Sunday,December
27, 1998
Rev. Shirley B.
Coll
"Leaving and Returning"
Isaiah 61:10-62:3, Matthew 2:13-23
Life seems to be full of leavings. We leave home when we grow up. We often leave the part of the country where we were raised to settle in a new and unfamiliar place for the first time. It is not unusual over a lifetime for job changes to cause moves to yet other new areas. All through our lives we leave friends, either because we no longer have much in common or because there is not time to fit them in, or because they are no longer close at hand. We leave relationships that matter to us because of misunderstandings or fights or because someone new becomes more important. We leave once cherished pastimes for new interests. We leave traditions behind because they no longer have meaning or because we are anxious to create new ones. Sometimes we leave because we have to leave - sometimes because we want to leave - and sometimes because it just works out that way.
Other times in life, we are left. People move away from us, or people we would like to befriend no longer seem interested in us. And people die on us - die long before we are ready to say goodbye. We have some control over our leavings. We have much less control over being left.
Christmas is a time of joy, and this Christmas was no exception to that, but it is also a time when memories of leavings and being left seem to surface more often than at any other time of the year. All of us share many memories of family members -- parents and close aunts and uncles and others who were very active participants in Christmas past who are no longer living. This year we are missing Joey. Remembering can be painful. Even the joy of being surrounded by one's own grandchildren or children or friends never completely erases the longing for those who are not there. It is sometimes an acute pain - sometimes more a memory that fills the soul with a combination of warm love and the ache of missing.
I was reminded of the thoughts and feelings that surround the leavings and returnings of our lives by our Gospel lesson for this morning. The lesson tells the story of the flight to Egypt by Joseph, Mary and Jesus - they leave Bethlehem and flee to Egypt to avoid Herod. They leave because they are afraid of the danger ahead of them if they stay.
If you stop to think about it, that is the same reason we do a lot of the things we do. We leave, we move to a new place in our thinking, or we move to a new place with someone important to us, partly because we are afraid of the danger if we stay where we are.
Our scripture tells us that it was an angel who appeared to Joseph in a dream to tell him it was time to leave and it was an angel who appeared later in another dream and told him that those who were seeking the child's life were dead. It was time to return to Israel.
I think there are some noteworthy aspects of this story that have meaning in our lives today as we each go through our individualized personal cycles of leaving and returning. In my opinion, they are worthy enough aspects to be lifted up and acknowledged.
First it is a fact that every period of our lives has its Herod's. There is always some force, or some person, or some event beyond our control that pushes against our striving for wholeness. There is evil in this world. Real life is not like a Disney movie. We are not surrounded by happy endings. We live in a world with massive drug issues, high crime rates, endemic poverty and illness. The people we run into out there do not always have our best interests at heart. There is always a need to step back from life and discover what the right direction for our forward movement should be. This is a dynamic that has little to do with age. The circumstances of our lives change, but the issues remain the same. No matter which phase of life we are in - whether we are beginning a career and a family or whether we are moving to a retirement home, we always need to learn to love more fully, we always need to master some aspect of life that is a thorn in our side, and we continue to make mistakes in judgment. Our personal Herod's never disappear. On this Sunday between Christmas and the New Year, what better time to pause and take a look at our faith journey before we move ahead into l999. What better time, now that we have seen the Christ child, to decide on our choices for the future. For Christmas offers us all insights into the faith journey that each of us will take this year and every year, but more importantly Christmas offers us hope for the future. Hope is necessary for living.
Second, I think the story of the flight into Egypt says to each of us that it is important to take care of yourself. If you have to leave, leave. Joseph's leaving for Egypt did not stop the death of children but there is no guarantee his remaining would have stopped that either. Herod was in a rage and his actions were not the actions of a rational man. We usually know when we are not doing well. We can usually sense the danger.
Often that danger is not liking the way we are in a situation. Maybe you don't share my experience but I find that certain situations and certain people in life bring out different facets of my personality.
I remember very clearly the first job I had after college. I was working in an insurance agency, at a rather decent salary for that day, doing estate planning. This had absolutely nothing to do with English poetry and literature (my field of concentration in college), but that's another story. I was doing a pretty good job, according to my supervisors, but I have never experienced such boredom in my life. I can remember spending most work days that year watching the hands of the clock that I could see from my desk - waiting for 5 o'clock to come around. I promised myself at the end of that year, when I left for some work that was more fitting to my interests, that I would never in my life work at a job where I watched the clock again. The experience was a good learning. It helped to crystallize my life direction.
There is a third aspect of the story that has parallels for us today. I think it is true that returning for a while to an earlier place of safety is not always a negative retreat -- it can restore the soul. I think that in regard to Christ Congregational Church I am a living example of that. I keep coming back here for short periods of time sometimes for very unfortunate reasons, and you folks keep restoring my soul. I am very happy in my retirement and I am glad that my stay here in my current role will not be an extended one, but I am also grateful for the affirmation that I have felt during the time that I have been here. And what I continue to learn from my leavings and returnings is that I will not be swallowed by my past but that I grow from the experiences. I remember as a new young mother returning from the hospital with my newborn child to my parent's home for a few days until I became more confident as a mother. I knew I was being pampered -- I knew I didn't want to stay long -- but I will always remember how secure that short stay made me feel.
Mary and Joseph were fleeing for the life of their child. They must have known at one level that they were leaving for the right reasons, but one of their biggest hurdles must have been psychological, for the trip was a retreat for Joseph and his family. Long before the time of today's story, the people of Israel had been led out of Egypt and into the promised land. Now that Jesus had been born, now that the Messiah had come, rather than rejoicing, Joseph had to take his family and run for his life back to the place where his ancestors had been held in bondage. He must have felt like he was going backwards, but he did what he knew he had to do.
Leaving and being left are certainly painful experiences even when they are necessary and important for the wholeness of those concerned. In some circumstances even returning can be painful. Joseph was probably confident that he was returning because of the political situation. In less clear situations in life, It is not always possible to know whether we are actually returning or whether we are perhaps running away.
It was just two days ago that we celebrated Christmas. Now - two days later - guest are either on their way home or getting ready to leave. We probably haven't started taking down the decorations, but some of us have begun to think about it. Tomorrow a lot of us start back to work and that means that for those people reality will set in quickly, -- they will know for sure that the Christmas holiday is over for another year. After weeks of preparation, the leaving part does seem to come very quickly. Leavings for those whose loved ones were involved in this season's conflict with Iraq also must have come much too quickly.
I still overhear people asking, "What did you get for Christmas?" and I always think when I hear that question, that it is too soon to ask. We may be able to list the presents we have received but the less tangible rewards of the season require time to discern. One way or another Christmas has had an impact on us all.
It is important to remember that all leavings in life are not for sorrowful reasons. Sometimes we leave to enjoy life more - to do something we have always dreamed of doing - or as Joseph Campbell would say, to "follow our bliss." These are the kinds of leavings that I would like for us to think about this morning. They are the kind of leavings that have Christmas at their very root.
They are the kind of leavings that contain the promise of return.
In our text from Isaiah the prophet writes that after getting all dressed in the garments of salvation and the robes of righteousness, God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth and that change will happen. Dressed in God's glory, the people were to go forth and show to the nations the vindication of the Lord. And to go the place they go, the people of Israel must turn themselves toward keeping the covenant by wearing robes of righteousness in their day-to-day relationships with themselves and each other, and God. In doing this they would be given a new name. In other words, from our place in history, the hope, peace, love and joy of Christmas are potent forces that have the ability to renew and dramatically change us so that we are, figuratively speaking, given a new name - we change in significant ways.
The story of Christmas is the story of how God came to us on our own terms -- in all of our weakness and in all of our strength. God came that the world might be changed. The infant birth with shepherds and wisemen and angels is a powerful scene, and yet we have seen and experienced that power as lying precisely in the apparent weakness and vulnerability of the one who was greeted and worshipped. The story for today, the flight into Egypt, addresses this same vulnerability.
There is a Christmas story, a Christmas parable that says this better than I can say it. It is a story told by the Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard. It is a story that contains images that are perhaps old fashioned, for it is not a modern one, but it is a good story none the less. It goes this way:
Once upon a time, there was a prince who rode his carriage in town to do some chores for his father. As he was riding through a rather poor section of town, he happened to glance out the window and right onto the eyes of a beautiful maiden. Soon he began to feel that he was in love with her. He began to wonder how he could best go about winning her hand and making her his bride. As far as he could see he had three alternatives. He could order her to come to the palace and use the pressure of his office to force her to marry him. But he decided that he wanted her to want to marry him, and so he rejected this alternative. The second alternative was to masquerade as a peasant and try to gain her interest. Then after he had proposed, he would pull off his mask and reveal his true identity. Such a masquerade he decided would be phony and the price rejected that approach. The third alternative was the one he decided to act on. He would discard his royal robes and move into the neighborhood where the beautiful maiden lived. He would get a job as an ordinary workman, perhaps as a carpenter. He would get acquainted with the people and learn to share their interests and concerns. He would learn to speak their language and if in good time, he would meet her, and if she would come to love him as he already loved her, then he would ask for her hand in marriage. The story turned out the way the prince had hoped. The maiden did learn to love him and when that had happened, he told her who he really was.
In the new year, with all the leavings and returnings that will make up our individual spiritual journeys, may we learn to love God by living each day with the knowledge that God is with us and by trusting enough to be vulnerable to that love. In the words of Isaiah, put on your robes of righteousness - dress in God's glory -- Celebrate. For God has come to us. Amen
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