In the Neighbourhood
John 1:1-18
January 3, 2010
A musical note to begin the year: the popular classic song, “Moon River” by Henry Mancini, was first sung by Audrey Hepburn in the movie “Breakfast At Tiffany’s,” but its most memorable rendition is by Johnny Mercer. A recent collection of Mercer’s works occasioned a comment that in “Moon River” Mercer added one phrase that changed the tenor of the whole song, lifted it up to a different level. Towards the end of the song, he adds parenthetically the expression, “my huckleberry friend.”
As Scott Hozee points out, that ‘huckleberry’ harkens to Mercer’s upbringing in the South, “Mark Twain, the Mississippi, Huckleberry Finn, vagabondage, companionship, fond nostalgia of one’s youth.”
There is no need to huckleberry any further, except to hear how one word can change how we hear. Nearly 18 years I conducted the funeral of a young man in our congregation who had died suddenly of a virus attacking his heart. It was a tragedy not only for the family, but for the church and community. Derek was not a wallflower; he had accomplished a number of rare things at his age.
It was necessary to move the funeral service to a larger facility, the old school auditorium across the street, and over 800 people attended, a highly emotional affair. Derek had been a good trombone player and one of his fellow trombonists and member of our church came back from university to play a trombone solo during the service. When the time came for the eulogy, I read the passage from Paul’s 1 Corinthians 15:51-58 with which many of you are familiar from Handel’s Messiah, “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead shall be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” (verse 52b). Except that I changed a word, which interestingly only a couple of people heard, “and the trombone will sound” - for trumpet would have had the wrong tone in that situation.
On this 10th Day of Christmas, the Gospel of John’s magnificent overture, which many believe was originally intended as a hymn, is sung. John draws on many a Biblical theme in his poetic choice of words and these old words are used in a new way to create a new idea.
The opening line, “In the beginning was the Word” is a loud echo of the first words of Scripture itself, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but it begins not in our time, but before time. Jesus is the Word who defines all of our words, and the Word and words of Jesus Christ begin with creation. In a culture full of words, ironically that does not engender the same respect it once did and that has a great impact upon the nature and character of the Church.
Preaching is usually on a downspin when the church and its culture believe that words have lost their power. Words are too easy and unreliable, they are just words. We claim to prefer actions instead of words, but we still need to conceptualize what we are doing, so words are still critically important. Speaking and acting are inseparable as human beings.
We are the People of the Book and the Word, and if there are those who say words are ineffective in the United Church then what is happening in Islam where the Word of the Qur’an is revolutionizing a significant part of the world? The same thing has happened periodically in our cultures, during the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, through countless political changes. When the Word is spoken effectively and with passion, and the Word is heard with attention, then as John most famously says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
The Word became flesh is not that easy an idea or image to grasp. On one hand it means that when a person says something we can count on them really doing it, the word becomes an action, a deed, something tangible. On the other hand, it points to the normally impossible reality that Godliness became part and parcel of humanness. This is the theme of Christmas that we have to keep acknowledging and grappling with.
When Easter looms a different side of the same coin is turned to, though John also alludes to this as well - “He was in the world and the world was there through him, and yet the world didn’t even notice. He came to his own people, but they didn’t want him.” It’s an ancient, probably eternal problem - some people want to act like they are God; others always want to make out their leaders to be God; but in the long run, we never like the gods we make or pretend to be. We want a god when we are able to use them for our benefit; when a human god demands we follow her, we are outraged and don’t want him anymore. That’s why we keep reciting the Gospel.
That huckleberry word sometimes comes dressed in a translation that attracts our tongue and our heart. Eugene Peterson translates John 1:14 in a way that catches the mind a little off guard. “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” Moved into the neighbourhood is Peterson’s way of describing the intimacy of God With Us. It is both sides of that coin.
When does that phrase “moved into the neighbourhood” come up in conversation? Seldom is it a positive expression, referring usually to someone undesirable coming into our community, our social circle, our family intimacy. No convicted criminals or mental patients in half-way houses are wanted in our neighbourhoods. No sex offenders for sure, and waste dumps and nuclear sites can be resisted with great moral self-righteousness. In days of yore this was used when those people of a different colour or nationality or perhaps even religious persuasion would try to move into our neighbourhood and “take it over.”
God did exactly that, moved into our neighbourhood, and once we realized it, it made us uncomfortable. Jesus is just too different, really not one of us. He wants to get too close to you and me, and without speaking makes demands of us that we don’t believe we should have to be making.
But for those who have lived through a new kind of person moving into the neighbourhood, we know we are wealthier for having our intimacy invaded. Jesus just didn’t become a human being, leave us alone for 30 years, and then embark on this wonderful tragic ministry by which we can all be inspired. He moved into our neighbourhood, infiltrated our whole way of life, made us live a little differently, probably had us eat something new and weird, and didn’t leave us alone. What do we always fear about somebody unwanted moving into our neighbourhood? That we and/or our children might begin to behave like him, look and dress like him, become one of “them.” O dreaded thought.
My God, that’s what has happened. The Word has moved into our neighbourhood and it’s all gone downhill from there. Ruined our peaceful neighbourhood. What is the world coming to anyway? The question is always in the future tense.
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan