Does 'Advent' have to be this big 'Christian' phenomenon which 'the church' has an obligation to pontificate about - rather than to listen carefully to the voices outside it, to discern the potentially truer understanding which lies within them?
An alternate take on the meaning of advent for Christians might place more - much more - emphasis on the story of the three Magi. If you read the Gospel of Matthew, it's the FOREIGNERS, the OUTSIDERS, the NON-JEWS who come from afar to see and celebrate the coming of the newborn king. NOT the covenantal people: they do not recognise him in this way. Christians have the same problem. The Christmas story is important and powerful precisely BECAUSE it speaks in a special way to outsiders. Let the outsiders come. Let them celebrate. But don't let's start telling them that their gold, frankincense and myrrh aren't 'Christian'. Because the Matthaean narrative defies us to speculate that the TRUE understanding of Advent lies definitively *within* the community. It doesn't. There are many more magi among us today, living outside the community - wishing to bring their gold, frankincense and myrrh. Let's not try to tell them they've been following the wrong star.
Hmmph. I think that's what's wrong with the Christmas sermon that tries to make Christianity counter-cultural, a protest movement against the decadent moral sludge of 'modernity'. Christianity is about the fulfilment of culture, the enrichment and embracing of it. That's what Christians need to be taught. They do not and should not be taught to feel embattled, to need to counter 'modernity' - to treat it as an 'enemy'. To feel like 'the world' just doesn't understand. That's Johannine theology, and I think it's bad. You don't find it on the lips of the Synoptic Jesus. He's not leading a protest movement against 'the world'. To love the world, to love our enemies, may be to feel critical of them. But we must first reach the stage where we are truly happy to concede that this world - these enemies - may in fact have rather a lot to teach us in ways we're not quite prepared to expect. That should always be the first - and is perhaps even the only worthwhile - point of emphasis. It's that preparedness for the unexpected - the preparedness for being completely undercut in our assumptions - that Advent (the birth of the child-God in the lowly manger) is at heart all about.
An alternate take on the meaning of advent for Christians might place more - much more - emphasis on the story of the three Magi. If you read the Gospel of Matthew, it's the FOREIGNERS, the OUTSIDERS, the NON-JEWS who come from afar to see and celebrate the coming of the newborn king. NOT the covenantal people: they do not recognise him in this way. Christians have the same problem. The Christmas story is important and powerful precisely BECAUSE it speaks in a special way to outsiders. Let the outsiders come. Let them celebrate. But don't let's start telling them that their gold, frankincense and myrrh aren't 'Christian'. Because the Matthaean narrative defies us to speculate that the TRUE understanding of Advent lies definitively *within* the community. It doesn't. There are many more magi among us today, living outside the community - wishing to bring their gold, frankincense and myrrh. Let's not try to tell them they've been following the wrong star.
Hmmph. I think that's what's wrong with the Christmas sermon that tries to make Christianity counter-cultural, a protest movement against the decadent moral sludge of 'modernity'. Christianity is about the fulfilment of culture, the enrichment and embracing of it. That's what Christians need to be taught. They do not and should not be taught to feel embattled, to need to counter 'modernity' - to treat it as an 'enemy'. To feel like 'the world' just doesn't understand. That's Johannine theology, and I think it's bad. You don't find it on the lips of the Synoptic Jesus. He's not leading a protest movement against 'the world'. To love the world, to love our enemies, may be to feel critical of them. But we must first reach the stage where we are truly happy to concede that this world - these enemies - may in fact have rather a lot to teach us in ways we're not quite prepared to expect. That should always be the first - and is perhaps even the only worthwhile - point of emphasis. It's that preparedness for the unexpected - the preparedness for being completely undercut in our assumptions - that Advent (the birth of the child-God in the lowly manger) is at heart all about.
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