November 28, 2023
By. Rev. Dr. Scott N. Field
We’re all familiar with Frosty, Santa, and Rudolf jostling for attention in December, but last night at our community’s Electric Christmas Parade I got to thinking about dandelions, the Holy Spirit, and the witness of Christian disciples. The Electric Christmas Parade, held the Saturday evening after Thanksgiving, is a pretty big deal in our town. Streets were closed along the parade route, finding a parking spot was a hassle, and the crowds of happy parade goers in blinking Christmas light necklaces, reindeer antler headbands, and waving glowsticks, were shoulder-to-shoulder, five-deep, swigging hot chocolate and totally holly jolly.
All the parade entries, the floats, bands, local businesses, antique cars, dancers, scout troops/packs, fire trucks, and others were decked out with Christmas lights…LOTS of Christmas lights. Of course, the last float comes with the Jolly Old Elf himself, Santa Claus, high and lifted up on a throne, lots of lights, confetti canons, “Santa Claus is coming to town” blaring, and enthusiastic cheers from the crowd. It is always a joy to see the excitement of children at the parade and I, too, was delighted to see Santa – finally – since my toes were numb by that point. Lynda and I headed to a nearby Vietnamese Pho place for a steaming bowl of broth and noodles.
What was missing for a Christmas parade, in my opinion, was any mention at all of Christ. We were all wished a Merry Grinch-mas and, in call-and-response fashion, as one costumed team shouted to the crowd, “Who ya’ gonna call?” We all shouted, “GHOSTBUSTERS!” Two churches had entries: one was a playful train and the other was a little trailer with the name of the church and its mission statement on the side.
But what’s this about dandelions?
Like dandelions, Jesus Christ and His followers seem “out of season” in December.
This is not a rap on the parade, but it was another reminder of the focus – or rather, the frequent avoidance of focus – during the season of what Christians call Advent. Our contemporary culture has us on tiptoe waiting for Black Friday deals, Shop Local Saturday Specials, and Cyber Monday Deals to drop.
Sadly, too, among our Methodist tribe, we seem focused this year on reports from each special disaffiliation session of an annual conference or a judge’s ruling on legal actions taken by annual conferences against local churches or injunctions sought by local churches against their bishop.
More broadly, in the U.S., evangelical Christians overall are described frequently as too pushy, homophobic, misogynist, racist, and committed to views that are outdated. We are often put somewhere on the scale of religious extremists and, therefore, to be regarded with at least concern, if not antipathy.
My analogy is straightforward: like dandelions, Christian convictions and Christian priorities are so very often considered to be noxious weeds in contemporary 21st century culture. You are welcome to gather with your huddle of co-religionists on Christmas Eve to light candles and sing old songs, but don’t press it beyond those boundaries. Stay in your lane.
If I am a worldling, this avoidance of Advent/Christmas is completely understandable. For if it is true and real, it is much more than we can bear without the mercy of God. N. T. Wright comments on the Old Testament Scripture for the First Sunday of Advent (Isaiah 64:1-9):
It speaks of a time when the thin but opaque curtain that hangs in the midst of reality, the bright veil between heaven and earth, will be ripped aside. Our present reality, existing – did we but know it – a hair’s breadth away from the terror and splendor of God, would be confronted with that other Reality, setting the cosmos burning and bubbling, calling forth the deepest shame (‘we are all unclean’) and the most intimate hope (‘yet, Lord you are our Father’). Afraid of shame, we are often ready to trade in hope if only we can be left without such an Advent.
We can’t. It’s already happened. What we ought to celebrate at Christmas, instead of wrapping it tightly in trivia to prevent the glory bursting out, is the story of heaven opened, glory unveiled, God’s shame and intimacy meeting our own. …Those who await the final unveiling of God’s majesty and love are to be sustained by meditating on its first mysterious appearing. … To believe in God’s future is to see why it is vital to stay alert and take action in the present. Christmas has become cozy. Advent calls us to stay awake.
(N.T. Wright, Twelve Months of Sundays: Biblical Meditations on the Christian Year. Morehouse Publishing, 2012, p. 133)
But like dandelions, Jesus Christ and His followers are endlessly resilient and overwinter ready to blossom in the spring.
Perhaps you find all of this cultural misdirection discouraging. Maybe you find the dismissal of Christians overall to be entirely unwarranted. Extremists? As a group we are indeed extreme in generosity, compassion, prayerfulness, and abiding concern for not only those around us, but the generations of those coming after us.
Friends, take heart. Christians may feel overwhelmed by the insistence on wishing one another happy holidays but demanding Jesus remain uninvited to the party. Dandelions may seem to disappear in December, but they overwinter very well. Many of us have attempted to get rid of these “weeds” with various chemicals. We have pulled them out of the ground, we’ve used hoes, and shovels, and all manner of gardening gadgets to wipe them out. But as the seasons change, I guarantee, they will show their sunshine yellow flowers to welcome the springtime…and frustrate those who have sought to obliterate them. Dandelions are perennials. They develop deep tap roots. Named for their “lion-toothed” leaves (dent de lion in French means ‘lion’s tooth’), the French were on to something here in connecting these little plants to lions: they are formidable and victorious.
And, like dandelions, Christians root, grow, and persist wherever the Holy Spirit plants them
Ever wonder why we call dandelions “weeds”?
The way dandelion seeds disburse is well known: the wind blows dandelion “fluff” for widespread planting. Even more, what we term a “weed” is, as an ecological term, simply a plant that can persist in “disturbed” habitats: it is a “tough” plant that can survive, grow, and multiply in environments that might kill off other plants entirely. In fact, where dandelions take root and multiply, their number overtakes what had been previously growing there.
And that is why, despite the way our culture so often ignores and trivializes Advent and Christmas, I have such anticipation for the future: Christ followers are everywhere; by God’s grace we are “tough”, too. We survive, grow, and multiply even in times and seasons that would seem to wipe us out.
The network of the WCA and the rapidly growing Global Methodist Church are both part of God’s relentless initiative that all should hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, be welcomed into a community of love, worship, witness, and service, and be sent out together, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, for the healing of the world in Jesus’ name in preparation for his return.
Let me suggest that this Advent and Christmas season we remember who we are, who we were, and what we are called to do in the meantime as we await the Coming Again of King Jesus. In Titus 3 there is a helpful reminder of the generous way God has treated us, so that we might treat others with compassion and generosity, too:
Once we, too, were foolish and disobedient. We were misled and became slaves to many lusts and pleasures. Our lives were full of evil and envy, and we hated each other. 4 But—
When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, 5 he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. 6 He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. 7 Because of his grace he made us right in his sight and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life.
8 This is a trustworthy saying, and I want you to insist on these teachings so that all who trust in God will devote themselves to doing good. These teachings are good and beneficial for everyone. (Titus 3:3-8 NLT)
Good and beneficial for us, indeed.