We don’t really treat Advent as a penitential season anymore. It was hard to be a penitent at an office Christmas party with Barney’s “special” egg nog, and all of those holiday movies have happy endings…
The Christmas Tree Farm gets saved, the pageant happens when the retired rock star returns to her home town and belts out a perfectly operatic Ave Maria while reconnecting with her high school sweetheart, and the blizzard breaks just in time for that donated kidney to get through as the Christmas star shines in the sky. And puppies, just because.
But I’m going to start this morning with a confession anyway. I may read and collect DC Comics, that is to say Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman, but I prefer the Marvel movies, like Ironman, which, I’m sorry to say, are just better.
And I’m pretty sure that is some sort of violation of the Geek Code, akin to saying that Jean-Luc Picard commanded the Millennium Falcon. If you know, you know.
Then again, my taste in movies is admittedly questionable. I no longer have the attention span for art house films. I just can’t do a two hour movie with three lines of dialogue, even if it is set on some scenic Norwegian fjord. No horror, and for the love of all that is holy, none of the so-called Christian films. I pretty much want Pixar or an action movie.
One of my favorites, “Snatch,” does start with several minutes of scripture, a historical-critical engagement with the verse from Isaiah that says the young woman, not virgin, shall be with child, but the movie quickly reveals itself as a diamond heist film, with violence played for laughs and language a pastor should pretend not to know.
Another favorite film is the Coen brothers’ 1998 cult classic “The Big Lebowski.” The main character, who simply calls himself “the Dude,” is drawn into a madcap adventure involving a millionaire who happens to share his name. The Dude is a sort of slacker Taoist bowler who just wants that rug replaced, because it “tied the room together.” The film has inspired a pseudo-religion called Dudeism, with the all important mantra, “the Dude Abides.”
The Dude might have abided well on a hillside outside of Bethlehem, for one of my favorite Dudeisms is “Peace is peaceful.”
I can just see him out there with the shepherds, laying on that rug, a White Russian in his hand. Real peaceful, man, until those angels show up.
I mean, how terrifying is that, out there keeping watch over your flock, and boom… angels in the sky? This is not Christmas cards and drummer boys. This is like something from an Avengers movie, a portal and terrifying alien beings. They promise peace to those God favors, not to everyone, as is so often assumed.
And this is where we could go down the usual rabbit hole of whether peace is the same as pacifism or whether the message of Jesus has been perverted by the powerful. But you know how I feel about those things.
Do justice is an action command, nothing passive about it. Feed and heal and baptize are all actions. Disrupting commerce in the Temple is an action. “What you have done to the least of these” includes the word “done” which is just the past tense of “do,” and the parable condemns being passive in the face of need and oppression.
But I preach that stuff every week, so let’s give it a rest this week. Let’s take peace from a different angle.
Because, you know, life is starting to feel like “The Big Lebowski” these days, and sometimes a bit like “Snatch,” or those other Christmas classics “Die Hard” and “Home Alone.” And, you know, I am tired of all the madcap misadventures. Life should not have to be this hard.
I am tired of all the multi-tasking. I’ve gone from being that teenager blasting Led Zeppelin while doing my algebra homework to being the old dude shouting “Alexa, stop!” because I’m trying to read the instructions on the box and I just can’t concentrate with the music playing.
And I am among the privileged! I have a job and I don’t have to worry about being killed by an Iranian drone piloted by a Russian soldier or paralyzed by cops giving me a “rough ride” in the back of a police van because of the color of my skin.
Still, even from my position of privilege, there is something to be said for the spiritual practice of peace, not some imaginary utopia when all the vertical primates lay down their weapons, but just sitting in the quiet for a few minutes with a cup of tea. The great master of the social dharma, Thich Nhat Hanh, said “Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the whole earth revolves—slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this actual moment is life.”
Think of Elijah, God not in the fire and the storm, but in the silence. See those leaves blowing outside? The last few you meant to rake before the first snow? Those are little abandoned factories and fully recyclable. How cool is that?
So as much as I push back against the saccharine sentimentality of our mash-up Nativity myth, you know, I think, at least this year I’m all in for shepherds, recovered from that “angels in the sky” thing, astrologers from Iran, and even that darned drummer boy, all improbably hanging around a stable in Bethlehem. Though the kid needs to lay off those snares. Let’s just have a little quiet while the baby sleeps.
It is hard to carve out a whole sabbath, so let’s think of that ten minutes spent sipping Earl Grey and watching the snowfall as a mini-sabbath.
And maybe a few less decorations this year. I know the family expects them, but decorations aren’t really what make it Christmas. King Solomon went completely overboard decorating when he built that fancy new Temple in Jerusalem, and while he was busy on that glitz and glamour, the country was falling apart.
Though do take that few extra moments to put Lego Darth Vader in the creche…
Breathe. Inner peace is necessary if we are to have outer peace.
The health insurance company is going to be just as stupid in a half hour. Just finish your lunch. Chew. I don’t know that its gonna be okay, but choking down that tuna melt sure isn’t going to make predatory capitalism any less predatory.
Put on your favorite Christmas album, even if it is Mariah Carey, God help you. Just sit. Don’t make your grocery list. That’s what sermons are for.
Breathe.
We’ve got work to do, but we won’t do a very good job is we are down to our last nerve. God, our God, our mysterious and amazing God, abides with us. Be at peace. Amen.