Marilu Thomas, Second Sunday after Christmas 2022
We officially entered the New Year yesterday and yet may feel reluctant to walk over the threshold into 2022. We were so hopeful last new year’s that the pandemic would go away, and we would be once again on a trajectory to better and better. In our collective narrative, forced isolation has shut down our regular ways of operating and has driven us all to rethink the elements of a good life or life in general. We are in a strange new land; with possibly strong emotions and a languishing discomfort we have never experienced.
When I read the gospel text in Matthew today, I related to the disruption of the Holy Family’s life by the angel’s announcement to Joseph. Have you noticed the weird timing of angels in the Christmas stories? They show up right when Mary and Joseph are expecting to go down a certain path and then move the train tracks in a whole new direction. For instance, a painting of the Annunciation shows Mary in pigtails and a blue pinafore, with her schoolbooks under her arm, when the angel Gabriel appears with the news that childhood is officially over, and motherhood has begun. An angel appears to Joseph when he was planning to ‘gently lay her aside’ because her shameful pregnancy could affect his future. Angels pick the most unlikely of newsmen, the shepherds, to tell that the promises of God became flesh and changed the planet. And once again, we have an angel of the Lord appearing to Joseph to take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt because Herod is in a jealous rage. I can’t imagine the fear and anxiety following this angel’s forecast of becoming refugees in a foreign land with a small child, but I can imagine expecting one thing and getting another.
Surely, this is not the future that Mary or Joseph imagined when they agreed to this parenting gig. As one of my confirmation students once observed, “at least they had all that gold from the Wise Men.” Yes- a providential gifting. And yet, our ideas of smooth sailing for the faithful are greatly tried by these moments in the life of the Holy Family. What were they expecting to happen? Surely being the parents of the Savior of the World would give them a life with no hardship or pain? But the experience of Egypt is both painful and salvific, as they depended solely on the grace of God. Not what they were expecting, but exactly what was needed.
When I think of expectations, I think of all the rules I have about life that I believe will give me problem free days. For instance, driving. Everyone should signal their turn, should follow the rules about four way stops, should not go slow in the inside lane on the highway, and
should not tailgate me at any time. Or perhaps loading the dishwasher; cups and glasses on the top rack, silverware pointed down, so you don’t touch it coming out, no wooden handles and plates always on the bottom rack. You get the picture. Life according to Marilu. Everything depends on me managing well.
The Urban dictionary defines expectations as “A guaranteed way for you to make sure that people will consistently disappoint you.” Because people have their own Rule Books which don’t coincide with mine, or yours.
My biggest disappointments, however, are when I don’t live up to my own Rule Book. I expect myself to have achieved something every day. This can take many forms. I don’t exercise enough, I don’t weigh the right amount, I am not as organized as I would like, I am not as friendly as I feel I should be, I have deep regrets of lack of compassion or hurt that I have caused. These weigh heavily at this time of year from the life-long habit of making resolutions. The very word means to re-solve or solve again and again. In other words, to attempt again and again to solve the problem of me. The problem of what is wrong with me, re-solved with a list of unachievable change. It seems like a form of violence, changing myself using only the rule of law.
Once again, I am confronted with the reality that I can’t change myself because I have misidentified the problem. Let’s say I do get to the online yoga classes, organize my garage and basement, relay the instructions for the perfect dishwasher loading (yes- there is a website that lays the rules down for that), and stop driving on roads where other people drive, I still will not be relieved of the angst that is caused by living every day as a human on planet earth. Why? Because I am expecting that I can identify what will make me feel ‘right’ with the world and I cannot. I build defenses around the things that cause me to feel uncomfortable and vulnerable to. I want to feel free from judgement and fear. What is terrorizing me? The fear that by myself I am nothing. That these feelings of weakness and powerlessness will lead to pain and suffering, when actually the opposite is true.
I have been watching the HULU series Dopesick, with Michael Keaton, about the Opioid epidemic. What struck me most is that in the 1990s, our ideas about pain were greatly manipulated by drug marketing. As a culture, we were fed a narrative that pain was wrong, and we need not feel any pain. Pain was unnecessary. We should all be living without pain, which could be accomplished through better chemistry. Interestingly, several medical communities were hold-outs on this new theory of pain, believing that pain is a sign that something needs healing. I think we have carried this into our ideas of God, thinking that God should remove all emotional or physical pain from our lives. We have an expectation that if we are in pain, we haven’t prayed enough or had enough faith. Following this line of reasoning, if I am uncomfortable or in pain, God has failed me, or I have failed God. Maybe the truth is that something needs healing, or the healing process has begun. This would be the very definition of sin and repentance. We feel the pain of self and we want to go a new way. We want to be relieved of the burden of self, but the solution is not in us but in Christ Jesus. God knows my problem better than I do. My Problem is that I believed that I am not loved as I am. I have believed that the pain of living means I am unworthy of love—not that I am in deep need of the healing power of love.
As we ‘take stock’ of the year behind and look forward to the year ahead, how do we deal with our expectations of God, ourselves, and others? First, we must admit we have expectations because we are human. Human beings are ladder climbers and list makers because we believe we must be worthy of love. This is the precise reason that God entered our world as Jesus Christ, disrupting our penchant for judging by absorbing the judgement for us. Expect to find Jesus in every day, loving you as you are and healing your pain with His love. He has gone ahead of you into your tomorrow. Every day is New Year’s Day with Jesus- no list necessary- because you are a new creation in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!)
I’d like to end with a Blessing for the New Year that Nadia Boltz Weber offered this week:
“As you enter this new year, as you pack away the Christmas decorations and get out your stretchy pants, as you face the onslaught of false promises offered you through new disciplines and elimination diets, as you grasp for control of yourself and your life and this chaotic world
May you remember that there is no resolution that, if kept, will make you more worthy of love.
There is no resolution that, if kept, will make life less uncertain and allow you to control a pandemic and your children and the way other people act.
So, this year,
May you just skip the part where you resolve to be better do better and look better this time.
May you give yourself the gift of really, really low expectations.
May you expect so little of yourself that you can be super proud of the smallest of accomplishments.
May you expect so little of the people in your life that you actually notice and cherish every small, lovely thing about them.
May you expect so little of the supply chain and the service industry that you notice more of what you do get and less of what you don't and then just tip really well anyhow.
May you expect to get so little out of 2022 that you can celebrate every single thing it offers you, however small.”
AMEN
