Advent Reflection 2015: Week One

If the LORD of hosts
had not left us a few survivors,
we would have been like Sodom,
and become like Gomorrah. (Isaiah 1:9)

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.” (Matthew 1:23)

The story of the coming of Jesus opens with reminders of the tentativeness of ancient Israel’s existence. In the extensive genealogy listed by Matthew in the beginning of his account of Jesus, he separates the generations between King David and Jesus by indicating those who lived before being deported to Babylon and those who lived after that time of exile.

The Old Testament has numerous references to the time of exile, usually expressed in laments and cries for God’s rescue of his people. Isaiah recognizes that, had there not been a remnant that was allowed to remain in Jerusalem, the city would likely have not survived. Regardless of the responsibility the people felt about why this had happened to them, the sense of abandonment is not difficult to find in the Bible.

By the time of Jesus’ birth, the Jewish people were, for the most part, living in their home country again, but were now under the rule of foreign oppressors. There would surely have been many who would continue to wonder when God would rescue his people, forgive them for generations of rebellion and idol worship, and restore Israel to its rightful place in the world. It would seem to many that God continued to have his back turned and was still demanding that the people measure up to his demands through strict adherence to the laws of Moses.

Into this time of isolation, Matthew has the audacity to quote the prophet Isaiah and use his words to frame the birth of Jesus: He will be called Emmanuel—a Hebrew name which means God is with us. The message is startling: God is not absent, his back is not turned. God is not waiting for adequate religious performance before he will act. He is present, he is with his people, and he is with them in the birth of the baby who is named Jesus.

We revisit and rehearse the season of Advent every year because it is there that our own stories find meaning. We live in a world so violent and threatening that news of death and destruction become commonplace to us. There is enough information available that reminds us that we live on planet earth tentatively, and the health of our world depends, it seems, on human intervention to heal its wounds—wounds that we have largely inflicted by our own power. It seems that we must intervene, since we have come to believe that we are alone in the universe.

Into this precariousness, this tentativeness, the words once again echo in our minds as we rehearse our story anew: "They shall name him Emmanuel, which means, 'God is with us.'"

We are not alone.

Exiles

When I use the word “exiles,” I mean outsiders—outsiders to the world of church. The kind of outsiders to which I refer are not, generally speaking, ones who have been excluded by others, but are rather those who can’t seem to find where they fit any more.

With those kinds of outsiders there are three groups. The first the group of people that shop for church as religious consumers. Their disconnection from church tends to come from the perceived desire for a particular kind of music, an acceptable morning speaker, programs for the kids, and few demands on an otherwise busy life. Attempting to keep the religious life alive in a demanding, consumer-based culture is a difficult and sometimes noble task, but does not necessarily qualify, in my estimation, as the life of an exile. The second is also based in consumerism, but of a theological kind. The people in this group have very specific ideas about what constitutes an acceptable and orthodox system of Christian belief. They often seek to carefully read statements of faith and, if possible, to interview the church leaders to make sure they have the correct doctrinal positions. While a concern about doctrine is not unimportant, it is a concern that the kind of exiles I have in mind wouldn’t consider to be primary.

There is, as I see it, a third group of outsiders. These are the ones who would say that they have trusted Jesus with their lives, that they have an awareness of the Holy Spirit’s presence, and a confidence in God’s generous and expansive love. For any number of reasons, however, this authentic inner life of faith has difficulty in finding expression and nurture in that most common of Christian gatherings that we call the church. These are the ones I call exiles.

Unlike other exiles, these are not outsiders because of deportation, political oppression, or banishment. They find the reasons for their isolation to be within themselves and they don’t know how to find a remedy. Yes, they might have any number of critiques about the way church is done (at least in the ways that are familiar to them), but they know that there is something within them that is real, and it doesn’t seem to fit well in church.

Within this group of exiles there is a sub-group. These are people like me who have served as pastors and leaders in the church. They have given their vocational life to Christian leadership but are no longer serving in that role. For them, attending a church service can become a dislocating experience, a sense of displacement that requires them to become observers to something that they had come to cherish. It’s a handicap of sorts, but a real one nonetheless.

Musicians experience this same sensation with frequency. It is difficult for a musician to sit in the audience during a concert without watching the way the performers play their instruments and listening to every note with a critical ear. They can’t help themselves from doing it; after all, they’ve been up on that stage, and perhaps could even play the music more proficiently than those who are currently capturing everyone’s attention. The rest of the audience is simply enjoying the concert, but the musician suffers.

What do you think? Do you know such a person? Are you one? Do you feel like you are, in a sense, a person without a country? I'd love to hear from you to see how you are dealing with this life of exile and where you think it will go.