Help Me Remember Who I Am

Help Me Remember Who I Am
A Christmas Eve Message by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
December 24, 2011

I never expected that a 30-year-old tour guide in India would break me open to hear the Christmas stories in a new way. Especially when he was talking about a 3000-year-old story from the Hindu religion. But God is a God of endless surprises. Who has gifts to offer us all the time if we only look for them.

Five weeks ago, our tour guide Markose was showing us around a palace on the southwest corner of India. We stood in front of a tapestry from a Hindu story called The Ramayana. He explained the scene to us. Then he stepped out of his role as tour guide. And into the role of sage. He said, “All of us need a base for our lives. We can’t live good lives from scratch.” Then we went on with the tour.

Though my body moved on with him, my mind was held on to his words. “All of us need a base for our lives. We can’t live good lives from scratch.” Markose was telling us we need to build our lives on some source of wisdom. Whether that base is a faith, a philosophy, or a tradition, it has to be big enough and flexible enough to guide the way we live as we change and as the world we live in changes. Our base gives us our values. Our base helps us make wise decisions and gives us a vision of what we’re living for. Without a base, Markose said, we live from scratch. We make it up as we go along. We have no center or compass. Living like that, Markose said, can’t help us build a more loving world.

As he reflected on a 3000-year-old story from Hinduism, Marcose gave me a new way to hear the Christmas stories. Since coming back from India, I’ve been asking myself, What base do the Christmas stories give me? How do the Christmas stories guide the way I live?

Then this past week, another unexpected gift came my way that broke me open to hearing the familiar stories of this night in a new way. That gift is a folktale told by both Jews and Muslims tell. It’s called “Ahaz the Slave” (below is a paraphrase of this story as printed in Megan McKenna, Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany: Stories and Reflections on the Sunday Readings, Orbis Books, 1998, pp. 179-81).

Once upon a time there was a poor man named Ahaz. He believed in God. He was always covered with mud and was bent over from working in the mines. One day, an officer of the king arrived to find a new attendant for the king. Ten of the more fit slaves were singled out to be interviewed. They were lined up in a row. Each was given an exquisite glass and told to break it. All obeyed immediately. Then the king went to each in turn and asked, “Why did you break it?” The response was simple, “Because you told me to.” One after another, they responded in the same way.

Now, the poor man who believed in God, the man whose name was Ahaz, thought quickly, “I can’t answer the same thing. What can I say?” He was the last of the slaves to be questioned, and when the king got to him, he stammered, “Forgive me, please. I am sorry,” and bowed before the king. It was exactly what he was thinking and feeling, and that was what came out. The king looked at him, smiled, and chose him as his new attendant.

Ahaz remembered what he had learned – to say and do exactly what he thought and felt, the truth and nothing else, no matter what the consequences. And the king found that he grew quickly to trust this man from the mines, because there were so few people who ever told him the truth or what they truly were thinking. They always coated it or covered it in what they thought the king wanted to hear, or bent it to serve their own advantage. Because the king trusted him explicitly, over time he delegated more and more power and authority to Ahaz.

Now, when someone rises in power that quickly, others become envious, jealous, and bitter. Ahaz had many enemies and many more who distrusted him and wondered what he did to so enchant the king. Soon the king’s closest advisers were coming to him every day with the same warning: “King, don’t you realize that Ahaz is robbing you blind? Can’t you see it? Every day, he waits until everyone’s gone. Then he takes the key you trust him with, and goes into your huge inner safe. He stays there over an hour every day. Then he leaves like nothing’s going on. But that inner safe is where the jewels and the land deeds are. That’s where you keep the gifts other rulers have given you. You know Ahaz could stick any of those things in his huge sleeves and make off with them without anyone knowing. King, you’ve got to stop him.”

The king couldn’t believe his most trusted advisor was robbing from him. But finally he decided he needed to make sure. Secretly he had two holes drilled at eye level in the wall of the storeroom so that someone could watch what happened inside.

One evening, the king took up his position. Sure enough, Ahaz arrived alone, entered the storeroom, and then used the keys to get into the great safe. He came out with a carefully folded pile of clothes. They were rags, filthy, smelly, caked with mud and sweat. He placed them on a table along with a candle and a book and some incense. He solemnly took off his robes of state and put on the rags that he had worn the day that he had been removed from the mines and taken to the king’s palace so many years ago. Then he lit the candle and incense and began to pray aloud:

“Lord God, Master of the Universe, I stand before you as you have made me.
Do not let me forget who I am and that I belong to you alone.
Help me to remember that all I do is not for the king, but for you alone.
For it is you who have blessed me and given me all that I now enjoy.
It is for you who have entrusted me the power of this kingdom and the friendship of the king.
Do not let me forget who I am and that I am yours, O Holy One,
and that I live by your mercy and will.”

He prayed like this for over an hour. Then he took off the rags of the slave and carefully folded them up again and put them back into the safe. He dressed again in the robes that were the gift of the king and left the storeroom, locking it behind him.

The king met him in the hallway when he left. Ahaz bowed low to the king. The king grasped him by the shoulders and lifted him up, speaking to him, not as a friend, but as king. “Ahaz,” he began, “you never cease to surprise and amaze me, and you have done it again. All of my counselors have warned me that you are a common thief and that you have been stealing from me behind my back. But you have managed to do something for me that no one else ever has – you have made me remember who I am. I am a king here on earth, but even I, or especially I, must stand before the Holy One and give an account of what I have done and who I am. You have made me remember that I am always God’s servant and belong to God alone. Do not ever let me forget who I truly am.”

Our tour guide Markose reminded me each of us needs a base to build our lives on. The story of Ahaz the slave says it’s easy to forget who we are, so we need people to remind us who we are. Markose and Ahaz tell me whatever it is we base our lives on helps remind us who we are.

Tonight, as you listened to the stories of Jesus’ birth, I wonder if they offered you a base or foundation that reminds you who you are and what you’re living for?

Tonight, the wisdom of Markose and Ahaz leads me to respond to the story of Jesus’ birth asking myself the question, If I’m not willing to follow the Prince of Peace, then why am I here?

Tonight I hear these stories as a call to resist violence. A call to live a different way. This Prince of Peace is the Savior who wants to save this world from surrendering to hate and fear. The Savior who wants us to put our faith in something other than the god of violence.

After our country declared the end of the Iraq War ten days ago, West Point graduate and retired career army officer Andrew Bacevich wrote these words:

The disastrous legacy of the Iraq War extends beyond treasure squandered and lives lost or shattered. Central to [the] legacy [of this war] has been Washington's decisive…abandonment of any…self-restraint regarding the use of violence as an instrument of [diplomacy]. With all remaining...barriers to the use of force having now been set aside, war has become a normal condition, something that the great majority of Americans accept without complaint. War is US”
(Andrew Bacevich, “After Iraq, War Is US,” Global Public Square Blog, 20 December 11).

I don’t know about you. But this Christmas, I need a base the reminds me who I am. The stories of this night give me a base. They remind me I am a follower of the Prince of Peace. That is who I am.

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness.
Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn king.”
(Charles Wesley, “’Hark!’ The Herald Angels Sing”)

Merry Christmas. Amen.