First Presbyterian Church of Watertown

Isaiah 61 and John 1

“And Then Cried Max”

The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

December 14, 2008

Max was a naughty boy. He made mischief of one kind or another all night bedecked in his wolf suit. Finally, after too much mischief making, Max’s mother called him a “wild thing” and Max responded as wild will said, “I’ll eat you up.” He was sent to his room without supper.

That night in Max’s room a forest grew and grew until it became the outside world. Beside the forest an ocean tumbled by and with a private boat that took Max sailing both day and night over weeks and months until finally he came to the land of the wild things.

Upon Max’s arrival all the wild things came out to greet him. They roared their terrible roars, and rolled their terrible eyes, and showed their terrible claws. To this Max said be quiet and then he tamed them by staring into their eyes without blinking and they deemed him the most wild thing of all.

They made him king and then Max cried, “Let the wild rumpus start”. And there was quite a rumpus, and more rumpusing, and even more rumpusing still. But then Max cried “stop.” And he sent the wild things off to bed without their supper. He wanted to be alone, [he wanted] to be where someone loved him best. And then he smelled something good to eat. With this Max gave up being king of the wild things. They implored him to stay and even promised to eat him up, but Max said, no.

He sailed back over a year and a week and a day and a night. He went back to his very room where his supper was waiting for him . . . and it was still hot.

I love a lot of literature, even some that was written for adults. Where the Wild Things Are is an enduring favorite. When I first starting reading this to our eldest, who was a wild thing even without a wolf suit, when I started reading this tale my favorite part was the wild rumpusing. The book doesn’t have any words on the six pages of wild things hanging from trees and dancing and howling at the moon; the pictures tell it all. Even though it didn’t need such aid I would say real low as we look at the wild things being wild, rumpus, rumpus, rumpus. Rumpus, rumpus, rumpus.

There is something quite lovely in wild rumpusing. The uninhibited play of children. Yes, things get broken; sometimes heads collide; and there may even be milk spilled; but to dance beneath diamond skies and howl at the moon is something you need to do before there are mortgages and divorces and times where the mundane is maddening. And then cried Max, let the wild rumpus start.

As will sometimes happen with a good story, my favorite part is no longer the wild rumpusing. Maybe it will be again someday; I hope so. But for now my favorite part is the last line “his supper was there and it was still hot.”

I’ve never believed Where the Wild Things Are is really a book about rough play; it’s about what it means to be given grace. Max’s mom didn’t take to kindly to being told she would be eaten up. I think most mothers may balk at such a claim. She did what any self-respecting mother might do, she sent Max to his room to settle down. He had gotten too wild, too out of hand, too mouthy. But in this moment of bringing calm she also went too far, no supper for you. Max, as king of the wild things, imposed a similar injunction, but it too gave him no joy.

The turning point in the story is the smell of something good. But it is not just food; it is the sense of being loved that called Max home from across the sea in his private boat. The greatest image of the book is his dinner on the nightstand, still warm, and the door being shut. The supper was there without lecture, the food was without condescension or grumbling, and that is grace. To be given what is undeserved or unearned without any condition: here is your supper and it is still warm.

I suppose the story of the Where the Wild Things Are could just be an image of a nice mom and a naughty boy. Wearing a wolf suit has certainly led to moments of being naughty and the mom who gives food even after being told she would be eaten up is a very nice mom. But those last pages could have been so different, so conditional. Conditional is the word I want to say; there could have been conditions with the mercy Max received. But there wasn’t and that is a good story.

In the final pages of third Isaiah it could have been conditional. It could have been another story. God could have said to the exiles now returned from Babylon, those who journeyed a day and a night and over a year and then a century, God could have said to them, before you enter in, before your life is restored, before there is goodness and mercy you need to makes some promises. You need to give me some assurance that your wolf suit is put away for the night.

Isaiah could have said, the Lord has come to help those who deserve it and those alone; the Lord has come to bind up those who qualify for aid, to help those whose income levels are low enough, to lend to those who are most likely to repay. But that is not really grace is it? It’s help; but it is not really grace and it’s not a good story either. The only restrictions, qualifications, that Isaiah gives is mourning. God is here to comfort those who mourn. So whatever you have lost, if you live in the ashes, I am here to give a garland; I have the oil of gladness for you.

Sometimes we are not in the mood for mercy. There was not a lot of mercy this week for GM and Chrysler. The argument was that there was not enough qualification, concessions, and conditions. It could be said that the congress is not to be confused with a loving mother. And that giving Max his dinner even though he was naughty is a nice children’s story, but this is business. I know. I know this. And I know the auto industry has never felt the need to treat the congress with respect given their heretofore power and affluence. This had a lot of pay back involved. And I know the unions most likely said no to every kind of concession that would have made our industry competitive in the near future. And I know there is a fair amount of wisdom to letting the market be what the market is. But there was also a sense that Max was being sent to his room without his supper. Only Max in this instance was a million workers.

Maybe that is what we need as a people, as a nation. Maybe decades of heedless spending and frivolous extravagance have come home to roost. Maybe we lost sight of any boundaries what so ever. There is a lot of evidence to support such a claim. How many marble counter tops and vacation homes and cashmere instead of cotton does it take before Max’s mom says, “enough?” Maybe the auto industry is just the moment where we said, “I will eat you up” and we didn’t even know it- so lost in the rumpus of our wolf suit.

This Advent has been intriguing for me as I have been watching it through Ruth. Ruth is the ten-year-old daughter of Grace Chiumia, our friend from Malawi. Ruth has come to live with us and become a part of our family. She has reached a level of rapid fire lately. I think the levels of change and the plethora of new images have reached a critical mass and her questions come like a deluge one on top of the other. She asks questions in multiples of five before offering another cluster of inquiries. The other day I said, listen kid, you only get five questions per day so make them good. What about seven she responded without a blink. Fine I said, but now you only have six left for today.

Sitting beside our new Christmas tree as Kathy strung the lights, Ruth said, “will you use this tree next year?” No, I said, it will be a bit too brown. Ohh! I knew there would be challenges with Ruth coming to live with us. And I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be the ones our children would face. She hasn’t been homesick; she hasn’t been depressed, or lost. In fact she has blended in quite nicely. She and our youngest wear wolf suits just like Max quite often.

There have been moments of misstep. On the freak snowstorm in October she was so excited by seeing snow for the first time she ran outside in her socks. That hurt my feet she said. Always wear your boots I told her. She nodded with her eyes wide. There have been missteps, but the real challenge has not been hers but mine.

I have been challenged by watching her see America, see our extravagance, our opulence. Going to Malawi for three weeks a year led me to bag up most of my clothes and deeply struggle with what we spend and what we owe and what we claim as our rights. Yet seeing all of these each day through Ruth’s eyes is much more challenging than I imagined. You see I know there were 120 kids in her class in Mchengatuba. I know what it meant for her to play outside and go to church. When the weekend nears she starts to tell me how many days until worship because she just can’t get enough of a church with windows and snacks and electricity.

The other day I heard David and Ethan telling her about Santa. They were doing really well until they got to the naughty and nice list. I could see some real leverage being brokered by the two of them. After all she has seen and encountered why wouldn’t America have a large red clad man who comes out of the sky to bring presents to good children and coal to the naughty. Why not? But I could also see the panic.

In her world real illness and death were the results of being on the bad list. “Do the naughty ones go to hell,” she asked offering a perfectly legitimate deduction of a Malawian child? No, Kathy said. And then encouraged our two not to play so loosely with Santa’s list. My boys are so used to an extravagant grace on so many levels they had no real idea of what it meant for life to be precarious. They have never really known coal, only extravagance.

It may just be me, but this is a strange Advent. It feels like a cathartic need to be sent to our room is hovering about. When the Senate voted down the auto industry bailout I felt we were being sent to bed without supper. It may just be my impression, but with Greece in flames, Zimbabweans dying of cholera and Indian hotels being terrorized, there just doesn’t seem to be a mood of merry making.

What a strange Advent we have this year. Where usually this season is filled with calls for peace in our time and the need to reflect upon the religious and not just the commercial, now there is a mood of penance. A penitent advent is what seems to be lurking. Perhaps I am hypersensitive giving the time we abided in Malawi this summer or with Ruth seeing all of this for the first time, but I don’t believe so.

There is a spirit of contrition and reserve and well penance. And that is fine. I can’t remember a year where I haven’t heard someone say we needed to have a Christmas that is more about giving than getting, more about being thankful for what we already have than being desirous of what we want. Well, it looks like it finally came.

When John the Baptist stood in the Jordan and offered baptism, it was for the forgiveness of sins. John preached as Jesus did, repent and believe. Yet, before there is repentance, our tradition argues, there is a need to believe in grace. No one confesses who believes only in wrath. Before and after penance is grace. Repentance, though, is not truly feeling bad for yourself, or feeling like a bad person. Repentance is when you want to be loved by God. Isaiah and John after him were not telling the people to feel bad about whom they were before they receive grace; he is telling them God loves them. There are no conditions, no preliminary steps but belief. Max wanted to be loved best of all before he smelled something good. And so it was his supper was still hot.

I am not a big fan of the auto industry, but I am of grace. I don’t like the preponderance of doomsayers that seem to be lurking about this day, but I do trust the power of penance and contrition. For when we are mindful of grace and see within our hearts the need to be loved by God then as a people we are ready to receive the birth of Christ.

As I was writing this sermon and reflecting on Isaiah’s call for a garland, it made me pause in our entryway. Leaving for church this morning, as it is every morning after Thanksgiving, I am surrounded by garland and beauty. And then coming here and standing in this pulpit I look out at the garland and usually it just makes me happy that Christmas is coming. Yet, this year the garland seems to have a somber message, a cautious celebration. Despite the cautious joy there is a deep refrain, a kind of ancient prophetic voice declaring, you are in the presence of God’s unconditional love, his grace. My heart seems ready for this present, this presence. Adveni domini Jesu. Amen.