A Meditation for the Longest Night
A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark at the Longest Night Evening Prayer service by the Very Rev. Tyler Doherty, Dean & Rector.
I remember, as a fearful, shy, bullied little kid hearing the words of the angel of the Lord to the Shepherds in the fields–”Do not be afraid; for see–I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people…”--and just being mad. I heard the Good News as distinctly bad news. Why? Well, because the fact was that I was afraid. All the time. And just telling me to “not be afraid” was like telling a drowning person to not drown. Not that helpful, and impossible to implement.
On this darkest night of the year, one of the things we’re up to is to acknowledge that our interior experience of ourselves, others, the world and God is not always in step with the broader culture and the general tone of the Church year. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice,” Paul says in his Letter to the Philippians. And so we get the mistaken picture that the Christian life is about manufacturing a state of “joy” (whatever we think that looks like) and plastering it over our actual experience. We could be feeling the sharp poke of grief and loss made more acute by another holiday season without our beloved at our side. Especially if we lost someone close to us at this time of year, we in some way re-experience the pain of that loss every time the anniversary rolls around. The ache of loneliness, the disorenting groundlessness of grief emerge and we feel out of step with the season. Out of step with the season, but also out of step with God–we think to ourselves that if we were just a little more faithful we wouldn’t feel this way. We conclude that there must be something wrong with us. We tell ourselves that we shouldn’t feel this way and stuff the feeling away somewhere or distract ourselves from it with Johnny Mathis, lots of LIfeTime movies, Christmas cookies, adult beverages in the form of “Egg Nog” or whatever our preferred strategy of avoiding our pain happens to be.
As a kid, I didn’t really distract myself from my pain. I just got angry (another popular form of distraction it turns out). I hated Christmas. All the gifts under the tree were like anti-sacraments–things I somehow knew wouldn’t make me feel ok about myself. The cheery songs, the awful Christmas sweaters, the tacky tinsel and lights all just seemed like a requirement to be a certain way–a certain way that I certainly wasn’t. So I got mad. Mad at Christmas. Mad at my parents. Mad at myself for being mad. Mad at God for expecting me to play-act joyful Christmas cheer when I was, in fact, quite miserable. I couldn’t wait for school to begin again. Even getting shoved in a locker at lunch time was better than this play-acting phoniness (yes, Salinger’s Holden Caulfield was my north star at juncture in my life).
Enter Psalm 139. I can’t remember the precise moment, but this psalm in many ways saved my life, and taught me how to live it. There was and is this overpowering sense on being known, being held, being beheld, no matter whether I was up in heaven (i.e. feeling good), or making the grave my bed (i.e. feeling just awful)--God’s right hand right there holding me fast. And suddenly, being afraid wasn’t something I had to get rid of. Suddenly, “getting rid of my fear” was revealed to be a form of violence directed towards myself–cutting off unacceptable parts of myself in the name of making myself pleasing in God’s sight. What part of “just as you are” did I not understand? The whole mechanism of earning grace, of making myself someone other than who I was started to tumble down. “Do not be afraid,” morphed from a perceived injunction to get rid of unacceptable parts of myself into letting the fear be there if it happened to be there and to know it as not the whole story.
Fear stopped being a problem. Yeah, I’m panicked and jittery, but so what? Welcome to being a human being with a body and a brain. Darkness–the fear, panic, anxiety–was slowly revealed to not be darkness at all. “I” didn’t have to do anything about it because it was always already held and beheld in the fathomless depths of God’s omnipresent love. Even the darkest night was held and beheld. I wasn’t alone. As bright as the day? Maybe not. But a lot brighter than the inky darkness of self-enclosure.
So to come to know myself and my experience–whatever it happened to be–to be known, held, beheld and loved made a big difference. But so did actively learning to love and behold those scared, anxious, and panicked parts of myself. I knew myself to be welcomed just as I was, just as I am, to the banquet table of divine love, and so I began to extend that same all-bracing behind and before, up to heaven and down to grave, love to whatever stranger appeared at the door of the heart. “Hello, my little fear. I see you. I am here for you. What do you need to say? What needs to be heard and expressed? Take your time. I’m here all week.” I let the little children come to me. Previously, like the disciples who shush Bartimaeus or shoo the children away from Jesus, I’d seen those undesirable parts of myself–parts that didn’t fit with my picture of myself, parts that didn’t fit who I supposed to be, parts that honestly just didn’t feel so great to feel–as threats, problems in need of fixing. Slowly, I started to see that I could welcome those little children and offer them love and hospitality. The okness that no pile of Christmas presents could ever offer, started to burble up on its own. Isaiah’s “endless peace” in the middle of a Johnny Mathis marathon.
From that placeless place of being held in love, and learning to hold ourselves in that very same love, something shifts in our relationship with others. We can’t truly welcome the stranger until we’ve allowed ourselves to be welcomed and welcome those unruly little children parts of ourselves, until we let them voice their pain and hurt like Bartimaeus hollering from the roadside. Having been welcomed and learned to be welcome to ourselves, we then wake up to ourselves as that good and broad land, the land of milk and honey, welcoming whomever, whatever happens to show up. Welcome ceases to be a “practice” and is revealed to be who we really are. You remember George Herbert’s poem “Love III”:
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.
"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here":
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"
"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.
Even on the darkest night, Love bids us welcome. Even on the darkest night we can learn to welcome those guests in ourselves that we deem unwanted or unworthy. Even on the darkest night we can let ourselves be served the meat of love. Even on the darkest night we can sit and eat, and then be that same meaty love for whomever we might meet.