This is our first Sunday back since Thanksgiving, which this year was a modest affair at the Gulley home. This was the year many in our family dined with their in-laws, so our usual crowd of twenty-five was down to nine. For the first time in 30 years, there wasn’t an overflow table in the living room, nor a basketball game in the driveway. Just nine adults sitting around the kitchen woodstove discussing Medicare and roofing materials, shingles vs. metal, and whether it is wise to go 10,000 miles in between oil changes.
After everyone went home, I phoned my son Sam and said, “Please come to family Thanksgiving next year and bring your three small children and if they cry and throw food on the floor, that is okay with me. And bring your dog too.”
I am not yet ready to go gentle into that good night.
But one day I will, of course, as will you, because nothing stays the same, no matter how we fight it.
I want to tell you a story about the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates and his wife Xanthippe.
One Thanksgiving evening, Socrates was lamenting that only nine people had come to their house that day. He said to his wife, “Remember when our house was filled with noise and children and excitement? I guess those days are over.”
His wife, Xanthippe, said, “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on maintaining the old, but on building the new.”
Socrates wrote it down but forgot to mention it was his wife who had said it, a mistake common among writers.
The secret of change is to focus your energy not on maintaining the old, but on building the new.
When I was talking with Sam on Thanksgiving evening, he said, “Why don’t you and Mom spend Christmas here with us?”
How crazy is that? What in the world is he thinking? Not spend Christmas in Danville? I’ve spent 64 Christmases in Danville, and just like that I’m expected to go to Tennessee to spend Christmas with my son and his wife and their three children?
I told Joan, “That’s crazy talk. We can’t do that. I’m not doing that. What are you going to do?”
She said, “I’m going to Tennessee to hold those babies.”
That’s Joan for you. While I’m maintaining the old, she’s building the new.
In the Gospel of Luke, the story is told of Gabriel the angel appearing to a young woman named Mary. Just as an aside, Luke used the word “almah,” which didn’t indicate one’s sexual experience, but rather one’s sexual maturity. The word “almah” tells us Mary was of the age to bear a child, but says nothing of Mary’s sexual history, so don’t get hung up on the virgin thing.
Luke’s era was much like our own. Global powers were in flux. Decisions made in faraway places were having a profound effect in the backwaters of Palestine. Economic shifts and struggles were underway. Old, familiar patterns were collapsing even as new and unfamiliar patterns were emerging. And here comes Gabriel, appearing to Mary, with a message. “You’re going to bear a child. He will be named Jesus. He will be great. God will give him the throne of David, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” In this vast sea of change, when nothing stayed the same, a new way of life would be established and will never end. Of that kingdom there will be no end. It will never fall. It will never be conquered. No one or no thing will defeat it. Everything else is subject to decay, time, and change, but this kingdom will have no end.
What did Gabriel mean? Because obviously Jesus had an end. He grew up to become what was in the first-century, a middle-aged man, then was assassinated for calling out the tyranny of King Herod. Here’s another aside: God did not require Jesus’s death in order to forgive us. That is a barbaric notion and does an injustice to the character and grace of God. Jesus died for the same reason Martin Luther King, Jr. died, for the same reason Ghandi died, for the same reason Bishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador died, for the same reason Tsunesaburō Makiguchi of Japan died. You might not know of him. He was a prominent Japanese educator, who during World War II, told the Emperor of Japan he was a human like everyone else, so was killed. Each of them died for telling the truth in kingdoms of lies.
Today, all those kingdoms are dead. They are no more, though they are doing their level best to return in different forms. But the kingdom of Jesus persists, because the priorities of Jesus are never diminished by time. The earthly Jesus died, but his message remains. And by that, I do not mean the Church. The Church, like any human creation, has an expiration date. Quakerism as a religious institution will die. Roman Catholicism will fade from the Earth. What will not die are the priorities of Jesus. Compassion will have no end. Justice will have no end. Healing will have no end. Reconciliation will have no end. Truth will have no end. Integrity will have no end. Don’t ever bet against those.
John said it another way. The Light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it. Don’t bet against the Light. Don’t waste your energy maintaining the old. Build the new. Think always about what is next and not what has been. Don’t maintain the old, build the new. Amidst the darkness, look always for the Light.