God’s involvement doesn’t trump our choices
It’s Christmas time again, and in the great tradition of these December podcasts, I’m using a “darker” Christmas song.
The music is title “Lullay Thou little tiny child” and the lyrics are:
Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child,
bye, bye, lully lullay.
O sisters too, how may we do,
for to preserve this day,
this poor youngling for whom we sing,
bye, bye lully lullay.
Herod the king in his raging,
charged he hath this day,
his men of night, in his own sight,
all young children to slay.
Then woe is me, poor child, for thee!
And every morn and day,
for thy parting not say nor sing
bye, bye, lully lullay.
Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child,
bye, bye, lully lullay.
One of the hardest stories in the Gospel is Herod’s massacre of the babies. It’s not the kind of story you find in children’s Christmas bibles, TV specials, and not even one that we address in our more thoughtful adult discussions. If you don’t remember, Herod, in reaction to the Magi’s dream and their refusal to reveal the whereabouts of Jesus, decides to kill all the babies 2 years and younger in the general vicinity. A lovely Christmas tale sure to be made into an animated special almost any day now.......
So why bring it up?
There’s an importance to recognizing that our choice to evil, is still completely possible, even in the face of God’s presence and gifting. In the case of this story, it is a choice to evil precisely because of God’s action and presence. Herod is threatened by the birth of the “king” and so badly wants to hold power and control that he is merciless. It seems that we always have a choice to how we will react, whether we will take part or not in what God is doing.
I went to the Trail Band Christmas concert recently, and was moved by the songs, by the warmth, by people’s commitment to celebrating Jesus’ birth. And yet, it was bitter sweet, the world is still at war, people are still starving, people are sick, people are naked, our interpersonal relationships are not what they should be....the vision of the kingdom of heaven is not yet realized, and often it’s precisely because we are unwilling to join God present in the existence and life we are called to.
The musical arrangement of this piece is simple, the dobro (which originally brought this piece in to my head again, the music just sort of oozed out of it) plays the melody. The whistle (which also had that mournful sound I was looking for) plays along. The bass is steady and ominous, to me representing the ongoing push and underlying theme of our greed, self centeredness, and ambition.
Thanks to Ed Liebman for the use of his dobro.
Lullay Thou Little Tiny Child
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
