{"id":117392,"date":"2013-12-24T00:18:29","date_gmt":"2013-12-23T18:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=117392"},"modified":"2013-12-30T06:18:15","modified_gmt":"2013-12-30T00:48:15","slug":"reflections-on-christmas-as-per-isaiah-ch-58","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/reflections-on-christmas-as-per-isaiah-ch-58\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections On Christmas (As Per Isaiah, Ch 58)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Malinda+Seneviratne+&amp;x=9&amp;y=6\">Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span>\u00a0&#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_105560\" style=\"width: 140px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Malinda-Seneviratne-150x150.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-105560\" class=\"size-full wp-image-105560\" alt=\"Malinda Seneviratne\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Malinda-Seneviratne-150x150.jpg\" width=\"130\" height=\"135\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-105560\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I am writing this on the 24th of December.\u00a0 You will be reading this, hopefully, tomorrow, Christmas Day.\u00a0 So Merry Christmas to all of you, especially those of the Christian faith and all those who are inspired by the life and words of the exceptional earth-resident, Jesus of Nazareth.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a passage in the bible that I return to frequently. It prompts deep self-reflection and also gives perspective to a lot of things in our society.\u00a0 Isaiah (Chapter 58) always sobers me up during Christmas and here I am thinking about Christmas as \u2018event\u2019, as commercial moment, advertising hook and business convenience and not what it was supposed to mean; the celebration of the saviour, what he advocated, lived and died for, the spirit of giving and forgiving etc.<\/p>\n<p>The relevant passages focus on the notion of \u2018fasting\u2019 and like most parts of the Bible, are heavy on metaphor (and therefore open to multiple interpretation; inevitably and unfortunately). I like to think that it is about what could be called \u2018the true work of the Lord\u2019, that which could be described as performing the will of the Father in heaven.<\/p>\n<p>Too often the Bible is read in a strictly literary manner and that always empowers zealotry and not the kind of humility that made Jesus Christ utter the words \u2018Father why have you forsaken me?\u2019\u00a0 Believing fervently that they are indeed doing the work of the Lord, people slip to the by-any-means-necessary mode of operation.\u00a0 From there it is a short distance to engendering strife and contention, embracing malicious talk and finger-pointing and striking with the fist of wickedness.\u00a0 That\u2019s not the \u2018fast\u2019 that Jesus advocated, Isaiah points out.<\/p>\n<p>What is advocated is a different frame of being, a \u2018fasting\u2019 that is of a liberating, giving, sharing kind, one that is about loosening the chains of injustice, untying the cords of the yoke, setting the oppressed free, sharing food with the hungry, providing the hapless wanderer with shelter, clothing the unclothed.\u00a0 Such an approach will obtain for one the Lord\u2019s guidance, we are told and those who live in this manner would be called \u2018Repairers of Broken Walls\u2019 and \u2018Restorers of Streets with Dwellings\u2019; in short, they would be healers, architects of those nurturing edifices called community and solidarity.<\/p>\n<p>But the Christmases of our experience is one of decoration and pomp, glitter and festivity, conspicuous consumption and vulgar consumerism, all accompanied by a manifest disavowal and frequent foot-noting of the fast and Sabbath as described by the prophets.<\/p>\n<p>And this is not just on the 25th day of December, but throughout the year.\u00a0 Even the \u2018giving\u2019 is considered in terms smacking of \u2018return on investment\u2019, i.e. with an eye on the \u2018receiving\u2019 at some later date. This is even true in the \u2018work\u2019 of those who have taken on the task of spreading the word of God.<\/p>\n<p>I am not against festivity, don\u2019t get me wrong.\u00a0 My concern is that in the rush to \u2018celebrate\u2019 there is a clear flushing down the tube of the most salient words of the man from Galilee and the essence of what his life on earth was all about.<\/p>\n<p>It is this \u2018absence\u2019 that has made Christmas a farce and a moment that draws ridicule and even anger from even the most sensitive and tender-hearted among us;\u00a0 like Langston Hughes, whose poem \u2018Merry Christmas\u2019, published in \u2018New Masses\u2019 in December 1930, found its way to my email inbox a few minutes ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Merry Christmas<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>By Langston Hughes<\/p>\n<p>Merry Christmas, China<\/p>\n<p>From the gun-boats in the river,<\/p>\n<p>Ten-inch shells for Christmas gifts,<\/p>\n<p>And peace on earth forever.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Merry Christmas, India,<\/p>\n<p>To Gandhi in his cell,<\/p>\n<p>From righteous Christian England,<\/p>\n<p>Ring out, bright Christmas bell!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ring Merry Christmas, Africa,<\/p>\n<p>From Cairo to the Cape!<\/p>\n<p>Ring Hallehuiah! Praise the Lord!<\/p>\n<p>(For murder and rape.)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ring Merry Christmas, Haiti!<\/p>\n<p>(And drown the voodoo drums \u2013<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll rob you to the Christian hymns<\/p>\n<p>Until the next Christ comes.)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ring Merry Christmas, Cuba!<\/p>\n<p>(While Yankee domination<\/p>\n<p>Keeps a nice fat president<\/p>\n<p>In a little half-starved nation.)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>And to you down-and-outers,<\/p>\n<p>(&#8220;Due to economic laws&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>Oh, eat, drink, and be merry<\/p>\n<p>With a bread-line Santa Claus \u2013<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>While all the world hails Christmas,<\/p>\n<p>While all the church bells sway!<\/p>\n<p>While, better still, the Christian guns<\/p>\n<p>Proclaim this joyous day!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>While holy steel that makes us strong<\/p>\n<p>Spits forth a mighty Yuletide song:<\/p>\n<p>SHOOT Merry Christmas everywhere!<\/p>\n<p>Let Merry Christmas GAS the air!<\/p>\n<p>The point is clear.\u00a0 Christmas is not Christmas and perhaps never was. And yet it need not be this way.\u00a0 There can be a move towards considering what chains and yokes exist around us and ask ourselves what we do about these.\u00a0 This \u2018usual\u2019 Christmas does not forbid the faithful (and even the \u2018faithless\u2019) from sharing, from sheltering and clothing, literally and metaphorically.\u00a0 Gifting, for example, is a good thing. Wholesome.\u00a0 It is a bringing-together exercise.\u00a0 But there are gifts and gifts, those which cost the earth (literally) and those which constitute a blessing to giver, receiver and the entire earth. And there are gifts to the most needy and gifts to those not in want.<\/p>\n<p>Christmas, then, is a moment where \u2018choice\u2019 is exercised. Decisions are made. At every point, this question is being asked of the Christian, baptized or otherwise: \u2018are you really doing the work of the Lord, are you really fasting in the way that \u201cfast\u201d has been described in the Bible\u2019.\u00a0 The way this question is being answered, the answers and their collective thrust is what makes Christmas.\u00a0 It is what can break Christmas too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":105560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Reflections On Christmas (As Per Isaiah, Ch 58) - 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