Upside down world

Upside down world 121513

Isaiah 35; Matthew 11:1-11

Now is this not an odd combination of texts for Advent?  On the one hand, the beautiful metaphor Isaiah uses for the day when God’s dream will come to reality; on the other, John the baptizer in prison, likely facing the death penalty for his truth-speaking.

He’s doubtful.  He’s wondering, have I wasted my life?  All that fire and brimstone preaching I did to “prepare the way of the Lord”—you don’t look much like what I thought was coming, Jesus.  I expected the world to be changed because you’d come as God’s anointed! 

I think he’s disappointed at his dashed dreams.   In the words of a recent Christmas song, “this is such a strange way to change the world.”   It’s all upside down, no great furious judge coming in on a white steed with great army to overthrow the Romans.

Yes, it’s an odd text for Advent surely—shouldn’t we be singing with the angels or watching our flocks or something by now?

What can this dark dank place John is in have to do with the cute little baby in the manger?  

Well, what can it have to say to our dark places when the joy is suddenly challenged by divorce, or diagnosis, or death, that rock our world and our dreams are dashed into disappointment?

The reality is that this time of year is often the darkest in more ways than daylight hours; it is the highest time of despair and fear for many people.   We can light candles and buy gifts and sing carols, but we’re still a long way off from peace on earth, goodwill to all—and the joy of this day seems far off for lots of people.  Disappointment and doubt seem stronger than dreams.

But the story goes that the cute little baby was born in a dark, maybe dank, cave, part of a homeless family, coming a political refugee for a while…..yet out of that grew a man whom God used to help the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk….a man who’d spend time with the weak, not the strong, the outcasts, the wrong kind of people.  An upside down world from a God who brings marvelous things out of awful circumstances…..like that great desert metaphor:  waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert, the burning sands shall become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water.

So those of you who, this day, do not feel the joy, don’t worry; it is merely buried for a season.   And hear the words in the midst of Isaiah’s vision:  ….do not be afraid

Many of us have known that reversal.  We have come to understand that God does bring marvelous things out of awful circumstances, and have grown deeper into joy because of it.  We have come to understand that joy isn’t something that comes from outside like a bolt out of the blue; if we believe that, we’d once again blame God and sink into disappointment.  No, joy is learned.  

We learn joy.                                                                                                                                                                       We learn it by seeing it.                                                                                                                                                          We learn to distinguish joy from entertainment.                                                                                                            We learn to develop it for ourselves….first, by looking around for it, seeing it in others, seeing it in desert places where something grows, seeing God at work still, in spite of the bad news all around…..then by working at it…intentionally turning upside down our belief system based on fear, transforming it into a spirituality of joy..

A spirituality of joy doesn’t deny suffering, but is simply open to the possibility that God is working to bring good out of it into a new future….unlike our spirituality of fear, which assumes suffering is some kind of punishment for the past, and closes off the future.

Then we learn to make joy for others….to make joy where at first it seems there is none, is to become co-creators with the God of life (Joan Chittister, in Called to Question), whereas, as she says elsewhere, to cling to the past, with its old expectations, as John the baptizer does, means the future is closed to us (Chittister, Rule of Benedict p 258).

You who know the joy even through suffering and dashed dreams,                                                                             you who are bubbling up not with the hurried excitement of the season but with the joy of knowing    God’s marvelous Presence and Power,                                                                                                                 you stand as beacons of hope to those who sit in dark doubt, anxiety and grief this season.

You joyful ones help the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk…

YOU are signs of God’s upside down world, the kin-dom of God…..you bring water to desert life and light to dark dungeons….because the homeless helpless child whose birth we celebrate has brought it out in you.

Thanks be to God! Amen.