Where Is God When Isaac's Birth Is Announced? An Exegesis of Genesis 18:1-15

By way of showing all of you back home what I'm working on these days, I'll share an exegesis I wrote recently. But wait ... what the heck is an "exegesis"? Simply put, it's a very close reading and interpretation of a particular passage of Scripture. Enjoy.

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He Qi, Abraham and Three Angels

“The LORD appeared to Christy and Josh in the second of Josh’s two apartments on 19th Avenue, as they sat on his bed reading a book to each other at the end of a long, enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend.” If my own life were sacred scripture, these words could begin the story of a direct encounter with God that changed everything. In Genesis 18:1-15, we have just that sort of story—a theophany—that changes everything for Abraham and Sarah. While God has communicated directly with Abraham several times before now, this story is especially about Sarah. It is the annunciation of the birth of her son. Paralleled in chapter 17, this is the fulfillment of the promise first made to Abraham in chapter 12. Encounters with God are typically both mysterious and unsettling, and that is certainly the case for Sarah here. Fear is the only emotion mentioned in the entire passage. Furthermore, we are left not quite understanding the physical location of God. While it is fair to conclude that God is present in at least one of the three strangers, the story intentionally dodges every attempt to confine God’s presence to a single place.

By this point in the Genesis narrative, God has given the same promise to Abraham four times: He will make of him a great nation that will bless all the peoples of the world. The promise appears in chapters 12, 13 and 15, as if a funnel of divine pronouncements is moving us inexorably toward the promise’s fulfillment. In chapter 17, which just precedes this passage, the fourth occurrence of the promise is paired with an announcement to Abraham of Isaac’s pending birth. In that story, Abraham laughs so hard he falls on his face (Gen. 17:17). But we must not approach chapter 18—a “J”-source story—as if Abraham already knows this news, for chapter 17 comes from the “P” source, a later tradition. Walter Brueggemann writes: “[Genesis 18:1-15] belongs to an earlier stream of tradition [than the preceding chapter] with some affinities to chapter 16.”[1]  As chapter 18 begins, Abraham and Sarah are anticipating the fulfillment of God’s promise but have no idea yet how it will come about.

“The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day” (Gen. 18:1, NRSV). Verse 1 is an introduction to the story, and it lets the reader in on the secret of the three strangers who appear in verse 2: “He looked up and saw three men standing near him.” Does Abraham understand immediately the divine nature of his guests? The only possible evidence for this might be Abraham’s effusive welcome. The next several verses are marked by two goals: Abraham must provide absolutely the best hospitality for these three men, and he must do it as quickly as possible. But David M. Carr describes this as “a description of the ideal hospitality of Abraham parallel to that of Lot in 19:1-11.”[2]  Perhaps Abraham is the kind of man who would provide extravagant hospitality to any and all strangers. Perhaps this is one reason God has chosen him.

In verse 3, the Common English Version has Abraham addressing the men as “Sirs,” but this is not true to the Hebrew. According to Nahum Sarna, “The verbs in verse 3 are in the singular, indicating that only one of the three strangers is spoken to, whereas those in verses 4-5 are in the plural … Abraham addresses himself to the leader but … his invitation applies to all three.”[3]  More importantly, the vocative word Abraham uses is יאֲדֹנָ, “my lord,” and it is rendered in this lowercase way in the NRSV, the NIV, and the NJB. This is the same word that is spoken in place of the tetragrammaton יְהוָה, but it is also used both in the generic sense to address a human superior, and to address God in the uppercase, as Abraham does in Gen. 15:2 and at other times. Sarna continues: "Rashi and Ibn Ezra understand it to mean ‘My lords’; Maimonides renders it ‘My Lord.’ Since it is clear that the patriarch at this point is unaware of the true identity of the strangers, the present vocalization serves as an indication to the reader that the three ‘men’ are no ordinary wayfarers.”[4]

The reader knows that YHWH is present, if not yet revealed, and this creates a dilemma, especially for illustrators and those who might attempt a paraphrase. How are we to imagine these three strangers? Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s storybook for children provides three winged angels, standing tightly together, facing a visibly terrified Abraham and Sarah: “‘We are angels sent by God,’ the visitors said. ‘When we return, Sarah will have a son.’”[5]  For Tutu, YHWH Himself is not present, but has sent three emissaries—an interpretation that skirts the issue of drawing a picture of God at all. On the other hand, in his Godly Play children’s curriculum, Jerome Berryman places a special focus on our inability to confine God’s presence in this story. While wooden figures are used to represent Abraham and Sarah, Berryman specifically advises the storyteller: “You don’t need to put any figures down for the strangers. Leave them mysterious.”[6]

Abraham serves his guests and stands nearby while they eat. No mention is made of Abraham serving them the bread he has requested from Sarah. Perhaps it is still baking. At any rate, Sarah does not emerge from the tent at all during this episode. In verse 9, the strangers address Abraham again, this time seemingly in unison: “Where is your wife Sarah?” Abraham replies that she is in the tent. No doubt Sarah’s ears perk up at the mention of her name. How could the strangers possibly know of her? Terence E. Fretheim suggests, “The question in v. 9 ensures Sarah is within earshot of what will be said; the narrator states (v. 10) that she listens ‘off camera.’”[7]

Suddenly only one person is speaking: “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” The Hebrew pronoun is “he,” but many translations render it “one said,” or “one of them said,” to emphasize the change from plural to singular. The NIV jumps the gun and treats this speaker as YHWH, but this shift has not yet occurred in the received text.

The narrator tells us that Sarah “was listening at the tent entrance behind him.” Behind whom? E.A. Speiser writes: “‘He/it was behind him/it’ … is far from clear. [The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint] read the first pronoun as feminine; this would mean that Sarah was not far from the speaker; in Heb., however, the pronominal suffix at the end is more likely to refer either to the tent or the entrance, so that the received version is to be preferred.”[8]

In other words, the opening of the tent is just behind the speaker. Perhaps the tent is set up under the same tree where the three strangers are eating their meal. Somehow, the speaker has come between Abraham and Sarah.

In verse 12, Sarah laughs to herself, amused at the impossibility of this announcement. It is at precisely this point that YHWH definitively enters the scene, marked by the tetragrammaton, asking Abraham why Sarah laughed. YHWH reiterates what the stranger said before: “I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son” (v. 14). If the speaker is the one who turns out to be YHWH, and if indeed he is standing right by the tent entrance, he may actually be standing closer to Sarah than he is to Abraham, with only the tent fabric separating them. The divine ears have no trouble apprehending Sarah’s chuckle.

Next, in the most personal moment of the story, Sarah denies that she laughed (v. 15). I can certainly relate to the “it wasn’t me” impulse. All of us have had an experience of being caught red-handed and denying the facts in total disregard of overwhelming evidence against us. We know the motivator is fear, but that emotion is spelled out for us here: “for she was afraid.” Is this the moment when Sarah understands it is YHWH speaking? Perhaps this is why the narrator has made the stranger’s identity clear to us. When YHWH replies, “Oh yes, you did laugh,” these words are not merely spoken through a tent flap by a strange man.

Augustine of Hippo would someday remark on his own experience: “You were more inward than my inmost self, and superior to my highest being.”[9]  We can imagine for ourselves whether YHWH’s intent was to shame Sarah, or to call her back to faith in a jesting way. But I believe that Sarah felt YHWH was right there in the tent with her. One parallel moment—with markedly less subtlety—is Job 38:1, when YHWH suddenly answers Job “out of the whirlwind” (NRSV). In that case, YHWH swoops in, and Job’s reaction is finally to stop talking and listen. In Sarah’s case, YHWH seems to have sneaked into the tent while she was baking and eavesdropping. Now there can be no more denying the divine presence, and that presence naturally evokes fear. Abraham was already coming to realize that God cannot be confined to one place. Now Sarah has her own experience of the omnipresence of YHWH.

Richard J. Clifford writes of this passage: “The fluidity of actors in the scene is a narrative means of describing both the nearness and the mysterious elusiveness of God.”[10]  YHWH is so all-encompassing that we cannot even limit Him to the constructs of “singular” and “plural.” At the same time, God is near enough to appear as a guest seeking a bite to eat before resuming his journey.

“The LORD appeared to Christy and Josh in the second of Josh’s two apartments on 19th Avenue, as they sat on his bed reading a book to each other at the end of a long, enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend.” In our case, YHWH appeared as a not-quite-visible mist, enveloping us and giving us the familiar words spoken throughout the Bible by God and by angels: “Be not afraid.” In our case, the message continued: “Get married, and await further instructions.” We were called from fear to faith one step at a time. In the same way, Sarah was called out of her fear into a new life that would require all the faith God would grant her.

1  Walter Brueggemann, Genesis: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 157.
 2 David M. Carr, Commentary on Genesis in The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Augmented Third Edition, New Revised Standard Version (ed. Michael D. Coogan; Oxford: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2007), 35.
 3 Nahum M. Sarna, JPS (Jewish Publication Society) Commentary: Genesis (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 128.
 4 Ibid.
 5 Bishop Desmond Tutu, Children of God Storybook Bible (Grand Rapids: Zonderkidz, 2010), 20.
 6 Jerome Berryman, The Complete Guide to Godly Play, Volume 2 (Denver: Living the Good News, 2002), 62.
 7 Terence E. Fretheim, “God Visits Abraham and Sarah,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible (ed. Leander E. Keck, et al.; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 463.
 8 E.A. Speiser, The Anchor Bible: Genesis (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964), 130.
 9 The Confessions of St. Augustine (translated by John K. Ryan; New York: Doubleday, 1960), 84.
 10 Richard J. Clifford, S.J., “Genesis,” in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (ed. Raymond E. Brown, S.S.; Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), 22.

Back to School

Here's a current picture of Sarah. For all of you who were excited to watch her grow up on the internet over the next three years, you'll be dismayed to learn that she has hit a camera-shy phase.

Sarah may be camera-shy, but we were just given a hand-me-down kids' digital camera for her, so you may start seeing some of her photos here ... like this one, of a scene from the kids' game show she and I like to watch together, "Fetch!" (Expect better photos when the weather warms up and we can get some natural light into the camera.)

Actually, the title of this blog is misleading. I have been in school for the past two weeks, taking week-long intensive classes on writing and structuring curriculum. It's a lot more interesting than it sounds. I even got to create my own pre-baptism curriculum for parents and godparents, which may get published on the Web somewhere soon; I'll let you know. But as of now, with that assignment emailed in, January term is over.

The spring semester begins on Monday. This quarter I will continue Church History, Old Testament, and Hebrew, while adding a class on Youth Ministry. ALL FOUR CLASSES meet for the first time this Monday. Yikes!

Already I can feel the panicked tug of that little voice saying, "You don't have time to do all this and still do it justice."

"OK, little voice," I reply. "Then I will either do it all, and not do it justice, or I will do most of it pretty well. Last semester worked out fine, and this semester will, too."

See? Perfectionist in recovery. It's easy to say NOW ... before things have really gotten rolling, and I can't sleep at night, or I wake up at 3:30 a.m.

Actually, the thing I'm looking forward to most is the February Conference on Ministry, which is a high-falutin' way of saying "prospective students weekend." I've always been enamored of newcomers and potential newcomers in every situation, so I'll be right there in the cheering section, showing people around and encouraging them to come to VTS.

Included in that weekend is the big Variety Show. Now, I'll be honest: When Christy and I visited VTS two years ago, it was the Variety Show that really clinched it for me. This is a student body that knows how to have fun. Among many other things, a game show called Episcopal Idol and a Madonna spoof called "Episcopal Girl" made that year's show fantabulous. And this year, I get to contribute something myself, with the help of a few friends. Mwa-ha-ha-ha!!!

I don't think I blogged about this, but in November, we had a variety show just for ourselves ... no prospective students. Inspired by a recent trend in some churches to render the Eucharistic prayer into Dr. Seuss-ian rhyme (and yes, to channel Dave Barry, I SWEAR I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP), a few of us called in the Spanish Inquisition to do away with these heretics.

Church Went to Me

I went to church today. Or, rather, church went to me. The thing is, I didn’t expect to find myself at church … but there I was. No, I didn’t wander unsuspectingly into the National Cathedral for its observance of the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., though that would have been a great thing to do.

Instead, I found myself at the Smithsonian American History Museum, where my family and I listened to a young man reading passages from some of Dr. King’s speeches. He opened by singing “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” A few of us in the crowd sang along. Then he gave a brief biography of Dr. King, interspersed with recitations from his speeches and, sometimes, recordings of speeches punctuated with applause. Interestingly, after applauding for “Precious Lord,” nobody in the multi-generational, multi-racial crowd applauded the speeches. It was as if these speeches were holy—you know, the way we don’t applaud in church because we’re participating in a sacrament. It was like that with Dr. King’s speeches today.

After recounting the bus strike and the actions that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the young man went on to talk about Dr. King’s commitment to nonviolence and his opposition to the war in Vietnam. He noted that it was at this point that fewer people found themselves able to get on board with Dr. King’s agenda—to be opposed to war, even on Christian principles, was simply going too far. And then, we got up to April 4, 1968.

I wasn’t born yet in 1968, but my own family has stories about the day. My mother remembers holding her roommate from Zaire while the young woman sobbed. They were both wearing shorts that warm spring day. In that moment, my mother hated the color of her skin and wished she could change it for the sake of her friend.

The young man read a selection from Dr. King’s final speech, and then he invited us all to stand, join hands with our neighbors, and sing “We Shall Overcome.” I looked over and found a young black girl standing next to me—she might have been about eight years old. She didn’t hesitate to take my hand while we sang. I looked down and her little sister, on the other side of her, was smiling up at me.

I remembered that on the train on the way downtown today, Sarah had shyly caught the attention of a black sister and brother about her age. She had tried to make friends with them. The hesitation on her part and theirs was merely the hesitation of strangers who have not yet become friends; there wasn’t the slightest overtone of racial suspicion on the children’s part or on the part of their mother, who smiled at us while our children attempted a short-lived friendship. By the time we got off the train, our two families were chatting away like old friends, just for a few minutes while we rode the escalator together and then parted ways. So later, as I stood there in the museum that had become a church, I prayed, “Yes, this is it. This is the dream. Sometimes it’s really here, Martin. God bless you for your life and your sacrifice.” There is no doubt in my mind that Dr. King's dream and God's dream overlap almost completely.

After that we all walked to the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. We had a general idea where it was, but we didn’t have to ask directions; we just followed the multicolored crowd of people as they made their way on this brief, holy pilgrimage past the Washington Monument, past the World War II memorial, to the place where Dr. King’s profile has been carved out of stone.

My photo here captures the misquote that I understand will soon be corrected (see this article to learn more). But indeed, whether or not Dr. King would like to have seen it written in stone, he “was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.” And as President Obama reminded us today, so can we all be. All of us.

We strolled past the many quotes of Dr. King's that are carved into the wall there. I thought, "My God, we're still not listening, are we? Most of these ideas are too difficult for us to handle." Imagine an America that chooses not to win at everything, but rather, to work hard to foster peace. Imagine a world in which war is simply not an acceptable way of accomplishing anything. Can you imagine it?

Amen.

Our lives are the curriculum

Here’s a shot of Sarah on her new bed, a hand-me-down from one of my professors. I tell you, hand-me-down Christmas gifts are the best way to go when you’re in seminary! The wall hanging was a gift from Sarah's grandparents and Aunt Suzy. They've added a felt line that details our road trip from Seattle to Washington, D.C., including markers for all the places we spent the night.

At Virginia Theological Seminary, January term moves at a very different pace from the regular semester. Each week we have an opportunity to take one single class and really dig into it. Some classes are more than one week long. I have chosen to take two consecutive one-week classes that build on each other. The first is “Curriculum: Practices of a People.” The second is “Curriculum Development and Technique.”

Now, if you don’t hold a teaching certificate, these class titles may seem a little dull. But the entire point is that we can expand the definition of curriculum to talk about … well, nearly everything in life. We are always learning, and it’s the role of the teacher not only to provide facts and theories on paper, but also to help students connect the material with their everyday lives. Our lives themselves are the curriculum.

Spring semester will begin at the end of January, at which point I will resume Church History, Old Testament and Hebrew. I’ll also add a semester-long course called Constructions of Youth and Youth Ministry.

I have had two big realizations lately. The first is that I wish I could have had all these classes before I spent seven years as an Associate for Christian Formation! There are plenty of things I would have handled more methodically … and perhaps there are many more that I would have handled less methodically and with more creativity.

The second is a simple but very deep sense of gratitude. I am so happy to be here. It hasn’t been easy for my family, but they’re doing fine. Many mornings, I wake up energized because I’m excited to be in seminary. It doesn’t get much better than this. Again, friends, thank you all for everything you’ve done and continue to do to support us.

the revealing: music for epiphany

Here's some music for the season of Epiphany, which began on Friday and continues well into February. During this season, we focus on Jesus the human being: his birth, his coming of age, and the qualities of his ministry. I've arranged the music for this season by theme as follows:

Suite 1: Incarnation. Enjoy the Baby Jesus just a little longer, as the Magi did.

Suite 2: Baptism. Today (January 8) is the feast of Jesus' baptism, marking the beginning of his ministry. These songs are meant to evoke images of water and of the light of heaven breaking through and anointing Jesus as the Messiah.

Suite 3: Calling. Just as Jesus called disciples, he calls us, too. What is the shape of your call?

Suite 4: Fishing. We are called not just to be disciples, but to be apostles, sent out into the world with Good News.

Suite 5: Teaching. At the heart of Jesus' teaching was one very important concept: love.

Suite 6: Healing. Wherever Jesus went, he came close to people and healed them. Sometimes this meant curing them of their diseases as well.

Suite 7: Praise. The people came to adore Jesus profoundly.

Suite 8: Transfiguration. Many of the people wanted Jesus to become a powerful earthly ruler. But God had different plans, and the Transfiguration on the mountaintop marks the shift from Jesus' early ministry to the much more somber second half, as Jesus prepared to set his face toward Jerusalem and the Cross.

At various places in the suites, I have worked in the three movements of Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, my favorite choral piece ever. These three pieces are sung in Hebrew, and I hope they are effective at tying in Jesus' Judaism and his grounding in the Psalms.

Please: If you like something you hear, go buy it!

Happy Epiphany from the Hoslers!

January 6, 2012

Dear friends and family:

Happy Epiphany from the Hoslers! We neglected to write an annual letter last year, so we have much to catch up on. In 2010, Josh was accepted as a postulant to the Episcopal priesthood, and we also decided that year that we would move to Virginia so Josh could attend seminary. So the early part of 2011 was full of projects and preparations: getting our West Seattle home up to snuff so it could be leased out, downsizing our possessions, and saying goodbye to many friends and family. We also said goodbye to our beloved cat Epitome, who died in March at the ripe old age of 15. Henry, at age 10, is still with us, although he has already stepped into the newly vacant role of “crotchety old grump.”

At the end of May, Christy completed her full-time contract job with Expedia and started some serious packing and house-cleaning. Josh’s job at St. Thomas continued for a month longer, and Sarah graduated from kindergarten in June as well. Our final weeks in Seattle were marked by celebrations: a very touching fundraising dinner at St. Thomas, a final chance for Josh to preach there and to say goodbye to his youth group, an early birthday party for Sarah, and a visit from Josh’s parents, who helped us pack all our remaining belongings and get them onto the moving van.

We hit the road July 21, and we chronicled our epic eleven-day road trip on Josh’s blog. Highlights included a visit with Christy’s friend Leanne in Oregon; two nights’ stay in Josh’s old hometown of Rupert, Idaho, including a reunion with his best childhood friend, Travis Freeman; crossing the Continental Divide in a Honda Civic as it puffed “I think I can”; a visit to the fantastic science museum in Denver; Sarah making great strides in her swimming abilities in hotel swimming pools; a flat tire in Topeka; Sarah losing her first tooth in St. Louis while we were out to dinner with our friend Angela; and finally, a few nights’ stay in Annandale, VA, at the home of our friends the Hoskinses, while we waited for the moving van to arrive.

August was all about adjusting to life in our two-bedroom apartment … and to a very different climate. Heat and humidity marked our first month, but that’s not all: we experienced both an earthquake and a hurricane! We did get to see both the Washington Monument and the National Cathedral before the earthquake; both were closed immediately afterward for extensive repairs. In the months that followed, we have also visited the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, the American History Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian.

Also in August, Josh began classes, along with 45 other M.Div. students. So far he has taken Church History, Old Testament, Hebrew, and a couple classes in pastoral care and practical theology. He has joined the seminary choir, volunteered as a hospice chaplain, helped the seminary with a Lilly-funded research project, and visited a number of different Episcopal churches in order to scout out an eventual site for his field education (which will begin next fall). His main impression of his fellow students is that they are amazing: all of them are very accomplished people with a huge variety of gifts, and he’s eagerly learning from them as well as from his classes and professors.

After Labor Day, Sarah started at Douglas MacArthur Elementary School, a large public school with six different first-grade classes and solid music, art, and gym programs. Every morning she waits for the bus with other seminarians’ kids, and she has also made new friends from the population at large. Her favorite subject is math, and her reading is coming along well. Sarah has also joined the children’s choir at Church of the Holy Cross in Dunn Loring, VA, where she also enjoys weekly Godly Play stories. In December she played both an angel and a donkey in a musical Christmas pageant called “Angels Aware!”

At the end of September, Christy began a full-time position at the Cokesbury book store on campus. She was looking forward to getting in-depth retail training from the store manager, so it was something of a shock when he immediately left to take another job. After just ten days of training, Christy was surprised to find herself the only full-time employee at the store! In a few short months, she has learned a lot about receiving merchandise and ordering textbooks, and she struggles valiantly with the store’s ancient, DOS-based inventory system.

At both Thanksgiving and Christmas, we all journeyed to Ridgefield, Connecticut, to spend the holidays with Christy’s sister Patty and her family. Sarah was in paradise, with three cousins near her age to play with all day long. Christmas was particularly special because Christy’s parents and sister Sue flew out from Seattle to join us. After Christmas Day, Brian and Debbie came down to spend a week in Alexandria with us. During their visit, we ate at Gadsby’s Tavern, which was frequented by our nation’s first five presidents, and we visited Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington’s family.

As 2012 begins, we are very thankful for all the new friends who have welcomed us to Virginia and to all those we love back home in the Seattle area who continue to support us on this grand adventure!

With much love and best wishes for a great new year,

Josh, Christy & Sarah Hosler

2011 is the fastest year for music in 27 years

LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" and "Sexy and I Know It"
were two of the most upbeat hits of 2011.

The year 2011 is the most uptempo year for pop music since 1984. In a study of the beats per minute of the biggest hits of each of the past 42 years, I discovered that 1983 and 1984 were the most uptempo years since 1970. But the year 2011 took pop music back to a level of tempo it has not achieved in the past 27 years.

My original theory was that the disco era would prove to be more uptempo, though not as uptempo as 2011. I had guessed that 1979 would come in second to this year. But some of the grooviest beats of that year, such as Chic’s “Le Freak” and the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.,” were not exceedingly fast. It was, instead, the synthesized beats of the mid-1980s that were the tempo champions.

The fastest big hit of the year 2011 was “You Make Me Feel …” by Cobra Starship, at 132 BPM. The average tempo of the 40 biggest hits of this year was just shy of 112 BPM. Other fast hits this year included “Till the World Ends” and “I Wanna Go” by Britney Spears, “Party Rock Anthem” and “Sexy and I Know It” by LMFAO, and “On the Floor” by Jennifer Lopez. While the fastest hits this year were not as fast as the champions in the 1980s, we saw a uniform trend this year in which many big hits fell into the 124-132 BPM range.

"Let's Go Crazy": 196 beats per minute!

In 1984, the 40 biggest hits averaged 114 BPM. The fastest hits of all were “Dancing in the Dark” by Bruce Springsteen, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham!, “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins, “Karma Chameleon” by Culture Club, and at a breakneck 196 beats per minute, “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince & the Revolution.

One year earlier, the style of music was markedly mellower, but that year proved to be the fastest of all, with its forty biggest hits averaging 117 BPM. Among its biggest hits you’ll find “Mickey” by Toni Basil, “Maniac” by Michael Sembello, “Steppin’ Out” by Joe Jackson, “Love Is a Battlefield” by Pat Benatar, and that year’s fastest big hit, “Tell Her About It” by Billy Joel.

If we factor in not only speed but also texture and intensity, I think it’s safe to say that 2011 is the reigning champion. So if you figure out how to compute this “feeling” scientifically, please let me know.

What was the slowest year? I didn’t dig deeply to find this out, only calculating BPM on the 10 biggest hits of each of the years that were not clear contenders for the fastest. But based on that data, the slowest year was 1998, with an average of only 84.89 BPM. Many of the year’s biggest hits were ballads, including “How Do I Live” by LeAnn Rimes, “Truly Madly Deeply” by Savage Garden, “You’re Still the One” by Shania Twain, and “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls. Even the dance hits, like “Too Close” by Next, were only midtempo.

What were the fastest and slowest hits I measured? The Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian” (1987) was the speediest, at a whopping 206 BPM. The slowest was “Separate Lives” by Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin (1985). At only 50 BPM, it did its part to drag down that year’s average.

Check out my main website to look up the #1 song on any day in history.

Listening through the static

I had the pleasure of preaching this sermon at St. Thomas three years ago this weekend. It feels especially relevant again.
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Well, it’s that time of year again. The Christmas industrial complex has cranked the volume up to eleven. But I, for one, am having a hard time hearing anything. Clearly I’m not going deaf. It’s just that, in all this noise, I can’t hear the one thing I’m listening for.

It’s like I’ve tuned in to a radio station a hundred miles away, and I’m desperately straining through the static to pick out the most important, life-changing words in the universe—the words that matter right now.

But there’s another radio station on an adjacent frequency. This one broadcasts from my own backyard. It uses many of the same words, but it doesn’t do them justice. It twists and distorts them. It sings of cheeriness and confuses it with joy. It assails me with information when what I really want is wisdom. It trumpets the benefits of belief but mistakes it for experience. It gives me both “Happy Holidays” and “Merry Christmas,” but the two phrases are fighting instead of wishing each other peace. And it ties it all together with a cacophony of shoulds and oughts, most of which have to do with spending money I don’t have.

As if that weren’t enough, there’s a third signal on top of the others, and this one is the strongest. Now obviously, in order to listen, you have to not speak. But how can I quiet my mind? My own shoulds and oughts are bumping up against the shoulds and oughts from the other dominant station, leaving me with a severe holiday migraine.

Bishop Jeffrey Lee of the Diocese of Chicago said recently, “It is so easy to be listening intently to what I presume is God and instead be hearing only my own interior monologue, mistaking it for the still, small voice that’s the genuine article. God seems to delight in hiddenness, obscurity, mystery.”

But does God have to remain so hidden so much of the time? I guess so. Apparently, that’s the only thing that ever works. It worked in King David’s time, and it worked because Nathan was listening.

In our story from the second book of Samuel, King David is getting his life in order. His enemies have been squelched. The land is at peace. Now David can finally carry out the reforms he’s been wanting for so long. And his first step is to build a temple for God.

Now, this is a most appropriate, pious plan. It’s both honorable and innovative. David wants to thank God for the military victories and the good fortune of the Kingdom of Israel. Finally, after all these years, the Promised Land has been conquered and settled, and David is not going to take it for granted. The king is going to build a monument to God’s sovereignty, grander than the royal palace. How countercultural! What a bold demonstration of faith!

David runs the plan by the prophet Nathan, his closest advisor. And without blinking, Nathan says, “Brilliant! Go for it.” Nathan has his own internal monologue in which, of course, God wants to have a huge, glorious temple! God is so great, we should be obligated to do our best for Him! Certainly God’s house should be far grander than our own. And it’ll be a real poke in the eye at all the nations we’ve just defeated.

But God has something different in mind. And it’s a good thing that Nathan is listening when God speaks to him that night. God says: “Don’t build me a house. Let me build you a house.”

You see, God has led the people of Israel to victory many, many times, and always against the same enemy: fear. God has told the Israelites again and again that they will succeed, and they finally have. They’ve conquered their enemies and their fears, and now they can rest.

But the real strength of Judaism so far has been its inability to put down roots. As soon as there’s a temple, God knows the kingdom will grow complacent. Fear and complacency may be polar opposites, but they are both hostile to growth.

So God says to Nathan, “I do not require four-star accommodations. You don’t need to take care of me or defend my honor by making sure there’s a place worthy of me. You can’t create such a place, and I don’t want such a place. I just want you. I want you to be my Holy of Holies. In fact, I will build you a house, and then we can both live in it.”

Well, you can’t say God doesn’t try. Through Nathan, God stops David from building that temple. But then David’s son Solomon comes along, begging and pleading for a temple. Finally, like an exhausted parent, God gives in and says, “Alright already! Build your temple and see what happens. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

One generation later, the complacent kingdom is in disarray. The nation of Israel splits, and the two sides are both eventually conquered, first by the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, then the Persians, then the Greeks.

A thousand years after David, the Israelites are still an occupied people. Now the Romans have conquered the known world. But through a combination of strict religious observances, carefully recorded Scripture, and the distinctive mark of circumcision, the Jews are still Jews—still proud, still chosen, and still listening through the static for God’s voice. But in successfully preserving their heritage, they have grown complacent again—at least, the religious authorities have.

It’s at this point in the history of Planet Earth that God says, “OK. The time has come.”

And then God raises hiddenness, obscurity, and mystery to a new level. God finally plans to start building that house … inside the body of a 14-year-old girl. And Mary, with all the bold, optimistic foolishness of a teenager, says, “Well, God … I guess you know best. Let’s do this.” It’s absolutely scandalous. And it’s the only way it could ever work.

It was the only way then, and it’s the only way now. Because today, at this very moment, Christ is coming into the world. Yes, Christ has died. And Christ is risen. (We’ll tell that part of the story in a few months … stay tuned.)

And after all that, Christ will come again … and again … and again. Somehow, we find in our Christian faith a meeting place for two seemingly contradictory worldviews: the Western worldview, in which everything happens only once, and the Eastern worldview, in which everything happens in cycles. Both/and.

The scandal of Christmas is just a regular part of our belief system now. We’ve gotten complacent, as evidenced by all the noise and rush coming out of Bellevue Square. But Christ will come again. We can’t understand that … in fact, nobody knows what it really means. It’s a mystery—hidden in the fabric of our own lives, our own stories. It’s an ever-expanding cycle of death, resurrection, death, bigger resurrection.

God is still building the house that began in Mary. And now, in the year we call 2011 and God calls 15 billion-something, God wants to live in … you. Are you listening? Do you hear God calling your name?

I’ve been trying to hear God’s call to me. And it’s rare, and it’s sweet, and it’s so full of longing I can hardly bear it. One of my favorite sages put it this way: “I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it/ It’s something that I’m supposed to be.” And one of his friends said, “I’ve never been there, but I know the way. I’m going to go back there someday.”

Do you realize what is being asked of us? We are to invite God in deeply. In fact, we are to open our very wombs to God. This is something that I, as a man, can’t completely fathom. But that’s what I hear when I really listen through the static. And if I can’t fathom it, I think that speaks well of its source.

Now do me a favor and touch that dial. Tune out the shoulds and oughts. In fact, turn off the radio completely. Practice silence.

[Stop reading this sermon, close your eyes, and be silent for a few minutes.]

Practice, practice, practice silence, and don’t give up. God is calling you right now, and God will find a way to get through on one signal or another. God plans to set up shop in you … in your body and soul.

But silence isn’t the only place to hear God. We listen by being open. We listen by turning outward to those in need. We listen by allowing the interruption to be the work. We listen by expecting that everything that happens in life is either sent by God, or will be used by God to draw us closer. We listen by shunning both complacency and fear, and deciding that we are the kind of people who pay attention.

In The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages, Joan Chittister writes this about the Christian life:

It is not a year’s experience; it is not a degree once gotten and then ignored. This is not a spiritual quick fix. It is a way of life and it takes a lifetime to absorb. Nothing important, nothing life-altering, nothing that demands total commitment can be tried on lightly and easily discarded. It is the work of a lifetime that takes a lifetime to leaven us until, imperceptibly, we find ourselves changed into what we sought.

In what remains of Advent, listen through the static. And this Christmas, may Christ be born in you. Amen.