The other
day a friend asked, “What is wrong with the people in Alabama?” (This after
hearing the majority of white women voted for Moore, many of whom believed the allegations.)
My immediate response was, “The people in Alabama are normal. The real question
is how do any of us rise above it?”
And honestly
it irks me that a majority of white women in the USA voted a self-confessed sexual
predator into the White House and are fine with that, while they are horrified
at the idea of trans women using their bathrooms. But the truth, whether I like
it or not, is that sexual predators are the norm, while trans people are
abnormal.
The reason
the #metoo hashtag was so upsetting to so many people was that it called out
normal behavior as bad. “How can what my cousin have experienced be sexual
harassment or assault when my father and brother behave like that?” Normal
people would rather keep the term sexual assault limited to particularly
heinous cases and especially to those cases where the perpetrator is a complete
stranger that can be villainized as not normal.
And the
reason I bring all this up is that Christians are not supposed to be normal.
Normal people call what other normal people do Christian, while anyone who has
truly heard the words of Christ would do nothing of the sort. We are called to
die to living a normal life. We are called to rise above it.
John was
hardly normal. And when asked, John didn’t claim to be the Messiah or Elijah or
even a prophet, John only claimed to be able to recognize Christ. Neither was
Christ normal, in fact Mark tells us he was so abnormal that his family wanted
to hide him away.
Perhaps in
that moment Mary, due to pressure from the people in her family who aspired to normalcy, forgot what
she said while she was pregnant with Jesus. Back then she was sure of God’s
intention. That God was going to manifest within the lowliest of People, and
that magnificence and glory would no longer belong to the normal people.
Even John,
when he was in jail, wondered if he recognized Jesus correctly. He sent his
followers to ask Jesus “what’s up?” Jesus answers, “The good news is preached
to the poor.” I’d like to note that poor is not considered normal.
I recently
saw a film that took place in an inner city black neighborhood, and when the
main character was called poor, he immediately responded with, “I give clothes
to the Salvation Army, people who are poor don’t do that.” This line exposed
many things in the film, including a desire to be thought of as normal, even
when one isn’t.
And that, my
friends, is why we need to die to all this. We need to die to the idea of ever
being thought of as normal again. To actually live as God intends for us to
live, will be seen as craziness, will be reviled, will embarrass our families,
and much of that will simply be because we don’t keep quiet about how horrible
it is to be normal.
So many
people I know who embody the life God wants for us, whether Christian or not, will
be dealing with racist, sexist, misogynistic, “socially conservative” family
members over the holidays. The older ones will likely keep the peace, because
by now they know their speaking truth will result in useless arguments and
bitter feelings.
Which is why
I have sympathy for Mary and John, perhaps they didn’t think they were wrong
about Jesus after all, but after quarreling with family or disciples they no
longer tried to stop them from attempting to censor the abnormal Christ. They
did these things, however before Christ died on the cross. The death we entered
into when we were baptized.
As I
mentioned in my last sermon, Christian death is something akin to Buddhist
detachment. Detachment gets a bad reputation I think, because so many
Westerners use it as an excuse to cut themselves off from their emotions. I
don’t believe that is the real meaning of detachment, and certainly not what I
mean by Christian death.
Christian
death is willingness to be the wierdo who recognizes Christ. Like John, we
admit there’s something wrong with normal and are willing to help other people
who know something is wrong. And hopefully they will recognize Christ too,
though the point is certainly not to make more Christians. The point is to
bring about the Kingdom of God, a little bit at a time.
And there
will be times when the better option is to keep our mouth shut than to have a
useless conversation with normal people. After all Jesus tells us not to cast
our pearls before swine. However, I do know how much turmoil that can cause. I
know how our hearts burn to tell the uncomfortable truth.
I’m
suggesting that Christian detachment is a way to calm the turmoil. It’s a way
to love our enemies. We step back and remember we’re not normal. We've already
died. How can they hurt us when we’re already dead? We may have righteous anger
burning within us, but let’s let the Holy Spirit guide us in when and how to
express it. It belongs to God as we belong to God. We are Christ’s mother and
brothers and sisters.
Text:
- First reading
- Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
- Psalm
- Luke 1:46b-55
- Second reading
- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
- Gospel
- John 1:6-8, 19-28
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