A Meditation by Robert E. Dunham
University Presbyterian Church
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Christmas Eve December 24, 2008
“But Mary preserved all these words, pondering them in her heart.” Luke 2:19
I've been sitting with that sentence for weeks now, anticipating this night. What does it mean - to "ponder"? Merriam-Webster's dictionary suggests that it can mean a "careful weighing" or, perhaps more pejoratively, "prolonged inconclusive thinking" about a problem. It is a word that comes from one or two words rooted in Middle English - words that mean "to weigh," or, in another form, "to suspend," or "to hang." The Greek verb, symballō, implies "throwing together" or "tossing things around" in one's heart.[1]
I suspect many of us here tonight are "pondering" - weighing what it all means: what it meant to that young adolescent mother so long ago...and what it means to us more particularly. For some of us, our pondering is simply part of a "prolonged inconclusive" period of thinking... and thus more a "passive" than an "active" verb.
For others, "pondering" is a more active and engaging process, a consideration of the mystery of the Incarnation - of God, the eternal Word, taking on human form in an act of unimaginable engagement, sacrifice and redemption. To such faithful pilgrims, tonight is a night of richness and grace, a night of extravagant fulfillment of an ancient promise.
For still others, I know, it is far less than that. The night has lost whatever special place it once held in their hearts. Too many hopes and dreams have been dashed along the way; too many prayers have seemed to have gone unanswered; too many dear ones have perished unnecessarily. To such persons, all the promises of Christmas may seem but a fraud and hardly worth pondering.
Or worse... for some folks the whole "organized religion" thing has become the enemy. And what reasonably intelligent person doesn't understand that perspective, especially given the bad name religious faith has earned by allowing the fundamentalists in all religions - particularly Christianity and Islam - to become the dominant religious voices in recent decades? To the people who eschew "organized religion," by the way, I always say, "Then come visit us; we're not very organized at all." But the bigotry and hatred and torment and terror perpetrated in the name of religious faith in our time is no joke. It is appalling. As Frederick Buechner once noted, it is astonishing and perplexing "the length to which the [so-called] ‘friends of God' will go to make enemies for God."[2] Ponder that!
Regardless of where you find yourself tonight along such a continuum, I would declare to you nonetheless that there is room and space for you here. There is room for you here because of what we share in common: the vulnerability we all bring to this night... the steadiness we all crave in these days when the ground seems to be shifting beneath our feet... and the anxiety we experience as we come to peer once again into that manger. Who among us wouldn't be grateful for any "good news of a great joy" this night? We are, each of us, hungry for hopefulness in these dark days... we all know we will find little satisfaction in simply more of the same. We all know that so many of the sources and resources on which we have so long relied for stability seem to have betrayed and abandoned us.
And I would wager that, if pressed, we would all acknowledge our hunger for the truth... the truth about the world... the truth about what we face... the truth about ourselves... the truth about God. Here we don't claim more than we know... or, to say it better, we don't claim more than we hope for... more than we believe... more than we are willing to ponder. Here in this congregation's life we remain open to revelation... open to mystery... especially on this night.
I cannot imagine what must have been going on in Mary's mind that night in Bethlehem... this teen-aged girl, younger than many of the members of our Youth Choir... what deep stirrings stretched within her as she beheld face to face the mystery to whom she had given birth. That is not to make Luke's story of Mary at the manger more mystical than it is. Its depth lies mainly in its simplicity. True, there is a chorus of angels. But who are the characters? A poor couple on the move at an inconvenient time, obedient to authority and the command of the empire, forced to bring a child into the world in a stable... with poor shepherds as witnesses. Says Luke Johnson, "The contrast between the angelic panoply and the earthly reality is sharp; no wonder Mary "turned these events over" in her heart, seeking to understand them.[3]
What Mary does with her heart stirrings, of course, suggests to us a posture by which we can lean into the news of this night and the Mystery before which it invites us to bow. It is the posture of reverence, of awe - the kind of awe and reverence suggested by the prologue of Tennyson's "In Memoriam,"[4] part of which we will sing in a few moments.
We have but faith; we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.
Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,
But vaster.
On this night, Mary's pondering invites us to peer through the candlelight and to listen deeply to the carols, until "more of reverence in us dwell" before "the vaster, resounding holiness of a baby laid in a manger and [years later in] a rock-hewn tomb."[5]
Maybe what this night invites us to is simply that - a deeper reverence... a sense of awe... and not just for this night. My friend and colleague Agnes Norfleet introduced me to the work of University of Texas humanities scholar Paul Woodruff, who wrote a book about reverence a few years back, in which he argued that reverence is a mostly-forgotten virtue in American life. Woodruff says that reverence "begins in a deep understanding of human limitations... from [which] grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control - [be it] God, truth, justice, nature, even death. As the capacity for awe grows in us, he says, it brings with it the capacity for respecting [other] human beings...." Over against the view that reverence is merely passive adoration and devotion to God, Woodruff argues that, in his mind at least, reverence has as much to do with politics as with religion, at least in our day. "We can easily imagine religion without reverence," he says, for we see it every day, wherever religion leads people into violence against others.
But power without reverence - that is catastrophe for all concerned. Politics without reverence is blind to the general good and deaf to advice from people who are powerless. An irreverent soul is arrogant, unable to feel awe in the face of things higher than itself. An irreverent soul is unable to feel respect for people it sees lower than itself - ordinary people, prisoners, children.... Any of us is better for remembering that there is Someone to whom we are [all] children; [for then] we will be more likely to treat all children with respect.[6]
"Someone to whom we are [all] children:" in a sense, that is what the birth we celebrate this night is all about. Two millenia ago, amid the most ordinary people in a quite ordinary place under the all-too ordinary conditions of the inconvenience of the empire, something extraordinary happened. And there was Mary, pondering, wondering, reverently turning all of it over and over in her mind.
And here are we, with whatever preconceptions we brought to this service tonight... here are we, invited, welcomed, loved, embraced... and encouraged:
like Mary, to take the words in, to treasure and ponder them, because so much is possible when we do. As these words wash over us they [can] penetrate, despite [all] our defenses and distractions. Their spirit can move us and change us, whether we will it or not. Simply being present is enough, for [the] church [on Christmas Eve] is a place that allows [such] transformation to occur. If we feel utterly exhausted, drained of all feeling and weary with worldly chores and concerns, so much the better. Our weakness is God's strength. [Our poverty only magnifies the gift.] Our emptiness means that there is room for God after all.[7]
Room for God: Mary's pondering opened the door to that room... and maybe it will for us as well... open the door to room for God.... and thus to room for awe and reverence... and to a greater respect for all God's children... and if room for respect, then maybe room even for joy... for "good news of a great joy." Maybe. Maybe this night.
[1] For the former, Luke Timothy Johnson, Sacra Pagina: Luke, Collegeville, MN, The Liturgical Press, 1998, 51; and Chandler Stokes offered the latter at the January 2008 meeting of the Moveable Feast in Louisville, Kentucky.
[2] Buechner, Peculiar Treasures, New York, Harper and Row, 1979, 8.
[3] Johnson, 52.
[4] I am grateful for the reminder of Tennyson's poetry and the "reverence" tack of the remainder of this sermon to Agnes Norfleet and her excellent paper on this text presented to the 2008 Moveable Feast in Louisville. The sermon hymn tonight is that poem, set as "Strong Son of God, Immortal Love."
[5] Norfleet.
[6] Paul Woodruff, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001, 3-4, as cited by Norfleet. Italics mine.
[7] Kathleen Norris, "Zealous Hopes," Christian Century, December 19, 2005, 19.
Tags: Luke
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