Simple Gifts -- December, 2015 Pastor Musings

One of my favorite American composers is Aaron Copland. Several of Copland’s more famous pieces involve settings of Joseph Brackett’s dance tune Simple Gifts. Copland uses it without words in the ballet Appalachian Spring but also arranges it for voices.  Brackett’s poetry is elegant in its simplicity: 

'

Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,

To bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.

Because it is a dance tune we might think that “to turn” means dancing. Maybe. But is it possible that Brackett isn’t driving at the idea of delightfully turning our lives around so that everything comes out right. Brackett was highly religious, and his point could have been deeper, more complex, and spiritual beyond the simple message. To turn, in the Hebrew Bible, is to change the direction of our lives. Wouldn’t it be logical that if we “turn” we come around to what is “right?”  So, what is right? 

Red-letter words in Matthew 6: 33 (KJV) say for us to “…seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” There is simplicity to that. 

I write this article standing on the eve of Advent. By the time they are published, we will have celebrated our first Advent Service. It is so easy at this time of year with all the tugs and pulls of the world, of family, of church needs, of work demands, to forget the simple message of Advent: preparing ourselves for the coming of the Christ in our world. This great displacement of God coming to walk among us in human form is so simple that we try to make complex. The simple is that God loves us, enough to take on human, vulnerable, form. Some may want to take that simple message and make it complex, but the simplicity is John 3:16 “for God so loved the world.” Luther suggested that was  “the gospel in a sentence.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote: “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." Most of the time Holmes is right, but on this maybe not. 

Advent is simple: Prepare ourselves for the coming of God into the world; and one way to prepare is by seeking first what it means to live in eager anticipation and readiness of that already-but-not-yet kingdom of God.  But in seeking first, we are required to turn from the world’s ways and thoughts and refocus ourselves on ‘bowing and bending’ our will to God’s. We want to make it complex. But at the end of the day, it is really a pretty simple question: are we ready to seek first God’s kingdom, rather than the world’s? 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Christmas Eve Sermon

Christina Gabriella Rossetti was a poet who wrote during the 1800s. She came from a well known literary and artistic family that lived in England. Her father was a professor of Italian and her brothers were among the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included James McNeill Whistler. Her family friends included Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland.

We know her today by two Christmas carols … one “In the Bleak Midwinter” and the other “Love Came Down at Christmas” …. “Love Came Down at Christmas” is found at number 242 in the red United Methodist Hymnals at your seats.

1. Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and Angels gave the sign.

2. Worship we the Godhead,
Love Incarnate, Love Divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

3. Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.


Notice she has all three verses end with the word sign …

Star and Angels giving us a sign, but then at the end of verse 2, she seems to ask in how our 21st Century English would phrase the question … with what … with what will we worship our Jesus as OUR sacred sign …

And she comes back and answers in verse 3 her own question … we will show our sacred sign for our love of Jesus by possessing it, and then, loving god and all those around us … using loving as means of entreaty … plea… as a gift to others … and as a sign of our faithfulness …

Rosetti does the same play on words with question and then answer in the poetry of “In the bleak midwinter” (UMH 221) … in the last verse she asks “what can I give him (the Christ child) poor as I am …” and her answer is “give my heart”. May I invite you to give your heart in response to God’s gift of the Christ child for you …

Lets confess … we come here tonight for many reasons, probably no two exactly similar or precisely alike ...

Some may be here out of deep spirituality … seeking an encounter with the sacred …

Others may be present tonight because their family insisted upon it … I can relate, I’ve been there … I am sure I went to many a Christmas Eve service because of son, husband, or father obligations.

Others may be here out of some kind of family tradition … you can’t open a Christmas Eve present until you go to church, so you are working off the Christmas “to do” list … “Go to church” – check that box …

Others may be here because you like Christmas carols …and the idea of singing Silent Night with others warms your heart …

I wonder if Rosetti’s use of the image of sign isn’t part of the issue …

Possibly Christmas is a sign for our spirituality.

Possibly Christmas is a sign of who we are as family.

Possibly Christmas is a sign of a more personal, intimate expression of our own quest for shalom … for wholeness … for that inner peace that is hard to define, but we know it when we see it …

When I was a teenager, we would watch American Bandstand, and a new song would be introduced and they would ask a judge, what she felt and the answer would be “I’ll give it a 95, I liked the beat”.

Many of us give Christmas a 95, we like the beat … family, presents, good food, football .. the beat here might be a sign of something that speaks to us across time, across relationships, across our own growth as people …

But I would invite you to listen to Rosetti’s question and entertain the idea of its haunting quality … if the angels and Magi … the wisemen … point to Jesus as a sign, what is our response to that sign …

Our response has to more than appreciating family, presents, good food, football. It has to be more. More what? Rosetti tells what our response should be ….

She suggests that perhaps the issue of love coming down for Christmas is imbedded in three ideas …

Plea … Gift …. Sign …

God becomes incarnate … God becomes “in the flesh” … “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God… the word became flesh and lived among us …”

Is it possible that what God is offering us is a plea to understand that God really loves us … “For God so loved the world …” we are given the Gift of Jesus ….

And that plea is accompanied by the gift manifested in vulnerability … how much more vulnerable can someone be than a human baby. Giraffe baby’s can stand within minutes of birth and can outrun predators within hours … that miracle is repeated throughout the animal kingdom … but human babies are vulnerable to the vagaries of life for a long period … and God “became flesh and lived among us …”

That vulnerability is a sign to us …

Sure … we can erect walls in our lives and say that ‘worthless no good no account hurt me and I am never going to let THAT happen again’ … but that response .. that kind of a sign to the rest of our world hardens us … it hardens our hearts … and it kills the Christmas every day attitude we are called to display …

The American psychologist Karl Menninger once said: ‘One does not fall in love; one grows into love, and love grows in her or him.’

Christmas is in part about allowing that love-seed that God gives each of us, the opportunity to germinate and grow … and by growing in our love for God; we grow in our love for each other …

Roberta Bondi – in her book To love as God Loves … reminds us that when we are standing in a circle with others trying to draw closer to God, we are also invariably drawing closer to each other … in short, trying to get closer to God, brings us closer to each other … it could actually be said the other way … that if we are in a circle with God at the center, that as we move towards each other, we grow closer to God as well …

O. Henry tells us in his short story -- "Gift of the Magi" – about God’s love manifested towards others …

Jim and Della live in a lonely flat …one assumes New York City …of the early nineteen hundreds. They are poor and the economic conditions of the day have attempted to drain hope and joy from their lives …

Jim is the possessor of a family heirloom … a beautiful watch, of which he is very proud … and Della has floor length hair of which she is proud …

The story centers on Della on how she can show Jim her love for him this Christmas and she decides to sell her hair and buy a gold chain for his watch … Jim arrives at home, and is stunned by her short, curly hair … and gives her first her present … O. Henry tells us they are:

“Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jeweled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair”….

“Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. [Della] held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell …. let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. [pause] I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. ….."

O. Henry as the narrator continues: “The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.”

We pray tonight that we gave you the gift of the magi somewhere in our service … and that maybe you saw love come down, this Christmas … and it gave you your sign of how and what to give back to God …

Let me leave you with two questions … questions that I pray are “gifts” for each of you … as well as perhaps a “plea” on behalf of God …

Did you get your sign tonight?

If you did, what was it?

Please stand as you are able and let’s sing Silent Night together …

**


The start point for using Rosetti’s poetry came from a Facebook posting by The Reverend Adam Hamilton of the UM Church of the Resurrection, Leawood, Kansas. The Reverend Kent Ingram, FUMC Colorado Springs suggested ending with the questions … My own Della (Marilyn White) tightened up the manuscript. Thanks to all. The O. Henry tumbled into my brain and wouldn’t leave. Thanks be to God!