The Christmas crisis
Commentary
This Sunday, more than most, the heat is on to get the meaning right, hit our stride, and
step up to the plate. The Sunday before Christmas is not the time to come away with less
than the best we have to offer. Between this morning's service and this evening's service
there will be two of the chances that we might get during the whole year to connect with
some people. Do you feel the pressure mounting? Of course, just because one has two
shots at it does not mean that the average preacher is all that comfortable. If anything, it
feels like more pressure because a goodly number of people will be at both. How do you
put heart and soul into the Christmas story two times running within twelve hours of each
other? The pressure is on.
This pressure has led to some unfortunate moments. In my youth, I remember my home pastor actually pulling out the New York Times editorial page and reading the editorial for Christmas Eve. One wonders what would have happened if he had not found an editorial to his liking. It seems that the Christmas homiletical struggles lead each year to the annual media story where a pastor chooses this day or night from the pulpit to struggle with the adequacy and veracity of the Santa saga leaving a trail of angry parents and anxious children. This day and evening, many congregations will be taken on scientific journeys of ancient astrological charts, and be brought to more insight on the anatomy of the virgin birth than they desire, or find themselves pondering the story from the perspective of sheep and other manger inhabitants.
This can be a tough tour of duty when the lectionary gives you a text that reminds us that the rich have been sent away empty. This may not be what those who have several hundred dollars worth of presents under the tree waiting to be opened want to hear. Perhaps, folks do not want to hear that the blood of bulls and goats do not take away sin when they are counting on the sacrifice of turkeys and hams to do the job. Like the Micah text, the language and the story seem to be ancient history and who wants a history lesson on Christmas when you have just gotten a school vacation or are looking forward to a weekend of holiday cheer.
Gathering this night is filled with all kinds of pitfalls and dangers and temptations. The Micah passage proclaims:" And they shall live secure." You wonder if they lost the footnote that says, "Preachers not included."
However, as I read these texts, I find my attention riveted to verse 10 of the lesson from Hebrews. "And it is by God's will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." During the run up to Christmas, we are pushed to sacrifice time and effort to make the holidays work to get it all done -- get the cards out and the presents in. These days you see folks making incredible sacrifices to be able to have a house, get their children into the right college, and to have the kind of lifestyle they want. Church, too, can get in the habit of expecting sacrifice and fill people with the guilty message that they are not trying hard enough, they are not good enough, smart enough, or not well enough versed in what is going on in the world. Then it is time for more sacrifice and effort so that we can get with the program.
This night is not about asking for more sacrifice and laying down the law, but how a life is laid down for us and how the heart of God is laid open for us in a manger. It is less about the sacrifice of our bodies but about the sacrifice of God that makes us a body of believers. It is about proclaiming that the one who hung the stars in their places now lies in a manger. The one who created the roaring water of Niagara now cries tears. The one who lead his people out of Egypt and in the march toward the promised land must now learn to walk. This God has sacrificed being above and beyond us and is now with us. The God above the earth through this sacrifice enables us to be a body of believers in the world.
Micah 5:2-5a
If you have ever been to Bethlehem, you know how amazing this prophecy feels. In Micah's day, it was Assyria and the rise of the Babylonian empire that forced Judah to devote itself to the art of war and preparing for war. Jared Diamond, historian, and author of Collapse, reminds us that one of the signs of a society at risk is to be perpetually engaged in a culture of war. Much sacrifice is demanded; the weight often falls most heavily on the most vulnerable. The impoverished will find a preoccupied government inattentive to their needs. If anything, in Micah's world it looks like it is time to go to perpetual code red alert stage. However, the prophet proclaims that the flock will live in security.
Go to Bethlehem today and these centuries later you find that not much has changed; raids and ruble dot the mental landscape. Soldiers not much past their teen years have the look in their eyes, not so much of fear or hate but weariness that comes from being able to see only the enemy and potential disaster in the faces around them. If you are a resident of the town, you look out wondering just when you might be on the receiving end of the threats and intimidation that is part of the lives of an occupied people. "O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see you lie, above your deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by." Phillips Brooks' words fall far short of the mark when the reality is sleepless nights that are no refuge from the daily sparring with death.
Phillips Brooks just didn't know how dark these streets could be. Yet, the prophet proclaims that there is good news ahead. There is a coming one! The prophet makes some unusual claims about the coming one that we might not recognize at first. He does not use the Hebrew word for king but is quite specific in his choice of the word, "ruler." I believe in making the choice that he is saying that the light that will shine in those dark streets might not come through the usual governmental lines, but it will surely come. Indeed, it seems that at the usual governmental level in that part of the world we have been at a dead end for quite a long time. Yet, I think of the light that does come into those dark streets.
I am struck by a conversation I had with a Jewish woman a few years ago just down the road from Bethlehem, at a protest demonstration against the occupation. Spotting the Star of David she was wearing, I asked what had prompted her to be part of the demonstration. Then she showed me the tattooed numbers on her arm. She was a holocaust survivor. She said, "You cannot do these things to people what was done to me." In the very dark streets shines the everlasting light. As the prophet says elsewhere, "He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God." I think of the Lutheran community in Bethlehem witnessing to their love of kindness -- the love of all kinds of people -- that seeks to build bridges. I think of the many Christian folk who came to Bethlehem to listen and learn from all the people and left telling the story of the people in the place who refuse to be defined by their divisions -- all of this going on beyond the usual governmental channels.
The prophet also suggests the activity of God might come in ways that jump our familiar theological grooves. While we read this text from a messianic perspective, there is no reference to that in the text at all. We might not have to wait for the age to come for much of this to come about. You can rest secure in the knowledge that in the dark streets: light shall shine, the birth of an alternative vision will take place, barriers will be broken down, and community will be built up.
If you have walked the streets of Bethlehem, you would know this. You might even find yourself resting secure in the knowledge that, despite years of battle fatigue, in that place once again the word takes on flesh. You can count on it.
Hebrews 10:5-10
If I were a betting man, I would put some serious money on the notion that at least nine out of ten of the readers of this will not be choosing to feature this passage as the central text for their preaching on the Sunday before Christmas or possibly any other Sunday for that matter. Any texts that get my head pounding more than my heart pounding, will, in all likelihood, find themselves on the cutting-room floor of my sermon preparation. It seems hard to enter into the world and thinking of this letter at any time let alone just before Christmas. I find myself puzzled when the writer states, "Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, 'Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.' " Do you recall Jesus saying that? Just what are we tangling with here?
However, in verse 10 I find my heart beginning to warm. "And it is by God's will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The lead-up to Christmas raises our expectations and demands so much of us. This seems to distract from our offerings to Christ, as in the letter to the Hebrews.
In our celebration, we wind up sacrificing the body to long hours, extra work, and more, not fewer, demands. But, the letter is unequivocal in stating that a new order of things has come about. "Then he added, 'See, I have come to do your will.' He abolishes the first in order to establish the second." I have some doubts about what these words often do to Christian people who are all too ready to assume that in the second order of things they have transcended their origins in the Hebrew experience. This kind of language has invited much mayhem and sadness into the Christian and Jewish experience.
I do find these words beginning to take on power when they move me in the direction of a new order of things that challenges a staleness that can creep into all religions. These words invite us, as Matthew Fox puts it, to focus less on original sin and more on original blessing. The meaning of the birth of Christ, God coming to us in bodily form, invites us to focus more on how we are the body of Christ in the world -- less on the sacrifice of the body and more on being the embodiment of Christ.
Now my heart begins to beat, for here I find the place where I can begin to prepare the way of the Lord. Matthew Fox, in Whee! We, Wee, suggests three indicators of when we have made the movement to the new order. When we focus on "we," as in "we are all in it together," as in when we find that we are more alike than different, as we find ways of connecting with each other more than protecting ourselves from each other. There is a new order of things when we can say, "Oui," as in "Yes." We can say, "Yes," to each other, "Yes" because God has chosen to be fully human, not super human. There is a "Yes" to the human story in this event; God chooses to take on human limitations and thereby places the emphasis on being fully there more than trying to be everywhere. I say, "Yes," to this in my life and doors open up. Matthew Fox begins his trilogy with saying, "Whee," as in the joy of playing. God begins the new order of things with a child who must play -- play with ideas and language and with others.
We become the body of Christ in the world by being able to say, "we," in the midst of all the things that pit people against each other in the world. We are the body of Christ in saying, "Yes," to being fully human more than attempting to be super human. We need play in our souls and in our tissues in order to be the body of Christ. Then a new order of things will come that can bless the world.
The Christmas story is the moment of the new order entering the world. The gathering of the wise and the humble invites us to say, "we," the angels invite Mary and Joseph to say, "Yes," to an alternative world, and the splendor of the heavenly host invites us to say, "Whee," which is what it means to be made holy through the offering of the body of Christ.
Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)
The song of Mary in this text reads like a flash bulletin. The rich are sent away empty, the proud are scattered and as a result, the hungry are filled with good things and the lowly are lifted up. Mary's song says that history is tilted in a direction that the rich, the proud, and the powerful do not anticipate happening. Like Mary, we no doubt wonder how this can be, for she has no husband. In short, how can this be, for the conditions do not seem to be in place for any of this to come about. Yet, the coming of this one into the world is described as the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham. Now this must have looked and felt fairly bizarre to Luke's community. He tells a tale in which the plan of God is being executed in these events.
This is just not the way it feels, as the way things are going to turn out: not back then or today. Still, when does it ever look like these kinds of events are going to take place and the plan of God will be executed through the people like Joseph and Mary or through the gathering of the wise men and shepherds? As in Luke's day, the media and the powers that be do not pick up on these things.
In 1954, when Rosa Parks, on almost the spur of the moment, decided to take it no more and refused to yield her seat to a white man, whoever thought that was a defining moment in American history? Who would ever have thought that the birthplace of a new America would be on a city bus?
There are times when you are likely to be clued into what God is doing in the world. It is more likely when you do not search for a way to find peace but when you know that peace is the way -- to paraphrase A. J. Muste. When you know this, it is surprising what you can give birth to in your life. Those who walk in the ways of peace have a way of finding a way that makes a way where there was no way. Who would have ever thought that the train platform where the young Gandhi had been tossed from a slow-moving train would be the birthplace of an independent India?
It is surprising what you can give birth to when you surrender, as Joseph does, what is yours by right and custom for the sake of justice and because you have decided to listen to angels.
It is surprising what you can give birth to if you choose not to accept the official government take on things and choose not to cooperate with clear evil as the wise men chose non-cooperation with evil. Withdraw your cooperation anywhere and the power of evil begins to quake everywhere.
It is very surprising what you can give birth to if you choose, like Mary, to let it be to you according to the Word of the Lord. It is surprising what you might give birth to if you choose to live not according to the cultural definitions of what is beautiful or what the role is for a woman.
It is surprising what you can give birth to if you believe that all God's children are guests of the heavenly host and deserve front row seating.
Of course, we wonder how these things can be. But we know these things tend to be birthed into our world by those who walk in the ways of peace, who listen to angels, who join with Mary in saying let it be to me according to the Lord's Word, who follow stars and find the way home by going a different route than the world usually takes. How this can be we do not know. We can join with Mary as the first Christmas carol proclaims, to the amazement of the rich and those sitting on thrones, that these things can be.
Application
We all come to this story with so much expectation and with images so fixed that the preaching of it feels often like working in a very tight space. Does one disappoint by falling off into cheap sentimentality or does one frustrate by seeking to contemporize it in a modern idiom? Does one even offend by allowing the story to drive a wedge between Christian and other faith communities? One has to keep focus and balance because at this season there will be competition for meaning from a variety of secular sources.
Here are my basic rules for preaching the story. Number one -- it is about God's activity not ours. Number two -- if in the telling of it, I have failed to make clear that this is consistent with the way God has taken on injustice throughout the Bible, I am doing a disservice to our origins. This means making clear that the new order of things comes because all religion has a way of growing stale. Number three -- if I do not preach the story in a way that conveys the sense that we have real life characters that are confronted with real choices as a result of God's activity, I have missed the mark. Number four -- it helps to remind myself that this is the second person of the trinity that we are dealing with. This is not God beyond us, or in us, but God with us! This is not a surefire formula to get me through the preaching of the season. Still, if I touch these bases, I am more likely to get to home base.
Alternate Application
Micah 5:2-5. "He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts." So what would that arm look like? Would it look like the right arm of a major league pitcher? Would it look like the arm of a weight lifter? Would it look like the arm of one who can carve the commandments in stone -- perhaps? The verse says that this arm is able to scatter the proud in the imaginations of their hearts. I know that my imagination often leads me to believe that I can live self-sufficiently, and without the presence of God in my life. I know such thoughts get scattered in my mind when I see the open arms of one who embraces me even in the midst of my sinfulness and foolishness. The arm here might look like the open arms of a child: the arms of the child in others that needs care and that reaches out for affection, attention, and recognition. The child within me reaches out for care. Perhaps the arm that reaches out is the arm of an abused child or an HIV-positive child.
These things scatter my pride and self-sufficiency. There is no way I can respond to these arms that reach out to me without being in community, being in prayer, in thought and reflection on God's world. God comes as a child and through the reach of children's arms scatters pride and self-sufficiency.
Preaching The Psalm
Luke 1:47-55
A common gift to young children is a magnifying glass. At first, the kids look at pieces of bread or spots on the floor. They peer into each other's eyes and look at their skin, all in a kind of awe at the way the world can look differently through this piece of glass. Then, inevitably, they come to find that they can hold this glass in the sunlight and it is capable of burning things! At first, it's just little pieces of wood, but then temptation enters the picture and all kinds of things -- and even creatures -- fall victim to the unchecked childish use of the magnifying glass.
It turns out that our souls are much like the magnifying glass. Our souls can magnify almost anything we choose. In a confrontation or crisis, one's soul can magnify anger or vengeance. When tragedy befalls us, our souls can magnify grief, confusion, and pain. In the face of injustice, our souls can magnify what we think is righteous anger. What things, over our lives, have our souls magnified? It is a moment of self-reflection worth taking, because the truth is that we get to choose what our souls magnify.
In Mary's case, she isn't just making a passing statement. She has made a choice. She says with fervor and deep, deep commitment, "My soul magnifies the Lord." Of all the choices before me or all the things I could do with my soul, I choose for it to magnify the Lord!
Indeed, much of scripture is laid out for us in the context of choices such as this. When we say the Lord's Prayer every Sunday, few realize that a choice is being articulated. "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name...." In praying this prayer, a choice is made, a destiny set, a pathway taken. Of all the things, names, and would-be gods, we choose to hallow the name of the God of Israel, the God of Jacob, the Abba, or Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Tonight, as we gather at the stable door, let us -- with Mary -- make the choice. In this birthing hour, and in the hours and days to come, may our souls magnify the Lord!
This pressure has led to some unfortunate moments. In my youth, I remember my home pastor actually pulling out the New York Times editorial page and reading the editorial for Christmas Eve. One wonders what would have happened if he had not found an editorial to his liking. It seems that the Christmas homiletical struggles lead each year to the annual media story where a pastor chooses this day or night from the pulpit to struggle with the adequacy and veracity of the Santa saga leaving a trail of angry parents and anxious children. This day and evening, many congregations will be taken on scientific journeys of ancient astrological charts, and be brought to more insight on the anatomy of the virgin birth than they desire, or find themselves pondering the story from the perspective of sheep and other manger inhabitants.
This can be a tough tour of duty when the lectionary gives you a text that reminds us that the rich have been sent away empty. This may not be what those who have several hundred dollars worth of presents under the tree waiting to be opened want to hear. Perhaps, folks do not want to hear that the blood of bulls and goats do not take away sin when they are counting on the sacrifice of turkeys and hams to do the job. Like the Micah text, the language and the story seem to be ancient history and who wants a history lesson on Christmas when you have just gotten a school vacation or are looking forward to a weekend of holiday cheer.
Gathering this night is filled with all kinds of pitfalls and dangers and temptations. The Micah passage proclaims:" And they shall live secure." You wonder if they lost the footnote that says, "Preachers not included."
However, as I read these texts, I find my attention riveted to verse 10 of the lesson from Hebrews. "And it is by God's will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." During the run up to Christmas, we are pushed to sacrifice time and effort to make the holidays work to get it all done -- get the cards out and the presents in. These days you see folks making incredible sacrifices to be able to have a house, get their children into the right college, and to have the kind of lifestyle they want. Church, too, can get in the habit of expecting sacrifice and fill people with the guilty message that they are not trying hard enough, they are not good enough, smart enough, or not well enough versed in what is going on in the world. Then it is time for more sacrifice and effort so that we can get with the program.
This night is not about asking for more sacrifice and laying down the law, but how a life is laid down for us and how the heart of God is laid open for us in a manger. It is less about the sacrifice of our bodies but about the sacrifice of God that makes us a body of believers. It is about proclaiming that the one who hung the stars in their places now lies in a manger. The one who created the roaring water of Niagara now cries tears. The one who lead his people out of Egypt and in the march toward the promised land must now learn to walk. This God has sacrificed being above and beyond us and is now with us. The God above the earth through this sacrifice enables us to be a body of believers in the world.
Micah 5:2-5a
If you have ever been to Bethlehem, you know how amazing this prophecy feels. In Micah's day, it was Assyria and the rise of the Babylonian empire that forced Judah to devote itself to the art of war and preparing for war. Jared Diamond, historian, and author of Collapse, reminds us that one of the signs of a society at risk is to be perpetually engaged in a culture of war. Much sacrifice is demanded; the weight often falls most heavily on the most vulnerable. The impoverished will find a preoccupied government inattentive to their needs. If anything, in Micah's world it looks like it is time to go to perpetual code red alert stage. However, the prophet proclaims that the flock will live in security.
Go to Bethlehem today and these centuries later you find that not much has changed; raids and ruble dot the mental landscape. Soldiers not much past their teen years have the look in their eyes, not so much of fear or hate but weariness that comes from being able to see only the enemy and potential disaster in the faces around them. If you are a resident of the town, you look out wondering just when you might be on the receiving end of the threats and intimidation that is part of the lives of an occupied people. "O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see you lie, above your deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by." Phillips Brooks' words fall far short of the mark when the reality is sleepless nights that are no refuge from the daily sparring with death.
Phillips Brooks just didn't know how dark these streets could be. Yet, the prophet proclaims that there is good news ahead. There is a coming one! The prophet makes some unusual claims about the coming one that we might not recognize at first. He does not use the Hebrew word for king but is quite specific in his choice of the word, "ruler." I believe in making the choice that he is saying that the light that will shine in those dark streets might not come through the usual governmental lines, but it will surely come. Indeed, it seems that at the usual governmental level in that part of the world we have been at a dead end for quite a long time. Yet, I think of the light that does come into those dark streets.
I am struck by a conversation I had with a Jewish woman a few years ago just down the road from Bethlehem, at a protest demonstration against the occupation. Spotting the Star of David she was wearing, I asked what had prompted her to be part of the demonstration. Then she showed me the tattooed numbers on her arm. She was a holocaust survivor. She said, "You cannot do these things to people what was done to me." In the very dark streets shines the everlasting light. As the prophet says elsewhere, "He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God." I think of the Lutheran community in Bethlehem witnessing to their love of kindness -- the love of all kinds of people -- that seeks to build bridges. I think of the many Christian folk who came to Bethlehem to listen and learn from all the people and left telling the story of the people in the place who refuse to be defined by their divisions -- all of this going on beyond the usual governmental channels.
The prophet also suggests the activity of God might come in ways that jump our familiar theological grooves. While we read this text from a messianic perspective, there is no reference to that in the text at all. We might not have to wait for the age to come for much of this to come about. You can rest secure in the knowledge that in the dark streets: light shall shine, the birth of an alternative vision will take place, barriers will be broken down, and community will be built up.
If you have walked the streets of Bethlehem, you would know this. You might even find yourself resting secure in the knowledge that, despite years of battle fatigue, in that place once again the word takes on flesh. You can count on it.
Hebrews 10:5-10
If I were a betting man, I would put some serious money on the notion that at least nine out of ten of the readers of this will not be choosing to feature this passage as the central text for their preaching on the Sunday before Christmas or possibly any other Sunday for that matter. Any texts that get my head pounding more than my heart pounding, will, in all likelihood, find themselves on the cutting-room floor of my sermon preparation. It seems hard to enter into the world and thinking of this letter at any time let alone just before Christmas. I find myself puzzled when the writer states, "Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, 'Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.' " Do you recall Jesus saying that? Just what are we tangling with here?
However, in verse 10 I find my heart beginning to warm. "And it is by God's will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The lead-up to Christmas raises our expectations and demands so much of us. This seems to distract from our offerings to Christ, as in the letter to the Hebrews.
In our celebration, we wind up sacrificing the body to long hours, extra work, and more, not fewer, demands. But, the letter is unequivocal in stating that a new order of things has come about. "Then he added, 'See, I have come to do your will.' He abolishes the first in order to establish the second." I have some doubts about what these words often do to Christian people who are all too ready to assume that in the second order of things they have transcended their origins in the Hebrew experience. This kind of language has invited much mayhem and sadness into the Christian and Jewish experience.
I do find these words beginning to take on power when they move me in the direction of a new order of things that challenges a staleness that can creep into all religions. These words invite us, as Matthew Fox puts it, to focus less on original sin and more on original blessing. The meaning of the birth of Christ, God coming to us in bodily form, invites us to focus more on how we are the body of Christ in the world -- less on the sacrifice of the body and more on being the embodiment of Christ.
Now my heart begins to beat, for here I find the place where I can begin to prepare the way of the Lord. Matthew Fox, in Whee! We, Wee, suggests three indicators of when we have made the movement to the new order. When we focus on "we," as in "we are all in it together," as in when we find that we are more alike than different, as we find ways of connecting with each other more than protecting ourselves from each other. There is a new order of things when we can say, "Oui," as in "Yes." We can say, "Yes," to each other, "Yes" because God has chosen to be fully human, not super human. There is a "Yes" to the human story in this event; God chooses to take on human limitations and thereby places the emphasis on being fully there more than trying to be everywhere. I say, "Yes," to this in my life and doors open up. Matthew Fox begins his trilogy with saying, "Whee," as in the joy of playing. God begins the new order of things with a child who must play -- play with ideas and language and with others.
We become the body of Christ in the world by being able to say, "we," in the midst of all the things that pit people against each other in the world. We are the body of Christ in saying, "Yes," to being fully human more than attempting to be super human. We need play in our souls and in our tissues in order to be the body of Christ. Then a new order of things will come that can bless the world.
The Christmas story is the moment of the new order entering the world. The gathering of the wise and the humble invites us to say, "we," the angels invite Mary and Joseph to say, "Yes," to an alternative world, and the splendor of the heavenly host invites us to say, "Whee," which is what it means to be made holy through the offering of the body of Christ.
Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)
The song of Mary in this text reads like a flash bulletin. The rich are sent away empty, the proud are scattered and as a result, the hungry are filled with good things and the lowly are lifted up. Mary's song says that history is tilted in a direction that the rich, the proud, and the powerful do not anticipate happening. Like Mary, we no doubt wonder how this can be, for she has no husband. In short, how can this be, for the conditions do not seem to be in place for any of this to come about. Yet, the coming of this one into the world is described as the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham. Now this must have looked and felt fairly bizarre to Luke's community. He tells a tale in which the plan of God is being executed in these events.
This is just not the way it feels, as the way things are going to turn out: not back then or today. Still, when does it ever look like these kinds of events are going to take place and the plan of God will be executed through the people like Joseph and Mary or through the gathering of the wise men and shepherds? As in Luke's day, the media and the powers that be do not pick up on these things.
In 1954, when Rosa Parks, on almost the spur of the moment, decided to take it no more and refused to yield her seat to a white man, whoever thought that was a defining moment in American history? Who would ever have thought that the birthplace of a new America would be on a city bus?
There are times when you are likely to be clued into what God is doing in the world. It is more likely when you do not search for a way to find peace but when you know that peace is the way -- to paraphrase A. J. Muste. When you know this, it is surprising what you can give birth to in your life. Those who walk in the ways of peace have a way of finding a way that makes a way where there was no way. Who would have ever thought that the train platform where the young Gandhi had been tossed from a slow-moving train would be the birthplace of an independent India?
It is surprising what you can give birth to when you surrender, as Joseph does, what is yours by right and custom for the sake of justice and because you have decided to listen to angels.
It is surprising what you can give birth to if you choose not to accept the official government take on things and choose not to cooperate with clear evil as the wise men chose non-cooperation with evil. Withdraw your cooperation anywhere and the power of evil begins to quake everywhere.
It is very surprising what you can give birth to if you choose, like Mary, to let it be to you according to the Word of the Lord. It is surprising what you might give birth to if you choose to live not according to the cultural definitions of what is beautiful or what the role is for a woman.
It is surprising what you can give birth to if you believe that all God's children are guests of the heavenly host and deserve front row seating.
Of course, we wonder how these things can be. But we know these things tend to be birthed into our world by those who walk in the ways of peace, who listen to angels, who join with Mary in saying let it be to me according to the Lord's Word, who follow stars and find the way home by going a different route than the world usually takes. How this can be we do not know. We can join with Mary as the first Christmas carol proclaims, to the amazement of the rich and those sitting on thrones, that these things can be.
Application
We all come to this story with so much expectation and with images so fixed that the preaching of it feels often like working in a very tight space. Does one disappoint by falling off into cheap sentimentality or does one frustrate by seeking to contemporize it in a modern idiom? Does one even offend by allowing the story to drive a wedge between Christian and other faith communities? One has to keep focus and balance because at this season there will be competition for meaning from a variety of secular sources.
Here are my basic rules for preaching the story. Number one -- it is about God's activity not ours. Number two -- if in the telling of it, I have failed to make clear that this is consistent with the way God has taken on injustice throughout the Bible, I am doing a disservice to our origins. This means making clear that the new order of things comes because all religion has a way of growing stale. Number three -- if I do not preach the story in a way that conveys the sense that we have real life characters that are confronted with real choices as a result of God's activity, I have missed the mark. Number four -- it helps to remind myself that this is the second person of the trinity that we are dealing with. This is not God beyond us, or in us, but God with us! This is not a surefire formula to get me through the preaching of the season. Still, if I touch these bases, I am more likely to get to home base.
Alternate Application
Micah 5:2-5. "He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts." So what would that arm look like? Would it look like the right arm of a major league pitcher? Would it look like the arm of a weight lifter? Would it look like the arm of one who can carve the commandments in stone -- perhaps? The verse says that this arm is able to scatter the proud in the imaginations of their hearts. I know that my imagination often leads me to believe that I can live self-sufficiently, and without the presence of God in my life. I know such thoughts get scattered in my mind when I see the open arms of one who embraces me even in the midst of my sinfulness and foolishness. The arm here might look like the open arms of a child: the arms of the child in others that needs care and that reaches out for affection, attention, and recognition. The child within me reaches out for care. Perhaps the arm that reaches out is the arm of an abused child or an HIV-positive child.
These things scatter my pride and self-sufficiency. There is no way I can respond to these arms that reach out to me without being in community, being in prayer, in thought and reflection on God's world. God comes as a child and through the reach of children's arms scatters pride and self-sufficiency.
Preaching The Psalm
Luke 1:47-55
A common gift to young children is a magnifying glass. At first, the kids look at pieces of bread or spots on the floor. They peer into each other's eyes and look at their skin, all in a kind of awe at the way the world can look differently through this piece of glass. Then, inevitably, they come to find that they can hold this glass in the sunlight and it is capable of burning things! At first, it's just little pieces of wood, but then temptation enters the picture and all kinds of things -- and even creatures -- fall victim to the unchecked childish use of the magnifying glass.
It turns out that our souls are much like the magnifying glass. Our souls can magnify almost anything we choose. In a confrontation or crisis, one's soul can magnify anger or vengeance. When tragedy befalls us, our souls can magnify grief, confusion, and pain. In the face of injustice, our souls can magnify what we think is righteous anger. What things, over our lives, have our souls magnified? It is a moment of self-reflection worth taking, because the truth is that we get to choose what our souls magnify.
In Mary's case, she isn't just making a passing statement. She has made a choice. She says with fervor and deep, deep commitment, "My soul magnifies the Lord." Of all the choices before me or all the things I could do with my soul, I choose for it to magnify the Lord!
Indeed, much of scripture is laid out for us in the context of choices such as this. When we say the Lord's Prayer every Sunday, few realize that a choice is being articulated. "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name...." In praying this prayer, a choice is made, a destiny set, a pathway taken. Of all the things, names, and would-be gods, we choose to hallow the name of the God of Israel, the God of Jacob, the Abba, or Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Tonight, as we gather at the stable door, let us -- with Mary -- make the choice. In this birthing hour, and in the hours and days to come, may our souls magnify the Lord!
