"A bookie, an historian, and a missionary go into a bar..."
A bookie, an historian, and a missionary go into a bar and grill. Can we predict who is likely to be converted to Christianity. At the individual level it is mysterious, why one hears and his brother cannot. But over time, and continents, en masse, patterns appear. Converts from the great world religions, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, are few and difficult. And the ground is relatively arid in the secular, modern West (with remarkable exceptions, to be sure). But when it comes to pagan groups, local religions, indigenous worship Christian evangelism has done remarkably well, regardless of continent or century. Why is that? For idolatry was in the great opponent of Biblical faith. What gives?
Here are some important clues to consider about our pagan ancestors, wherever they may have lived on the earth. First, they believed that spiritual forces, good and evil, were close, real, powerful. Theirs was not a thinned out world. Second, they had a story of their origin, the how and why of our being here, and hence our ‘who.’ Third their need to pray and to sacrifice was as palpable as to eat or drink. The world was dangerous, and an offering was required.
There is a famous letter from pope Gregory to St. Augustine of Canterbury, when the latter, having been dispatched to the wilds of England in the 6th century, encountered their vigorous pagan observance. ‘Tear down their temples, and build churches on the same places; cancel their festivals, and observe saints’ days on the same dates.’ While the strategy feels brutal, we might spiritualize the advice. That pagan has something within to be transformed. Conversion could be described in terms of just such a repurposing, for we are all acquainted with the inner pagan with his or her own spiritual agenda. There are powers- but the risen Jesus rules over them. There is an origin story, but it happened, and has been narrated in the Bible about Israel and Jesus. There is the need for sacrifice; and the blood of Jesus suffices; for Him is true worship owed! Jesus has taken captivity captive, and that entails repurposed pagans like us! Let that be your word to yourself for this Advent week.
But what’s all this got to do with readings? The first thing to note is that they all pertain to the Gentiles, la gente, the peoples of the earths, which means of course us (even Israel having been selected by God from among the nations). It is not an appellation we are used to, but the readings remind us of its importance. Of course the hearers of the readings in their original first-century context would have had in mind not only local tribes and nations- but Rome. They were complicated! The source of law and order, not to mention bread and circuses, and propaganda, and a vision of connection (read empire) bound to disappoint. They were also rich, corrupt, creative, violent. Incidentally they called themselves the ‘moderni,’ the latest thing. Rome in turn dreamed of a wonder-child to come, and launched pogroms against outsiders. They are not so far away, separated by two millennia though we be. Let’s look in more detail about what the readings look ahead to in relation to them. Predictably the themes I find are three, with which our yet partially pagan partially converted hearts will resonate with.
Well, what I have said so far has been a little abstract, (and I hope a little interesting), though it hasn’t gotten into our kitchen, emotional or cultural. But that is where the Gospel means to get. The Bible wants us to think of ourselves as something we don’t usually, namely as ‘Gentiles’, but if we do so, in our time and place, where does that take us? That is also where our readings mean to take us. Here to we find three longings/needs/failings in ourselves. We live in a harsh conflictual, irreal, time. We are as Gentiles sons and daughters of Babel, the progeny of Cain. We want things to be set right, inside and outside of us. This means both becalmed and fair. But we are far from this. Our efforts seem to drive further from such a goal. Our politics be what they may, who does not feel this diagnosis? Both Isaiah 11 and Psalm 72 are Messianic hopes for this forlorn, post-Babel world, that the shalom we hope for would be brought and embodied, by the king.
The second feature of our pagan hearts goes in contemporary parlance by the word ‘identity,’ upon which a culture fastens when it isn’t sure that it is. Romans 15 contains a string of references to the hope of the Gentiles in Paul’s Bible, namely the Old Testament. But the reader or hearer is given more than an origin long ago. We are given a history of which we are a key chapter, the situation in which we sit this morning, together in our diversity in Church, a key symbol of the point of it all. ‘Praise the Lord (that is, the God of Israel), all you peoples.’ This event, the coming of the divided and confused nations to real faith, is what Paul in Ephesians calls the ‘mystery,’ which means something like ‘the key to history.’ Because of the Messiah, the very fact of the Church, with all its serious faults, is itself a sign of hope, not in us but in Him.
And the Gospel? Well, we long for the coming of the righteous king, the Son of the God of the universe. But should we? When he comes to this mess, what will He have to say? The prophet Malachi has it right, ‘who can abide the day of His coming?’ The third theme was sacrifice, because we know viscerally that, as Pogo, famously said, ‘we have seen the enemy and he is us.’ The coming of the Lord in judgment is a fearsome thing, which John the Baptizer knows well. We are John’s ‘brood of vipers,’ the image being one of a field being burned off, and the snakes fleeing from the approaching fire. And we as Christians do not deny that this judgment is righteous altogether. But what the Gospel says to you and me each morning is that the king of shalom has taken upon himself the burn, he has absorbed it. No Gentile shaman, nor powerbroker, nor mystic poet, foresaw that. It is in neither our imagining nor our desires. It is far better than both. And it is why Advent in all of its realism, in our lives as well as our world, is the fitting preparation for the coming of this surprising prince of peace. Amen.
