Sunday November 29, 2015

Advent 1 – 2 Kings 22:1-10, 14-20, 23:1-3

Wikipedia defines the word “meme” as "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture".A meme acts as a unit for carryingculturalideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. … The wordmemeis a shortening, modeled ongene, of an ancient Greek word, mimeme, and was coined by British evolutionary biologistRichard DawkinsinThe Selfish Gene(1976)as a concept for discussion ofevolutionaryprinciples in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies,catchphrases, fashion.[1]

AnInternet memeis an activity, concept, catchphrase or piece of media which spreads, often as mimicry, from person to person via theInternet.…An Internet meme may take the form of animage,hyperlink,video,picture,website, orhashtag. It may be just a word or phrase, including an intentionalmisspelling. These small movements tend to spread from person to person viasocial networks,blogs, directemail, or news sources. … [2]

I wanted to offersome of this background, which I did not know, before I show you some examples of internet memes. They are all over social media. Here are some that I have seen on facebook lately, all around the issue of Syrian refugees.Here’s the first one:

“If you would deny Middle Eastern refugees shelter in America you don’t get to celebrate Christmas.” That’s pretty hard hitting. Not much ambiguity there.

2nd – clearly a church sign … “Advent: waiting for a homeless refugee baby to be born to an unwed teenage girl and call him Lord.”

3rd – this one is a bit softer, still gets the point across I think … “I’m looking forward to six weeks of the world celebrating the anniversary of a family of Middle Eastern asylum seekers successfully getting away from an evil regime. Ironic, isn’t it?”

On this first day of Advent, 2015, we set the tone for how we will enter and live out this season. Christians all over the world are trying to reclaim the original meaning behind the story of the birth of Christ, and we will do the same over the next four weeks. Not for a triumphal, everyone has to celebrate with us reason, but for ourselves. For our own understanding and faith enrichment. Not in judgement, but as a model of how to put certain values that are central to our faith at the centre of our preparations and celebrations.

The celebration of the birth of Christ on the 25th of December was a co-opting of the Roman festival of Saturnaliaafter Christianity was adopted as the official religion in the 4th Century CE.Perhaps, after all these years, the project of Christmas, not the birth of Jesus, as a state religion has been too successful. Some Christians no doubt will argue that’s not the case, that Christianity is losing its power and influence over the season. I guess I might wonder if we ever really had it. Many years ago a friend said to me that he thought Christians should take the birth of Christ out of Christmas and celebrate it in July, and let the rest of the world celebrate Christmas in the way they were accustomed.

A couple of weeks ago there was a huge kafuffle, especially on social media, about the fact that Starbucks has removed it’s Christmas symbols from its Christmas cups, which now are only red with the green Starbucks logo. Some Christians were in an uproar that here was yet another attempt to secularize the season. So here are some responses to the controversy …. Again, in the form of internet memes …

“If you are Christian, and you believe that the Starbuck seasonal cup design is offensive to Christians, because, like in previous years it does not contain images of snowflakes, ribbons, snowmen, tree, decorations, Christmas trees, Santa Claus, reindeer, dogs, squirrels, nutcrackers or poinsettias, then you really need to reconsider your understanding of Christianity and Christmas.”

Or … “I think Jesus would be more worried about 1 in 5 kids living in poverty in the U.S. than a red cup at Starbucks, but that’s none of my business.”

Or … “Want to keep the Christ in Christmas? Then forget about coffee cup décor and go feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the stranger and the unwanted child, care for the ill and love your enemies.”

These memes, and those I showed at the beginning, are challenging those who do want to celebrate the season to go back to the original story.

This is what happened to Josiah in our reading today. Josiah,son of King Amon, who came to be king at the age of 8. Amon was not a good king, and had encouraged the people to turn away from God. After Josiah had been king for 18 years, hestarted a program of restoration of the temple in Jerusalem. In the process, one of the workers discovered a book of the law in the ruins, and brought it to Josiah. As Josiah heard the words of the law, he realized how far the people had strayed from being God’s people, and he then gathered everyone together to make a promise to keep God’s commands “with all his heart and with all his soul” …. words from the book of Deuteronomy that we heard earlier this fall. The people then make the same promise.

As usual, when I first read this passage months ago I thought – what on earth am I going to do with this story the first Sunday in Advent. It’s an important story from the Hebrew scriptures, but not very well known to Christians. To those who are familiar with the bigger story, Josiah is known as a reformer. But for those of us, like myself who are hearing it for the first time, it may seem rather obscure.But, as always happens, the deeper I went, the more richness I uncovered.

I don’t know what happens in your family, but every year about this time I send Pat up to the attic to bring down the boxes of the season. I have them labeled chronologically, so they don’t all have to come down at once … first is “Advent”, and then the “mantle decorations”, which includes my collection of nativity scenes, and then the last ones to come down are the “outside lights” and “Christmas tree lights and ornaments”, …

And for me, unpacking each box brings up memories of Christmas past, memories of stories that are connected to particular a particular item, memories of when that item might have come into our house or who might have given it to us. And I remember both the sacred story, and my story. Each year, if I am attentive, I see the sacred story anew. Perhaps it is through the eyes of one of the characters in the story that I hadn’t thought about much before- either in the central part of the story, or someone on the periphery. Each year I find something new in the old, old story. It’s like finding a long buried scroll in an old temple wall.

And so for the next four weeks, we’ll be looking at this most sacred of stories of our faith … the well-known characters and the not so well known characters. And hopefully we’ll hear what the story says to us, personally and collectively in this moment, for this time of waiting and preparation in Advent 2015. We might even end up adding some characters to the traditional nativity scene, even if they are on the margins.

On December 20, the Sunday before Christmas, we invite everyone to bring in their home nativity scenes … we’ll fill up the window sills with our own family heirlooms and treasures, and take some time before, during, and after worship to look at them all.

And so today, because the topic is timely, I want to talk about shelter, and welcome, and the innkeeper. Who has given any thought to the innkeeper in the nativity story? I found a wonderful resource on the United Church website written by Robyn Brown-Hewitt, who coordinates the Youth Ministry Certificate Program at the Atlantic School of Theology and is also the new United Church Chaplain at Dalhousie.

She invites us to see the story through the innkeeper’s eyes. Robyn starts off with a knock knock joke. Knock knock. Who’s there? Innkeeper. Innkeeper who? Exactly.

Now, there isn’t officially an innkeeper in the story, but if you read between the lines, there must have been an innkeeper. Luke 2:7 says that Mary placed her baby in a manger, which is a feeding trough for animals. And why did she do that?

Verse 7 also says “… because there was no place for him in the inn.” So an inn must have had an innkeeper.

I was surprised at how many songs have been written from the innkeeper’s perspective. There are a number on youtube. Lennie Gallant wrote one. And, there are also a number of youtube videos. This one won 3rd place in a contest.

(show video)

This drawing says “Each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus.” Last week in our discussions during worship we asked you to write down signs of new life and hope that you have seen in our midst. You saw many signs of hope. A number of responses mentioned the fact that there is now a team of people from St. John’s who are working with others in the community to welcome Syrian refugees when they arrive. We are going to hear more about that initiative in a few minutes in our Minute for Mission.

Perhaps the role of innkeeper is one that we all might ponder this Advent. Not just for Syrian refugees, but to challenge ourselves to open the doors wide in our homes, in our faith community, in our hearts. In Matthew 25, Jesus said “I was a stranger and you welcomed me … I was naked and you gave me clothes … I was hungry and you fed me. When you did this to the least of these … you did it to me.”

Robyn, in her resource, asks … can you picture yourself at the door of the inn that cold starry night? On the threshold of a story that will change your life? When Good News comes close, will you be ready to hear it? When Love comes knocking, will you open the door?[3]

I hope I will. Thanks be to God.

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