Sermon: Remembering…
Text: Jeremiah 33:14-16; Matthew 2:1-8
Thank you, Bethlehem News Network reporters, anchor, writers/producers, for adding such joy and imagination to the story of Jesus’ birth. Glen and Ron, in particular, started writing the News last October, and I witness their work as adding ‘light’ to this sacred, familiar story of Jesus’ birth, a deep part of our faith ancestry. It leads me to share with you, that, recently, my family bought a Sony digital camera. Min-Goo, after taking a hundred test shots of me, the kids and nature, decided to purchase two more special lenses in addition to the one that came with the camera. I do not know much about digital cameras but I do know at least one thing: we control light by adjusting lenses or adding lenses, and light makes magic. Similarly, by adding new lenses, new light, we can endow our sacred stories with fresh insight, acknowledging their ongoing importance in our lives. In addition, because we find ourselves in the fresh retellings of the sacred stories, we acknowledge ourselves, too. We matter, because we are part of the story. Not only that, as we begin to learn how our stories and the stories of others are interconnected, we can expand the boundary of who we are and become more interested in others: What their faith stories are, what they celebrate, what they honour, what they remember. In this regard, I believe that it is very meaningful to remember that for our Jewish kinfolk, this year’s Hanukkah begins exactly today, this evening, to light the candles for the next eight faith-filled nights.
To be honest, I didn’t really know much about Hanukkah until my colleague introduced this Hanukkah tribute song, “Bohemian Chanukah”, (based on Queen’s legendary “Bohemian Rhapsody”), uploaded on YouTube just a few days ago. (Here’s a video, just about one and a half minutes.)
Here’s some of the lyrics: “Is this the eighth night, we light with family? Recall with great pride, our escape from Greek tyranny? Kindle the lights. Remember the Maccabees. How did those five boys, lead us to victory? Well, they stood up against mighty foes, with their oil running low. Now we sing while lights glow. Rock of Ages, let our song… Yeshuati. … Judah, our faith was banned. Evil Antiochus said, No more Torah could be read. Judah, Matthathias’s son, you would not throw our heritage away. Judah, a great miracle happened here. The people of Israel live… These miracles our people will recall.”
The reason why I wanted to share this video with you is because of the last word before I stopped playing it, Recall. “These miracles our people will recall.”
Hope, Peace, Joy and Love are a beautiful Advent thematic arc which Christians in the world treasure and celebrate, through Advent, each year, as we do at Immanuel. I wondered what would happen if we add certain lenses to add ‘light’ to the meaning of hope, peace, joy and love. Like a photographer, who uses different lenses for each purpose, a ’Wide angle’ lens to capture more of the scene than the human eye can focus upon, or a ‘Prime lens’ for a sharp, clear portrait. The former zooms out; the latter deepens things nearby.
I have been thinking about three lenses: Remembering, Resilience and Revolutionary. These are 3 R words like last year’s (Revelation, Reflecting, Rejoicing). As we honour our own very special liturgical time, Advent, stoked by stories, full of life, I would like to wonder with you what photography effects, what emotional and spiritual power Remembering has for us, as we recall the stories of Jesus’ birth and of the people who had to exist for his birth to be possible…
Before lighting the first Advent Wreath candle, Hope, we read Jeremiah, which is historically assigned in Advent. Reading this way is the act of remembering. Even though remembering this event that happened a long time ago may not be our own personal memory, in this act, we search out what our faithful response and purpose is in our own time and life, therefore hope. In today’s reading, God draws a striking contrast between the failure of the shepherd who has scattered the flock and the promise of a restored line of rulers who will bring justice and righteousness. “I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up.” God promises the good news that in God’s peaceful realm, the people of God will live in safety, and their city will be called, “God is our righteousness.”
This is a collective memory; we own it. Remember this - first, orally versed, orally transmitted, orally kept, then written down, and passed on to us, after thousands of years. By remembering, let us access this collective memory, together, to touch it, to hold it. Mine the experience and the knowledge of hope. Jeremiah, Isaiah and other prophets, John the Baptist, Elizabeth, Mary, Simeon, Anna… these people are, like us, a people of God, imperfect beings, yet the midwives of God’s birthing work. There’s the comfort and the encouragement to know and to remember that we are not the first people to do God’s work of love.
I have a few statements about remembering, and I am so excited to share more about remembering in the following weeks.
The first task of remembering is to rearrange our lives in the understanding and appreciation of interdependence. Collectivity. (Last week, we reflected on interdependence.) The reason why I introduce interdependence is not because I do this work well, but because I do the opposite; I am not just teaching you, I am teaching myself. Deeply embedded in individualism, we tend to consider Advent as a time-limited, time-specific period of spiritual contemplation or preparation, for our individual selves, rather than as a people. What do I mean by remembering that we are part of the collective or we are a people, exactly?
Here’s a personal example: Three years ago, I was successful in enrolling 10 youth in The United Church youth camp! A variety of workshops were provided, and one of them was very memorable. A local poet was invited to teach the youth creative writing as a spiritual practice. This old, sage-looking man, very wise and warm, introduced himself, read two poems of his, in a voice that was calm and warm, then took a glass jar out of his bag.
He took a cute little tea spoon, too, and asked us to reach our arm away from ourselves and hold our hands out, palms up. He said, he would drop a spoon of this powdery stuff inside the jar on each of our palms, and gave the firm instruction: Do not try finding out what it is yet. It was brown. When everyone got it, he asked us to draw our palm close to us and smell it, and remember… Remember, and write it down.
Everyone followed the instruction (gesture…). It was cinnamon. When I smelled it, it immediately led me to a memory which was long since forgotten or had no reason to be recollected until that moment. It was my family’s first year of living in Ladysmith. Our first home in Ladysmith was a beautiful big, blue, wooden house. It was splendid in the summer, but cold, very cold in that first year which had lots of snow. (built 60 years ago, it did not have good insulation.) It was Christmas-time; I was very pregnant. Jah-bi’s due date was Dec 26th, even though he was born on January 4th, the following year. I was alone, lonely. Even though we had a warm church family (Min-Goo’s church; I was a student), we had just moved to this small, beautiful, hilly rural town that summer. Coming from the city to this very White Canadian lovely town, I learned that in the holiday seasons Canadians like to use cinnamon - a lot. So, I tried to use cinnamon a lot as well. Smelling the cinnamon powder on my palm, I remembered my kitchen, those moments I experimented with baking (with cinnamon, of course) and the loneliness of the new immigrant life, in the isolating winter. At that time, I remember that I thought I was alone most of the time, adjusting to our family’s new life in a new place. But with the smell of the cinnamon powder on my palm, other memories quickly flashed: the way four-year-old Peace looked at me in the kitchen, his eyes, his voice, his questions; Min-Goo’s coming back home from the church; our quick discussion on how we would spend the night…
That winter, I was sustained by these people of mine, who were loved by the church, awaiting God’s gift of our new son, Jah-bi.
Remembering is to remind us of where we came from as an individual self and as a people;
Remembering is to break superficiality and to tell the truth. I really like this quote from June Jordan, a Caribbean American poet, “To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself. And that’s political, in its most profound way”.
Remembering is to go and touch again the foundational experience of ours, of a long time ago, the unbreakable wisdom that has withstood, and will withstand, the test of time.
In this Advent, as we prepare ourselves for the mystery of Christmas, let us remember stories (of the Bible, our ancestors and our own). Pick up a mind-heart camera, and learn photography (Spirituality): take good pictures of the stories (Remembering).
Don’t worry about the budget because you have the wealth of God. Study good lenses, learn their purposes, add them, (remember to add the lens of hope), and SHOOT.
This season, let’s share our photo galleries, together.
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