November 24, 2005
Reverence
Advent 1
We learned just now of the death of the last British soldier present in the trenches of World War I on Christmas eve in 1914. He was one hundred and six years old. It was on this night that the Germans, only a few yards away, laid down their arms, began singing Silent Night, their Fatherland’s carol, as they climbed out of their trenches, then came over and exchanged gifts with the Allies.
The next morning at sunrise, they began once again the killing. Merry Christmas.
Only ninety-one years later, that extraordinary holy and silent moment we call Christmas is about to happen again. It is matched only by the extraordinary silent and holy moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment, this moment. I like to think that if only the world knew these things, if only we knew these things, really down deep knew these things, we might hold our breath – and listen.
For one, we might listen to how Wendell Berry, farmer, philosopher, poet, talks about place as the “informing ambience of one’s mind and imagination.” We might listen to how the church can be such a place, not just a latitude and longitude, but a true place, a metaphor of attention, a parable where truth trumps logic, an environment where the absurd happens, where the Word becomes flesh. A place that so informs our minds and our imaginations, that so gives shape to them, that once again in these times we might come out of our trenches to embrace our enemies, not only to bring presents to them but to be present to them.
Hovering now over all my thoughts with increasing frequency and poignancy in these times is this question: How might a human economy be conducted with reverence? How might we therefore show and practice due respect and kindness toward everything involved in such an economy — not only an economy of wealth or the lack of it, but more importantly, an economy of ourselves and our neighbors, and all that we are — our health, our education, our homes, our work, our environment, our religions, our many systems which we value so deeply and by which we live so intently? How might we show reverence for all the displaced persons in the world?
Reverence seems somehow the password for this season. The reverence of Blessed Mary before God’s wishes for her. The reverence of garrulous old John Baptist when he beheld what for him was the Lamb of God. The reverence of the alien kings at the Epiphany. The reverence those World War I enemies had for one another.
We lack sorely this reverence. One only need to drive the interstate system or to walk in the shopping malls or to stand in the interminable lines of waiting to experience it. One only need attend to our government’s budgets to discover where is the reverence for the poor. There is no shame in the poverty Americans suffer today. The shame adheres to those who do nothing to change it. One only need observe the unilateral arrogance of our leaders toward other cultures and other languages, other voices and other rooms, the Other in whatever shape or form to ask where is the reverence.
Is it any wonder that, lacking such admiration and esteem, we are soon succumbed by fear? When we are afraid, we become angry, and we inevitably turn to violence and war. War. It is only a strange and simple little three-letter word that means not only strife and confusion, but quaintly enough, means as well to sweep away, to wipe out the other like some stain, with total disregard and even blindness for the fact that we never seem to learn that in war there are no winners, only losers.
Reverence. An Advent sound of gentle stillness, a silent and holy moment can prepare us once again for such due respect and kindness toward all of life — and toward ourselves, for we are God’s beloved. The church can, the church must have a hand in this. We must turn from our crippling narcissism to the practice of reverence. We must pray about it. We must pray for it. We must wish for it, for what is prayer, but such wishful thinking?
This, of course, if ever it happens, will be the ultimate maturation of our culture. Then we will no longer need preemption if, indeed, we ever did. For when we build such reverence, truly they will come.