"Raindrops on Roses & Whiskers on Kittens..."

I was raised on every Broadway musical: 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and this decade.  I could sing all the verses of Sound of Music as if they were tucked away in my "bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens" - until Les Miserable came along. Thank you, Victor Hugo. I know you never dreamed you were writing a Broadway musical when you told how the human heart could triumph over this sinful and broken world; how the cynics, the proud in their conceit, the "backbiters and the spoil-sporters" (I love the language of C.S.Lewis) could do real damage to other people in mistaken attempts to align others with their understanding of the RIGHT (way). (In today's world it is more subtle, but I find that people simply use emails to do the same thing.) The human proclivity to not only "be right" but impose it on others can knock the stuffings out of ones' closest and most beloved, even when two lovers get into that power-over game rather than power-with as Jesus modeled. All this is not far removed from the arrogance of the Scribes (lawyers) and Pharisees (religious righteous) of whom Jesus spoke with anger and John the Baptizer called a vipers brood.  It's all replayed year after year in the Advent lessons.

Victor Hugo created Inspector Javert to represent these people. He was a man who made personal crusades out of pursuing little men in the name of "the right." Javert's unflinching purpose, like Saul who pursued early Christians to bring them to justice or stoning, was to find one Jean Valjean ("szhon val-szhon"), imprisoned (yet escaped) long ago for stealing a piece of bread. But in this story his empathic and charitable heart made him the hero of helping the less fortunate. Suddenly there was role reversal: the presumed-evil in Jean Valjean revealed itself to be core goodness. Inspector Javert, presuming himself always in the "right," turned out to be totally wrong. When Javert came face to face with his illusion about his right and other's supposed wrongs, he killed himself. Too bad he never heard the Advent proclamation of John: "Turn around, you're going the wrong way!"  (Sounds like the GPS in my car).

So, I guess what I fear as I approach the freely given gifts of Christmas which mirror the incomprehensible, non-pragmatic, and unearned love of God for me... what I fear the most may be the same thing which frightened Inspector Javert and kept him on the hell-bent unflinching road to his death: myself.  Pogo said it best, "I have met the enemy and they is us." The noble Don Quixote sang, "This is my quest, I'll follow that star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far."  Noble, but not the embodiment of all of God's purpose for us. It's hard to admit when Christmas rolls around that my quest for nobility (never forgetting for even one moment that there are children starving in China) ... it's hard to let go of "my comfort zone" (rut) of wanting to be proven in the eyes of God as "worthy" by my good deeds.  But then I look at Inspector Javert; he never got it. Is that what they meant when they said the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth? St. Paul asked himself, "... who will save me?"  He was speaking of the Inspector Javert within the Saul that he used to be. Paul was lucky: he lived long enough to be shoveled out of his rut by a wooden cross and avoided the grave of the human spirit being dug long before he actually died. And that brings me to my last point:

Aging is a gift from God. Its gift to me is that I find myself more and more comfortable with God's Word dwelling within me and confirming that it is acceptable to take off my culturally-endorsed pin stripe suit of pragmatism & good deeds and bask in the romantic notion that somehow (I really don't understand) I would die to save my own children if I could, and God did exactly that for me. But even in my "aging" second half of life, I find it easiest to do only at Christmas - when there are Snow Queens and reindeer and whiskers on kittens.

 

"O come, o come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel..."  At times I am Israel. Inspector Javert was Israel personified.  Maybe we all are. But I'd rather be ransomed, even if it is by the seemingly helpless form of a squealing baby lying in an animal food trough in a hillside cave in a unnoticed town. That way I can still be a hopeless romantic and, if that is wrong, trust that God became like me and saves all of me - down to the last raindrop on a rose and the whisker on a kitten.

A blessed end to a good Advent and the merriest of Christmases to all the good people of this good parish, Christ Church...

 

                                                                                                Peter Hogg

                                                                                                Interim Rector