The Reason

The scriptures referred to are Colossians 3:12-17 and John 1:1-14.

I was watching a repeat of last year's Doctor Who Christmas special, seeing as there wasn't one this year. The Doctor is an alien who travels in time and space, righting wrongs. At one point, someone asks the Doctor why he stole his time machine in the first place and began touring the universe. He says it was to answer a question. Evil seems to be a better survival strategy than good. Yet good persists and even triumphs over evil. Why is that so? The series implies it is the Doctor's heroic activities that tip the scales.

But that's fiction; we live in reality. Still it is a good question. Let's restate it a bit. If we live in a universe where organisms compete for resources and are trying to survive, why do we seek to help others rather than harm them or simply leave them to their fates? Why do we have public hospitals, public schools, homeless shelters, charities and government help for the disadvantaged? Why did the eugenics movement, once widely supported here in the US, evaporate and why do we revile the Nazis who gassed the mentally and physically disabled? Why is the most popular religion in the world about God blessing the underdogs in society, to the point of becoming one himself and even letting himself be killed to save his disobedient creatures?

To be sure, humanity is a bit schizoid about this. On the one hand, we tout as virtues tolerance, compassion and looking out for the weak. On the other, we cheer on ruthless behavior on the part of leaders in business and politics. Our most popular movies say overwhelmingly that the way to solve problems is through violence. 9 of the top ten movies by box office this year were action films about superheroes and spies. But the top 10 TV shows in ratings this year are evenly split between family-friendly dramas and sitcoms, and football, a game with a growing legacy of brain-damaged former players. The US spends more on defense than the next 7 countries combined and yet we spend a slightly larger part of our budget on Social Security, which goes to retirees, the disabled and surviving spouses and children. Our values are all over the place.

Part of this is because a civilization of totally ruthless self-seeking individuals cannot last. And studies tell us that it is religion which made civilization possible. We tend to stick with those we are related to, rather like other animals. Hornets fight hives of honeybees. Ants go to war on termites and also other ants, taking slaves. Meerkats war on other meerkat clans. Groups of chimps wage guerrilla warfare on other families of chimps, killing them and annexing their territory. So it it with humans. In transitioning from tribal organizations to cities and kingdoms and empires, religion helped bind people of different kinship groups together into a greater whole. Still these kingdoms and empires typically went to war with other kingdoms and empires. Even in the Old Testament God is depicted as the Lord of Hosts, the God of the angel armies as Eugene Peterson renders the phrase. Israel was a tiny kingdom wedged between Egypt to the West and whichever empire lay to the East at the moment. There was no UN. The Israelites found comfort in the idea that God would fight for them.

In the New Testament, the situation has changed. A squabble between two brothers for the throne of Judea led one to ally himself with the Romans to decide the matter and the nation lost its independence and became a puppet of the empire. Though the Zealots wanted to fight and throw Rome out, that was seen as a non-starter by sensible Jews. Jesus preached an alternative to the usual see-sawing of power that comes from fighting. He counsels approaching conflicts in a different way. And in our passage from Colossians, Jesus' way of peace is explored in detail.

We are are told to clothe ourselves “with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” Belligerent people cannot see any advantage in these. In regards to compassion, that is all well and good if it was limited to family and possibly friends, as Aristotle held. But why help those outside your own circle? This, as we have seen, is how the other animals think. 

As for mercy, the root of the Greek word translated “compassion” here, the bellicose see no sense in showing mercy to those who oppose them. You want to crush such people lest they get a second chance to do you harm. Kindness again should be confined to those we love or are related to. 

The arrogant don't see the sense in being humble or meek. The pagan world really could not see humility as a virtue. The greatest thing that could happen to you would be to receive glory and honor. We still have people who live primarily to be admired and lionized. Why admit that you have any flaws or weaknesses?

Patience is possibly the only thing in this list that an aggressive person might value, if he had any shrewdness at all. But that has to be weighed against the satisfaction of getting what you want now.

While anger and hatred towards the Other can unite people, such coalitions fall apart. If I give free reign to my hatred of group X, and someone within my group thwarts me in some other matter, it is difficult to reign in such an indiscriminate and uncontrolled emotion. Perhaps the ultimate example of this is the incident last year here in Florida where a former neo-Nazi shot his two neo-Nazi roommates because they were mocking his recent conversion to an extremist form of Islam! A recent satirical film, The Death of Stalin, had to tone down various aspects of the vicious fight for power that followed the dictator's demise because the director didn't think the audience would believe certain events, though they were factual. Encouraging people to give free reign to their rage is rather like releasing a bunch of hungry tigers; you can't predict whom they will ultimately maul and kill.

The qualities given in Colossians are precisely those required to maintain unity. As is the next bit of advice: “Bear with one another, and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other...” The word translated “bear” literally means in Greek to “hold oneself up [against].” It could mean “endure” or “put up with” though I would be inclined to translate it “accept,” as does the Holman Christian Bible. None of us are identical in thought or our approach to things. We need to make allowance for such variations, especially when they are not on matters that are essential to our common life. If you think about the things that cause friction between you and your mate or a sibling, they are rarely of earthshaking stature but usually minor things that over time become more irritating.

If such things do rise to the level of actual harm being done to you, then we should, as Jesus outlines in Matthew 18:15-17, go and talk to the person and work out the problem and, as it says here, forgive each other. Rarely is a quarrel between two people entirely the fault of one party. In many cases, a small offense on one side prompts a bad or over-reaction on the other side and things escalate. I once witnesses two good church women get in a shouting match over the reimbursement for stamps! One actually left the church and took her family with her. Of course, there were other underlying issues and the leaders of the church were able to get one lady to return but try as we may, we could not get one side to even consider reconciliation with the other. Similarly, families often have to live with internal feuds between Aunt Claudia and Aunt Esther over some incident lost in the mists of the decades, to the point where sometimes even the persons involved have no clear memory of the triggering event. I have a friend whose grandfather had fallen out with his siblings. When my friend started researching his family tree, he found a host of relatives of whose existence he had been entirely unaware, including 2 cousins who turned out to work at the same company as his wife!

There is no magic way to undo the damage we inflict on each other and our relationships. The healing begins, however, with forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what happened but letting go of the negative emotions it generated: anger and shock and the sense of betrayal. It also means not giving into the impulse to hold a grudge or retaliate. It means accepting any good faith efforts of the other person to reconcile. It is not a moment but a process. But it starts with the decision to forgive, to not exacerbate the wound but to begin the process of healing.

Our passage tells us that we must forgive just as the Lord has forgiven us. One of the most difficult pastoral problems I was ever presented with was a man who said, “I know we are to forgive others but there is one guy I can't forgive.” He went on to explain that his sister was the victim of a serial killer and the killer was in a prison in California. How could he forgive that person? I remembered something a parishioner, Jackie Bond, pointed out to me. On the cross Jesus doesn't say to his executioners, “I forgive you” but “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” I told him that, never having been in his place or having suffered such a loss, I did not feel it my place to tell him to forgive the man right now. But he could ask God to forgive his sister's killer and ask God to help him get to the point when he also could forgive him. I also pointed out that this would be for his own peace of mind because obviously the killer's action was still tormenting him. If he did not let go of the anger, the man would in essence be another of the killer's victims. He would not forget his sister but one day his memories of her would not be dominated by the worst thing that happened to her. This would make room for memories of her in better days.

“Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” Love is coming together, appreciating the other, seeking unity and doing what one can to maintain it. Which naturally leads to the next quality discussed.

“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. ” It is said that when the first stuffed platypus was sent from Australia, English scientists thought it was a hoax, stitched together from bits of other animals. But this semi-aquatic mammal does have a duck bill, a beaver's tail, and an otter's webbed feet. It lays eggs,yet feeds its young on milk but has no teats. And it is venomous. Those things shouldn't go together but do. It's almost as if the platypus is God's way of saying, “If all the oddball parts of this body can work together, so can you.” And remember that peace in Hebrew means total well-being. Knowing that we are ultimately in the hands of the loving God revealed in Jesus gives us a sense of peace and gratitude.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in wisdom...” “Word” here might be better translated “message,” as when one says, “Just a word before we begin.” So the “word of Christ” is the gospel, the good news of what God has done and is doing through his son Jesus. That is the lens through which we see and approach everything in life. So you want to get it right. A few years ago Twitter had a hashtag that went #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly. For instance, you could summarize the Wizard of Oz as being about a young girl who kills a woman and then she and her friends hunt down the woman's sister. Obviously this misses the whole spirit of the story. And some so-called Christians seem unacquainted with the true thrust of the gospel and what Jesus did and did not actually say and do. So knowing the actual words of Christ helps you stay on track. To let the word of Christ dwell in you richly means to saturate yourself in it. Even the parts that you have to struggle with can yield wisdom and a new understanding of God and the Christian life. And this helps us teach one another, as Jackie Bond taught me by pointing out that detail about Jesus' saying from the cross.

“And with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God.” New research shows that music remains in the memory even of those with Alzheimer's. I remember seeing a documentary of a musician who, due to a brain injury, could not remember anything for more than a minute or two. He had a diary where he kept writing “I am now awake” over and over again with the time. Yet if you sat him at a piano he could play long musical compositions flawlessly. Music is evocative. It can take you back to certain times in your life. It can change your mood. It is wonderfully therapeutic. And here scripture is telling us to sing to God with gratitude. Try it some time when you are feeling down. Sing “What A Friend We Have in Jesus” or “It Is Well With My Soul” or “Amazing Grace” or your favorite. See if it doesn't make a difference. And, of course, you can always join our choir! Or just sing heartily during the service. A lot of people don't sing because they say they can't. Nonsense! The scripture says, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.” (Psalm 100:1)

“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Implied in this admonition is that you do it in the proper spirit as well. Too many people have done awful things in the name of Christ that run contrary to what he clearly said and did. You cannot do anything hateful or harmful and say you are truly following Jesus. Jesus does not rubber stamp whatever people do or say simply because they tag on the phrase “in the name of Jesus Christ.” That is a prime example of using the Lord's name in vain. Whatever we do or say we should see to it that it is in line with the teachings and the Spirit of the God who is love, for whose grace we should be grateful.

Since the series has returned, the title character in Doctor Who has been sometimes treated as a god, who rights wrongs wherever he finds them and rescues entire worlds from hopeless situations. And his companions, inspired by the Doctor, become heroes in their own right; disciples,as it were. The man who revived the series was an atheist. I think he was projecting onto the character his wish that someone was out there helping and healing people. I wish he would discover that there is such a person, and he is Jesus Christ, in whose image the Doctor has apparently been reimagined in the new series. We see it even if those make the series do not.

But Jesus is not the fallible alien warrior of sci-fi fever dreams. He is the actual reason why good makes sense even when evil seems to be the stronger option. He is the reason why good triumphs in the end. Sin cannot touch him. Falsehood cannot divert him. Death cannot stop him. He is the hand that lifts the little girl from her deathbed; he is the word of forgiveness from the cross; he is the life that strides from the  empty tomb; he is the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it.

A Tale of Two J.C.s

The scriptures referred to are John 1:1-14.

CT: Tonight we celebrate the miracle of Christmas, of God becoming a human being to save us.

EB: Bah, humbug!

CT: Excuse me, I didn't see you back there. Who are you?

EB: Ebenezer.

CT: Ebenezer? You're not that guy, uh, in that Dickens story...

EB: No, of course not. I'm his grand nephew.

CT: And so you also hate Christmas?

EB: No, I love it! My business makes a lot of money during Christmas season. It's great for the economy. Christmas is good business!

CT: What business is that?

EB: Scroogedrivers! A screwdriver that make things tight as my purse strings! Great stocking stuffer.

CT: Hmm. So if it's good for business, what is your objection to Christmas?

EB: All that stuff about God becoming a human. It just doesn't make sense.

CT: It's counterintuitive, I'll grant you.

EB: It's dumb. Even if, let's say, God does become a human, why an infant? In a family that's poor? Why would God do that?

CT: What would be the alternative?

EB: Be a king. Make laws. Make people obey your commandments.

CT: Odd you should say that. At Jesus' time that's what a lot of people expected God's Messiah to be: a king. Who would overthrow the Romans, set up a religious kingdom on earth and rule. Typical king stuff.

EB: That make sense! He'd have a lot more impact that way.

CT: Well in some ways. There was another guy back then with the initials J.C. who went that route. He was born into a politically powerful family. He made some sweeping changes. Not sure they were improvements.

EB: J.C...?

CT: Julius Caesar. He was born almost 100 years before Jesus. He was a great general who broke the laws of Rome by entering its territory with his armies, provoked a civil war, ended that war and was named dictator. He became the first Roman Emperor in everything but name.

EB: But he changed the world.

CT: Well, he changed the map. He changed the calendar. He changed Rome from a Republic to an Empire, with a lot more territory, but he also put the power over all of that into the hands of one man. Historians don't think he made things better for mankind in general. He made things better for one man: himself.

EB: But there are great leaders who have changed the world for the better.

CT: Sure. Cyrus the Great of Persia, who is mentioned in the Bible. He had a policy of religious toleration. You could practice your religion—after he conquered your country. The Mauryan Emperor Ashoka who ruled most of what is now India had laws prohibiting slavery, religious discrimination and cruelty towards both people and animals. 

EB: That's what I'm talking about!

CT: Funny thing then that those laws didn't apply to him when he blinded his son, or killed his youngest wife. But, as you said, they could make people obey laws. Because they were absolute monarchs who had the power of life and death over everyone else. You really think it is better to say “love your neighbor or I will have you killed?”

EB: No. And I know the old saying: absolute power corrupts absolutely. But why would God become a poor man?

CT: Well, I don't mean to speak for God...

EB: (looks CT up and down) You sure dress like someone who does.

CT: Let me rephrase that. I don't know all of God's reasons but think about this: political leaders can make external changes but who are the people who effect internal change in this world? What kind of people change the way folks think and then act?

EB: Thinkers...uh, philosophers?

CT: Yeah. And religious teachers and leaders. People who can't just say, “You need to do things this way because I have the power to make you,” but who say, “Here are the reasons why you should do things a certain way. Because it's the right way. Because it is in harmony with how God made us.”

EB: But why can't a king do that?

CT: Well, maybe a certain kind of king. Christ is the Greek version of the Hebrew word Messiah, so Jesus is a king. But he's not a typical earthly king. Kings and leaders like Julius Caesar tend to be born into wealth and power. But the vast majority of people in the world are not rich or powerful. If God's going to communicate to most people, who are they going to listen to for advice on how to live a moral life while dealing with the problems the ordinary person has: someone who's never done without the basics of life, who's never had to work hard just to eat, or someone who is a working person, someone who understands how hard it is to do the right thing when it costs you dearly, just like them?

EB: But who's going to listen to an average person?

CT: That's the challenge, isn't it? The powerful love to tell people what to do and we have to listen even if they don't make sense because they are powerful. But the guy who can't force us to listen has to make better arguments to bring people around to his views. They have to make sense. How many sayings of Julius Caesar can you quote?

EB: Uh...veni, vidi, vici?

CT: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Not exactly words the average person can live by. How many of Jesus' sayings can you come up with off the top of your head?

EB: “Love your neighbor?”

CT: Yeah.

EB: Treat others as you'd like to be treated.

CT: The Golden Rule. The basis of most social ethics.

EB: Oh, and that football verse.

CT: Football verse?

EB: You know, they put it on banners in the bleachers. It's got numbers in it.

CT: Oh, John 3:16!

EB: Yeah.

CT: “For God so loved the world that he gave his unique son so that whoever trusts in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

EB: Yeah. But so what? I can quote a lot of Jesus. What does that show?

CT: For one thing, that Jesus takes up more room in your brain than Caesar does. Earthly kings and emperors come and go. Their reforms can be repealed or forgotten. We don't even use the Julian calendar anymore. But Jesus Christ has had a greater effect on more lives throughout history than Julius Caesar.

EB: But don't we remember Caesar because he was a good ruler?

CT: We remember him because he changed history, and not necessarily for the better. Julius Caesar was a bully who has been compared, by some historians, to a Mafia thug. He was politically ambitious and rose through bribery and having his supporters beat his opponents and finally by simply seizing power. He was vain. He wanted a triumphal parade in Rome, which meant he had to kill at least 5000 enemies to qualify. So he started an unauthorized war in Gaul, wiping out 800 villages, killing a million people and taking another million, the entire population of one region of Gaul, as slaves. The brutality of his campaign even horrified the Romans. Terrified, they made him dictator for life.

EB: Reminds me of what Shakespeare said in Marc Antony's eulogy for Caesar, “The evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

CT: True. But the good Jesus did and his words of wisdom and comfort and challenge live on, inspiring people. Speaking of words, you could call Jesus the living Word of God, the concrete expression of God's love in human form. And even today if someone tries to live their life by asking themselves “What would Jesus do?” we find it commendable.

EB: Yeah, I guess if someone said they always asked themselves “What would Julius Caesar do?” we'd be worried.

CT: That would be disturbing. Jesus spent his time healing people, feeding the hungry, telling them the gospel.

EB: I hear that word a lot. What is the gospel?

CT: The word simply means “good news.” Folks back then thought God must love the rich and powerful because they had all the blessings of this life. The good news is that God loves everyone, not just the rich but the poor, the powerless, the sick, the foreigner, and the disadvantaged. God even loves those considered great sinners and forgives those who repent, that is, turn their lives around and return to God.

EB: That's easy to say. But what's the evidence God loves us?

CT: He sent his son, not to be another rich and powerful king, ruling with fear and violence, having his every desire fulfilled, but to live as one of us, the people with little or no power. Jesus had a job and family and friends who didn't always understand him and one friend who betrayed him. He knows what it's like to get tired and hungry and thirsty. He knows what it's like to feel pain and to fell all alone and to feel humiliation and even to experience death. The good news is God loves us enough to do all that to save us.

EB: Even rich people feel those things. So that's what Christmas is about. I thought it was about presents.

CT: It is. It's about God's presence among us. (EB groans.) Sorry, couldn't resist. But at Christmas we remember that God is not just out there. He is right here, beside us, in Jesus, helping us get through life. And, if we open our hearts to him, God is in us, in the form of his Spirit. (EB reacts.) That's where Jesus rules and he rules with love.

EB: We Scrooges don't like spirits.

CT: Yeah, they gave your grand uncle a wild time one night. And similarly God's Spirit helps us look back and remember what Jesus said and did for us in the past. He helps us apply those principles to our present situation and become more Christlike day by day. And he helps us look forward to the time when Jesus will return to set up the kingdom of the God who is love and restore the earth to the paradise that God intended when he created everything.

EB: But where do presen...uh, gifts come in?

CT: Through his Spirit God gives us gifts in the form of our individual talents and skills to plant the seeds of his kingdom by what we do daily wherever we find ourselves.

EB: Like running my company?

CT: Provided you are honest, generous, do a good job and what you do doesn't harm people but helps them, sure.

EB: Scroogedrivers are constructive. Maybe we could give a few thousand to Habitat for Humanity.

CT: That's a start. And you could treat your employees as you would like to be treated.

EB: Yeah. My grand uncle began doing that with Bob Cratchet. He gave him a living wage and help with medical expenses. In fact, he also started a fund for sick children. We could contribute to that.

CT: A fund for sick children. I've never heard of it. What's it called?

EB: The Tiny Tim Lives! Fund.

CT: That's definitely in the spirit of Christmas.

EB: And it's a spirit even a Scrooge can live with.

CT: Have a blessed Christmas, Ebenezer.

EB: And God bless us everyone!