The First Sunday after Christmas: The persistence of memory and the vicissitudes of tradition

Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Psalm 148; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:22-40

It has become something of a standard line for me to complain about how all of the decorations go up earlier and earlier every year and then seem to be torn down as soon as possible after the Christmas holiday. In certain ways, this is even more pronounced in the Philippines than it is in the States, if such can even be conceived considering how grossly materialistic the majority of Americans are and have been for the entirety of their history of relative prosperity. But beyond this standard critique of the misuse (in an active sense) or the misunderstanding (in a passive sense) of the concept of time, the relationship between memory and anticipation seems to me to be an important one.

I need to air out a pet peeve. In my tradition, it has become something of a emotionally-driven practice to translate the Aramaic term Abba as used by/attributed to Jesus in the Gospels (and in our text from Galatians today) as "Daddy." This is designed to indicate something of the closeness and familiarity with which God the Son is said to have approached God the Father. True enough, "Father and Son," or, in view of the community, "Father and children" is a more intimate relationship than "King and subjects," one of the principal ways in which the relationship been God and Israel was metaphorized in the Old Testament. It is certainly not as initimate as "husband and wife," though that in itself and for separate reasons is subject to the vicissitudes of tradition, for the ways in which husbands treated wives in the Old and New Testaments--and in later Christian tradition and practice--is something of an embarrasment for Christianity.

But Abba is not--NOT!--"Daddy." This is used in my tradition to suggest that we can come running to God when we have skinned our knees or something and say "Daddy daddy daddy," or when God has come home from work we can go running through the house and jump up into his waiting arms and squeal, happily, "Daddy daddy daddy!" Aside from the oddity indeed of a thirty-year-old upper-middle class skilled laborer calling anyone--much less his heavenly Father--"Daddy," translating Abba as "Daddy" makes absolutely no connection to my own piety. The name of God is much too exalted for that, and turning this into "Daddy" comes, I fear, dangerously close to breaking the Third Commandment. Those who preach this, further, link it up--in a grotesque sort of textual patch-work--with the injunctions to become like little children and thus be fit for the kingdom of heaven (a works-righteousness sort of thing in its own right whose setting aside must be set aside for another time). But, to my knowledge, I have never called my father "Daddy." Once I did when I was fifteen, just to kid him, and he got very offended and angry. This is a word that makes absolutely no sense to me. And I surely would not approach God would this word. Now, there is an intimacy and a closeness that defines the relationship of the Christian community with God, and for that matter of individual Christian believers with God, but this is not to be expressed through the milquetoast sort of emotionalism that lies crouching at the door of translating Abba as "Daddy." We can go running to God when we've skinned our knees or whatever, and we can go running into his waiting arms for his embrace. But the closeness of the relationship that we can have does not mean that we need become blubbering fools.

On a recent shopping trip, I saw a most interesting painting. It was obviously intended to recall Salvador Dali's The persistence of memory (1931)--you know, the one with the melting clocks. I cannot remember now what the title of this send-up was, but the striking feature was melting computer accouterments--floppy disks, CD-ROMs, keyboards, mice, and so on. I told myself I should remember that, but of course I did not. I know the title had something to do with memory, and the fact that I cannot remember this title that has to do with memory illustrates well the point that I am trying to make in this devotion.

Memory, in order for it to be persistent, must be continually worked at, like the muscles of an athlete must be continually worked in order to avoid atrophication. The great sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (d. 2002) maintained that the things taken for granted, especially within "primitive" societies, the things that did not need explanation, were where the real life of a community lay. He labeled this ideas with the curiously-chosen Greek term doxa, necessarily adding the notion of assumedness to this word's semantic domain. "Excellence," said Bourdieu, "ceases to exist when one asks whether it can be taught." What he meant by this was that once systematization of tradition enters in, then tradition will of necessity become traditionalism, and it will then be open to the negotiations and vicissitudes of changing traditions.

The readings for today can be somewhat shoved under this particular lens. In the story of the purification of Jesus and Mary "according to the law of Moses," they came to the temple and offered the proper sacrifices. The time of uncleanness for a woman bearing a male child was much shorter than the time of uncleanness for a woman bearing a female child, according to the Old Testament law. This has been reinterpreted in some feminist and womanist scholarship to give greater pride of place to the birth of females, for why should it be in the doxa of our society that a greater period of inaction is to be equated with a greater degree of uncleanness, and therefore less value for the girl that has been born (and borne)? This is something that has been subjected to the negotiations of changing traditions, and this is part of the evolution of societies as they grow out of old, once-but-no-longer-useful traditions and embrace new and different ways of looking at life and the world.

So Mary and Jesus are doing what is necessary in order to continue on into the future, while at the same time old Simeon has come to the end of his life, and now can be released in peace because his eyes have seen the Savior, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of God's people Israel. By having developed this story, the Lukan community showed that while Mary and Jesus were good, pious Jews, fulfilling the commandments of the law, at the same time this baby represented a new initiative on the part of God. The coming of Jesus was an innovation, was subject to the negotiations and vicissitudes of what was then a well-established tradition of rapport between this particular God and this particular people. But then again, it was also very much in line with this tradition.

But what of the persistence of memory? Mary and Jesus remembered the commandments of the law, for Jesus was born of a woman, born under the law, so that he might redeem all those who are born under the law. We remember the traditions of Christmas even amongst all the gloppy emotionalism that is tied into it in our modern consumer societies. We remember the closeness of the relationship that existed between Father and Son and that we by extension can have through him. And while, assumedly, just about everything we teach and say and think and do is subject to the negotiations and vicissitudes of changing traditions, let this remain in our doxa, our excellence that will not cease to exist even if we ask whether it can be taught: we will "praise the name of Yahweh, for his name alone is exalted, his glory is above earth and heaven. He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his faithful, for the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise Yahweh" (Psalm 148:13-14). Amen.