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Peculiar People
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners
spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
hath, in these last days, spoken unto us by his Son.
Hebrews 1:1-2
This Christmas, while riding the TTC, I have noticed for the first time the absence of Christmas carols. In subway stations I hear “Jingle Bells” and “Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer,” but no carols! Like it or not, Jesus has been replaced by Santa as “the reason for the season,” and most people don’t know or care that Santa started out as a Christian saint.
No one, I think, would object to the second part of the message from the heavenly host: “Peace on earth, good will toward men—and women” (Luke 2:14). We all yearn for peace in the world, even while we see that there is no peace, and at Christmas we all hope that the year to come may bring a bit more good will than we have experienced in the year that is coming to a close.
But what about the first part of the message: “Glory to God in the highest!”? That is quite another matter. We are here tonight to glorify God, but this isn’t a priority in Canada today. People will tell you they are spiritual, but being religious, if it involves a connection with some place of worship, is very much the exception, not the rule, as it used to be when I was growing up.
So being here in church tonight makes us exceptional, even peculiar. We may have thought of other religions as peculiar, we may have smiled at the Tibetan lama spinning his prayer wheel, but we have not been accustomed to think of ourselves as peculiar, even though Christianity is based on some very peculiar ideas, or paradoxes, that other religions do consider peculiar: the virgin mother, the Word made flesh, the crucified Messiah. These paradoxes have become so familiar to us that they no longer seem paradoxical; they have become dogmas, to be accepted on faith.
Last week I attended a concert of medieval music at St. Thomas’s Anglican Church which recreated the Christmas Midnight Mass, as it would have been sung in 14th century Avignon. The epistle, I noted, was the same reading that I have just read from the Epistle to the Hebrews. Those who heard this text chanted in Latin may not have noted what a peculiar text it is: the use of the vernacular may bring out the peculiarity of a text.
The author compares scriptural passages referring to the angels with passages which he takes as referring to the Son, whom God has appointed heir of all things, and by whom he made the world. For me the interesting thing is the author’s use of scripture to find present meaning, in this case, a high Christology. But for those with a modern mind-set, not used to the way scripture was interpreted when the New Testament was being compiled, this passage must come across as very peculiar indeed.
I think we need to accept that nowadays all religions, our own included, are considered peculiar. That is nothing to be ashamed of. In Deuteronomy we read that the Lord chose Israel to be a peculiar people (14:2), and the author of the First Letter of Peter writes, “”Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people”
(2:9). Being peculiar is an honor, and the fact that religion is peculiar doesn’t mean that “religion poisons everything,” as the late Christopher Hitchins would have us believe. Religion can be transformative, and I, for one, would be lost without it.
Christmas, 2011
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