Saturday, November 26, 2011

Deus Ex

At dinner last night, Rhys asked me what “Deus Ex Machina” means. Apparently they ran across the phrase in one of his classes (English lit, probably, doesn’t seem to be a Statistics or Engineering kind of phrase. Maybe AP Psych, but then I’m not so sure) He was stumped by it, or they didn’t cover it in class, or he had trouble wrapping his head around it.

He is a Latin scholar so he could have figured it out. And probably did, but the words, the translation didn’t make sense to him. Deus Ex Machina - God out of the machine. What? It was a theatre term, I explained. It was a device to resolve all the convoluted plot lines that the play had spun out in ever increasing tragedy and suspense. When it got to the point there was no possible solution, when nothing could untangle the mess that had been made, when the hero was on the brink of despair and the villain was about to win, when the ingenue was about to be devoured and the soldier was mortally wounded on the field of battle, when the audience was in tears and chorus was singing lament, then Deus Ex Machina! On a squeaky pulley would be lowered a cut out cloud and an actor with a booming voice and a cotton wool beard would proclaim that all was now resolved. Wrong was put to right, the evil would be punished and the good and faithful would be rewarded. With the snap of divine fingers all was put right again. And the audience would clap until their hands were sore, and as they shuffled to the exits they would turn to their companions and say “That was a close one! I wasn’t sure they were going to get out of that mess.” They would wipe away a remaining tear and breathe a sigh of relief as they pulled their night-on-the-town coats tighter against the chill in the air and went out into the night.

“You’re kidding,” Rhys said to me with a look of disdain. “You mean to tell me they actually bought that?” It was a standard ending to a lot of the Greek tragedies, I told him. “And they didn’t go demand their money back? Nobody today would be satisfied with that kind of thing, a little bit of magic and all the bad goes away. Things aren’t that simple anymore,” he declared as he cleared his dishes. He shook his head at the gullibility of ancient Greek theatre goers, “Deus Ex Machina,” he snorted and then headed back down to the basement where the computer was waiting for him to come and save a galaxy by swooping in with faster than light space ships, firing weapons of unimaginable power against alien monsters of incredible resilience, knowing that even if he lost, he had more lives in reserve, and you could always reboot and start all over.

Isaiah 64:1-9 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence-- 2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil-- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! 3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. 4 From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. 5 You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed. 6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. 8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

Maybe those Greek theatre goers were on to something. Isaiah’s lament, which launches this season of Advent sounds suspiciously like he was longing for someone to lower a cut out cloud so that we could hear a cotton wool filtered booming voice pronouncing that all would be well once more. God out of the machine, God tearing open a hole in the heavens and come crashing down. Yes, it would be terrifying, but it would be better than this silence, than this absence that seems to be our lot these days.

My son’s cynicism is echoed by a world that says we are on our own. If there is going to be any resolution to our problems then it is up to us. We’ve got the resources. We could make things right. We could bring peace. We could end hunger. We could end conflict in the Middle East, in Sub-Saharan Africa, in Congress! We could, but we don’t. We haven’t. But we could. Or could we?

Isaiah, in a rare departure from his normal mode of discourse, in this passage stands with us. At least he stands with those of us who are tired of the world as it is. Those of us who are weary from wars and rumors of wars. Those of us who are broken-hearted by the faces of the children who suffer abuse and neglect. By the long lines of the hungry and the hurting. By the growing statistics of poverty in our own neighborhoods and around the world. By the mixed up priorities of millionaires who argue about slices of big money pie around a game played by children in the street who steal shoes to be like their “heroes” on the court.

It seems beyond our capability to fix it, to make it better, to make it right. We might have the resources, but we don’t seem to have the will. We might have the ability but we don’t have the incentive. As long as we live in a world of “what’s in it for me?” we aren’t likely to make a dent in the brokenness of creation.

Thus Advent. More than a countdown to Christmas, Advent is the reminder that we are all still waiting. Yes, the messiah was born in a manger, but the kingdom he proclaimed seems as far off as ever in the history of the world. So we wait. We watch and wait. We wait with longing in our hearts. We wait by leaning into what is coming. We wait with hope, even though our hearts are breaking.

They are breaking precisely because we want more, we know there is more. So we cry out to God. O that you would tear open the heavens and come down! Turn this world upside down, if you have to, or right side up. We don’t deserve it, except that your Son came and gave his life for us, to make us worthy of your presence, your kingdom. And we can’t do it on our own. As hard as we might try, as much as we might work, our efforts are like filthy rags. But remember, please, that we are yours. Even though we forget more often than we would like to admit, you remember. Don’t you? Please say that you remember us. That’s the word we are longing to hear this Advent season. That you are still our God and we are still - despite it all - your people. Please.

Before descending to his games, Rhys said “OK, what’s the “machine”? That’s what I don’t get.” Well, I told him, the direct reference was to the machinery that brought god onto the stage. The squeaky pulley and the cut out cloud. But in wider use it means the story, the plot, the drama. It means life, this machine we live out day by day.

Advent tries to remind us that God is in this machine we live moment by moment. If we could become aware of that presence this season, then Advent will have served us well.

Shalom,
Derek

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