Advent 3 -- Remembering (3)
To Blow God's Bamboo Flute
Joy is a dominant theme in the celebration of Christmas. The stories of the first Christmas are filled with joy. They express unmistakable joy.
Mary sings (the Magnificat), I magnify God because of what God is doing in me!
Zechariah sings (the Benedictus), Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who has visited and redeemed his people.
Simeon sings (the Nunc Dimittis), Now I can depart in peace for I have seen your salvation.
They are, all of them, songs of joy.
So also the angelic message to the shepherds is filled with joy: “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people…”
And then:
Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours.”
Just like the story of the first Christmas back then, (Christmas past), the celebration of Christmas now, (Christmas present) is filled with joy. Hear the opening lines of a few familiar Christmas hymns (which means Let’s have some sing alongs!) (Laugh…)
Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King!
O come, all ye faithful,
joyful and triumphant.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King!
To be honest, the stories of the first Christmas are not only filled with joy, but also with conflict. There’s glory in the skies, but there’s an equally unmistakable ominous emotional tone on earth. Herod plots to kill Jesus; this undercurrent to the story is dark. The aged Simeon warns Mary immediately after he has sung the Nunc Dimittis (“Now I can depart in peace for I have seen your salvation.”):
This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed, so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed — and a sword will pierce your own soul also.
This final phrase refers to the pain and grief that Mary herself will face because of the destiny of her son.
Christmas brings joy and conflict. It did so then, (Christmas past), and it does so now (Christmas present). At home, in the Christmas present of ours; and everywhere, Christmas present in the world.
This Advent season, we’ve been reflecting on the meaning of remembering. Now, moving from the past to the present, it is not just about remembering, but reliving: to bring the past into the present.
The Latin root of Advent is a word that means “coming.” Advent thus means “toward the coming.” Advent is preparation for the coming of Jesus into the world - then, in the past; now, in the present; and, later, in the future. Christmas past, Christmas present, Christmas future.
At this point, I would like to invite everyone to ask a few questions:
If we are the Israel of the present, Christmas present, how will we imagine a Christmas future? How would we use “remembering” as leverage that will lift us up to resilience, a state in which we are able to be joyful, in which we do not let go of anticipatory joy, even while acknowledging the great “in spite of”… In spite of distress, in spite of conflicts, in spite of grief, in spite of injustice… How is joy compatible with that great “in spite of”, knowing the bad news that is piling up around us, feeling an anticipatory grief and lamentation for the destiny of our suffering Mother Earth. What are your great “in spite of’s”?
To do this work well, remembering to be resilient and rejoicing even in the great ‘in spite of’, I introduce the work of Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha to guide our questions. Piepzna-Samarsinha’s book, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, was published just this November. It didn’t take a second for me to press “Buy now with 1 Click” (Amazon) to read this book right away on Kindle. She’s a disabled, of South Asian/Sri Lankan descent (from her immigrant mother) queer writer and educator. Her work centres on disability justice and the stories of sexual abuse or other trauma survivors. Reading Care Work, what struck me and moved me up to a whole new plane of understanding was the chapter: Not Over It, Not Fixed, and Living a Life worth Living: Towards an Anti-Ableist Vision of Survivorhood.
This chapter began with a conversation she had with her new therapist who, during the intake interview, asked her in all sincerity, “So, do you think the therapy you got in your twenties resolved your childhood sexual abuse?” She stared at her with her mouth open for a solid thirty seconds.
Piepzna-Samarasinha recalls, “As it turned out we had some really different understanding of trauma, healing and survivorhood. She really thought that childhood sexual abuse was something to manage, something you could get over and ‘move on’ from, a cut you stitch up with butterfly bandages.”
Piepzna-Samarasinha continues:
“The idea that survivorhood is a thing to ‘fix’ or ‘cure,’ to get over, and that the cure is not only possible and easy but the only desirable option, is as common as breath. It’s a concept that has deep roots in ableist ideas that when there’s something wrong, there’s either cured or broken and nothing in between, and certainly nothing valuable in inhabiting a bodymind that’s disabled in any way.”
Piepzna-Samarasinha challenges our ableism and the ableist society:
“The ableist model of cure” is that “Cure is healing is elimination.” It is the only model most of us have for having more ease and less pain: “Elimination.” Elimination of illness, elimination of disability, because it is painful to see that they exist…
“This belief promotes the binary of fixed or broken, and shame. The binary stops us from being able to imagine survivor futures where we are ‘thriving’ but not cured.”
“When I lead disability justice workshops, one of my toughest teaching moments is always to get people to step out of the deficiency model of disability. When I talk about disabled wisdom and skills, or about disabled people as having histories, cultures, and movements, the blank looks in the room kill me. It’s near impossible for many abled people to think of disability as anything other than an individual tragedy and a state no one would choose to inhabit.”
In the deficiency model of disability, there’s nothing good about disability, no skills or brilliance. And thus, this belief and practice continue to be persistent. “Cure is healing is elimination.”
“And, then and today, I see survivors struggling with feelings of deep shame that we are not ‘over it.’
Now, the following quote has deeply impacted on my preparation for Advent. This has become the reason why I was so eager to explore the importance and the meaning of remembering with you all in this Advent, centering on the question, What does remembering mean and how is it transformative in faith and spirituality, because I believe, as we become the masters of our own lives, (growing older and more mature), we become survivors and learn to develop our own survivor skills, knowledge and brilliance. Listen deeply:
“When we are not fixed, nor over it, still triggered, still feeling, still healing in our forties, sixties, and beyond, we are not failing. We are remembering, and we are learning from our survivorhood. We are moving from a model that gasps at our scars to one that wants to learn as much from them as possible. Traditional ideas of survivorhood think of “remembering” as a time-limited process that happens upon recovery of abuse memories and then is over. But in another survivor universe, we are continually expanding — we are always remembering, and remembering again, and thinking about what our wounding means. We are mining our survivor experiences for knowledge.”
Then Piepzna-Samarasinha quickly asks us, “What would be the model for long-term grief?”, … What if our grief is not the time-limited process that we should and can get over and move on…
(Again, it is the question of remembering, resilience and rejoicing “in the great ‘in spite of’…)
If we are all, in our varied ways and situations, survivors, how do we translate our survivors’ skills, knowledge, faith and spirituality to transformative ministry?
The most beloved Advent hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, which is more than a thousand years old, tells us that Advent is a time of reliving ancient Israel’s hope, now. (Note: The accompanist plays):
O Come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here,
until the Son of God appear.
We are Israel - in exile, captive, mourning, lonely, longing.
Then, the end of each verse of this long hymn is marked with a joyful chorus that proclaims fulfillment of the Ancient hope. In contrast to the mournful tone of the verses, the chorus sounds like improbable joy in the face of the great ‘in spite of’s. (Do you remember the chorus? Could we sing it together?)
“Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel."
Joy, or rejoicing, is the result of the priceless, magnificent work of love, loving ourselves and loving our people and loving all relations on our precious Mother Earth. True joy is elevated in its brilliance, only when it is inspired by divine courage and human spirit. It is not something that can be prescribed - one cookie cutter to fit all.
Christmas is the past, which is the present, which is always moving towards the transformative newness of a Christmas future that is yet to come.
In spite of our imperfection, in spite of the improbability of our dreams, in spite of the worlds’ unreadiness, Immanuel God is already moving us, or blowing us to a new imagined future, as if she blows a cosmic bamboo flute (by the way, have you blown it? I have… Not easy. It needs unbelievable skill.) … to sing…
Rejoice.
Rejoice. Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel
(This sermon is based on many great inspirations from The First Christmas by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan.)
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