10:30 am service - Sermon
Like those before her who have been informed of a most unlikely impending birth (Sarah and Abraham, Hannah and Elkanah, Elizabeth and Zechariah), Mary is astounded by the amazing power of God. Luke the storyteller weaves his way through the announcement of John the Baptist’s conception (and Elizabeth’s recognition of what God has done for her), through the annunciation of a virgin birth, and on to Mary’s interpretation of what is happening to her, in the Magnificat. There are, of course, striking contrasts between the two stories. From the settings to the characters to the way the story goes, each account takes its own path to a similar ending, with everyone together, and Mary singing that beautiful song of jubilant faith. Whether in Temple or dusty little village, with elderly parents-to-be surprised by joy or a young maiden facing an unexpected and dangerous pregnancy, the story speaks of trust in God at work in their lives in very surprising ways. (Zechariah, of course, took a little longer to get there, to a place of trust.)
While Luke describes Zechariah and Elizabeth in glowing terms (“righteous…living blamelessly”), Mary is simply “a virgin.” Mary, greeted by an angel of God as “full of grace,” as “favored one,” is not described as extraordinarily holy but could be an ordinary person like each of us. She’s a small-town girl, with her life moving along the quiet, ordinary path of an arranged marriage. God, however, works wonders in every place, at the centers of power and in distant corners, on the margins, we might say.
Not that being an “ordinary” girl in a small village makes Mary without spirit or strength! William Brosend sketches a somewhat different picture of the traditional Mary, meek and mild: “Mary’s responses throughout are more fearless and less humble than is sometimes appreciated. Perplexity at the appearance of an angel seems entirely appropriate, even more so when the angel begins the conversation with a proclamation of divine presence and an assumption of human fear. Give the girl a chance, Gabriel! Her question is not an expression of doubt but an effort to understand the extraordinary words of the angel.” We read this account only once every three years in the lectionary, but it’s a familiar and beloved story, even though it perplexes us, too. The dialogue is spare, and we never really know for sure what Mary is thinking or feeling, at least until she sings her song of joy at Elizabeth’s house.
In her lovely sermon on the text, “Mothers of God,” Barbara Brown Taylor observes, “The angel did not ask her how that sounded to her and whether she would like to try out for the role; he told her.” Gabriel twice recognizes Mary as “favored,” but then offers what Alan Culpepper calls “a strange blessing.” We thank God for our blessings and believe, Culpepper says, “that those whom God favors will enjoy the things we equate with a good life: social standing, wealth, and good health. Yet Mary, God’s favored one, was blessed with having a child out of wedlock who would later be executed as a criminal. Acceptability, prosperity, and comfort have never been the essence of God’s blessing.” Culpepper’s claim directly contradicts prosperity theology, but then, so does Mary’s life, rich in “strange” blessings.
William Brosend believes central to this blessing is the promise to Sarah and Abraham in Genesis 18: “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” That sounds very much like Gabriel’s own parting words, “For nothing will be impossible with God” (v. 37). That brings us to how God is doing such wonderful and seemingly impossible things here in this story about Mary and an angel’s astonishing announcement. We note that it isn’t called “The Request,” or “The Invitation,” but “The Annunciation.” And we suppose that God could have chosen to save the world, to fulfill God’s promises of old all on God’s own; after all, nothing is impossible with God. However, this humble but earth-shaking conversation tells us that God wants humanity to be part of the effort, even if it makes things much more complicated and even difficult (which it definitely does): “God,” Brian K. Peterson writes, “intends to draw Mary and all of us into what God is doing, and God apparently is not willing to do this behind our backs or without our own participation.” And this is what, in some mysterious way, makes Mary’s story our own, or at least it makes her story something we can understand a little better.
Scholars help us to make this connection, to shine the light of this gospel text on our own lives, on the mysterious ways that God works. Ashley Cook Cleere finds intersection between Mary’s story and ours: “Although the details are rarely readily apparent, God takes part in the unfolding of human existence from before the moment of conception.” This is a staggering thought, that we were in God’s thoughts before we ever came to be. “The awareness,” Cleere writes, “that we are not fully in charge of our destiny ebbs and is revived repeatedly throughout our lives.” Our care for one another is enriched by this insight, that “Mary’s puzzlement grants permission to take time to adjust to astonishing news, to question whether or not trials and tragedies, or God’s magnificent promises, are for real, and to contemplate potential repercussions. The query ‘How can this be?’ is a reverberating refrain that shapes our faith by reminding us…how much is hidden from us. The exclamation of these four words may well signify the nearness of God.” In hospital waiting rooms, at the bedside of the dying, or in hearing a good report from the doctor, in a hundred different settings of human life where we are especially aware of “the nearness of God,” these words express our conviction that God is involved in our lives in ways that are mysterious indeed, just as God’s ways were mysterious to Mary that day and every day that followed.
Barbara Brown Taylor, not surprisingly, addresses with great insight the question of Mary’s “choice,” her freedom to respond in this most unusual situation, and our freedom as well. Yes, Taylor has said that the angel announced the impending birth and didn’t ask Mary for her assent, but there is a choice for Mary, “whether to say yes to it or no, whether to take hold of the unknown life the angel held out to her or whether to defend herself against it however she could.” We have a similar choice in our own lives, Taylor says: “Like Mary, our choices often boil down to yes or no: yes, I will live this life that is being held out to me or no, I will not; yes, I will explore this unexpected turn of events, or no, I will not.” You can say no to your life, Taylor says, “but you can rest assured that no angels will trouble you ever again.” And then she takes a bold turn that calls for courage on our part, if we say yes to our lives: “You can take part in a thrilling and dangerous scheme with no script and no guarantees. You can agree to smuggle God into the world inside your own body.” How are you bearing God in this world?
Trusting that all things are possible with God requires a leap of faith, not only for Mary but for us today. And, like Mary, we will still have questions. William Brosend, for example, wonders, “If nothing will be impossible with God, why does so much in the lives of the parishioners seem such a mess?” He responds, “That nothing is impossible with God does not mean that God will do anything and everything. On this Sunday it means that God will do this thing. Which makes everything else possible.” Fred Craddock describes Mary’s words, “For nothing will be impossible for God” as “the creed behind all other creeds. The church should recite it often, not only at the manger, not only at the empty tomb, but on any occasion for reflecting on its own life joy, and hope.”
9 pm service - Sermon
Years ago, in another city and another church, I found myself listening to a passionate discussion about how to help people that Christmas. A tall and gray, veteran Christian, suggested that the church needed to reemphasize the custom of adopting needy families, buying clothes, food, perhaps toys for the children, and taking the things to them before Christmas. Another veteran Christian, and an activist with the poor and the homeless said that food-basket charity is degrading and ineffective – it is simply a way for affluent folks to assuage their guilt with a once-a-year trip across the tracks to do a little something for one poor family. And that provoked this response, “Well, what do you suggest we do this Christmas for poor people?” And that provoked this response, “We need more far-reaching efforts to address the systemic causes of poverty. We need structural change. We must deal with the systemic sources and the economic policies of this country.” And that provoked, “that is wonderful. Meanwhile, we need to help some families this Christmas. Some folk need something, now. Here. This Christmas.” Have you heard that dialogue before? I have.
What do you think? It is true we need to address the economic structures of our society. And it is also true that many of the ways that we have customarily worked with people in poverty is degrading. It is true that food baskets are ineffective in breaking the cycle of poverty, but it is also true people need help right here, now.
Will Willimon, at Duke Divinity School told me that he overheard a student ask a professor to give a Saturday to work on a Habitat for Humanity house. The professor replied, “I don’t work for Habitat for Humanity because I don’t believe it solves the problem of homelessness to build just one house at a time. If you really care about homelessness, you ought to work for a new senator in Washington.” In other words, work toward more universal, society-wide concern for the less fortunate. We have been well taught – the greatest good for the greatest number, and so on. Big. General. Universal. All of that is good except the Bible does not buy into all of those presuppositions. The Bible, as usual, thinks differently than we do. Look at the Christmas story according to Luke. It is anything but big, general, or universal. Instead, it talks about the small, the specific, the local, the particular. This story is not about the whole human race; it talks about real live people with names like Quirinius, Joseph, Mary. None of this, “Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a king.” That is the way fairy tales begin, not Bible stories. Bible stories begin with, In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus…This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled…Joseph went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem. Specific, particular, concrete. Not “once upon a time,” timeless and eternal. This story can be dated – when Quirinius was governor of Syria. You can take a road map and follow Mary and Joseph’s journey form Galilee to Nazareth to Bethlehem.
This whole Christian faith is like this, dealing with the concrete particulars of the lives we live. I had a conversation with a fellow some years ago, a very bright and well-educated man, who was going to church once again. I asked him what made him return to church, what was it that attracted him to God. He said, “I like the doctrinal and moral framework and the principles I am provided. Every Sunday I am able to jot down four or five principles that can help anyone live a good life.” Doctrinal and moral framework, principles that can help anyone. No messy details about Quirinius’ enrollment. No Mary pregnant and going into labor. No Joseph. No detours through dusty, conflict-ridden backwater Bethlehem. No, bypass the concrete and go straight to general principles.
All of us want to drink our faith as clear liquid, with all the particulars of history, geography, and culture distilled away. We love general principles, universal, timeless truth relevant to anyone, anytime, anyplace. So, we come to Christmas talking about universal human love and the need to recover the innate compassion in all our hearts. Meanwhile, Scripture deals with the journey of a young man and his teen-aged fiancée who is very pregnant trying to find a room to spend the night in a country town called Bethlehem. If we are to love as God loves, based on what Luke tells us, then somehow, we must love with a concrete particularity that is both comforting and challenging.
The Bible has no patience with our modern distinctions of particular/general, local/universal. Biblical faith collapses these false abstractions. We may address big issues, but we usually start with the local and the particular. For instance, I know a church that is very much involved in prison reform, in opposing the death penalty, and so on. They did not start off, “Let’s pick a big issue to tackle.” No, what happened is that several years ago the Tuesday morning women’s prayer group began by praying for a woman’s grandson who was in the county jail. Then they went and visited him and began visiting with other families who were at the jail visiting their relatives. As they got to know the families and began to visit with the other inmates, the women felt that the inmates needed some care packages. So, they fixed up little bags of toothbrushes, toothpaste, hairbrushes, cookies, and a note from the women. Over time, these women, and by now they were bringing along their husbands to help, started doing Sunday morning Bible studies and worship services in the jail. They also began to notice that some of the prisoners were often bruised and cut. They learned about violence in the jail – violence between inmates and violence of the guards beating the inmates. Those senior women went to the jailers who told them that was none of their business, which was not the right thing to say. Before you knew it, they had done their research started raising all kinds of ruckus with the local and county government and with the state legislature. Today, that whole church is a force to be reckoned with over prison reform. They do not fit into the standard liberal and conservative camps. They are a church that started out and have continued to be anchored by their ministry with prisoners in their local jail.
In the early 1990’s we didn’t start out to be LGBTQ welcoming and affirming. We started out loving men who were sick with HIV/AIDS. Most were gay, and then, over time, in conversation and discernment with the Bible, with each other, including the men who were gay, and in deep prayer, we worked from there. The Bible does not say, “Here are the seven principles of God’s love.” It says God loves Israel, God chose Mary, God spoke to Joseph, angels appeared to shepherds tending sheep in the pasture. God – in the Bible – goes to specific people, at particular times, in concrete places. God does not speak about philosophical truths or doctrinal frameworks; God becomes incarnate. Now I do not what all of this means but I do think that it means that specific particular people living in specific particular places like Bethlehem matter to God.
Part of what that means is that God says for us to love our enemies it means not only people far off and distant; it also means that we are to love our enemies who live next door to us, sit two rows away from us, work in the same office with us, and so on. We are to care for poor people – not just in general – but in particular here in Halifax. God engages us here. Jesus came to be with us here. I don’t know why the innocent suffer. Why do good people die in accidents? Why do children, with their whole life in front of them, die? I don’t know. The Bible does not give us much to go on when we ask these kinds of big questions. What the Bible does tell us is that God cares about, not just about the suffering of humanity, but about the suffering of children and young people right here in Halifax. That Jesus the Christ, Emmanuel, is God with us right in the middle of our hurt and grief and worry. God calls us by name, knows the number of hairs on our heads, and loves us so much as to walk with us through pain and sickness. God cares about the specifics of our lives.
Preaching author, Fred Craddock, used to tell this story: It came to pass, there was a certain minister who preached to his little flock of “the world today,” “modern humanity,” and “the history of the race.” A layperson complained of not being addressed by the sermons, but his complaints were turned aside with admonitions against small-mindedness and provincialism. In the course of time, the minister and the layperson attended together a church convention in a distant city. When the minister showed some anxiety about losing their way in the large and busy metropolis, the layperson assured him there was no reason to fear. With that word, he produced from the rear seat of the car a globe of the world.
This story about Jewish Mary of Nazareth, Galilee, having a baby named Jesus in a stable in Bethlehem tells us that this just may be the way God loves us and comes to us and intends for us to love and be with others. You see, there is the chance that if God showed up in Bethlehem; God could even show up, here. When God came among us, in the flesh, Emmanuel, God didn’t hover over the whole world. God came to Bethlehem. God did not appear as an idea or a program. God came to Mary and Joseph. When God decided to challenge the violent power of Caesar’s legions, God did not come as some new social strategy. God came as a baby named Jesus. That is God’s way doing things, the first Christmas or this Christmas. So, pay attention. Pay attention to names, look at each other’s faces, listen to what someone says and how they say it. For this is how God comes among us, one by one. Here.
I once knew an elderly couple in my congregation who practice “radical obedience” to Jesus. He is a retired professor. A brilliant, learned, and respected man who now has Alzheimer’s. Every day his wife gets out of bed very early to care for her husband. Each morning she prays for God to help her make it one more day. Every Sunday when we celebrated Holy Communion, they walked forward. She helped him take tentative steps and they came to bread and cup. She took the bread and the cup and eats it as he watches her. She then takes his hand in hers and guides it to the bread and helps him eat it and then guides his hand to the cup. She gently guides his hand and places the bread into his mouth and says, ‘the bread of life and the cup of salvation of salvation for you.’” Emmanuel. God with us. Here. Amen.