Tag: Church year

Out of these ashes, these signs of our mortal nature, comes something else. Once we recognize our own responsibility for wrongdoing, once we acknowledge our mortal and dusty nature, the ashes also become a sign of fertility. If we are truly repentant, and truly cleansed, and open to the reality of God around us, then we are also fertile, ready to give growth to greatness.

I have lived most of my life in the Southern Hemisphere. Christmas, to us, is at the beginning of Summer, and in some places is followed by temperatures that are close to 100 F degrees. Easter, on the contrary, marks the beginning of Fall. On the other side of the planet, and to a large number of believers, none of the environmental metaphors associated with Christian holidays match.

I don’t know about you, but there’s an idealist in me somewhere that expected the world to be permanently altered after Christmas – filled with light from the little town of Bethlehem and harbingers of peace and transformation for the new year. Instead, the Gaza strip and portions of Israel are under bombardment, and hundreds of people are losing their lives.

The Magi and Joseph had angels and dreams and stars for guidance. We see that they made the right choices as we read their stories. We don’t usually have these angels and dreams and stars for guidance as we journey. Sometimes we don’t even have any choice in much of life.

In our post-modern American Christmases constructed out of fake glitz and glutinous emotional schlock, I find the vision of God moving in fresh and unexpected ways to be almost totally obscured. In Holy Baptism, we received the name of a peasant who died as a criminal. Yet we, like most who preceded us, insistently demand an exclusionary Messiah who will protect our political system from terrorists, and rapidly restore economic prosperity.

As I write this, I am finishing up my annual Advent & Christmas trip around boundaries of the parish. Like many priests and deacons in all kinds of places, I have been going around bringing communion to the home-bound members of the parish. The Sunday after Christmas, lay people will fan out across this same parish taking with them the poinsettias that at the moment adorn our chancel.