PLEASE GABRIEL, REPEAT IT by Larry Patten

This week I attended a Fresno State women’s basketball game. I’m a season ticket holder. If you need to find me when the ‘Dawgs play, I’ll be in section 122, row H, seat 9.

A couple of games back we stunned the nation’s #22 team: Texas Christian University (TCU). TCU led from first basket to within the last minute of play. Midway through the second half, the Texas hoopsters had us down by 18 HUGE points. But in the last seconds . . . victory! I was on the edge of my seat the whole game. I hollered. I whistled. I pumped my fist. I nearly lost my voice I was so excited.

Then there was last night.

We played California State University-Northridge (CSUN). Early in this basketball season, CSUN has matched the total number of games they won last year: one (1). Yup, in 2007-08, CSUN’s record was 1-26. So far in 2008-09, they are 1-7. Now, they are 1-8. Hey, CSUN scored a grand total of eleven points in the first half against Fresno. Eleven! The final score? 68-29.

The game was not thrilling. In my local newspaper’s article on the lopsided victory, it noted one Fresno State fan was sleeping with four or five minutes left in the game. And the end-of-game buzzer (which sounds like a gaggle of geese squawking at the tope of their goosely lungs) didn’t wake the snoozing fan.

The game was not thrilling. Inevitable. Predictable.

Isn’t Christmas like that?

Oh, maybe not for kids eager to bake cookies for Santa. Christmas, partly thanks to the magi with the myrrh and to Mr. Charles Dickens and his sumptuous description of Scrooge’s redemption, is a gift-giving, giddy time for most youngsters. And even some adults are charmed by stories of the seasonal “magic.” We like that mice on the night before Christmas aren’t stirring, and we smile when James Stewart’s George Bailey remembers he really, really matters, and—truth be told—I’ll get misty-eyed re-reading O Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi.”

But thrilled or charmed by the Christmas scriptures?

As I preacher with thirty professional Advents under my robe, I’ve heard or read the lessons way too many times. Here comes Gabriel. Mary doesn’t protest the divine offer. Joseph appears steadfast. Herod’s mean. The shepherds are befuddled. Wise guys, as always, trust the original GPS unit: a star traveling far.

Christmas is not thrilling. By the second or third “Fear not,” I might be in Slumberland more than Bethlehem. Jesus 68. Herod 29. Game’s over long before the escape to Egypt.

Still, I read. And, though it’s hard work, I try to listen again to Gabriel, Mary, Joseph, Herod and the others.

I won’t preach this year for a final Sunday of Advent or Christmas Eve. I continue my leave-of-absence. But I will miss the pulpit’s view.

I will miss seeing the stranger arriving in the sanctuary. In every church I’ve served, in rooms lighted by flickering candles and greenery dangling from windows and a makeshift manger shoved near the altar, I’ve watched people I don’t know settle into a pew or chair.

There’s a father dragged in by his giggling daughter. A single mom with a bewildered look and two kids clinging to her skirt. A young same-gender couple holding hands from beginning to end of the service. Two middle-aged “children” bookended on either side of their elderly mother. The folks who’ll share they’re visiting from “back east” or “down south” and they’re glad they came.

Strangers.

Gathering.

Gathering to hear a familiar story. But how many don’t really believe the Christmas tale? I’d bet a few could explain the literary and theological reasons for Mary’s magnificat borrowing heavily from I Samuel’s “Song of Hannah.” Certainly some might pontificate about early Christians cleverly appropriating the pagan festivities around winter solstice. And if a quiz were given, even the most dull-witted or gullible would mark “unlikely” about a star hovering above a particular place in a backwater village on the fringe of the Roman Empire.

Still, they gather, knowing what’s coming. And yet not knowing.

Who among them (and I never can guess whom) will need to hear “fear not” or “nothing is impossible with God” or “he has lifted up the lowly?”

This year, with the economy ruined and wars (again) raging, with my local news bemoaning another gang-related death and national news revealing that the Illinois governor schemed to “sell” Barack Obama’s senate seat, I personally need to hear “fear not.”

And please, Gabriel, repeat it.

And maybe the father, with that giggling daughter, who hasn’t shared with anyone he’s just lost his job, will be renewed when he’s reminded “nothing is impossible with God.” And that gay couple, battered by Proposition 8 and weeping as they sing Joy to the World, will inwardly be strengthened with “he has lifted up the lowly.” I’m on the edge of my seat. The familiar scriptures are like candles in the darkened sanctuary. They are, indeed, radical hope.

Again, this year, I am thankful for Christmas.

in Peace,

Larry

In the season of ADVENT - Written on December 12, 2008

For the Lectionary of December 21, 2008: Luke 1:26-38

“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth.”