I will tell you a story that you may have heard before. An old Mennonite Bishop known for his wisdom and evenhandedness was approached by two feuding deacons about an issue that threatened to split the Church. Each hoped to convince the bishop to advocate for their side of the issue. The first deacon came to visit as the bishop and his wife worked in the fields. He presented a long and impassioned argument, filled with dire predictions of what would happen in the future if the other side got its way. The bishop listened carefully and at the end of the visit acquiesced. “Yes, yes. I cannot argue with your logic. You are right.”
At dinner that evening the leader of the opposing group joined the bishop and his wife. Unaware that his rival had spoken to the bishop that afternoon, he presented a carefully crafted argument for the other side. He, too, was filled with passion and warned of dire consequences if the other side got its way. The bishop listened carefully and at the end of the visit he was convinced. “Yes, yes. I cannot argue with your logic. You are right.”
As they settle in for the evening, the bishops wife confronted him. “How can you tell both of these men that they are right? You are being very unfair to each. They will expect you to side with them at the next counsel and will both feel betrayed.
The bishop listened carefully and in the end, he agreed. “Yes, yes. I cannot argue with your logic. You are right.”
The humorous wishy washy wisdom of this apocryphal Mennonite bishop reflects both the conflict phobic stereotype that we sometimes see in Mennonite culture, but also an ancient truth that may have come from oriental Taoism to early Judaism via the ancient silk road. I am not a student of Taoism and only know that in this religion the Tao is a kind of name for God. The Tao is life-energy, it is truth, it is wisdom. When I looked up Taoist sites on the internet and read about some of the practices of the faithful, I’m afraid I was mostly bemused. Like with many religions, there are practices that seem quaint, odd or downright silly when looking from the outside. I don’t think I am a candidate for conversion. But there is a tenet of Taoism that I find absolutely fascinating: “The Tao That Can Be Named is not the True Tao.” It is a truth that offers us insight into the functioning of human perceptions and explains some of the chaos of contemporary religion. In other words, “The god that can be named is not the True God.”
Now before you begin to think that I am going to preach yet another sermon on ambiguity and uncertainty, let me reassure you right now at the beginning of the sermon that this is not my intent. I do believe that we know a true name for God. That name is Jesus, and it is because of our adoration for Jesus, our faithfulness to his teachings and witness and our earnest, if feeble, wish to emulate him that we are here this morning. Amidst all of the fussing and feuding in contemporary Christianity, Jesus still stands as the bright light of the incarnation and His arrival not only stands at the center of this season, but as the pivotal event of our view of history. Like the Corinthians, we have been enriched by Jesus in every way.
Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, describes the fragmentation of Christianity: "New religions are springing up and the old ones are mutating in a free-market religious economy. The religious landscape is unstable and people are changing brands and suppliers all the time. Death and resurrection (surprise!) is the norm. Theodiversity is on the rise. God is being decentralized. In Christianity the old Constantinian gang has lost its power no matter what the Vatican or the Southern Baptist Convention says. The Gospel is about freedom and too many Christians have been enslaved. It's about time to break the chains." _Friends of Grace Quarterly_ 4 (3), Fall, 2002, p. 2
This splintering of Christianity into different camps is hardly new. There is often failure each time someone tries to grasp the ultimate truth of the Godhead, that ultimate reality that no one can really understand. This is the truth in the Taoist wisdom - The god that can be named is not the True God. We have branches of the truth, some rooted in the teaching and example of Jesus and some straying pretty far from them.
So in this context, let me tell you the history of Christmas and how our current secular excess, while not necessarily reflecting the True God, is still a pretty fair compromise as compared to some things it could have been.
At the time of Christopher Dock and around the time that our historic meetinghouse was built, Christmas in the American continent was marked by chaos and mis-rule, according to Stephen Nissenbaum in a book named The Battle For Christmas, (1996, Vintage Books) . In the early days of this country, through several wars and persisting through waves of emigration until sometime after the Civil War, bands of lower class young people would roam the streets, singing raucous irreligious songs, putting on primitive plays and demanding cakes and wine or rum punch as payment from their upperclass and middle class neighbors.
This practice was rooted in the High Church tradition of celebrating saints days in Europe and may have more distant roots in the Celtic interregnum, the five off-calendar days at the winter solstice during which societies rules did not hold sway. It was an excuse for those who spent their daily hours in drudgery, especially after the hard work of the harvest, to live it up during a period of excess, preferably at the expense of someone else (kind of like some corporate CEO’s).
There were other ways that the lower classes demanded gifts and tips from the upperclass. This practice varied over the ages and we see many vestiges of it now – the end of the year bonus at work, the Christmas turkey given by some employers, the gift to the Postal delivery person, or to others who provide services during the year. The mummers parade has its roots in this tradition, as does our tradition of Christmas plays and caroling.
This tradition included a fair bit of drunkenness and mis-behavior. In the extreme, there are stories of what we would call home invasion, with brigands sitting in the householder’s favorite chair and demanding money or food and strong drink, with vandalism being the result if they were refused. The householders of that time in dramatic fashion, had to do what James recommends to us all for other reasons in one of today’s lectionary readings– keep awake, keep alert.
Interestingly, Nissenbaum points out that these ill behaved rituals entailed a reversal of fortunes – during this season the lower classes, instead of giving their hard labor to the wealthy class, received some of the wealth instead. There are shades of the Jubilee in this – a leveling of fortunes, though for a limited time.
In the Bible there is a strange support for this kind of thing. Nissenbaum points out that this ritual was a kind of rebellion by the powerless, the poor and the young, against the power of those who were established and wealthy. Jesus said that it is the poor who will inherit the Kingdom. Nissembaum points out that it was primarily the poor and marginalized who practiced this mis-rule. It was among this group that Jesus message first spread. Nissenbaum points out that one of the purposes of this raucousness was to bring the pompous wealthy class down a peg or two. We learn from the Bible that all are leveled before the Majesty and Greatness of God. As it says in another lectionary reading for this morning, in
Isaiah 64: vs 1 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence– Later in vs 6 it points out our equal inadequacies before God -- We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
The principles of the Jubilee, of the leveling of the rich and the poor, the bringing down of those who would be mighty or believe that they are righteous, are scattered throughout the Biblical narrative.
Yet it is clear to me that the excesses of early colonial celebrations of Christmas are an irreligious distortion of these principles. A distortion that stimulated vigorous opposition from another group of early colonists, the Puritans.
Let me read a bit from Nissenbaum: “Puritans were fond of saying ‘if God had intended for the anniversary of the Nativity to be observed, He would surely have given some indication as to when that anniversary occurred. (P.4) He describes their argument further: “It was only in the fourth century that the Church officially decided to observe Christmas on December 25. And this date was chosen not for religious reasons, but simply because it happened to mark the approximate arrival of the winter solstice, an event that was celebrated long before the arrival of Christianity. The Puritan’s were correct” says Nissenbaum “when they pointed out ... that Christmas was a Pagan festival covered with a Christian veneer.” (P.4)
I will not go into all of the marvelous detail that Nissenbaum relates regarding this discussion, in part because it would probably bore many of you, take way too long, and also because I have not yet finished the book. However, let me summerize this Puritan, and also, as it turns out, early Presbyterian and even Mennonite side of this argument. Christmas is too much of an irreligious holiday. The licentiousness of the ill disguised pagan practices of celebration and partying diminish the event that they claim to observe. Better for true Christians to ignore the holiday altogether, or, as this position evolved over time, to celebrate solemnly in Church and quietly at home with proper reverence and decorum.
Indeed, it seems that the pressure for some kind of celebration shifted the Puritan position over the early centuries of American history. They first were completely opposed to the celebration of Christmas. Shops were kept open all day on Christmas day, workers were expected to show up on time and stay for a full day, under threat of dismissal. School children were sent off to their lessons and these rules were strictly enforced. There were laws on the books making the celebration of Christmas illegal. So except for the irreligious, marginalized poor, there was no Christmas in early colonial America. But the pressure from the poor and, interestingly, from the young proved to be too much.
The first sign of a shift was the move by some of the more liberal Churches of the time to have services on Christmas day. Soon there were descriptions of quiet, home based celebrations – remember the context. This was competition for the near riots that were sometimes happening on the streets. Many families were trying to keep their children and young people at home and away from the rough activity.
There must have been similar events in England, because it was in this context that the famous novel, A Christmas Carol, was written by Charles Dickens. We know it as the story of a single stingy man, Scrooge, who pressed the ill paid Bob Crachet to work a regular work day on Christmas Eve. What we don’t know was that there was a whole social class of Scrooges who not only pressed for regular work days on Christmas Eve, but on Christmas Day itself. Dicken’s tale is representative of the final cultural bludgeoning of the dour position in which the parsimony and stinginess of the puritans was drummed out of our culture.
Of course, we may not see this position as excessive. Especially when we look at the alternative – rioting in the streets, public drunkenness, licentiousness of all sorts. The Christmas celebration should not be Mardi Gras redux.
And for us and our families, as Mennonites, it wasn’t. Let me read here the wonderful account of Christmas in a Mennonite family during the 40's as recounted by my Aunt Catherine in a recent email to the Martin family list service.
“A few weeks before Christmas my mother and Dad presented the family with a new game. Some of the games I recall are: Parchessi, Monopoly, Chinese Checkers, and dominoes. They wanted us to have a Christmas gift, but not on Christmas Day. This was not what the Christmas celebration was about. It was about the coming of a Savior fulfilling the Old Testament Scripture that the Messiah would come and save us from our sins and usher in a new kind of peace. The avoidance of gift giving on Christmas Day was intentional. Giving gifts was a joy for my parents, but not on this sacred day.....
... The Christmas Day celebration was a very special day at our house. What made it special was the presence of both our parents with us in the house for the day. Dad put aside his work, and enjoyed playing games with us. We sat at the table while several of us took turns playing as the others gathered around and watched. Each one had a turn playing. ..... Dad was the referee. He helped us all to keep the peace as we played these games. Sometimes Mother also played, but mostly she was in the kitchen watching over the baked chicken and the delicious dinner preperation. Hot chocolate was always available. The table was laden with cookies and candies (the hard colorful kind) along with tangerines, oranges, apples, and nuts. We helped ourselves to these goodies as we played. Pop corn was a favorite as the day wore on. We enjoyed a spirit of peace and good humor among us.
The games were interrupted by Mother's announcement that dinner was ready. We girls took turns helping in the kitchen. Now we cleared the table and set it for dinner. And what a meal it was! Mother was not a variety cook, but she did a good job with chicken, mashed potatoes, noodles, peas, corn, and cold slaw followed by pumpkin pie for dessert. As a younger child I liked the coloring books always available over this season. I was intrigued by Santa Claus pictures, but we had no Santa Claus at our house.
The Sunday before Christmas was also very special. At the close of the worship service a small box of chocolates and an orange was handed to each child present. What a treat! ......
Christmas caroling was always a part of church youth activities. Bundled up for the ride we crowded into an open truck singing our hearts out on the streets of town and in the country side: "Hark, the Herald Angels sing, glory to the newborn King!" A few places had prepared for us, inviting us in for a treat. Following the singing we usually went to a place for hot chocolate and cookies.”
This was Christmas for a Mennonite family in the 1940's. There is no rum punch. No rioting. Certainly no licentiousness. But it was a recognition of the Nativity, a celebration. I imagine there are still some Mennonite families that downplay gift giving and the accouterments of the pagan aspects of this season, even within this congregation, though I doubt that any give up caroling and big meals.
You can see my bias, let me also remind you, or perhaps myself, that there is truth to be had in the celebratory approach. While I think it more fitting that we celebrate the birth of Jesus with quiet reverence and that the rioting and debauchery of the vestiges of the Pagan festival is to be avoided, I must also confess an attraction for the exuberance expressed and for the shear energy. I’m not one to judge. I don’t like football games or rock concerts either. But I’m not going to deny people their pleasures.
Remember the ancient truth that traveled from the orient over the silk road to the Jews before Jesus time – God is holy and unknowable and when you place a name on God, you have named an idol which is not God. The Tao That Can Be Named is not the True Tao. The god that can be named is not the True God. Neither the dour denial of a time of celebration for Christ’s birth, nor the licentious and irreligious partying of European peasantry have correctly placed a name on the Will of God in this Season.
But to put this in the place where I believe this fits, let me read a passage of scripture that recently was posted to Mennolink, from Romans chapter 14, Peterson's paraphrase:
"Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don't see things the way you
do. And don't jump all over them every time they do or say something you
don't agree with -- even when it seems that they are strong on opinions
but weak in the faith department. Remember, they have their own history
to deal with. Treat them gently. For instance, a person who has been
around for a while might well be convinced that he can eat anything on
the table, while another, with a different background, might assume all
Christians should be vegetarians and eat accordingly. But since both are
guests at Christ's table, wouldn't it be terribly rude if they fell to
criticizing what the other ate or didn't eat? God, after all, invited
them both to the table. Do you have any business crossing people off the
guest list or interfering with God's welcome? If there are corrections
to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your
help."
This is but one of the passages in the Bible that maintains the ancient truth of the Taoist saying.
Many Christians get frustrated and annoyed when they run into this line of thought. This is too wishy washy. We should know what we stand for. Other Christians, who may take a minority position on any number of contentious issues, cheer reminders of this sort and may press their more Puritan like sisters and brothers to relax. On issues of contention, they say, let God decide.
An early Anabaptist, I learned this week, named Hans Denck felt strongly about this: "But you, if you hear your brothers say something that is strange to you, do not at once contradict, but hear whether it be right, whether you may accept it. If you do not like to hear it, still, do not condemn him, and if it appears to you that he is mistaken, consider whether you may not be more mistaken."
For all of them, for us and for myself, I am happy to reiterate that, while we can recognize wisdom in other religions and philosophies, we are not Taoists. While we can see that the Bible conveys this idea that we have but a distant, obscured view of God and God’s glory, we can also say, with thanksgiving, that we do know God by a name that is True.
That True Name is Jesus. For unlike the abstractions and philosophizing and arguing over creeds and practices and rules, Jesus is not an abstraction. Jesus was a real person, lived a real life. Jesus spoke to others, taught them, loved them, and died as result. We believe that He was raised from the dead and is spiritually present with us now.
And that is why we should observe a season of celebration, of solemn thanksgiving, of raucous praise, of jubilation in its true sense, and of prayerful, silent awe. Jesus is the True name for God. In Jesus, God came to us and revealed that the distant, enigmatic, ethereal substance that is the Most Holy, whose name is too Holy to be spoken is Mother and Father to us, loves us, is interested in the most trivial aspects of our lives, the bread we eat, the suffering and slights we inflict on others and which are inflicted on us, the temptations we face. Jesus called God “Abba”, “Daddy” and said that we also can share this kind of intimacy with the God that previously was only feared. Jesus taught us that we are God’s beloved.
The giving of this Great Gift is worth great celebration. More importantly, it is worth emulating. To the extent that we can we should give generously to those who do not have what we have, not only showering gifts on the children in our midst, but also showering gifts on others, particularly the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized, hoping that they, too, will also shower us with whatever gifts that God has given them, even if that be only a poorly sung song or ill spoken play. Sadly, as this Country prepares for war and has lost its view of the face of Jesus, there will be many more of the poor, oppressed and marginalized who will desperately need these gifts.
Jesus is the true name, the bright light that has come to show us our life’s path. In Jesus we see God’s face and we pray, with the Psalmist, in Psalm 80:3 Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.