In the north garden of the United Nations building in New York City stands a huge bronze sculpture. The sculpture depicts a man with a hammer in one hand and a sword in the other. The man is beating on the sword, in order to convert the sword into the cutting edge of a plow. This arresting sculpture was created by the Ukrainian artist Evgeniy Victorovich Vuchetich. It was given to the UN by the then Soviet Union in December, 1959. Although at that time the United States and the Soviet Union were “enemies,” the statue is a powerful visual reminder of our human desire to end wars and to convert instruments of death into tools that bring forth life.
Vuchetich’s statue alludes to one of the most famous passages of Scripture, which we just heard: “… they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks….” This image comes from the beginning of the book of the prophet Isaiah. Really three books bound together, the first forty chapters of Isaiah were written in the 8th century BC, during a period of great political turmoil in Israel. The passage that we just heard presents a series of wonderful images that point us to God’s promises and God’s future, to what lies beyond our immediate earthly events.
Speaking through Isaiah, what does God promise us? We hear first of all that devotion to God will be what brings all people together. We hear that humanity – all humanity – will be happy to receive God’s direction and instruction. We hear that people will no longer be motivated by envy, greed, resentment, retribution, and fear. We hear that people will renounce war, and that they will turn their instruments of war into implements that enable them to nourish each other. And, lest we get too dreamy about all these promises, we hear a challenge from God: “O house of Jacob. Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!” Through Isaiah’s words, God invites us – not commands us, invites us – to share God’s vision and to orient ourselves towards God’s promises, just as we follow a beam of light.
What a vision! While much of the church has just begun Advent, we are in the fourth week of our extended Advent. During this season we are invited to continue sharing God’s vision of what will be. As Jesus’ followers we are confident that God’s reign has already begun. After all, Jesus began his ministry by calling out, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.” As we wait in this mid-time for God’s reign to be fully realized, in this Advent season we continue to divine its shape. Two weeks ago, we heard that there are no scapegoats in God’s realm, no one who is “other.” In God’s realm all are included, a promise echoed in Isaiah’s prophecy in “all the nations” and “many peoples.” Last week we heard that, as people already living in God’s realm, we owe our highest allegiance not to any earthly authorities but to Christ himself. Today we are reminded that in God’s realm, there will be both diversity and unity: all the many nations and peoples of the earth will come together under God, and will live with each other in peace. As followers of Jesus, is God’s promise of peace so surprising? Didn’t Luke’s gospel depict angels announcing Jesus’ birth with the promise of “Peace to all men and women on earth who please him?” Didn’t Jesus himself promise, in the gospel of John, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you?”
So do we see any of Isaiah’s vision of peace and unity realized in our own world? I was born in 1943. I was too young to experience World War II. But I do remember the cold war and the threat of nuclear disaster: “duck and cover” under my school desk, bomb shelters, and Nevil Shute’s On the Beach. I remember Korea, Viet Nam, India and Pakistan, Bosnia, and Iraq. Now Syria is in ruins. Forty years after the 1967 war, Israelis and Palestinians are still not at peace.
And in our country? We have just come through a divisive election, in which both sides vilified each other. We heard that some groups among us are dangerous and unwanted. Even local elections proved divisive, causing conflict in families, among friends, even in parishes. Many people fear for the future of our nation, state, and community. Will we ever get closer to Isaiah’s vision of unity and peace?
What about in our own lives? Are we at peace within our families, with our friends, within this parish? Or are we estranged from someone? Is there someone with whom we need to reconcile? Are we are peace within our own hearts? Or are we fearful, worried, angry, feeling unloved, or even unworthy of love?
If we want to catch glimpses of the reality of God’s promises, perhaps we need to begin with ourselves. Perhaps we need to make peace within ourselves. Perhaps we are called to accept God’s invitation to walk in God’s way on a personal level. As your pastor, I invite you to take time, even during this busy “holiday” season, to sit in silence and encounter the true source of all that we long for, the true source of shalom, peace. Find that deeper relationship with God. Franciscan Richard Rohr reminds us that, “This might well be the essence of the spiritual journey for all of us – to accept that we’re accepted [by God] and to go and live likewise.”1 Can you know the truth of that acceptance by God in your own heart and share it generously with others? Perhaps this is the time to engage in self-examination, to look hard at our relationships with family members, friends, members of this parish, and members of other faith communities and organizations. Perhaps this is the time to pursue reconciliation wherever it is needed.
Perhaps “now in the time of this mortal life,” we might consider accepting God’s invitation to partner with God in making real God’s promises of unity and peace. Can we truly accept that there are no “others” in God’s realm? I want to share with you a poem that so perfectly expresses that acceptance. It is called “Shalom: Magnetic heart.” The poem begins with the lines,
You and I are “other” to each other,
foreign creatures,
locked in our independent skin.
You and I, we’re unnerved
when we’re together,
we’re fractured, disconnected,
thin as moth-wing.
And yet, the same stuff
that tears us from each other
gravitates us to each other,
and all along,
the earth keeps spinning
to help us shake the
regret-dust from
our shoulders.
The poem ends with these lovely images of unity within God’s Shalom:
Shalom– She knows us better.
Shalom– She binds together the
blistered souls,
and we quiet ourselves,
eyes locked,
all “otherness” dissipated
in a stream of
perfect light.2 https://kaitlincurtice.com/
Can we accept that we live in a diverse nation that embraces people of all ethnicities, national origin, faith community, and gender? Can you find that part of God’s realm that you are uniquely called by God to contribute to? Can you make common cause with others across ethnic and religious lines? Perhaps you want to see immigrants treated fairly. Perhaps you want to stop the death penalty. Perhaps you want to see to see the people who grow our tomatoes receive a fair wage and access to decent health care. Perhaps you want to help end the scourge of addiction in this community. Today we offer a diverse community of people a hot meal. Where else in this county are we called to bring people together in peace?
And world peace? “Not in my lifetime,” you say. Yet, all over the globe, Episcopal Relief and Development, the United Thank Offering, and many other organizations are showing us how we might make it possible for “all people” to come together. An example. For generations different tribes have fought each other in Kalinga, a region of mountain villages in the Philippines. The region struggles with chronic economic hardship. In November 2012, three Episcopal congregations came together to begin planting trees. In the face of climate change that has denuded their mountains and eroded their soil, these communities have overcome decade old feuds to undertake a massive tree planting. In so doing they have helped various ethnic and tribal groups to come together in peace and to advance themselves economically. Is ERD on your Christmas gift list? Perhaps it should be.
And just one more example. This coming February, the Rev. Abeosah Flemister, a priest of our diocese, will visit us and tell us about Partners in Ministry in Liberia, a mission of our diocese that brings diverse people together to provide education for children. Are we called to be one of the partners in this ministry?
In any of these activities we are doing no more than accepting God’s invitation to follow where Jesus led and to share God’s peace with all. And we engage in any of these activities not because we rely on our own strength, or our own political leaders, but because we believe God’s promises. We especially trust that the end of all things, as God’s seers have taught us, is God’s shalom, peace, justice, and well-being for all creation. May it be so.
1. The Divine Dance (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2016), 109.
2. https://kaitlincurtice.com/
Showing posts with label Advent 4. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Advent 4. Show all posts
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Monday, December 19, 2011
What Would She Say?
What would you have said? What would you have said if a holy presence had suddenly made itself known to you, and then asked you to do something totally incredible? What would you have said? [Query a few people in the congregation.]
If you had been Mary, the entire cosmos would have been waiting, breathless, to hear your answer to Gabriel. In St. Paul’s Church in Antwerp, Belgium, on the north side aisle, hang fifteen paintings, depicting what are called the “mysteries” of Jesus’ life.1 The very first painting is by the 16th century artist Hendrik van Balen. The painting depicts the first of the “joyful mysteries,” i.e., the Annunciation. Christians believe that the coming of the Word into our neighborhood was part of God’s plan from the beginning of creation. In the van Balen painting God is on the point of fulfilling God’s promise to send a savior, a promise which we have heard over and over in the Hebrew Scriptures, and which we just heard John the Baptizer proclaim again for first century Jews and Gentiles. God is always dependent on human cooperation for the fulfillment of God’s plans. Now God is dependent on a young woman’s willingness to take the risk of letting God the Son come into her body. And so in this painting God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and countless throngs of angels hold their breaths, suspended in time, as they wait for the response of this young woman. What would she say?
Understandably, she was cautious, perhaps even amazed. She no doubt asked herself first whether she was truly in the presence of a heavenly messenger, or whether she was just imagining it all. And why on earth would God’s messenger address her as “favored one?” She was poor, perhaps all of fourteen, and a woman, in a culture that had a decided preference for wealthy, older males. She lived in a no-account town, in an obscure corner of a country dominated for centuries by other countries. She was even more perplexed when the messenger suggested that she was called to give birth to a holy child. She retorted, “You’re kidding me, right? My fiancé and I haven’t even slept together yet.” When he shook his head to show he wasn’t kidding at all, she knew that if she agreed to his proposal, her life, from that day forward, would change radically. So the cosmos waited: what would she say?
And, of course, they all let out a collective sigh of relief when she said, “Yes, I see it all now: I'm the Lord's maid, ready to serve. Let it be with me just as you say.” Yes, she agreed, but let’s be clear: Mary was not a passive player in God’s plan, she was not speaking lines already written for her, and she was not coerced into answering as she did. She had a choice. Though she knew that she was not one of the great ones of this world, perhaps Mary sensed, perhaps even dimly at first, that she was indeed called by God to take up her unique role in God’s plan of salvation. Surely she could not foresee all that was to unfold – Luke tells us that she “kept all these things in her heart.” Nevertheless she believed that the presence she felt was indeed holy, she trusted in God to work God’s will, and she said, “Yes.”
Mary’s “yes” was not the end of the story. Nor was the willingness of God the Son to take up residence among us the end of the story. The holy presence continues to break into our world. When and how do we sense the holy presence? Often, when we allow ourselves the time and space, when we take the ipods out of our ears or turn the TV off for a few minutes, when we open our prayer books or journals, or just sit expectantly, the holy presence makes itself known. Sometimes God’s presence is even more fragmentary: a verse from Scripture, a line of a hymn, a chance conversation may make us aware of God’s presence. If we are attentive, the holy presence also comes to us as we gather together in Christian community, as we hear Scripture read, as we are immersed in the waters of baptism, and as we are nourished with Christ’s Body and Blood. If we realize that we are all God’s children, we can then perhaps see how the holy presence also seeks out a welcome among Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and even those who deny its reality. Those who welcome that holy presence, become holy people, and through them God’s plan for creation continues towards its ultimate fulfillment.
When we sense the holy presence breaking into our world, our reaction may not be so different from that of Mary. “Is God really here?” we may think, “or am I just imagining it? And why would God take the trouble to come to me? I’m not anybody. I’m just a schoolteacher, or a retiree, or a homemaker. I’m just trying to do my best to provide for my family and community.” We might even ask the same question of our parish. “Why would the holy presence come to St. Peter’s? We’re just a small struggling parish in a struggling town down on the Ohio River, far from anywhere. Who are we to be part of God’s plan?” Surprise! We too, as individuals and as a parish, may find ourselves not only visited by the holy presence, but asked or called to participate in God’s plan in some unexpected way. “God with us” barges into our lives, sometimes into our very bodies, and lays out God’s plan for us. “You’re kidding, right?” we may say, “I’m too young, I’m too old, we can’t afford it, no one has the time, right?” And just as the angels and archangels, as the whole company of heaven stood holding their breaths until Mary answered Gabriel, the cosmos waits on our answers too. What will he say? What will she say? Will they do it?
Surely the angels and archangels waited expectantly last month as the congregation of St. John the Baptist Church in Corona, California got a glimpse of the holy presence in the form of Erin Tharp.2 Now twenty-eight, Tharp was paralyzed by viral encephalitis at the age of fourteen. Ever since she has been unable to speak and has been confined to a wheelchair. In a sermon that she laboriously typed out with one finger and that was read from an ipad by Deacon Karen Chavez, Tharp acknowledged her need for constant care. Yet she expressed her gratitude for her wheelchair. “It has allowed me to take family vacations, ‘walk’ with my [Centennial High School] class at graduation and pick out my canine daughter, Maggie,” she said. “I can also do the little things with the family. I never thought just eating dinner, as a family, would be so special.” Which led to “thinking about people less fortunate than me. They deserve the same feeling of freedom I enjoy. Where they were born or their economic situation shouldn’t hinder that.” Despite her limitations, Tharp became an enthusiastic supporter of the Free Wheelchair Mission, a nonprofit, nonsectarian ministry that has already supplied more than 600,000 wheelchairs worldwide. Along with Bishop J. Jon Bruno, Tharp has helped the Diocese of Los Angeles meet a challenge to underwrite the cost of sending out 2,750 wheelchairs. When Tharp addressed the congregation of St. John the Baptist, she had already donated $630 of her own, enough to buy 10 wheelchairs. She challenged the congregation to raise enough money for 100 chairs. People wondered if it were really possible to raise that much. Tharp, along with the angels and archangels, held her breath. What would the congregation say? All breathed a sigh of relief as the congregation accepted the challenge. At last count they’d raised enough to purchase 122 wheelchairs. As for Tharp, she is more concerned about continuing her outreach than about her own health challenges. “Advent is the perfect time to shed light on the extreme giving Free Wheelchair Mission does for God’s forgotten children, liberating them from the yoke of bondage,” she told the John the Baptist congregation. “In many places around the world, the disabled truly are the least of his brothers .… Let’s take time out of the busy-ness of this Christmas season to remember those who are often forgotten, if not ignored. At the risk of sounding corny, I think that’s the perfect birthday gift for Jesus.”
Who are our holy visitors? What do you hear in prayer, in Scripture, in conversation with each other? What is the holy presence that we discern asking us to do? Do we have a perfect birthday gift for Jesus? Are we called to new ministry “out there?” Or perhaps we are called to strengthen the bonds among the members of this parish. This week take a few minutes to let God’s holy presence visit you. Take careful note of what you hear. Remember that Gabriel’s message to Mary began with “The Lord is with you,” and concluded with “Nothing is impossible with God.” Good words to remember when God’s holy presence calls us into unexpected partnership with God.
1. As noted by Paul Wesley Chilcote in “Monday in Advent III,” Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 2007), 36-7.
2. Pat McCaughan, “Corona Episcopalian inspires support for wheelchair ministry,” Episcopal News Service, December 15, 2011, accessed at http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2011/12/15/corona-episcopalian-inspires-support-for-wheelchair-ministry/
If you had been Mary, the entire cosmos would have been waiting, breathless, to hear your answer to Gabriel. In St. Paul’s Church in Antwerp, Belgium, on the north side aisle, hang fifteen paintings, depicting what are called the “mysteries” of Jesus’ life.1 The very first painting is by the 16th century artist Hendrik van Balen. The painting depicts the first of the “joyful mysteries,” i.e., the Annunciation. Christians believe that the coming of the Word into our neighborhood was part of God’s plan from the beginning of creation. In the van Balen painting God is on the point of fulfilling God’s promise to send a savior, a promise which we have heard over and over in the Hebrew Scriptures, and which we just heard John the Baptizer proclaim again for first century Jews and Gentiles. God is always dependent on human cooperation for the fulfillment of God’s plans. Now God is dependent on a young woman’s willingness to take the risk of letting God the Son come into her body. And so in this painting God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and countless throngs of angels hold their breaths, suspended in time, as they wait for the response of this young woman. What would she say?
Understandably, she was cautious, perhaps even amazed. She no doubt asked herself first whether she was truly in the presence of a heavenly messenger, or whether she was just imagining it all. And why on earth would God’s messenger address her as “favored one?” She was poor, perhaps all of fourteen, and a woman, in a culture that had a decided preference for wealthy, older males. She lived in a no-account town, in an obscure corner of a country dominated for centuries by other countries. She was even more perplexed when the messenger suggested that she was called to give birth to a holy child. She retorted, “You’re kidding me, right? My fiancé and I haven’t even slept together yet.” When he shook his head to show he wasn’t kidding at all, she knew that if she agreed to his proposal, her life, from that day forward, would change radically. So the cosmos waited: what would she say?
And, of course, they all let out a collective sigh of relief when she said, “Yes, I see it all now: I'm the Lord's maid, ready to serve. Let it be with me just as you say.” Yes, she agreed, but let’s be clear: Mary was not a passive player in God’s plan, she was not speaking lines already written for her, and she was not coerced into answering as she did. She had a choice. Though she knew that she was not one of the great ones of this world, perhaps Mary sensed, perhaps even dimly at first, that she was indeed called by God to take up her unique role in God’s plan of salvation. Surely she could not foresee all that was to unfold – Luke tells us that she “kept all these things in her heart.” Nevertheless she believed that the presence she felt was indeed holy, she trusted in God to work God’s will, and she said, “Yes.”
Mary’s “yes” was not the end of the story. Nor was the willingness of God the Son to take up residence among us the end of the story. The holy presence continues to break into our world. When and how do we sense the holy presence? Often, when we allow ourselves the time and space, when we take the ipods out of our ears or turn the TV off for a few minutes, when we open our prayer books or journals, or just sit expectantly, the holy presence makes itself known. Sometimes God’s presence is even more fragmentary: a verse from Scripture, a line of a hymn, a chance conversation may make us aware of God’s presence. If we are attentive, the holy presence also comes to us as we gather together in Christian community, as we hear Scripture read, as we are immersed in the waters of baptism, and as we are nourished with Christ’s Body and Blood. If we realize that we are all God’s children, we can then perhaps see how the holy presence also seeks out a welcome among Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and even those who deny its reality. Those who welcome that holy presence, become holy people, and through them God’s plan for creation continues towards its ultimate fulfillment.
When we sense the holy presence breaking into our world, our reaction may not be so different from that of Mary. “Is God really here?” we may think, “or am I just imagining it? And why would God take the trouble to come to me? I’m not anybody. I’m just a schoolteacher, or a retiree, or a homemaker. I’m just trying to do my best to provide for my family and community.” We might even ask the same question of our parish. “Why would the holy presence come to St. Peter’s? We’re just a small struggling parish in a struggling town down on the Ohio River, far from anywhere. Who are we to be part of God’s plan?” Surprise! We too, as individuals and as a parish, may find ourselves not only visited by the holy presence, but asked or called to participate in God’s plan in some unexpected way. “God with us” barges into our lives, sometimes into our very bodies, and lays out God’s plan for us. “You’re kidding, right?” we may say, “I’m too young, I’m too old, we can’t afford it, no one has the time, right?” And just as the angels and archangels, as the whole company of heaven stood holding their breaths until Mary answered Gabriel, the cosmos waits on our answers too. What will he say? What will she say? Will they do it?
Surely the angels and archangels waited expectantly last month as the congregation of St. John the Baptist Church in Corona, California got a glimpse of the holy presence in the form of Erin Tharp.2 Now twenty-eight, Tharp was paralyzed by viral encephalitis at the age of fourteen. Ever since she has been unable to speak and has been confined to a wheelchair. In a sermon that she laboriously typed out with one finger and that was read from an ipad by Deacon Karen Chavez, Tharp acknowledged her need for constant care. Yet she expressed her gratitude for her wheelchair. “It has allowed me to take family vacations, ‘walk’ with my [Centennial High School] class at graduation and pick out my canine daughter, Maggie,” she said. “I can also do the little things with the family. I never thought just eating dinner, as a family, would be so special.” Which led to “thinking about people less fortunate than me. They deserve the same feeling of freedom I enjoy. Where they were born or their economic situation shouldn’t hinder that.” Despite her limitations, Tharp became an enthusiastic supporter of the Free Wheelchair Mission, a nonprofit, nonsectarian ministry that has already supplied more than 600,000 wheelchairs worldwide. Along with Bishop J. Jon Bruno, Tharp has helped the Diocese of Los Angeles meet a challenge to underwrite the cost of sending out 2,750 wheelchairs. When Tharp addressed the congregation of St. John the Baptist, she had already donated $630 of her own, enough to buy 10 wheelchairs. She challenged the congregation to raise enough money for 100 chairs. People wondered if it were really possible to raise that much. Tharp, along with the angels and archangels, held her breath. What would the congregation say? All breathed a sigh of relief as the congregation accepted the challenge. At last count they’d raised enough to purchase 122 wheelchairs. As for Tharp, she is more concerned about continuing her outreach than about her own health challenges. “Advent is the perfect time to shed light on the extreme giving Free Wheelchair Mission does for God’s forgotten children, liberating them from the yoke of bondage,” she told the John the Baptist congregation. “In many places around the world, the disabled truly are the least of his brothers .… Let’s take time out of the busy-ness of this Christmas season to remember those who are often forgotten, if not ignored. At the risk of sounding corny, I think that’s the perfect birthday gift for Jesus.”
Who are our holy visitors? What do you hear in prayer, in Scripture, in conversation with each other? What is the holy presence that we discern asking us to do? Do we have a perfect birthday gift for Jesus? Are we called to new ministry “out there?” Or perhaps we are called to strengthen the bonds among the members of this parish. This week take a few minutes to let God’s holy presence visit you. Take careful note of what you hear. Remember that Gabriel’s message to Mary began with “The Lord is with you,” and concluded with “Nothing is impossible with God.” Good words to remember when God’s holy presence calls us into unexpected partnership with God.
1. As noted by Paul Wesley Chilcote in “Monday in Advent III,” Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 2007), 36-7.
2. Pat McCaughan, “Corona Episcopalian inspires support for wheelchair ministry,” Episcopal News Service, December 15, 2011, accessed at http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2011/12/15/corona-episcopalian-inspires-support-for-wheelchair-ministry/
Sunday, December 19, 2010
God Took a Risk
Well, what would you have done? What would you have done if you were Joseph? He was betrothed to Mary. He didn’t know her well, but their families had arranged it all. First there was the engagement, then there was the betrothal ceremony that sealed the promises made in the engagement. She was now the right age, fourteen or so. Even though he and Mary were still living with their own families – they would start living together a year after the betrothal -- they were truly promised to each other, really they were as good as already married. Now what? Mary is pregnant for Pete’s sake! And by whom? She can’t say. The baby isn’t Joseph’s, that’s for sure.
What do you suppose Joseph felt? What would you have felt? Wouldn’t Joseph have been outraged? At Mary for doing this to him? At whoever did it with her? Wouldn’t he have been embarrassed? My God, the shame! People would think that either Joseph couldn’t control himself until the actual wedding, or that he’d let himself be betrayed. And how could he raise a child that everyone knew wasn’t his? And then mixed in with the rage and embarrassment, wouldn’t Joseph also have felt deep grief? Grief for the life with Mary that he had been so joyfully expecting? Grief for Mary, for what would await her as an unmarried mother? Why had she done this? And, my God, what was she feeling? Wasn’t she embarrassed too? Was she sorry about what she’d done? Knowing her, most probably she was terrified about what would happen next.
O Mary! O God, what should he do? The law about pregnancy before marriage was harsh. If Joseph remembered correctly, it said something like, “If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death…” (Deut. 22:23-24). Should he tell people what she had done? But then what? What would happen to her? Maybe he should just divorce her quietly and let her go to her cousin Elizabeth’s house? Wouldn’t that be the right thing to do? As Joseph lay in bed that night, tossing and turning, all his thoughts and feelings swirled around in his head. What should he do? What should he do?
O.K. Let’s stop right there. Let’s think about this. [Turning to the right side of the church] You people, on this side, I want you to think about all the options that Mary had in this situation. Here she was pregnant before marriage, and her fiancé wasn’t the father. What might she have done? [Turning to the left side of the church] Now you folks, on this side, I want you to think about the options that Joseph had in this situation. What could he have done? And both groups: is there anything either of them could have done, or the two of them together, that the Gospel story doesn’t mention? Take a minute or two to think about the various possibilities. [Then query each side as to what they came up with.]
Well, there were some other possibilities, weren’t there? However, we know how Scripture tells us the story came out. In the midst of his tossing and turning, Joseph had a vivid sensation of a visit from a presence. Maybe it was dream, who knows? The presence told him not to do any of the things he’d initially considered, or that were perhaps possible, but to go through with the marriage, and adopt this child as his own. And he did just that. And more. Some months after the child was born, and after those strange eastern politicians had come and gone, Joseph took Mary and the child to safety in Egypt and then later on even brought them safely back home to Nazareth. Was he there for the totally unexpected end to this strange child’s life thirty-three years later? We don’t know. Mary was there, but we don’t know about Joseph. We do know that Joseph followed through on what God had asked of him in this part of the story, and that he played his part with faith, mercy, and courage.
It didn’t have to be that way. God took a risk. God has always taken risks with creation and with human beings, with us unstable and undependable creatures. Think of some of the major players in the Old Testament stories: stuttering Moses, fleeing Jonah, too-young Jeremiah, Rahab the prostitute, Ruth the Moabite Gentile. In making the choice take our flesh, to become one of us, to be Emmanuel, God-with-us, God really took a risk. From first to last, this story is God’s story, but the fulfillment of the story needed the human actors. And God took the risk of depending on human beings to do their part. Scripture makes it look easy for them, but it wasn’t. These aren’t fairy stories. I’d bet there was plenty of tossing and turning for all these people. Fortunately, for God, and, more importantly, for us, the human actors in this story and the others did what God might have hoped they would: they let the Holy Spirit work through them, they accepted God’s plan, and they faithfully carried it out.
Does God still want to work through us risky and undependable human beings to accomplish God’s saving will in the world? Absolutely! Consider this. In about 1350 a group of Jews living in Barcelona had a haggadah made. The haggadah is the book of the liturgy for the Passover Seder, the ritual meal. This particular haggadah was beautifully illustrated with thirty-four scenes from Scripture, and it was lovingly bound in fine calfskin. By God’s grace, and with human cooperation, it also survived many close calls with destruction. When the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, someone managed to smuggle it out. Some marginal notes show that it was in Italy in the 16th century. Again to save it, someone then smuggled it into the Ottoman Empire, where Jews were welcome. Then a man named Joseph Kohen sold it to the National Museum in Sarajevo in 1894. During World War II, the chief librarian of the museum, a Muslim named Dervis Korkut, risked his own life and saved the haggadah from the Nazis by smuggling it out of Sarajevo. Korkut gave it to a Muslim cleric who hid it under the floorboards of a mosque. When Serb forces broke into the museum during the war in Bosnia in the early ‘90s, the haggadah was nearly trashed. However, a local Muslim police inspector, Fahrudin Cebo, made sure it survived by hiding it in an underground bank vault. The haggadah was finally restored in 2001, and has been on permanent display at the museum since December, 2002. But it didn’t have to work out that way, did it? By God’s grace, undependable human beings, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, helped to keep alive a service book for the liturgy that defines the Jews as a people, and for that reason alone, is also important to us as Jesus’ disciples.
Can we think of similar examples from our own lives? Can we think of examples of God’s taking the risk to work God’s will through human beings, perhaps even through people who at first glance might not even seem up to doing anything at all for God? I invite you thinki of people that you know. [Pause.] As I look around this church, at the windows and the memorial plaques, I know for a fact that God has been working through risky, undependable human beings, people who could done anything else with their resources but invest them here, in keeping this parish alive. And somehow those people rose to the challenge and generously supported this church. Do we know their stories? Do we appreciate how God worked through them? Will we let God work through us as well?
It’s not a sure thing, is it? God acted marvelously in taking human flesh and coming among us. But the human actors in God’s story also had to show faith, mercy, and courage. As do we, when God shows up in our lives. Make no mistake, God may ask us to do something unexpected. Perhaps we’ll be resistant, angry, embarrassed, sorrowful, perplexed, or all of the above. Perhaps we’ll toss and turn and wonder what we should do. But perhaps when we ponder the story of Mary and Joseph, we can imagine ourselves also acting courageously, even when we really feel like cowards inside. We can trust God’s promises and take the first step forward in faith. When we do respond to God’s requests with faith and trust, even if we’re not sure what’s coming next, God will be with us, God will do the rest, and God will be able to accomplish God’s will through us. Thanks be to God!
What do you suppose Joseph felt? What would you have felt? Wouldn’t Joseph have been outraged? At Mary for doing this to him? At whoever did it with her? Wouldn’t he have been embarrassed? My God, the shame! People would think that either Joseph couldn’t control himself until the actual wedding, or that he’d let himself be betrayed. And how could he raise a child that everyone knew wasn’t his? And then mixed in with the rage and embarrassment, wouldn’t Joseph also have felt deep grief? Grief for the life with Mary that he had been so joyfully expecting? Grief for Mary, for what would await her as an unmarried mother? Why had she done this? And, my God, what was she feeling? Wasn’t she embarrassed too? Was she sorry about what she’d done? Knowing her, most probably she was terrified about what would happen next.
O Mary! O God, what should he do? The law about pregnancy before marriage was harsh. If Joseph remembered correctly, it said something like, “If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death…” (Deut. 22:23-24). Should he tell people what she had done? But then what? What would happen to her? Maybe he should just divorce her quietly and let her go to her cousin Elizabeth’s house? Wouldn’t that be the right thing to do? As Joseph lay in bed that night, tossing and turning, all his thoughts and feelings swirled around in his head. What should he do? What should he do?
O.K. Let’s stop right there. Let’s think about this. [Turning to the right side of the church] You people, on this side, I want you to think about all the options that Mary had in this situation. Here she was pregnant before marriage, and her fiancé wasn’t the father. What might she have done? [Turning to the left side of the church] Now you folks, on this side, I want you to think about the options that Joseph had in this situation. What could he have done? And both groups: is there anything either of them could have done, or the two of them together, that the Gospel story doesn’t mention? Take a minute or two to think about the various possibilities. [Then query each side as to what they came up with.]
Well, there were some other possibilities, weren’t there? However, we know how Scripture tells us the story came out. In the midst of his tossing and turning, Joseph had a vivid sensation of a visit from a presence. Maybe it was dream, who knows? The presence told him not to do any of the things he’d initially considered, or that were perhaps possible, but to go through with the marriage, and adopt this child as his own. And he did just that. And more. Some months after the child was born, and after those strange eastern politicians had come and gone, Joseph took Mary and the child to safety in Egypt and then later on even brought them safely back home to Nazareth. Was he there for the totally unexpected end to this strange child’s life thirty-three years later? We don’t know. Mary was there, but we don’t know about Joseph. We do know that Joseph followed through on what God had asked of him in this part of the story, and that he played his part with faith, mercy, and courage.
It didn’t have to be that way. God took a risk. God has always taken risks with creation and with human beings, with us unstable and undependable creatures. Think of some of the major players in the Old Testament stories: stuttering Moses, fleeing Jonah, too-young Jeremiah, Rahab the prostitute, Ruth the Moabite Gentile. In making the choice take our flesh, to become one of us, to be Emmanuel, God-with-us, God really took a risk. From first to last, this story is God’s story, but the fulfillment of the story needed the human actors. And God took the risk of depending on human beings to do their part. Scripture makes it look easy for them, but it wasn’t. These aren’t fairy stories. I’d bet there was plenty of tossing and turning for all these people. Fortunately, for God, and, more importantly, for us, the human actors in this story and the others did what God might have hoped they would: they let the Holy Spirit work through them, they accepted God’s plan, and they faithfully carried it out.
Does God still want to work through us risky and undependable human beings to accomplish God’s saving will in the world? Absolutely! Consider this. In about 1350 a group of Jews living in Barcelona had a haggadah made. The haggadah is the book of the liturgy for the Passover Seder, the ritual meal. This particular haggadah was beautifully illustrated with thirty-four scenes from Scripture, and it was lovingly bound in fine calfskin. By God’s grace, and with human cooperation, it also survived many close calls with destruction. When the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, someone managed to smuggle it out. Some marginal notes show that it was in Italy in the 16th century. Again to save it, someone then smuggled it into the Ottoman Empire, where Jews were welcome. Then a man named Joseph Kohen sold it to the National Museum in Sarajevo in 1894. During World War II, the chief librarian of the museum, a Muslim named Dervis Korkut, risked his own life and saved the haggadah from the Nazis by smuggling it out of Sarajevo. Korkut gave it to a Muslim cleric who hid it under the floorboards of a mosque. When Serb forces broke into the museum during the war in Bosnia in the early ‘90s, the haggadah was nearly trashed. However, a local Muslim police inspector, Fahrudin Cebo, made sure it survived by hiding it in an underground bank vault. The haggadah was finally restored in 2001, and has been on permanent display at the museum since December, 2002. But it didn’t have to work out that way, did it? By God’s grace, undependable human beings, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, helped to keep alive a service book for the liturgy that defines the Jews as a people, and for that reason alone, is also important to us as Jesus’ disciples.
Can we think of similar examples from our own lives? Can we think of examples of God’s taking the risk to work God’s will through human beings, perhaps even through people who at first glance might not even seem up to doing anything at all for God? I invite you thinki of people that you know. [Pause.] As I look around this church, at the windows and the memorial plaques, I know for a fact that God has been working through risky, undependable human beings, people who could done anything else with their resources but invest them here, in keeping this parish alive. And somehow those people rose to the challenge and generously supported this church. Do we know their stories? Do we appreciate how God worked through them? Will we let God work through us as well?
It’s not a sure thing, is it? God acted marvelously in taking human flesh and coming among us. But the human actors in God’s story also had to show faith, mercy, and courage. As do we, when God shows up in our lives. Make no mistake, God may ask us to do something unexpected. Perhaps we’ll be resistant, angry, embarrassed, sorrowful, perplexed, or all of the above. Perhaps we’ll toss and turn and wonder what we should do. But perhaps when we ponder the story of Mary and Joseph, we can imagine ourselves also acting courageously, even when we really feel like cowards inside. We can trust God’s promises and take the first step forward in faith. When we do respond to God’s requests with faith and trust, even if we’re not sure what’s coming next, God will be with us, God will do the rest, and God will be able to accomplish God’s will through us. Thanks be to God!
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