As I stood with my congregation this morning, it was with the uneasy frustration of "nothingness" once again. Why the jadedness, I cannot say for sure at this point, but each time I rise to sing, I feel guilty for praising God with my lips, but having my heart far from Him.
Yet today... even the entire congregation was different. We sang traditional carols of the season, but there was an "umph" to our voices... a desperation... a shouting out that I had not heard (or perhaps had not been able to hear) for many months. We were a hungry people -- arms reached out to gather their loved ones close, shoulders were touched gently, and our spirits began to become loud, rather than our physical voices. I cannot explain it. Nor do I care to.
We began singing "O Holy Night", and our voices crescendoed. As we came to the next verse, my heart about stopped: "How had I been so blind as to not see this before?" I had sung this song many, many times, yet these words have never pierced me so profoundly as they did today.
"Truly He taught us to love one another..."
People are hard to love. We are. Sometimes, we turn to the poor and marginalized so that we can find someone "easy to love" because of their circumstance, rather than turning to the person next to us with whom we might have a disagreement, with whom we might be afraid of, or for whom we harbor secret resentments. Only we find the poor and marginalized are just as hard to love as ourselves, for the reflect the very same things we see in ourselves that we resent, fear, and loathe.
"His law is Love, and His gospel is peace..."
Jesus did not merely teach love. Had He stopped at that, we all know it would have come to nothing more than a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. But Jesus Christ IS love... thus His good news can be no other way than love and peace. God cannot be other than He is, and He is love. He loved us, and commands us to love one another not to oppress us, but to shape us more into His likeness. "Ahhh... but people are so hard to love"... hmmm. Yet is was God who chose to put skin on. Take a moment to think about how hard that was.
"Chains shall He break, for the slave... he is our brother..."
Advent is our timing of preparation. Not only do we prepare to announce compassion and justice, to assist victims, or to raise awareness of the chains people around the world bear daily... but we prepare ourselves to welcome warmly and lovingly these people we once considered beneath us. That thought might sound repugnant to us, especially those of us who emphatically believe in equality before God, but when push comes to shove: there are people groups whom we distance ourselves from. Oh sure, it's all well and good once they 'repent' and become like us, but until then, they must drop the chains themselves.
This line in the verse I nearly shouted... HE shall break the chains. It will not be any work of ours alone, nor are we to stand back and demand slaves free themselves of their burdens and look like we do first before they sense our love. Hence... we prepare. Often we think we are ready to embrace the released captive, only to find skeletons in our closets that prevent us from doing so.
"... and in His Name, ALL OPPRESSION SHALL CEASE."
Done.
Gone.
No more.
Not from traffickers.
Not from pimps.
Not from buyers.
Not from you.
Not from me.
Not from history.
Not from now.
Not from governments.
Not from corporations.
Not from each other.
No more.
I belted out this stanza like I had never sung it before in my life. For the children bought and sold to make our carpets... for the men bought and sold for their organs... for the women bought and sold just because they are women... for the many bought and sold to be destroyed through indentured servitude... for the many of all ages bought and sold to be destroyed by sex, porn, and prostitution... for the many bought and sold in the name of God for whatever deceitful purpose contrived by evil doers... we all sang together as one this morning. I pray that our humble and broken offering does not fall on deaf ears, divine or human.
Even in the brothels, there is the sacred. If God is everywhere, then He is indeed everywhere. It makes the saddest and most horrific of darknesses the holiest of nights. I don't say this lightly, or to suggest that because God is present, He is condoning the buying of flesh. Hardly.
What I am saying is... "chains shall He brake for the slave, he is our brother. And in His Name, all oppression shall cease."
If God Love chooses to enter flesh by way of the poorest class, nation, gender on earth, then no one anywhere is out of reach of His peace. The promise is true. Oppression will cease.
