control also counted as marks of holy virginity. Purity was holistic, involving mind, body, and soul and requiring the doing of certain things and the avoidance of others." (46-47)
His education would have introduced him to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey as well as the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides. He would have memorized large sections of Greek literature and composed speeches and responses to prompts. (48). Nicholas had a great upbringing, not least due to his parents, who tragically died when Nicholas was 18 years old, perhaps due to a plague. Nicholas' life had been touched by love, sturdiness, discipline, and grief.
The sole beneficiary, Nicholas received a hefty inheritance. We're told of how Nicholas wrestled with the "temptation" of this inheritance. He would call to mind Proverbs 11:17: "the person who has compassion on the indigent and on the poor does good for his soul." He would read how the first believers took care of one another and provided for one another's needs: "From time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need" (Acts 4:34-35) Beyond even this, Christians were supposed to provide for anyone in need. Tertullian (160-220), in explaining the Christian way to outsiders, described a movement in which people did not only provide for family, but also provided food and shelter for orphans, widows, and prisoners. In short, Nicholas was soaked in this perspective on wealth, and was thus on a prayerful lookout for something to put his wealth to godly use... (to be continued on December 11)
Monday, December 4, 2017
Tuesday, December 5 - Love's Austere and Lonely Offices
Malcolm Guite is a British priest and poet whose book Waiting on the Word is an anthology of poems for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany with notes accompanying each poem. I recommend this book and his book of sonnets, Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year. The poems in Waiting on the Word aren't all overtly religious, though not because they're 'secular'. Rather, there isn't a neat divide between the two, which is what draws me to Guite's writing and criticism.
One of his selections is a poem by Robert Hayden. The poem is called "Those Winter Sundays":
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
Hayden's poem glimpses a man remembering his boyhood, experiencing his father's routine of work. He knows in the 'now' of the poem what he didn't know in his boyhood: of love's silent action going largely unrewarded and unrecognized. Guite's close reading of Hayden's poetry focuses in on the father. He endures the 'blueblack cold'. His cracked hands continue to work. Getting fires going. Working hard, even on Sundays when others could rest from their labor. "No one ever thanked him."
Guite sheds light on the autobiographical quality of Hayden's poem:
"Robert Hayden (1913-1980) was brought up in an impoverished household in an African-American district where his father worked for a pittance as a manual labourer. It was not an easy childhood, and the house was filled with the tension of a breaking marriage and the suppressed anger that so often accompanies oppression. Hayden alludes to this in 'fearing the chronic angers of that house'. So this is no cosy, nostalgic and retrospective romanticizing of poverty in the manner of Hovis television adverts. And it is for this very reason that we can credit the depth and reality of the hidden and practical love, in spite of all, to which this poem witnesses." (Guite, Waiting on the Word, 23)
According to Guite, the fact that this poem is not nostalgic makes the conclusion of the poem all the more powerful. This is a clear-eyed memory, romanticizing nothing, and finds a bright light amidst the darkness. Guite goes on to remark that the repetition of "what did I know" prepares us for the "elevation and universal reach" of the final line: "love's austere and lonely offices." This phrase powerfully gets to the quality of love as a duty, unrewarded, that resonates strongly with Christian love, which is to be extended not only to friends but to enemies, whose left hand's giving should be anonymous to the right hand, which gives without regard for what is received.
Guite remarks ultimately that though his father's loving office was 'lonely' and 'austere', there is a happy paradox to be found in the warmth of Hayden's closing recognition of the power of his father's gift. Hayden, our country's first black poet laureate, looks into the past, recognizes the gift, and through the poem, allows us to recognize it as well. Through Hayden's expression, love's austere and lonely offices strengthen us in our own resolve to love whatever the cost, to love steadfastly and ardently, even if no one were to ever know.
One of his selections is a poem by Robert Hayden. The poem is called "Those Winter Sundays":
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?
Hayden's poem glimpses a man remembering his boyhood, experiencing his father's routine of work. He knows in the 'now' of the poem what he didn't know in his boyhood: of love's silent action going largely unrewarded and unrecognized. Guite's close reading of Hayden's poetry focuses in on the father. He endures the 'blueblack cold'. His cracked hands continue to work. Getting fires going. Working hard, even on Sundays when others could rest from their labor. "No one ever thanked him."
Guite sheds light on the autobiographical quality of Hayden's poem:
"Robert Hayden (1913-1980) was brought up in an impoverished household in an African-American district where his father worked for a pittance as a manual labourer. It was not an easy childhood, and the house was filled with the tension of a breaking marriage and the suppressed anger that so often accompanies oppression. Hayden alludes to this in 'fearing the chronic angers of that house'. So this is no cosy, nostalgic and retrospective romanticizing of poverty in the manner of Hovis television adverts. And it is for this very reason that we can credit the depth and reality of the hidden and practical love, in spite of all, to which this poem witnesses." (Guite, Waiting on the Word, 23)
According to Guite, the fact that this poem is not nostalgic makes the conclusion of the poem all the more powerful. This is a clear-eyed memory, romanticizing nothing, and finds a bright light amidst the darkness. Guite goes on to remark that the repetition of "what did I know" prepares us for the "elevation and universal reach" of the final line: "love's austere and lonely offices." This phrase powerfully gets to the quality of love as a duty, unrewarded, that resonates strongly with Christian love, which is to be extended not only to friends but to enemies, whose left hand's giving should be anonymous to the right hand, which gives without regard for what is received.
Guite remarks ultimately that though his father's loving office was 'lonely' and 'austere', there is a happy paradox to be found in the warmth of Hayden's closing recognition of the power of his father's gift. Hayden, our country's first black poet laureate, looks into the past, recognizes the gift, and through the poem, allows us to recognize it as well. Through Hayden's expression, love's austere and lonely offices strengthen us in our own resolve to love whatever the cost, to love steadfastly and ardently, even if no one were to ever know.
Sunday, December 3, 2017
Monday, December 4 - Conceiving, Yet Conceived
Luke 1:29-33 tells us of Jesus' origins. The angel appears to Mary and says:
"Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever; his kingdom will never end."
What I continue to find stunning about the estate of parenthood is not only that my son once didn't exist and then did, but also that he delights in things tucked away in words or phrases or games or songs that I didn't see. I couldn't count the times he has said something that left Jessica and I scratching our heads, thinking "now what is that from?" only to realize that he likes something in a phrase that we had never quite stopped to appreciate. People do this. Toys don't. Our Buzz Lightyear action figure says the same five things. Every human being has a world of things they notice, take in, and perhaps express. And this is what stuns moms and dads. They have participated in the origin of someone they wouldn't necessarily have thought of or invented. They would not have been able to conceive of the person they literally did conceive.
Mary is invited to conceive a future king. She is the new Eve, whose seed will bring blessing to the world rather than a curse. As the Magnificat in the next section testifies, Mary is also a new Hannah and Sarah, whose child represents for herself and her people what it represented for them when they were given the news of being with child: that God's plans were going forward for his downtrodden people. Throughout the Bible, God's redemptive work is often spelled B-A-B-Y. This is because human beings, though fallen, are restored to what they were intended to be. They are not abolished, they are redeemed. New life, new people, new community.
But what is truly new about this birth is well captured by the 17th century poet John Donne in his sonnet "Annunciation:"
Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo! faithful Virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He'll wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;
Whom thou conceivest, conceived; yea, thou art now
Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother,
Thou hast light in dark, and shutt'st in little room
Immensity, cloister'd in thy dear womb.
Malcolm Guite points out that Donne has filled this sonnet with paradoxes: God cannot sin, yet bears sin. He cannot die, yet he dies. From when time was created, Mary was in his mind, who would be her infant Son. She is the maker of the Maker. She is mother to her Father. Light in the dark of her "little room" (delightfully, "little room" is also the literal meaning of the word "stanza" in Italian). Immensity cloister'd in her womb.
And my favorite: in such concise expression, Donne puts forward that the one who "conceivest" Mary, at a certain time, was "conceived". The first refers to the thought, the way God conceives that there would be a 'me' or a 'you', or that I conceive that my leaving the car light on all night would burn the battery down. A picture appears in the mind. It isn't real, but it could be. The second is the beginning of a human life.
Two things are worth noting about paradoxes. First, they delight. Babies are not gods. Nobody's more helpless. Yet, there it is. As the hymn "In Christ Alone" puts it, "fullness of God in helpless babe." In a paradox like this, we find ourselves juxtaposing two qualities which normally couldn't be farther apart. It doesn't just fit into the world as it is set up to be, where winners win and losers lose, and the market measures what is truly most valuable. It is either ignored, rejected or fastened upon with rapt attention and increasing wonder. Second, this revives a sense of wonder at the world. "All things bright and beautiful / all creatures great and small; all things wise and wonderful / the Lord God made them all." Something small that doesn't draw attention to itself - such as a family in a manger in Bethlehem - might be more important than we might at first think. Not all those who bellow and holler are significant. And not all those who are quiet and withdrawn are insignificant. We become a little more like John Donne, and all sorts of little words like 'conceive', 'immensity', and 'little room' regain their sparkle in the light of Christ.
"Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever; his kingdom will never end."
What I continue to find stunning about the estate of parenthood is not only that my son once didn't exist and then did, but also that he delights in things tucked away in words or phrases or games or songs that I didn't see. I couldn't count the times he has said something that left Jessica and I scratching our heads, thinking "now what is that from?" only to realize that he likes something in a phrase that we had never quite stopped to appreciate. People do this. Toys don't. Our Buzz Lightyear action figure says the same five things. Every human being has a world of things they notice, take in, and perhaps express. And this is what stuns moms and dads. They have participated in the origin of someone they wouldn't necessarily have thought of or invented. They would not have been able to conceive of the person they literally did conceive.
Mary is invited to conceive a future king. She is the new Eve, whose seed will bring blessing to the world rather than a curse. As the Magnificat in the next section testifies, Mary is also a new Hannah and Sarah, whose child represents for herself and her people what it represented for them when they were given the news of being with child: that God's plans were going forward for his downtrodden people. Throughout the Bible, God's redemptive work is often spelled B-A-B-Y. This is because human beings, though fallen, are restored to what they were intended to be. They are not abolished, they are redeemed. New life, new people, new community.
But what is truly new about this birth is well captured by the 17th century poet John Donne in his sonnet "Annunciation:"
Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo! faithful Virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He'll wear,
Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created thou
Wast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;
Whom thou conceivest, conceived; yea, thou art now
Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother,
Thou hast light in dark, and shutt'st in little room
Immensity, cloister'd in thy dear womb.
Malcolm Guite points out that Donne has filled this sonnet with paradoxes: God cannot sin, yet bears sin. He cannot die, yet he dies. From when time was created, Mary was in his mind, who would be her infant Son. She is the maker of the Maker. She is mother to her Father. Light in the dark of her "little room" (delightfully, "little room" is also the literal meaning of the word "stanza" in Italian). Immensity cloister'd in her womb.
And my favorite: in such concise expression, Donne puts forward that the one who "conceivest" Mary, at a certain time, was "conceived". The first refers to the thought, the way God conceives that there would be a 'me' or a 'you', or that I conceive that my leaving the car light on all night would burn the battery down. A picture appears in the mind. It isn't real, but it could be. The second is the beginning of a human life.
Two things are worth noting about paradoxes. First, they delight. Babies are not gods. Nobody's more helpless. Yet, there it is. As the hymn "In Christ Alone" puts it, "fullness of God in helpless babe." In a paradox like this, we find ourselves juxtaposing two qualities which normally couldn't be farther apart. It doesn't just fit into the world as it is set up to be, where winners win and losers lose, and the market measures what is truly most valuable. It is either ignored, rejected or fastened upon with rapt attention and increasing wonder. Second, this revives a sense of wonder at the world. "All things bright and beautiful / all creatures great and small; all things wise and wonderful / the Lord God made them all." Something small that doesn't draw attention to itself - such as a family in a manger in Bethlehem - might be more important than we might at first think. Not all those who bellow and holler are significant. And not all those who are quiet and withdrawn are insignificant. We become a little more like John Donne, and all sorts of little words like 'conceive', 'immensity', and 'little room' regain their sparkle in the light of Christ.
Saturday, December 2, 2017
First Sunday of Advent - The Second Coming
In his book, Journey to the Heart of God, Philip Pfatteicher reminds his readers that Advent is not a game of 'pretend Jesus hasn't been born yet.' Too much 'pretend' softens the subversive quality of God's coming to us in this way. We sentimentalize the manger, the star, the angels singing, the shepherds with their sheep.
We should remember that the nativity was not sentimental to Herod, who had armed raiders kill infant children in the village of Bethlehem in hopes that one of them was this future king. Real authority was born on Christmas Day and Herod-like tyrants the world over should be afraid.
Charles Wesley captures the authority and power of Christ which will be displayed at Christ's second coming in his Advent hymn, "Lo! He Comes With Clouds Descending:"
Lo! He comes with clouds descending / once for favored sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending / swell the triumph of his train:
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! God appears on earth to reign.
Every eye shall now behold him / Robed in dreadful majesty
Those who set at nought and sold him / pierced and nailed him to the tree
Deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing shall the true Messiah see
Those dear tokens of his passion / still his dazzling body bears
cause of endless exultation / to his ransomed worshipers
With what rapture, with what rapture, with what rapture gaze we on those glorious scars
Yea amen! Let all adore thee / high on thine eternal throne
Savior take the power and glory / claim the kingdom for thine own
Come Lord Jesus, come Lord Jesus, come Lord Jesus everlasting God come down!
Closing with the last lines of the Bible, the hymn rings with both the praise and the agony that will come with the second coming. His saints swell in Christ's triumphant train, all who hate him will be confounded, even as they recognize his authority. Of course even the greatest saints find the root of their praise in knowing they were enemies, the 'wretches' of John Newton's amazing grace. The great slave spiritual asked "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" to which all the saints will tremble and answer "I was there." As P.T. Forsyth put it, "the final symphony of praise has a deep bass of penitence."
This is why the saints of Wesley's hymn have already recognized Christ's virtue in his cross. This shows us the clear melody and dominant strain of Christ's first appearance as above all a servant. But he will not return a servant. In the words of Herman Bavinck: "For he does not return in the form of a servant but with great power and with his own and the Father's glory (Matt. 16:27; 24:30; Mark 8:38; 13:26; Luke 22:27; Col. 3:3, 4; 2 Thess. 1:9, 10; Titus 2:13), as King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 17:14; 19:11-16), surrounded by his angels (Matt. 16:27; 25:31); Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; 2 Thess. 1:7; Rev. 19:14), by his saints among whom the blessed in heaven are perhaps included (1 Thess. 3:13; 2 Thess. 1:10; Jude 14). Although on account of its unexpected character, his parousia is comparable with the breaking into a house of a thief in the night, it will nevertheless be visible for all human beings on earth and be like the lightning that flashes from one side of the sky to the other (Matt. 24:27); Luke 17:24; Rev. 1:7) and be announced by the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of angels (Matt. 24:31); 1 Cor. 15:52; 1 Thess. 4:16) (Bavinck, The Last Things, 126)
The First Sunday of Advent reminds us that now is the time to lay down our arms that we have raised against the kingdom of Christ. All violence, treachery, debauchery, restless pursuit of fleshly gain must cease. We must recognize the cross of Christ to be principally a false verdict and the greatest injustice, jeopardizing the complacent consciences of all humanity, to which the resurrection is God's verdict on Jesus Christ. But the cross is also, as every Christian knows, a healing balm for the sin-sick soul. We sense there that the Christ who forgives his false accusers and mockers from the cross, offers forgiveness to all humanity from that same cross. P.T. Forsyth writes: "You must let that come home to you, to your own peculiar case. To be perfect with God you must have Christ come home, come HOME, to you and sit by your central fire - come home to you, to YOU, as if for the moment mankind were centred in the burning point of your soul, and you touched the burning point of God's. You must court and haunt His presence till it break forth on you..." (Forsyth, Christian Perfection, p. 147)
Friday, December 1, 2017
Advent Devotions
As I write, the light is dawning in the distance.
I've been struck by the beauty of Christmas already and Advent hasn't even begun. The longing for God's light to be seen, and his justice to be done has appeared in my soul. Words will fail to convey what is better carried by melodies of hymns. "What Star is This?" already on a daily basis reminds me of "the still point in the turning world", the night that Christ was born, the stunning proposition that ultimate peace and justice meet us in manger-turned-nursery where Mary cradles the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who ultimately cradles each of us in his hands. Indeed, the lights of the sky, the stars, the sunsets, which suggest untold distances, yet so apparent to my eyes, the moon in various shades of waxing and waning, also seem to already fully proclaim the cosmic praise of angelic and starry host - what star is this? - that was and is heaped upon the nativity - that the unoriginated one, the Son of God, had an origin point, a birth, an entrance.
A tradition is a gift, not only for an individual, but also for families, for congregations, for nations. The feast of Thanksgiving a week ago was filled with feasts of the imagination as I considered the gifts of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany with Nicholas of Myra, or St. Nick, George Herbert, Cecil Frances Alexander, and thought about what keys, roots, and royalty have to do with Christ. Traditions aren't always life-giving. Hymns, poems, recipes, instincts to give gifts, to sing, to gather together - all were once works of art that were not created to burden, to kill, to suppress life, but rather arose expressively from life, from devotion, from humble, grateful hearts. They were not the dead leaves littering the ground. They were new buds of fresh life. Many religious traditions have a calendar to keep. Tradition, at its best, meets our already-kindled longing, and stabilizes it, surrounding it with a community from the centuries.
Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, which cluster begins this Sunday, arises largely out of innate human experience: we don't celebrate unless we prepare. Sure, we can force the matter, but this pattern of living issues forth in hollow cheer, with shiny tinsel, but without any true kindling of light, of knowing traces of melodies and songs telling of cheer and goodwill and being 'merry' without really being able to trace them back to any joyful world-changing moment. The world is troubled today. Racial controversy, geo-political controversy, and of course all those newscasters have been cast into the news themselves: how can we make it all right again? One answer from the centuries, from the democracy of the dead, is that when the world is too much with me, and I can't rise above it anymore, and the very things which are given to me for joy - friends, food, money, homes - fill me with anxiety - I can fast. Not aimlessly, but I can fast from aspects of the world so that I can learn to feast again. Advent traditionally is a season of fasting so that the twelve days of Christmas can be a season of feasting. As Christians, we are not ascetics: we don't become virtuous by constantly withdrawing from the world. We are also not gluttons: the world and everything in it is not there for our entertainment, which is certainly what I'm most tempted toward. I'll be fasting from YouTube, for instance.
The light is in the distance. The world keeps moving. If living life is like trying to improvise a comedy, how do we know when we reach the climactic wedding with its joyful toasts and dances? How does Christmas become Christmas again? By engaging deeply with God in attentive, prayerful ways. The seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, with all of its stories, hymns, poems, show us the riches of the Scripture, and of the salvation we have inherited.
I've been struck by the beauty of Christmas already and Advent hasn't even begun. The longing for God's light to be seen, and his justice to be done has appeared in my soul. Words will fail to convey what is better carried by melodies of hymns. "What Star is This?" already on a daily basis reminds me of "the still point in the turning world", the night that Christ was born, the stunning proposition that ultimate peace and justice meet us in manger-turned-nursery where Mary cradles the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who ultimately cradles each of us in his hands. Indeed, the lights of the sky, the stars, the sunsets, which suggest untold distances, yet so apparent to my eyes, the moon in various shades of waxing and waning, also seem to already fully proclaim the cosmic praise of angelic and starry host - what star is this? - that was and is heaped upon the nativity - that the unoriginated one, the Son of God, had an origin point, a birth, an entrance.
A tradition is a gift, not only for an individual, but also for families, for congregations, for nations. The feast of Thanksgiving a week ago was filled with feasts of the imagination as I considered the gifts of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany with Nicholas of Myra, or St. Nick, George Herbert, Cecil Frances Alexander, and thought about what keys, roots, and royalty have to do with Christ. Traditions aren't always life-giving. Hymns, poems, recipes, instincts to give gifts, to sing, to gather together - all were once works of art that were not created to burden, to kill, to suppress life, but rather arose expressively from life, from devotion, from humble, grateful hearts. They were not the dead leaves littering the ground. They were new buds of fresh life. Many religious traditions have a calendar to keep. Tradition, at its best, meets our already-kindled longing, and stabilizes it, surrounding it with a community from the centuries.
Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, which cluster begins this Sunday, arises largely out of innate human experience: we don't celebrate unless we prepare. Sure, we can force the matter, but this pattern of living issues forth in hollow cheer, with shiny tinsel, but without any true kindling of light, of knowing traces of melodies and songs telling of cheer and goodwill and being 'merry' without really being able to trace them back to any joyful world-changing moment. The world is troubled today. Racial controversy, geo-political controversy, and of course all those newscasters have been cast into the news themselves: how can we make it all right again? One answer from the centuries, from the democracy of the dead, is that when the world is too much with me, and I can't rise above it anymore, and the very things which are given to me for joy - friends, food, money, homes - fill me with anxiety - I can fast. Not aimlessly, but I can fast from aspects of the world so that I can learn to feast again. Advent traditionally is a season of fasting so that the twelve days of Christmas can be a season of feasting. As Christians, we are not ascetics: we don't become virtuous by constantly withdrawing from the world. We are also not gluttons: the world and everything in it is not there for our entertainment, which is certainly what I'm most tempted toward. I'll be fasting from YouTube, for instance.
The light is in the distance. The world keeps moving. If living life is like trying to improvise a comedy, how do we know when we reach the climactic wedding with its joyful toasts and dances? How does Christmas become Christmas again? By engaging deeply with God in attentive, prayerful ways. The seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, with all of its stories, hymns, poems, show us the riches of the Scripture, and of the salvation we have inherited.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)