Transgressive Advent Thoughts

I too am waiting. However, I am waiting for nothing, anything, something, everything – all at the same time. Generally, the advent language and imagery terrify me. I cringe at the overuse and abuse of light and darkness: reminding me of the dark tribes and the heathens, from that place of total darkness in need of the shining bright Light. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light! Those who live in darkness and embody darkness need light! Imagine this mantra over years on repeating and then try to understand how easily people of a lighter-hue are privileged over those of a heavier one. This is not to mention those laden with long black beards. My terror is compounded not only by this ritual humiliation but the internalisation in both camps as a result. My receptors do a blip and long pause at such readings during this season

But this is not all: the imageries of the season from readings, liturgies and lyrics of those “holy than other hymns” that dropped out of the mouth of God ring in and cast and recast in concrete the notion of Empire: Lord of Might; Thrones shall rest; King of Kings – Make Way, Make Way; He who Shall by Right all the Nations Possess; Everlasting Seat; The Race that long in darkness pined have seen a Glorious Light; His power increasing shall Spread; Him shall all the Tribes of Earth Obey; The Lord Makes Bare his Arms Through all the Earth Abroad. Many have drunk of this wine of intoxication and then reasoned their God-given right to shackle and lockdown others as non-human beings. Scripture, theology, liturgy, lyrics, Empire and Kingdom got on board the holy boat of Christianity. So when the Empire’s priests landed on virgin soil, they fell on their knees, gave thanks to God, ask the natives for their gold and then fell upon them with the might of swords and guns. Today priests of the empire freedom, democracy and free-market for the natives, then bomb the living daylights out of them. I wonder: has the heart of the Divine become sluggish? Stir up the power of your Love, O God and Come. Come Lover of the dead corners of the earth and the forgotten wretched of the earth!

I often wonder how many in the “holy huddle” really expects Jesus to return. I even wonder if the Church really wants Jesus to return. This will be too bad for business: especially having to give up all the power, comfort and security and be no more. Or perhaps we have been so disappointed by the first, we desperately need the second! Believe it or not – I am waiting for Jesus to return. Not that I think he got it wrong the first time. I have lots of troubling questions for him. They are lying like splinters at the tip of my tongue ready to be rolled off. Here are a few:

How come we adore and lavish the “child” of Christmas: with praise of love, joy and hope and canticles of “Unto us a Child is born”; Peace Bearer, Counsellor; O Holy Child; He smiles within his cradle – A babe with face so bright; Infant holy, Infant lowly…. and yet down the ages, exploited and excluded children from most of our life together – relegating them to the margins? We are so exploitative of our children that we need “Child Protection” policies to protect them from us. Why have we missed your insight: Unless you become like a child you cannot enter….What is really your point? How locked? How dull? How unimaginative? How adult? - are our liturgies, texts, homilies, our lives? Is this why we miss the music in the wilderness? O God please raise up children from these stones?

Who are you Jesus-Christ? Your genealogy is quite impressive. In fact, it counters the ridiculous notion of a “purist” identity: Galilee, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and God knows where. So much for the fossilized and shackling ideology of “essentialized identity”. The scandal of particularity sounds very much like hyphenated identities. Are you a hybrid Jesus? Is that why you were very comfortable in traversing and transgressing the worlds of nationality, gender, sexuality, race, and class? Is that why the purists nailed you to the tree? In Christ there are male and female, slave and free, Gentile and Jew, black and white, north and south, east and west – all at the same time!

I love creative disorder. I am WAIT-ing. I am waiting for: no-thing, any-thing, some-thing, every-thing – all at the same time. There is a THING here. Like those learned visitors who sought to worship the Child – I may be off course by 9 miles. You see – as negotiator of the state of in-between-ness, I have a very faint glimpse of what it means to straddle a paradox: that moving line between the already and the not yet; between hope and the temptation to despair.

copyright © November 27,2010

Slanting Views from Recent Journeys

Recently, I had to make two trips to the United States, with the need for penance in terms of my carbon footprint only getting more urgent! The first was a visit to the United Church of Christ and the most recent was to the annual gathering of the American Academy of Religion. Both have been very worthwhile journeys for different and connecting reasons. Here are a few “slanting” excerpts that have nothing to do with the purpose of my travels.

On the first trip, I picked up a copy of what then was a recent issue of the New Scientist magazine. Two articles caught my attention. The first was an editorial about how to handle the many sea wrecks with their dangerous oil contents under the sea. What really caught my attention was the suggestion and the terminology associated with the suggestion: that there is a relatively cheap way of stopping the corrosion and consequently the leaks of what is part of the dangerous wreck at the bottom of the sea. The term is sacrificial anodes, which are already standard on oil rigs and which are used to delay the day when something must be actually done.

The other item that caught my eye was a story about a commercial road to be built in Tanzania in the north of the Serengeti National Park, and which will cut through the migratory route of two million wildebeest and zebra. With protests from various group, the PM said that all he can offer is an unpaved part of the road for the animals to cross as part of their migratory route. You would agree with me that from this story, Zebra Crossing has certainly taken a new meaning in Tanzania.

Both stories offer two powerful images to speak to our present time and the numerous challenges before us. The idea of sacrificial anodes speaks volume to our present economic demise and the foolish wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the loss of many lives (civilians and soldiers). We have developed this very strange habit of not wanting to make tough choices and decisions and to clean up the mess we have created. Instead we seem to major in sacrificial anodes that provide us with a way out, albeit momentarily – delaying the day when we must actually act. Churches are no exception: in terms of my own church, sacrificial anodes are in abundance in our desperate need to deal with our ecclesial shipwreck. In the meantime, we attempt to create small spaces or crossings to provide a way out (as we drift further from reality), again only temporarily and in the meantime we continue to carry-on with all our madness and illogic. “Business as usual” seems to be the only orienting metaphor of our existence. Change tends to be brief and temporary before we soon re-inscribe the very system and way of being that we wish to counter.

At the heart of our proclivity towards “business as usual”, while postponing the actual disaster is our enslavement to an economic system that has neither time nor sympathy for the weak, vulnerable or poor. Its mantra is the survival of the fittest! And this brings me to my most recent trip to the USA (Atlanta). On the way back I had so much time to “play with” that I arrived very early at the airport. My departure lounge was where all international flights leave from. One of the flights –to Rio de Janerio was terribly overbooked – almost 15 extra passengers!!! Capitalism in its most crass form then displayed itself over the public address system as the airline needed to get people to volunteer not to travel on that day but on the next day (as it was the last flight to Rio on that day). Thus passengers were firstly offered 400 dollars, hotel & meal vouchers. But there were no takers or maybe the crowd was thinking about the kind of scene you will witness on the “Deal or no Deal TV Show! After about 10 minutes, a second offer of 600 dollars, hotel and meal vouchers and then some takers. Yet there was still the need for 4 persons to drop out and again the offer goes up to lure the customers. There was a sudden rush as the gamblers in the crowd decided this was it!

Mindful of the need to purge myself of taking any high moral ground, I will endeavour to allow counter cultural anodes to keep me grounded to the fullness of life and living vision of that Galilean-Palestinian Jew who dared to be different and got nailed for it!

copyright © November 9,2010