Advent 3, Year B

School of Theology, December 15, 1999

Let’s get some of the grinchiness on the table right away.

“Is your Christmas tree already up? If so, take it down, for it is an abomination before the Lord until Dec. 24.” So began my Advent sermon two years ago, which resulted in my being elected chief Grinch of the Advent police and we had our house decorated in the ultimate of tacky by beloved students and friends during the Dean’s Christmas party. And a good time was had by all. I assume, by the way, the change in my middle initial from D to G in today’s bulletin is no accident.

But I do mean it; indeed, this week as last, we are dealing with the head Adventer Grinch, John the Baptiser, who looks out over the whole tinsel-thing and says, as always, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come!” But I am far more adamant about urging you to keep your tree up at least until Jan. 6 than I am about not putting it up early. If you are a real Southern Anglican, you will keep your decorations up until after Candlemas on Feb. 2, but at least keep the twelve days of Christmas, please. One of my complaints about our current patterns is that there are hardly any parties during Christmas anymore. Except New Year’s, of course.

And I will be happy to share with you in partying on Dec. 31; indeed, Barbara and I plan to attend the big Sewanee community do in Cravens. But don’t expect me to pretend it is the start of the new century or millenium just because you like to see odometers move.

Finally, there are a lot of Angels about at this time of year. Do remember none of them are or ever were dead people. Thanks. Minor ginchiness over. Now to the substantial grinchiness.

What is the Grinch’s passion for Advent, after all? What difference does it really make? As the Dean said last Wednesday, it is OK to remember that Advent is about the Advent of something, or better, someone. To which the Grinch replies, “Aye, there’s the rub, are ye sure, laddie, ye know who tis that is ycumen in, fa la la welcome Yule.?”

Which leads us to today’s texts for this sermon. From the First Epistle to the Thessalonians: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And from the Gospel of John: “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Now, I had a perfectly respectable scholarly sermon in mind on those texts, and one not too terribly Grinchy. It was going to be a reminder that “Entire sanctification” as the Methodists love to call it, rests on “He must increase but I must decrease.” I was prepared to share my handy threefold scheme for that, of self denial, self manifestation, and self criticism, always with the proviso that this is only for folks who have been allowed to have a self. But then I was sitting in the Lord with a dear friend and the Grinch of Advent past showed up: The Grinch revealed the roots of his passion, and the sermon took a very different turn. Towit:

In the play and movie Amadeus, we have not so much a figure of the anti-Christ, but surely of the Anti-Baptist (not to be confused with an Anabaptist) in the character of the composer Antonio Sallieri, the chief court musician to the emperor Franz Joseph. How much he reflects the real Sallieri, I don’t pretend to know, though in the play as in real life he is a decent bloke and not a bad composer, caught somewhere between the late Baroque of the sons of Bach and the new classicism of Haydn, cranking out decent elevator music that at least musical specialists will consider worth playing three hundred years later. Then, into his lap gets dumped Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a buffoon of a child-man, a drunkard and a fool, who just happens to be a genius and writes the most glorious music the human race has ever heard, in a very new style, which eventually makes him very popular with everyone from the poor of the town to the Emperor. And he seems to write this stuff almost without trying ­ it just pours out of him.

Now, Sallieri had a choice. Faced with this phenomenon, he could have carved a niche for himself in history by following the example of the Baptiser, sighed a bit mournfully, and said “He must increase and I must decrease,” and been content to be Mozart’s teacher, friend, mentor, and advocate. He did try, actually, sort of half-heartedly, but in the end he just could not stomach it; he grew insanely jealous, poisoned his own life with hatred and resentment, and, at least in the play, conspired in Mozart’s early death, which did nothing for his own reputation and may have cost the world forty more glorious symphonies and who knows what else.

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” This is the essence of what it means to be entirely sanctified, to find in Jesus the gift of our true selves.

But John was better off, as surely are we, since after all, it is Jesus we have to deal with, not a drunken fop like Mozart, right? Look again says the Grinch, for this is where his passion kicks into high gear. If you would just keep Advent, if you would just scrape the gilt paint off the creche scenes and turn down the blinking lights, if you would cut through the sentimentality about it all being about kindness and generosity and calling your Mom and not kicking the dog, deck the halls, you might notice that Jesus is worse than Mozart. This is, after all, a story that started badly and went down hill from there. It’s about a Baby whose legitimacy was questionable, whose parents were so poor or stupid or both that they were traveling when he was due, without motel reservations, and had to put him in a cattle trough to keep him from freezing to death. After a childhood so dull even his followers don’t talk about it, he made a bunch of friends who misunderstood everything he ever said with great consistency, got called a glutton and a drunkard and worse in unfavorable comparisons to his cousin, and made a bunch of powerful enemies among the elite establishment of temple, palace, and praetorium, who finally had him executed in the most painful and shameful way then available; whereupon his friends all deserted him or stood around helplessly. In short, this was a brilliant child who started off badly and went from bad to worse. Not a very satisfactory savior, and not a very satisfactory grounds for entire sanctification, either, if you ask me, says the Grinch. This is who is supposed to increase while I decrease? But, says the Grinch, this is the only one you get, cause it’s from the only God there is. And that’s the good news: this baby is the only hope you have.

And your point is . . ., Grinch? “Hope,” he says. “Advent is about waiting in hope. Not Optimism. Hope.”

When I was in seminary, Jurgen Moltmann came to Cambridge to lecture. The Theology of Hope had just been published in English and was the hot book. We all hoped he would talk about hope. But he didn’t seem to. Instead, he talked about the Trinity, the Cross, and the Kingdom of God. Later I would know he had done what an honest scholar would do ­ not repeat his old stuff, but give us what he was now working on, which turned out to be The Trinity and the Kingdom and The Crucified God. But at the time, we were disappointed of our hope. Finally, one student, I’m glad to say from Harvard, could stand it no longer and said, “But Prof. Moltmann, we have all been reading The Theology of Hope and we hoped you would talk about hope.” Moltmann replied: “Last time I was in America, I discovered Americans is always confusing hope mit optimism; so I thought this time I should talk about the cross.”

That is also the Grinch’s passion. Hope, not optimism. Rushing to Christmas the day after Thanksgiving, being sentimental about shopping and children, then taking the stuff down before New Years is not about hope. It’s about optimism, which always comes a cropper and ends in despair, often accompanied by a hangover. Same with Happy Holidays and Winter Solstice. Nothing against friendly Wiccans, but the sun only looks like it is coming back just as strong on the 22nd. In fact, the second law of thermodynamics is grinding on and the sun is burning out. No hope there; only optimism or despair. And while the politically correct Happy Holidays makes legitimate room for one other real hope, Hanukah, which celebrates one tiny moment of realized hope of the great hope in the Isaiah for today, “Happy Holidays” mostly takes the sting out the real greeting: “Merry Christ’s mass.” For at least the Catholic-minded believers among us will celebrate the birth of this unlikely lad in the same way we celebrate the damn whole story, at this meal where we show forth his death until he comes again.

No, no optimism please, let’s look reality in the face, from East Timor to Kosovo to the decision of the TVA to turn Watts Bar into the first civilian reactor making hydrogen bombs, to no more Peanuts. But no noble and heroic despair, either, please, from Buddha or Nietsche. For we do have a slender hope, the silken thread suspending Jonathan Edwards’ spider over the fire: that baby, that manger, that cross, that unsatisfactory Messiah and that even more unsatisfactory God who sent and was him. That’s all that’s on offer, but dayenu, it is more than enough, if we are willing to accept it and abandon both optimism and despair.

The Grinch of Advent Future came with one more clue for me. That austere figure took me to the gates of Hell, and strangely enough, they looked just as portrayed by Dante. As always, over the gate was written: “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” That’s there for two or three reasons, I’ve always thought. One is not true, I think ­ the fear that once you go in you will not be allowed out. But even so, remnants of hope, actually false hope or optimism, only add to the pain of Hell, so it is a mercy. But the Grinch whispered in my ear “No, Bob, you don’t get it yet; that’s the entrance requirement. That’s how you get in.” The way to go to Hell is to abandon the only hope there is. To be so unhappy with the only Messiah on offer that you gilt him up and toff him up as a plaster king parumpatumtum chestnuts roasting on an open fire, and pretend he wasn’t actually such a flop after all. Dress it all up in flashing lights and aluminum paper and pretend hope can be counterfeited successfully with optimism, or at least a sound 401(k). Or a noble stoic despair of some ethical path to transcend suffering, or heroic rebellion against such a God who would offer such an unsatisfactory savior. That’s how you get into hell. And since you are proud to be there, it’s quite difficult to leave, even though the difficulty is all in you.

The point of Advent, and the passion of the Grinch, is that every year we should walk once more right up to the gates of Hell and read those words. With eyes wide open, we should walk right up with full knowledge of how absolutely rotten and broken and lost we and everything else are, how utterly hopeless in ourselves. And there, at the foot of the cross, we shall lay down both optimism and despair; praying that the God of peace will sanctify all of us entirely, and keep our spirits, souls and bodies sound and blameless until the coming of our Lord Jesus, in whom, hoping against hope, we have chosen to hope one more time, manger, desert, cross, empty tomb. We shall pray “He must increase and I must decrease” as a cry of hope and thanksgiving, not of resignation. Then, on our way back up, we can truly wish one another “Merry Christ’s mass,” and the passion of the Grinch will be satisfied one more year, and we can party on, showing forth Jesus’ death until he comes again in glory.