Wise child
Commentary
Often a child's perspective is uncannily wise because his/her logic is so direct. A woman
was working her flower garden under the intense scrutiny of her four-year-old neighbor.
As they got into a conversation, the young girl suddenly gave out this startling revelation:
"When I grow up, I'm going to marry Danny." Danny was a six-year-old boy living in the
house just down the street.
The woman was curious. "Why are you going to marry Danny?" she asked.
"I have to," said the little one. "I'm not allowed to cross the street to where the other boys live."
While we know that circumstances, including street-crossing permissions, would change radically before either of the minor citizens was ready for marriage, there is a wonderful simplicity in this view of life as seen through four-year-old eyes. Two of today's lectionary readings focus on the wisdom that came through children -- Samuel and Jesus - - and the third reading expresses wisdom portrayed in a marvelously simple way.
1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26
When Ryan, son of "Focus on the Family" ministry founder, James Dobson, was young, he had a knack for getting into trouble. If there was something to break, chances are he smashed it. If there was something to get into, he was like a weasel. If there was something to mess up, he was the devil's whirlwind.
After a while, the Dobsons got rather exasperated. Shirley would shake her head and frequently say to her husband, "Somebody better do something about that boy!"
One day they were working around the house when both suddenly had the same feeling of uneasiness. They looked around for Ryan but couldn't find him. They scrambled and searched with growing fear: What had he gotten himself into now?
Finally, Dr. Dobson looked out the kitchen window. There was Ryan. Somehow, he had climbed onto the back of a big truck parked out on the street. Before he knew it, he had managed to get high enough to scare himself. When he tried to find his way down, his shirt got caught. Now he was swaying back and forth, hanging from the rear of the truck.
Dr. Dobson was in a bit of a panic. He wasn't quite sure how to help Ryan. He was afraid that if he shouted or ran up to him suddenly, the boy might be startled and fall to the pavement and hurt himself. So very quietly, but very quickly, he sneaked up to Ryan from the side of the truck. He thought it was a little strange that Ryan wasn't crying or calling out for help. As he got closer, though, he heard his son muttering very emphatically to himself, "Somebody better do something about that boy! Somebody better do something about that boy!"
If you can see that picture in your mind, then you've got a good feeling for the background behind the early chapters of 1 Samuel. Like a boy who's been playing where he shouldn't, the nation of Israel was messing with fire. Like a person who has pushed her luck just a little too far, the Israelites were hung up on a situation they couldn't escape. And like the child in each of us, the only thing they could think about was this: "Somebody better do something!"
Power politics was the name of the game in Israel's world. It wasn't much different from today, actually. The Philistines, latecomers to Canaan as farming colonies from the Aegean Greeks, were pushing inland from the coast. The Plain of Sharon, next to the Mediterranean Sea, was too sandy to be a great agricultural investment. Inland, however, were the five valleys of the Shephelah fingering into the hills of Judah. Both the Israelites and the Philistines wanted these. This was the beginning of the Iron Age, as archaeologists now name it, and the Philistines had brought that metallurgical technology with them across the sea. The Israelites, however, were still living in the Stone Age, and therefore quickly lost control of the valleys to the better-armed invaders.
But there was more that played on the mind of the devoutly religious in the land. Not only was this the latter part of the Stone Age, it was also the last ugly gasp of the era of the Judges. Israel was a weak nation of superstitious suspicions, dividing the people into a poorly stitched patchwork of bickering clans barely covering the hills of Ephraim. Most had forgotten the ways of Moses and Joshua, and now wandered in a fearful daze. If there was any prayer left, it was the kind that Ryan muttered that day: "Somebody better do something about that boy!" They certainly couldn't help themselves. They were really beyond prayer, in a sense. They had lost their religion. For a long time now, they had pretended that God didn't exist, and that the Sinai covenant didn't really have a place in their world. And so, when they needed divine intervention most, they couldn't find it.
It is like the story of a father who came home one day and found his nine-year-old daughter crying her heart out. When he asked what was wrong, she managed to blurt out between sobs that she and her friend had been playing hide-and-seek. When it was her turn to hide, she had hidden so well that her friend had finally given up and gone off to play another game. At last, when she came out of her hiding place, she was all alone.
The stories of Israel in the book of Judges are a lot like that. First, Israel would hide from God. Then God would hide from Israel. And somewhere along the way, they both started playing different games. That is the tragedy surrounding the family of Eli and the nation of Israel in the first several chapters of this book. That is why reproach hangs over the land. There, swinging on the hook of judgment, sways little Israel. One can almost hear the mutter: "Somebody better do something!"
But in the stories of Samuel comes a new word of grace. God will not allow this special people to hang on the hook of their own making forever. In the prayers of Samuel's mother (see chs. 1-2) is the confidence that God is already raising a deliverer to make things right. This is why Samuel is a type of the other great Israelite who was prayed into this world by a loving mother, the One whose birth we celebrated last Sunday. Out of the mouths of young children, divinely sent and appointed by the Sovereign of Israel, would come the Word of Life for God's people. One day, Somebody did take Israel (and us) off the hook, even allowing himself to be caught up there in the process.
Colossians 3:12-17
Paul was under house arrest in Rome around 59-60 A.D. when he sent out this letter together with those to the Ephesians and Philemon. Philemon's slave, Onesimus, had run away from the Lycus Valley estate near Colossae. Eventually he made his way to Rome, and somehow there had connected with Paul. For a while they enjoyed a growing camaraderie, but guilt at the overall deception of harboring a friend's runaway caused Paul to send Onesimus back to Philemon. Since Paul himself was still unable to travel, due to the restrictions of the Roman penal system, he entrusted the safe passage of Onesimus to another friend named Tychicus. Paul sent along a letter of explanation and exhortation to Philemon, and penned the other two letters for area churches.
So the story of a young person was on Paul's mind as he wrote Colossians. It seems, from the letter to Philemon, that Paul learned a good deal from Onesimus, even as Onesimus received great grace from Paul. When Paul's Colossians letter would be read during worship on a Sunday morning it is likely that Tychicus would be the reader and that both Philemon and Onesimus would be in attendance, for this was their closest city church (Philemon probably served as house church pastor for the gathering on his own estate). The wisdom that Paul gives is aimed not only to life in general, but also to the specific situation of Onesimus' and Philemon's differing socioeconomic situations and the manner in which these are to be minimized in the fellowship of the faith. Furthermore, the call to forgiveness would surely have been targeted at least to both these two who had much to grieve about -- Onesimus in the bitterness that caused him to run away, and Philemon in the righteous judgment a slave owner could have against a rebelliously disobedient servant.
Paul's words are rooted in transcendent perspective. If we are to see one another through the eyes of compassion and commitment, they can only be first received by us when we follow Jesus to the observation deck of heaven (3:1). Furthermore, the call to "clothe yourselves" in verse 12 is a direct follow-through of the earlier injunction to "put to death" the variety of social sins listed in the preceding verses. Paul was using a rhetorical devise made popular by one of the Greek philosophers who developed a habit of telling people to put off the old man and put on the new.
Paul's list of characteristics and traits to be newly worn by believers is a marvelous and poetic compendium of social graces and Christian ethics. While it is possible to talk about each of these in serial fashion, there is a holistic quality that might be missed if the passage is broken into too many parts. Perhaps a better approach might be to make a comparison with new clothes that may have been received as Christmas presents. When these new garments are worn, the old clothes seem ill-fitting and out of fashion. So with the new character developed through the gifts of the Christ Child. One cannot display them to their advantage until one gets rid of all that conflicts with them, and then begins to make these new blessings a living part of one's daily wardrobe.
The qualities of behavior elicited by Paul are not mere niceties to be added on like marketplace deceptions. When Henry Higgins sought to make a case study of Liza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, his goal at first was merely to dress up a cockney waif in the pseudo-sophistication of the cultured elite and show that together they might fool everyone with their pretense. What actually happened, however, is that both Liza and Henry changed in the process until each was a different person than either had been at the start. This gets at the heart of what Paul is trying to communicate. If one is "in Christ," one should begin to act and live in a different manner than one did before one was "in Christ." At the same time, as one begins to act and live in this new way, the sense of being "in Christ" deepens until it is a whole new expression of life, and not just a propagandist customer service veneer.
Luke 2:41-52
Madeleine L'Engle's fine story, Dance in the Desert, combines elements of Matthew's infant narratives and those of this passage. It begins with a caravan of people traveling in hurried fear through a trackless wilderness. They seem to be running from something, and turn furtively to check the movement of shadows at the edge of their peripheral vision. Particularly noticeable among them is a young family, a husband and wife along with their tiny boy.
Night falls and the travelers establish a camp. All gather around the huge bonfire which is lit as a repellent to the darkness and whatever beasts and demons it might hold. From huddled security near the flames, the community shivers at growls and hisses that emanate from the unseen world beyond the licking of the fire. Now and again the piercing reflection of strange eyes looks at them out of the black void and they quickly turn back to comforting small talk which helps them pretend at safety.
But they will not be left alone. The shrieks and warning snarls edge closer. Then a paw appears, or a sniffing nose, only to be withdrawn before spears can poke or arrows be aimed. More fagots are thrown on the fire.
Yet the beasties and wild things will not be stopped. Growing more daring, a bear steps into their circle and a bold viper slithers in from the other direction. There is panic in the camp as all scatter and leap and search for weapons. In the commotion, the young husband and his younger wife are separated, each believing the other has grabbed their little boy to safety.
But the child was left behind. He faces the wolf and the lion and the bear and the snake and the other wilderness creatures alone. Only there is no distress in his voice, no panic in his cry. Instead, he coos and clucks with delight at these mighty furry and scaly toys that have come to play. He claps his hands and bounces his feet and giggles with animation.
As the watchers are suddenly pulled from their panicked zigzagging by the tinkle of the child's good humor, all the adults stop and turn, expecting the wild things to tear limb from limb and demolish this human plaything they have abandoned. But it is not so. Instead, the child has brought some kind of intelligent direction to its strange play. His chubby arms are actually orchestrating a symphony of animal cries, and his hands are directing the choreography of a marvelous beastly dance. The bear is on its hind legs, not to swipe and strike but to gyrate with the tempo of the child's clapping. The snakes slither in pairs forming artistic designs in the desert sands. Above, the vultures and hawks swoop and turn and bank and dive in aviary formation. The lions and tigers nod their heads as if in rhythm to celestial instrumentation.
Slowly, and with mesmerizing fascination, the adults creep back to their places by the bonfire. They become the audience in the greatest show on earth. The child whoops and tips and giggles and sways and claps his hands in time with the music of heaven, and the animals of earth dance around him with delight. Even the big people begin to hear transcendent melodies, and the night has become as friendly as dawn or daylight.
Eventually the child tires, as all children do, and the cooing stops, the clapping ceases, and the animals slink away. But they are no longer predators, and the fear of both man and beast has vanished. All that is left is the Child. And those who linger in awe know that there is a new center of gravity in the universe.
This might be a grand parable of the day, described by Luke, when Joseph and Mary took young Jesus to be bar mitzvahed at the temple, and celebrate his first pilgrim feast there. While they traveled with others, fearful of things that went bump and boo in the night, the Child left by heaven in their care was actually orchestrating the sounds of life around them. Left behind at the fire (the temple, which housed the glory of God) to be attacked and ravaged by the fearsome beasts of theology, the Child instead claps his hands, sways his arms, speaks the cooing of heaven's wisdom, and the animals dance around him. And we, who live in other times and places, peek out from behind the shadows and listen to his voice.
Application
In the early church, a teaching tale told of a young girl who lived with her parents in a cottage at the edge of a dense forest. "Don't wander too far into the woods," they told her. "You might get lost."
A warm summer's day with birds singing and winds calling, however, carried the girl's feet deeper and deeper into the cool underbrush. The shadows were long before she realized how lost she was. Yelling and crying, she dashed one way and the next, not finding home and working herself into convulsions of panic.
Meanwhile, her parents were worried as well. In the dusk of evening they called her name and made forays into the woods. As thoughts of all the worst fates attacked them, they organized villagers and other neighbors into search parties.
By dawn the young girl was sleeping exhaustedly on a bed of pine needles, and only her father was left of the many searchers. As he stumbled into the clearing and saw her, his footsteps broke branches and sent birds twittering. The noise awoke her and she saw him. Jumping to her feet she ran toward him, arms outstretched. "Daddy! Daddy!" she cried. "I found you!"
So it is with us on this Sunday after Christmas. We are children who have torn open our presents and wandered far into dark places. Lost and lonely, we fall exhausted in alien places. But our Father comes looking for us, sending one who is like us and who loves us, into the dark forests that surround us. When we see him this Sunday morning we start up with delight and cry out, "I found you!" But the story of Christmas is actually a rescue tale in which we discover that we are found by the one sent into our world to call us by name.
Alternative Application
Colossians 3:12-17. The Colossians lesson can be used well by itself. It is a quick tie from the idea of getting clothes as Christmas gifts to now wearing them. The biblical clothes may form an alliterative chain -- Paul calls on us to wear what is helpful, humble, happy, and holy. These can be wonderfully illustrated in marvelous ways, and can also point to the transition from 2006 to 2007: by the grace of God put off the old and put on the new.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 148
What better way to begin a new year than with unqualified praise for our God! As the minutes of the old year tick quickly by and we contemplate a new beginning in the form of a new year, it is an appropriate time to stop and drop everything as we give all of our praise to God. And, what better way to give praise than to pray this psalm together!
New Year's resolutions are a great thing. Making a vow to be a better parent or spouse, promising to do better at work, pledging to be a more faithful church member, resolving to lose those few extra pounds, all these are good.
But before we step into it all, let's lay the foundation of praise.
In this psalm, the poetry of God's wonder is a riot of images and glory. We are called in an almost sacred recklessness to list out God's wonderful doings. God commanded it was created! God set the limits and boundaries ... and expects us to observe them. All creation, according to this psalm, praises the Lord. And what better grounding for the beginning of a new year!
If we begin with praise, everything else comes a little differently. If our relationships, our work, our fulfillment of duties are begun in an aura of praising God, imagine how things might be different.
Praising God for the gift of children, for example, will have an impact on how we parent and guide them. Praising God for the gift of productive work will flavor the way we approach our jobs. Giving thanks, even, for the difficulties and challenges that come our way will shape the ways in which we respond to these things.
Laying a foundation of praise is not an easy thing to do. But it will make a difference in the lives we lead in the New Year. Just as the foundation to a house is laid out before the carpenters and framers come into the picture, so, too, do we lay out the foundation of praise.
The foundation stones here are those of thankful prayer and focusing upon God. How many times a day do we stop and simply say, whatever our situation, "Thank you, God!" To some, such focus might seem immature or even silly. But it is the stuff of new life. Read this psalm over several times. Breathe in the air of praise that comes from the powerful language. Imagine how you might utter a psalm of praise. Indeed, grab a pen and sit down and write one!
Whatever our hopes and dreams for this New Year might be, there is a call to us to found these visions and aspirations upon grateful hearts rooted in God's love.
Happy New Year.
The woman was curious. "Why are you going to marry Danny?" she asked.
"I have to," said the little one. "I'm not allowed to cross the street to where the other boys live."
While we know that circumstances, including street-crossing permissions, would change radically before either of the minor citizens was ready for marriage, there is a wonderful simplicity in this view of life as seen through four-year-old eyes. Two of today's lectionary readings focus on the wisdom that came through children -- Samuel and Jesus - - and the third reading expresses wisdom portrayed in a marvelously simple way.
1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26
When Ryan, son of "Focus on the Family" ministry founder, James Dobson, was young, he had a knack for getting into trouble. If there was something to break, chances are he smashed it. If there was something to get into, he was like a weasel. If there was something to mess up, he was the devil's whirlwind.
After a while, the Dobsons got rather exasperated. Shirley would shake her head and frequently say to her husband, "Somebody better do something about that boy!"
One day they were working around the house when both suddenly had the same feeling of uneasiness. They looked around for Ryan but couldn't find him. They scrambled and searched with growing fear: What had he gotten himself into now?
Finally, Dr. Dobson looked out the kitchen window. There was Ryan. Somehow, he had climbed onto the back of a big truck parked out on the street. Before he knew it, he had managed to get high enough to scare himself. When he tried to find his way down, his shirt got caught. Now he was swaying back and forth, hanging from the rear of the truck.
Dr. Dobson was in a bit of a panic. He wasn't quite sure how to help Ryan. He was afraid that if he shouted or ran up to him suddenly, the boy might be startled and fall to the pavement and hurt himself. So very quietly, but very quickly, he sneaked up to Ryan from the side of the truck. He thought it was a little strange that Ryan wasn't crying or calling out for help. As he got closer, though, he heard his son muttering very emphatically to himself, "Somebody better do something about that boy! Somebody better do something about that boy!"
If you can see that picture in your mind, then you've got a good feeling for the background behind the early chapters of 1 Samuel. Like a boy who's been playing where he shouldn't, the nation of Israel was messing with fire. Like a person who has pushed her luck just a little too far, the Israelites were hung up on a situation they couldn't escape. And like the child in each of us, the only thing they could think about was this: "Somebody better do something!"
Power politics was the name of the game in Israel's world. It wasn't much different from today, actually. The Philistines, latecomers to Canaan as farming colonies from the Aegean Greeks, were pushing inland from the coast. The Plain of Sharon, next to the Mediterranean Sea, was too sandy to be a great agricultural investment. Inland, however, were the five valleys of the Shephelah fingering into the hills of Judah. Both the Israelites and the Philistines wanted these. This was the beginning of the Iron Age, as archaeologists now name it, and the Philistines had brought that metallurgical technology with them across the sea. The Israelites, however, were still living in the Stone Age, and therefore quickly lost control of the valleys to the better-armed invaders.
But there was more that played on the mind of the devoutly religious in the land. Not only was this the latter part of the Stone Age, it was also the last ugly gasp of the era of the Judges. Israel was a weak nation of superstitious suspicions, dividing the people into a poorly stitched patchwork of bickering clans barely covering the hills of Ephraim. Most had forgotten the ways of Moses and Joshua, and now wandered in a fearful daze. If there was any prayer left, it was the kind that Ryan muttered that day: "Somebody better do something about that boy!" They certainly couldn't help themselves. They were really beyond prayer, in a sense. They had lost their religion. For a long time now, they had pretended that God didn't exist, and that the Sinai covenant didn't really have a place in their world. And so, when they needed divine intervention most, they couldn't find it.
It is like the story of a father who came home one day and found his nine-year-old daughter crying her heart out. When he asked what was wrong, she managed to blurt out between sobs that she and her friend had been playing hide-and-seek. When it was her turn to hide, she had hidden so well that her friend had finally given up and gone off to play another game. At last, when she came out of her hiding place, she was all alone.
The stories of Israel in the book of Judges are a lot like that. First, Israel would hide from God. Then God would hide from Israel. And somewhere along the way, they both started playing different games. That is the tragedy surrounding the family of Eli and the nation of Israel in the first several chapters of this book. That is why reproach hangs over the land. There, swinging on the hook of judgment, sways little Israel. One can almost hear the mutter: "Somebody better do something!"
But in the stories of Samuel comes a new word of grace. God will not allow this special people to hang on the hook of their own making forever. In the prayers of Samuel's mother (see chs. 1-2) is the confidence that God is already raising a deliverer to make things right. This is why Samuel is a type of the other great Israelite who was prayed into this world by a loving mother, the One whose birth we celebrated last Sunday. Out of the mouths of young children, divinely sent and appointed by the Sovereign of Israel, would come the Word of Life for God's people. One day, Somebody did take Israel (and us) off the hook, even allowing himself to be caught up there in the process.
Colossians 3:12-17
Paul was under house arrest in Rome around 59-60 A.D. when he sent out this letter together with those to the Ephesians and Philemon. Philemon's slave, Onesimus, had run away from the Lycus Valley estate near Colossae. Eventually he made his way to Rome, and somehow there had connected with Paul. For a while they enjoyed a growing camaraderie, but guilt at the overall deception of harboring a friend's runaway caused Paul to send Onesimus back to Philemon. Since Paul himself was still unable to travel, due to the restrictions of the Roman penal system, he entrusted the safe passage of Onesimus to another friend named Tychicus. Paul sent along a letter of explanation and exhortation to Philemon, and penned the other two letters for area churches.
So the story of a young person was on Paul's mind as he wrote Colossians. It seems, from the letter to Philemon, that Paul learned a good deal from Onesimus, even as Onesimus received great grace from Paul. When Paul's Colossians letter would be read during worship on a Sunday morning it is likely that Tychicus would be the reader and that both Philemon and Onesimus would be in attendance, for this was their closest city church (Philemon probably served as house church pastor for the gathering on his own estate). The wisdom that Paul gives is aimed not only to life in general, but also to the specific situation of Onesimus' and Philemon's differing socioeconomic situations and the manner in which these are to be minimized in the fellowship of the faith. Furthermore, the call to forgiveness would surely have been targeted at least to both these two who had much to grieve about -- Onesimus in the bitterness that caused him to run away, and Philemon in the righteous judgment a slave owner could have against a rebelliously disobedient servant.
Paul's words are rooted in transcendent perspective. If we are to see one another through the eyes of compassion and commitment, they can only be first received by us when we follow Jesus to the observation deck of heaven (3:1). Furthermore, the call to "clothe yourselves" in verse 12 is a direct follow-through of the earlier injunction to "put to death" the variety of social sins listed in the preceding verses. Paul was using a rhetorical devise made popular by one of the Greek philosophers who developed a habit of telling people to put off the old man and put on the new.
Paul's list of characteristics and traits to be newly worn by believers is a marvelous and poetic compendium of social graces and Christian ethics. While it is possible to talk about each of these in serial fashion, there is a holistic quality that might be missed if the passage is broken into too many parts. Perhaps a better approach might be to make a comparison with new clothes that may have been received as Christmas presents. When these new garments are worn, the old clothes seem ill-fitting and out of fashion. So with the new character developed through the gifts of the Christ Child. One cannot display them to their advantage until one gets rid of all that conflicts with them, and then begins to make these new blessings a living part of one's daily wardrobe.
The qualities of behavior elicited by Paul are not mere niceties to be added on like marketplace deceptions. When Henry Higgins sought to make a case study of Liza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, his goal at first was merely to dress up a cockney waif in the pseudo-sophistication of the cultured elite and show that together they might fool everyone with their pretense. What actually happened, however, is that both Liza and Henry changed in the process until each was a different person than either had been at the start. This gets at the heart of what Paul is trying to communicate. If one is "in Christ," one should begin to act and live in a different manner than one did before one was "in Christ." At the same time, as one begins to act and live in this new way, the sense of being "in Christ" deepens until it is a whole new expression of life, and not just a propagandist customer service veneer.
Luke 2:41-52
Madeleine L'Engle's fine story, Dance in the Desert, combines elements of Matthew's infant narratives and those of this passage. It begins with a caravan of people traveling in hurried fear through a trackless wilderness. They seem to be running from something, and turn furtively to check the movement of shadows at the edge of their peripheral vision. Particularly noticeable among them is a young family, a husband and wife along with their tiny boy.
Night falls and the travelers establish a camp. All gather around the huge bonfire which is lit as a repellent to the darkness and whatever beasts and demons it might hold. From huddled security near the flames, the community shivers at growls and hisses that emanate from the unseen world beyond the licking of the fire. Now and again the piercing reflection of strange eyes looks at them out of the black void and they quickly turn back to comforting small talk which helps them pretend at safety.
But they will not be left alone. The shrieks and warning snarls edge closer. Then a paw appears, or a sniffing nose, only to be withdrawn before spears can poke or arrows be aimed. More fagots are thrown on the fire.
Yet the beasties and wild things will not be stopped. Growing more daring, a bear steps into their circle and a bold viper slithers in from the other direction. There is panic in the camp as all scatter and leap and search for weapons. In the commotion, the young husband and his younger wife are separated, each believing the other has grabbed their little boy to safety.
But the child was left behind. He faces the wolf and the lion and the bear and the snake and the other wilderness creatures alone. Only there is no distress in his voice, no panic in his cry. Instead, he coos and clucks with delight at these mighty furry and scaly toys that have come to play. He claps his hands and bounces his feet and giggles with animation.
As the watchers are suddenly pulled from their panicked zigzagging by the tinkle of the child's good humor, all the adults stop and turn, expecting the wild things to tear limb from limb and demolish this human plaything they have abandoned. But it is not so. Instead, the child has brought some kind of intelligent direction to its strange play. His chubby arms are actually orchestrating a symphony of animal cries, and his hands are directing the choreography of a marvelous beastly dance. The bear is on its hind legs, not to swipe and strike but to gyrate with the tempo of the child's clapping. The snakes slither in pairs forming artistic designs in the desert sands. Above, the vultures and hawks swoop and turn and bank and dive in aviary formation. The lions and tigers nod their heads as if in rhythm to celestial instrumentation.
Slowly, and with mesmerizing fascination, the adults creep back to their places by the bonfire. They become the audience in the greatest show on earth. The child whoops and tips and giggles and sways and claps his hands in time with the music of heaven, and the animals of earth dance around him with delight. Even the big people begin to hear transcendent melodies, and the night has become as friendly as dawn or daylight.
Eventually the child tires, as all children do, and the cooing stops, the clapping ceases, and the animals slink away. But they are no longer predators, and the fear of both man and beast has vanished. All that is left is the Child. And those who linger in awe know that there is a new center of gravity in the universe.
This might be a grand parable of the day, described by Luke, when Joseph and Mary took young Jesus to be bar mitzvahed at the temple, and celebrate his first pilgrim feast there. While they traveled with others, fearful of things that went bump and boo in the night, the Child left by heaven in their care was actually orchestrating the sounds of life around them. Left behind at the fire (the temple, which housed the glory of God) to be attacked and ravaged by the fearsome beasts of theology, the Child instead claps his hands, sways his arms, speaks the cooing of heaven's wisdom, and the animals dance around him. And we, who live in other times and places, peek out from behind the shadows and listen to his voice.
Application
In the early church, a teaching tale told of a young girl who lived with her parents in a cottage at the edge of a dense forest. "Don't wander too far into the woods," they told her. "You might get lost."
A warm summer's day with birds singing and winds calling, however, carried the girl's feet deeper and deeper into the cool underbrush. The shadows were long before she realized how lost she was. Yelling and crying, she dashed one way and the next, not finding home and working herself into convulsions of panic.
Meanwhile, her parents were worried as well. In the dusk of evening they called her name and made forays into the woods. As thoughts of all the worst fates attacked them, they organized villagers and other neighbors into search parties.
By dawn the young girl was sleeping exhaustedly on a bed of pine needles, and only her father was left of the many searchers. As he stumbled into the clearing and saw her, his footsteps broke branches and sent birds twittering. The noise awoke her and she saw him. Jumping to her feet she ran toward him, arms outstretched. "Daddy! Daddy!" she cried. "I found you!"
So it is with us on this Sunday after Christmas. We are children who have torn open our presents and wandered far into dark places. Lost and lonely, we fall exhausted in alien places. But our Father comes looking for us, sending one who is like us and who loves us, into the dark forests that surround us. When we see him this Sunday morning we start up with delight and cry out, "I found you!" But the story of Christmas is actually a rescue tale in which we discover that we are found by the one sent into our world to call us by name.
Alternative Application
Colossians 3:12-17. The Colossians lesson can be used well by itself. It is a quick tie from the idea of getting clothes as Christmas gifts to now wearing them. The biblical clothes may form an alliterative chain -- Paul calls on us to wear what is helpful, humble, happy, and holy. These can be wonderfully illustrated in marvelous ways, and can also point to the transition from 2006 to 2007: by the grace of God put off the old and put on the new.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 148
What better way to begin a new year than with unqualified praise for our God! As the minutes of the old year tick quickly by and we contemplate a new beginning in the form of a new year, it is an appropriate time to stop and drop everything as we give all of our praise to God. And, what better way to give praise than to pray this psalm together!
New Year's resolutions are a great thing. Making a vow to be a better parent or spouse, promising to do better at work, pledging to be a more faithful church member, resolving to lose those few extra pounds, all these are good.
But before we step into it all, let's lay the foundation of praise.
In this psalm, the poetry of God's wonder is a riot of images and glory. We are called in an almost sacred recklessness to list out God's wonderful doings. God commanded it was created! God set the limits and boundaries ... and expects us to observe them. All creation, according to this psalm, praises the Lord. And what better grounding for the beginning of a new year!
If we begin with praise, everything else comes a little differently. If our relationships, our work, our fulfillment of duties are begun in an aura of praising God, imagine how things might be different.
Praising God for the gift of children, for example, will have an impact on how we parent and guide them. Praising God for the gift of productive work will flavor the way we approach our jobs. Giving thanks, even, for the difficulties and challenges that come our way will shape the ways in which we respond to these things.
Laying a foundation of praise is not an easy thing to do. But it will make a difference in the lives we lead in the New Year. Just as the foundation to a house is laid out before the carpenters and framers come into the picture, so, too, do we lay out the foundation of praise.
The foundation stones here are those of thankful prayer and focusing upon God. How many times a day do we stop and simply say, whatever our situation, "Thank you, God!" To some, such focus might seem immature or even silly. But it is the stuff of new life. Read this psalm over several times. Breathe in the air of praise that comes from the powerful language. Imagine how you might utter a psalm of praise. Indeed, grab a pen and sit down and write one!
Whatever our hopes and dreams for this New Year might be, there is a call to us to found these visions and aspirations upon grateful hearts rooted in God's love.
Happy New Year.
