The night before Easter, after a day of stone-cold silence from God, the people will gather together to build a fire and tell stories around it.
Salvation stories.
Stories like, “Remember when we were saved that one time in the lion’s den, when we were sure we were dead?”
And, “Recall the flood, when we thought it’d last forever, but it didn’t?”
Like tales around a campfire, they’ll tell story after story into the wee hours reminding themselves, and God, about ancient promises until the ground beneath them bleeds resurrection.
Because stories hold power and no tomb can kill Divine promises.
After the church and the empire had joined hands, the rhythm of the church year was overlaid on the rhythm of the ancient celebrations of humans.
Ash Wednesday, the day of penitence, became a massive event; a “full Nineveh moment” in the face of the “holy” church’s Jonah proclamation: “Repent, lest ye be damned!”
Sackcloth. Ashes. Solemnity. That was the prescription. Interestingly enough, the diagnosis was proclaimed by the entity who also claimed to have the cure. Religion tends to do that…
But the people, used to more festive holidays, demanded some revelry before the fast. Intrinsic in our human bones, divorced of any religious pietistic profundity, we all know that a fast is seen best through the lens of a feast, and vice versa. A little bit of denial needs a little bit of indulgence to truly know what you’re missing, right?
And so Carnival was declared, a time to fatten our stomachs, our spirits, and our souls before the sobriety of Lent.
Masks were handed out so that, if you were in hiding for a crime, you could come out of your shelter and join in the fun. A hall pass of sorts. Acts of extreme gluttony are best done anonymously, right? On Carnival, everyone is criminal in some way, everyone is queen and king of their universe for just a bit.
Carnival was a day for reclining, gesticulation, and for pretending we don’t fear fat and sumptuousness, if only for a minute.
And then comes today.
Ash Wednesday.
Ash Wednesday is for remembering that time for bending a knee to mortality will come; for sure.
“O Lord, refresh our sensibilities. Give us this day our daily taste. Restore to us soups that spoons will not sink in, and sauces which are never the same twice.
Raise up among us stews with more gravy than we have bread to blot it with, and casseroles that put starch and substance in our limp modernity. Take away our fear of fat, and make us glad of the oil which ran upon Aaron’s beard.
Give us pasta with a hundred fillings, and rice in a thousand variations.
Above all, give us grace to live as true folk–to fast till we come to a refreshed sense of what we have and then to dine gratefully on all that comes to hand.
Drive far from us, O Most Bountiful, all creatures of air and shadows; cast out demons the demons that possess us; deliver us from the fear of calories and the bondage of nutrition; and set us free once more in our own land, where we shall serve thee as thou has blessed us–with the dew of heaven, the fatness of earth, and plenty of corn and wine.
“Carnival celebrates the unity of our human race as mortal creatures, who come into this world and depart from it without our consent, who must eat, drink, defecate, belch, and break wind in order to live, and procreate if our species is to survive. Our feelings bout this are ambiguous. To us as individuals, it is a cause for rejoicing that we are not alone, that all of us, irrespective of age or sex or rank or talent, are in the same boat.”
Though today is Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday, the church reserves his commemoration for April 4th, conforming with the practice they do with all martyrs by remembering him on the day of his death.
Nevertheless, it is certainly appropriate to honor him today.
To do that, I’ll share my favorite quote from King, one that doesn’t get a lot of circulation, though you may have heard it before. It’s from “The Drum Major’s Instinct.”
“If you want to be important–wonderful. If you want to be recognized–wonderful. If you want to be great–wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s your new definition of greatness. And this morning, the thing that I like about it…by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great.
Because everybody can serve.
You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve, you don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.
I saw an advertisement that said, with a Nativity scene in the background, “You know it’s just a myth, right?”
And the answer for Christians should be, “Yes. The nativity scene, and the nativity as described in Matthew and Luke, is largely mythical. But they’re full of meaning.”
Just because it’s a myth doesn’t mean it is meaningless. In fact, I’d say it’s so full of meaning that simple parameters can’t hold it. Luke and Matthew want us to see the cosmic dimension of Divine revelation: heavenly bearings, both angelic and planetary, play a part in it. Disparate parts of humanity, from lowly shepherds to learned star gazers, play a part in it.
It’s so huge, that it can’t be contained in fact. It’s a cosmic drama that must be told in dramatic form.
Yes, those live nativity scenes are largely fake. But they’re also ultra-true.
You don’t need to believe that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and visited by magi or shepherds to understand that God’s presence in the world shook things from floor to rafters.
In fact, I don’t believe those things, and still find deep truth and power in the story.
Tonight the church honors not a saint, but an event: Watch Night, remembering the Emancipation Proclaimation of 1863.
Traditions surrounding a “night of watching” on New Year’s Eve can be found in Moravian and Methodist American history through the 1800’s. The practice may have begun almost a century earlier in Bohemian regions of Europe, however, as families marked endings and beginnings.
In America these vigils were taken as an opportunity to reflect on the past year and make resolutions for the coming one. Often held in churches and surrounded by prayer and music, these gatherings usually started in the evening and lasted past midnight.
In 1863, however, the tradition took on new life and a new focus in America as slaves in formerly Confederate States gathered in churches, homes, and rooms in the waning hours of 1862 awaiting President Lincoln’s signature on the Emancipation Proclaimation to take effect.
Watch Night continues to be an annual gathering, especially in communities of color, as a way to both remember what has happened and gather strength for continuing to work for the freedoms still to come. Recent years have been stark reminders that the Emancipation Proclaimation was not, and has never been, enough in the struggle for all in this country to live in peace and enjoy prosperity. Indeed, that first proclamation didn’t “free all slaves” in the United States…that would take acts of individual legislation in many border states and territories over time.
We need to remember that racism and prejudice still influence our civic and religious lives, Beloved.
Watch Night is an invitation for us all to reflect and resolve to partner together to do more.
Christ climbed down From his bare tree This year And ran away to where There were no rootless Christmas trees Hung with candycanes and breakable stars
Christ climbed down From his bare tree This year And ran away to where There were no gilded Christmas trees And no tinsel Christmas trees And no tinfoil Christmas trees And no pink plastic Christmas trees And no gold Christmas trees And no black Christmas trees And no powderblue Christmas trees Hung with electric candles And encircled by tin electric trains And clever cornball relatives
Christ climbed down From his bare tree This year And ran away to where No intrepid Bible salesmen Covered the territory In two-toned Cadillacs And where no Sears Roebuck creches Complete with plastic babe in manger Arrived by parcel post The babe by special delivery And where no televisioned Wise Men Praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey
Christ climbed down From his bare tree This year And ran away to where No fat handshaking stranger In a red flannel suit And a fake white beard Went around passing himself off as some sort of North Pole saint crossing the desert to Bethlehem Pennsylvania In a Volkswagen sled Drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer With German names And bearing sacks of Humble Gifts From Saks Fifth Avenue For everybody’s imagined Christ child
Christ climbed down From his bare tree This year And ran away to where No Bing Crosby carolers Groaned of a tight Christmas And where no Radio City angels Iceskated wingless Thru a winter wonderland Into a jinglebell heaven Daily at 8:30 With Midnight Mass matinees
Christ climbed down From his bare tree This year And softly stole away into Some anonymous soul He waits again An unimaginable And impossibly Immaculate Reconception The very craziest Of Second Comings
It’s as if we finally have figured out what our true heart’s desire is: to know the Divine better.
Like Aaron at the base of the mountain, when we aren’t attuned to the Divine in the world (and ourselves and others) we make golden calves like money, fame, vanity, and yes, sacred texts and religion.
Those last two are the sneakiest golden calves of all…
Today we plead that God be made known. We look to the skies to spy it in real time, all the while God arrives under the most normal, unassuming, ungodly way…which gives us insight into the Divine mind, if we pay attention.
Reluctant Xtian 