Faith Matters - Malled
It always seems much worse to me this time of year. Not that I ever covet mall shopping, but when the purchasing begins in earnest on Black Friday, malls are places that I religiously avoid so to speak. Usually an introvert's Purgatorio, the mall now shifts into warp drive and its apparently recession-proof invitation is a siren call to those on mission to make Christmas happen. I really don’t want to be here but I am soon to learn that some epiphany has me on its radar screen.
Out behind the mall, where the delivery trucks unload and the garbage trucks collect the trash I notice a man on top of a dumpster. He appears to be in search of something. A lost wallet? A valuable document? Something to eat? As I step inside I wonder if he will find what he is looking for. I hope to God he is not looking for food.
Mall faces are preoccupied: lips tight and lines fixed. All the surfaces are hard. No one makes eye contact. Shoppers jostle one another. I fall in line behind some seniors in running shoes tracking painted footprints on the floor. I look long enough to wonder where the footprints will take me if I follow them.
A weary grandmother, too tired to stand, sits red-kettle-side and rings her bell. She reminds those who have ears to hear that there is another side to this frenzied carnival of materialism. She is an offspring of John the Baptist, a voice crying in the wilderness. It is the clearest truth I hear this day. She wishes me a "Merry Christmas" as I make my deposit. The sound of her bell fades as I gain some distance from her proclamation.
Sometimes I think that the price we pay for this season is too high. We spend so much time and money trying to stage Christmas, trying to bring it to reality, that it slips from our grasp. The residue that remains after pleasure evaporates is exhaustion or depression. And even as the wrapping paper is compacted into the plastic garbage-sacks on Christmas Day, we wonder if we might have missed it again this year.
Purchase made, I am leaving by the side entrance; waiting for traffic, a teenage couple joins me. They are holding hands and giggling, giving public witness to their affection. Their smiles make me smile. We wait while a bailing-wire-duct-tape-bandaged pickup truck in need of a muffler patch chugs slowly past. A gun rack in the rear window cradles a golf umbrella while a bumper sticker pleads: GOD BLESS AMERICA. It reminds me, as if I needed it, that this season has an overlay of tears. There are empty chairs at Christmas tables. This season of kettles and bells rings out for those who are mute in need. It is the season of the longest night for all of us, but it is much longer for some.
It does not help much to attack Christmas as being too commercial. Just now we are being urged to spend as much as we can to save our economy. As usual, more is offered as anodyne. Admittedly, the season does have its charms. Warmth, generosity, good will, good music, joy and celebration visit once again, if only to seduce us. What do we say to the longing within that is reborn every Advent? The longing speaks to us of our origins. We are star stuff, light from light, bound to the creator for time and eternity.
John the Baptist, languishing in prison, awaiting the verdict on his own future, pleads for Jesus to answer the most important question of all: "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" No simple "yes" or "no," Jesus makes John answer his own question. He makes everyone answer his or her own question. His response invites us to look at the evidence of our own eyes, listen to the evidence of our ears, and feel the evidence of our hearts: the blind see and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.
That evidence, hidden in plain sight, is visible only to the eyes of the once blind, who now are able to see. The work of the Christ goes on: touching one wounded person at a time, healing one broken heart after another, restoring one lost soul upon one lost soul. His hand reaches out to us in invitation. He promises us the sight to see what he sees, ears to hear what he hears, and hearts to feel what he feels. It is hard work. It is holy work.
The ancient promise has power over us still. And while we await its consummation we remember the story and we earnestly pray that we will take no offense at him.
As the mall recedes in my rear view mirror I am relieved to have it behind me. I am not fast enough, however, to escape being overtaken by the kettle grandmother’s proclamation. And I am not fast enough to escape my own need to ring the bell that has been placed in my hands. I travel home by another way.
God’s peace.
Chuck Johns