So, on the internet, we have access to the world and its many realities in ways no one has had before us. The problem is that most of us don’t appreciate that breadth of information. Instead, most of us visit the same 10 websites every day. I can think of a few: Facebook, Google Docs, Google Mail, Google Maps, and probably a news site or two, and of course Amazon!
There are currently 1.1 billion websites, roughly 1 for every 7 people on Earth, and we only visit 10 of ‘em with any regularity. But we know we have all this information available to us, and we know we spend a goodly portion of our lives encountering information from this immense well of variety. So, we think we must be well-rounded consumers of information simply because we read so much, but that’s a fallacy. It’d be like walking into a library and reading the entire collection of National Geographic, but only the entire collection of National Geographic, and proclaiming “I understand life” while neglecting poetry and fiction and books on penguins.
There’s something paralyzing about having this much access to this much information. Facebook is safe for me. I know how to use it, and I know most of the people that are contributing to what I see. I trust them, so it must be ok. I don’t want to venture out into those seedy neighborhoods of the web, the areas where you lock your doors so no one can get in. I want my bank account to be password protected and armed with backup security questions about my first dog’s name or the street I grew up on.
I’m afraid I might mess something up, afraid my computer might get a virus, afraid I might read something and have to change. It’s a lot more comfortable when all that wealth of information at my fingertips tells me I’m right. It’s not comfortable when the Internet tells me I’m wrong. I'd rather just post things on my Facebook status and get some kind of confirmation that the internet abyss cares what I think with a Like or a smiley face.
The other day, I was on one of my Most Frequented sites, Gmail. There was a message from Father Brooks with a link to a YouTube video of Nick Offerman, the comedian who plays Ron Swanson on Parks & Rec, one of my favorite shows.
The video was 45 minutes long and simply showed the bearded Offerman drinking a good single malt scotch. The camera never moves. Nick steps into the book-lined room with fireplace crackling and sits in an inviting yet classy leather chair. He sips his scotch and stares into your world through the screen. That’s all. Sip after sip, fireplace crackling in a familiar-enough living room. He finally finishes his drink, lets out a contented sigh with a calm smile, and walks away. It’s delightful.
And someone else, appreciating that gift of silence in the middle of the noisy medium of the internet -- someone else has taken that 45-minute video and spliced it to be 10 hours long. A silent pause in the middle of madness. Now, I didn’t set out to go on a tirade against the internet, but I love this juxtaposition.
Either Abraham Lincoln or Mark Twain (there’s some debate on the internet) has an amazing quote attributed to them: “Better to remain silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove any doubt.” So much for yelling into the abyss.
Our reading from Matthew today picks up the story in the lead-up to Christmas with Mary and Joseph. Now, I know you probably have an image in your minds of what these two look like. We all have pretty much the same image. Mary is meek and mild, wearing blue, sitting on a donkey and being led. Joseph is older than she is, bearded, strong hands from all that wood working, leading with certainty and maybe a little desperation.
But that’s not quite the image the Bible actually paints. First off, Mary isn’t terribly meek. She’s young, sure, but she also holds her own when she meets an angel, a sight that would bend even the most stoic warriors. She receives the news of bearing God’s child, not with trepidation but with deep pride.
Her song begins, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord!” and goes on to call for the entire world order to be flipped upside down. That’s no meak and mild mother of God.
Meanwhile, Joseph, the one that’s supposedly leading this adventure, is silent. This can’t be right. I mean, we’ve all seen the Christmas pageants, we know where a man stands in Biblical times. Joseph took charge, found them a place to stay, right?
Well, maybe, but the Bible gives him absolutely no lines. In the Bible, Joseph never speaks. Not once. In fact, Joseph is sometimes called Joseph the Silent for this reason. I don’t know if this is the “strong, silent type” Joseph, or if this is the “I just don’t know what to say” Joseph. But his silence is powerful.
His counterpart, Zechariah, was silent because he couldn’t believe that God had a hand in the madness of his life, not in that moment, not in that way. So, maybe Joseph saw what happened to Zechariah saw that and was silent because he was afraid of what might happen if he spoke up. Or maybe Joseph knew enough to step out of the way of greatness, the greatness of Mary, the greatness of the child to come, the greatness of God.
Maybe that’s one of the many things we’re called to in this wild season, a season of snowfalls and whiteouts, a season of frantic shopping trips and whirlwind family visits, hopefully a season of love and gratitude. Advent and Christmas bring us to this place where some are immeasurably grateful while others sit in overwhelming sorrow.
It’s a time that’s too big for us to process, a seemingly endless stream of greeting cards and Amazon boxes, of trees and poinsettias and wreaths, of getting things just so and finding the perfect recipe for that smoked ham.
It’s a season of picking through all the assumptions and questions and politics to find the truth of our love for each other. It’s a season that can sometimes feel like we’re pulling ourselves or being pulled in a dozen different directions at once, a season that sure can make you want to scream into the abyss.
But it’s also a season of waiting, a season of calm amid the chaos. I pray that we all find that comfortable chair beside a crackling fire. Mary and Joseph both have something to offer us in this final Sunday before Christmas: from Mary, hope for the gift of God amid the chaos;
...from Joseph, permission to sit calmly by the chaos as it blows in. So, maybe there’s a calmness in the coming days waiting for us to find it, an empty seat by a fire waiting for us to take a moment, a day or a minute where our breath is the only sound as we listen for God around us. And we breathe. And in that silence, maybe we find God.