December 23, 2001
|
See also:[2004] [2007] |
Isaiah 7: 10-15
Romans 1: 1-7
Matthew 1: 18-25
"All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "Look, the young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel."
‘Stories evoke other stories,’ writes James Wiggins, his comment calling to mind those little wooden folk dolls that nest one inside another. ‘A story invites one to tell one’s own personal and collective stories in response . . .just as if one contains the possibility of another.’ Scripture for the fourth week of Advent exhibits this nesting characteristic, as the promised Emmanuel of Isaiah is also later contained in Matthew’s gospel account, and as the salutation of the epistle succinctly embraces the entire gospel story. Each pericope shows a living progression, like the plant that sprouts from the seed of a fruit, as one experience evokes another.
Like these biblical passages or the wooden folk dolls, all creation ‘nests.’ Everything is related and occupies a place between others. Even while fruit is still maturing on the vine, the seeds that will sprout future plants are already forming in its fleshy middle. Just as plants species propagate, humans, too, in a similar process generationally ‘nest’ inside their mothers as female infants are born with their ovaries containing all their eggs that could ever be fertilized in future pregnancies. We are born with something waiting to be born in us. Life fully lives in the embodied process of believing that it can.
‘A young woman shall bear a son.’ What amazing words to hear: ‘You’re pregnant! You and your wife are going to have a baby!’ Birth is always an incredible sign of hope and new life because ‘God is with us’ in the gentle growth of each conception to birth. Yet, news of a pregnancy always challenges previous self-identity. The introduction of something more always contains new possibility that alter plans made for any future.
Sometimes, great joy is matched by great insecurity. When Kate and Bruce realized that they were having a child, both were overjoyed. Also quickly remembered, however, was the fact that their current employment positions were ending the same month that child would be born. Would they have new jobs or the financial resources to respond here? Their joy was balanced by the reality of the resources and position needed to sustain the event. The birth of a child can turn everything upside down, and Bruce and Kate’s anxieties could only partially compare to those of Joseph.
It has been said that ‘God comforts the afflicted, and afflicts the comfortable.’ Without a doubt, Joseph must have felt afflicted. The paternity of this newborn was in doubt. Though he knew that God’s spirit was untamed and mysterious, things like this just don’t routinely happen. They especially don’t happen to working class craftsmen, just barely able to earn a living. Joseph’s reputation and Mary’s survival hinged on the decisions he would have to make. How would he provide for this unexpected child?
Joseph knew of Isaiah’s great vision of a young woman’s child. He believed that God would deliver the children of Israel from bondage. He hoped for a messianic visitation that would restore Israel to its former glory. But, as he anxiously pondered the future, praying for guidance about the actions he should take, Joseph, no doubt, felt more akin to the Psalmist. ‘Let your face shine on us. . .give us life.’ No doubt he plead, ‘show me the way and help me do the right thing.’
Consider the verse of T.S. Eliot:
Peace, and be at peace with your thoughts and visions.
These things had to come to you and you to accept them.
This is your share of the eternal burden,
The perpetual glory. This is one moment,
But know that another
Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy
When the figure of God’s purpose is made complete.
You shall forget these things, toiling in the household.
You shall remember them, droning by the fire,
When age and forgetfulness sweeten memory
Only like a dream that has often been told
And often been changed in the telling. They will seem unreal.
Human kind cannot bear very much reality.
Joseph had the opportunity here to bear a great deal of reality, so much no doubt that it all probably seemed rather unreal at the time. Joseph did so by accepting the vision with faith. His great bearing of reality was matched by an equally great faith. Life lives in the embodied process of believing that it can.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes that stories ‘have such power. . .we need only listen. Stories engender the sadness, excitement, questions, longings and understandings that spontaneously bring the archetype. . .back to the surface. . .embedded with instructions which guide us about the complexities of life.’
Israel had long held this collective archetype/dream of a vision of God sending Emmanuel, ‘God is with us.’ Joseph fully and faithfully lived in the process of believing this dream. But for Joseph, as a result of his dream, two things had changed in the vision’s telling: it was no longer a future event for which to hope - it was happening now, and the vision, itself, would impact him personally to a far greater extent than he had ever conceived. The unconventional conception of this child was turning everything upside down. The patience of Israel was finally being answered as the seed of the maturing fruit began to sprout in the simple life of a working class craftsman and a young peasant girl.
‘Without a dream, the people perish.’ And, without a dream instructing Joseph, without Joseph freely accepting the guidance offered by the vision, this child and his mother would surely have perished. In the darkest night when the pilgrim cannot even see a footstep ahead, a light shines. ‘The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light.’
In the deepest darkness, even the smallest light can guide your way. For Joseph, the light came in the form of a dream that calmed his fears and guided his path. John Keats writes about negative capability, which he describes as ‘when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after facts and reason.’ Joseph exhibited great negative capability, a quality many of us may know by another name, faith.
In an Enlightenment world, where only consciousness and control matter, sophisticated people often doubt the significance of the unconscious. Dreams simply reveal deep-seated fears and sexual fantasies to those who ascribe the world of dreams to poets, Pentecostals, or television tarot card readers. But Romans reminds us that God also speaks through the unconscious, in those ‘sighs too deep for words,’ and that the divine aim at abundance comes to us as readily in intuitions, feelings, dreams, and chance encounters as it ever does through any intellectual insights.
Robert Trammell writes about ‘A holy place of enlightenment. . .where an angel appears and you get a glimpse of it.’ Joseph was given the gift of a glimpse, the chance to be open to a holy possibility. ‘In dreams, we are visited,’ writes James Hillman, speaking to the power of our visions to connect us with universal mythical archetypes. Joseph’s glimpse connected his personal experience to the Emmanuel symbol long carried by Israel. His personal relational experience found a contextual home in his expression of faith.
‘I cannot now think symbols less than the greatest of all powers whether they are used consciously by the masters of magic, or half unconsciously by their successors, the poet, the musician and the artist,’ wrote W.B. Yeats. The symbol of Emmanuel had sustained Israel for centuries, and its great power would sustain Joseph and Mary through their pregnancy together.
Joseph Campbell proposes a power of the ‘experience of the order of no-mind: that is to say the poetical order, the order of art. When this occurs, our own reality-beyond-meaning is awakened (or perhaps better: we are awakened to our own reality-beyond-meaning).’ Joseph was awakened to a spiritual reality beyond the particulars of his own impending marriage. A dream can change your life.
This power of the unconscious to reveal a deeper level of reality than everyday consciousness has been recognized by Carl Jung and his students. ‘Inner experiences,among which I include my dreams and visions,’ writes Jung, ‘set their seal on outward events.’ God’s dream for us comes freely and lovingly, and calls each of us to give birth to God’s shalom.
‘Grace and peace,’ the apostle Paul proclaims in his salutation to the Romans.
God is the parent as well as the midwife of dreams, but God also calls us to be midwives of the new life waiting to emerge from the divine womb of possibility. Christmas calls us to dream great dreams and to awaken to God’s dream for ourselves and for the world. What great dreams lie dormant and die because they are not noticed? What wonderful possibilities perish because we don’t act on them out of fear or disbelief? Dreams, like the hope of a new-born child, can turn your life upside down. They can send you on a ‘journey without distance’ or challenge you become a new creation.
Are you and your church dreaming big enough? What birth awaits you if you simply open your heart and mind to it? These holy dreams are God’s grace incarnate.
Like the author of Psalm 80, we ask for restoration and pray for God’s light. But, in the spirit of the Twelve Step movement, we have to ‘want it really bad. ’ Mary and Joseph show us the power of the dream and the courage it takes to say ‘yes’ even when the future is in doubt. We are born with something waiting to be born in us. No birth is too small. The divine birth in us may involve a commitment to serving our community, changing jobs in order to nurture our spirits and the well being of others, healing a relationship, or committing ourselves to becoming poets, artists, and creators of beauty in our everyday lives.
Christ’s birth is not just ‘out there.’ God is with us and God is in us. Male or female, we are pregnant with God’s holy birth.
O holy Child of Bethlehem! Descend on us we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in; be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels. The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, our God, Emmanuel.
Meditation: Male or female, we are called
to give birth to divine possibility. Take a few moments simply to be still
and know that God is at work in your life. In the quiet, gently open
yourself to God’s dream for your life. What is being born in your life?
What new life is God bringing forth in your life? Imagine how this new
birth, God’s dream for you, will change your life if you say ‘yes’
to it. Let the new birth gently grow in your life, taking shape in your
everyday experience. Conclude, by thanking God for new birth and asking
God to give you the insight and courage to embrace what is being born in
your life today.
Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education at Lancaster Theological Seminary and co-minister of Disciples United Community Church in Lancaster, PA. He is the author of twelve books including God’s Touch: Faith, Wholeness, and the Healing Miracles of Jesus, Healing Worship: Purpose and Practice; and Reiki Healing Touch and the Way of Jesus. His books are availabe at Flux Books.
If you found this lectionary helpful, please consider contributing to Process & Faith by making a donation or becoming a member.
Process & Faith is a program of the Center for Process Studies, an affiliated program of the Claremont School of Theology.
This site and all content ©2006 Process & Faith, unless otherwise noted.
Please support this website by becoming a member of Process & Faith.
