Not Stoned
Stoned
Late again. Where the hell have you been? Late with the blog post because there are too many things to write about, too many possibilities. When that happens my out is escape. Leave town. Keeping a blog, like keeping a frog, is a pain and I owe a daily blog post to nobody, not even to myself. Instead of blogging, this morning I went back to the museum, http://www.mnh.si.edu/vtp/1-desktop/ where I often go instead of writing my sermon or preparing my Sunday school lesson. Or paying my bills. This morning I went to the museum because there are too many things to blog about, so out of here.
‘tis the season to ask why we have two quite different nativity stories that don’t match up at all and that some people feel compelled to reconcile, frantic folks worried about inerrancy to whom it would never occur to reconcile Huck Finn and the Hardy Boys. Why two completely different nativity narratives? ‘tis not the season to answer that without the risk of being stoned. With rocks, that is, this is not Uruguay. Speaking of which, “Uruguay's decision to legalise the production, sale and consumption of marijuana violates international law, the UN drugs watchdog says,” what a load of it, let the watchdog bark at tobacco and alcohol. “The UN says,” AYXXM?
What’s the truth about Christmas? Better, what are the truths? We don’t want to ask, we don't want to explore, we don't want to discuss it, we have our truths, don’t we. From my childhood I recall hearing an old Boston story of a 19th-century Brahmin matron whose New York counterpart asks where Boston women buy their hats. "Buy our hats?" replies the Beacon Hill blueblood. "We have our hats." Just so, we Christians have our truths. And our stories. Any cradle Episcopalian knows that inconsistency doesn't bother us.
Why are Matthew and Luke genealogies different? Because one traces through Joseph and ... no they don’t. Why does Matthew start Jesus with Joseph and an angel, puts Him in Bethlehem, has magi come calling with gifts, then sends Him off to Nazareth of Galilee via Egypt; while Luke starts Jesus with Mary and an angel in Nazareth then sends Him down to Bethlehem in utero for his birth, then to Jerusalem for His dedication, finally back home to Nazareth. Anyone who melds the two stories insisting "well, both things happened" creates his/her third nativity story, a new gospel. How do folks who are into literal inerrancy deal with this every year? Like at Halloween, loading up buses and heading for the mountains to wait for Santa Claus?
Matthew and Luke included, every author who writes has an agenda. A story to tell, a reason for telling it, an audience to tell it to, a situation in life that causes him/her to start writing, ...
Matthew’s agenda? Have you ever been in a church that was having troubles? I have, it's a nightmare. I think Matthew was having problems with his Jewish-Christian church about 85 A.D. or so, and needed a credible story that would convince the members of his church that Jesus was the long awaited Jewish messiah, and help solve the troubles. For those who need history, Matthew wrote down a story he’d heard about Jesus‘ origins. For those who need inerrancy, God dictated the story to Matthew -- a notion that deepens the mystery of why two different stories.
For those who are less into history and more into literary criticism, Matthew, a Jewish Christian who could not read Hebrew, went into the Septuagint, the Greek OT, spotted stories that convinced him Jesus was all of God’s new Abraham, new Moses, new Elijah and Elisha, new David prophesied by prophets of old, and wrote the gospel. For those who believe God himself dictated the words to Matthew, can't help you.
What about Luke’s totally different story, what was Luke’s agenda?
I’m going back to the museum. They have the Hope Diamond on the second floor, I’d like to see that again.
/s/ Carroll the Ancient Yuletide Troll