A Good-Enough Marriage
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
December 19, 2004
Fourth Sunday of Advent, Cycle A
Dear Fellow Preachers,
Ephesians 5:32 refers to marriage (or at least to Genesis 2:24) as "a great mystery." Many will agree with this assessment, and it certainly applies to the marriage of Mary and Joseph, as described in the appointed Gospel lection for the Fourth Sunday in Advent, Matthew 1:18-25. In this issue of The Immediate Word, Carlos Wilton reflects on the meaning of marriage -- and, more broadly, of family -- during this holy season. How can we foster healthy relationships in our households, making them refuges of acceptance and places that lead to well-being and wholeness?
Other team members offer their distinctive perspectives on the institution of marriage in our time. Included also, as usual, are illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon.
All of us at The Immediate Word wish for you, your families, and your parishioners a blessed and memorable Christmas celebration.
A GOOD-ENOUGH MARRIAGE
Matthew 1:18-25
Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19; Romans 1:1-7
By Carlos Wilton
The Gospel on a Postcard
Marriage has been in the news in recent months. Ballot initiatives in a multitude of states have proposed various measures that their proponents believe will strengthen marriage. The president and others are promoting an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman.
At Christmas, all eyes naturally look to the Christ child in the manger. Yet it's easy to overlook the fact that, at the heart of the Nativity story, there is also a real, very human marriage: that of Mary and Joseph. Their marriage was no different from so many others, then or now. When Joseph wed Mary, the circumstances were hardly ideal. A whiff of scandal, an on-again, off-again engagement -- there was plenty there to entertain the gossips down at the village well. Yet the reality was quite different than their neighbors imagined. Joseph was "a righteous man," who paid attention to dreams. And Mary, a painfully young bride, listened to angels. Together, they built a home that nurtured the Savior of the world.
What enabled Mary and Joseph to do this was a conscious decision they undoubtedly made at some point in that wild, tempestuous journey that had begun with the news of Mary's pregnancy. They decided to cease seeking after a perfect marriage, and to cherish their good-enough marriage. Mary never asked to be what the Greek church calls theotokos, "God-bearer." But when the angel told her of her calling, she said, "Let it be with me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). Neither did Joseph expect to become father to a child who was not his own. But after hearing from an angel in a dream, he cancelled his plan "to dismiss her quietly" (Matthew 1:19). For this couple, the road ahead was hardly what they'd planned -- but then, what family ever experiences exactly what they've planned?
Christmas is a time when families gather, and often struggle with unreasonably high expectations -- both for the holiday, and for the sort of experience they will have with each other. No Christmas celebration can be perfect, of course -- just as no family is perfect. But somehow -- with hard work, prayer, and more than a little faith -- our significant relationships can prove to be good enough, and then some.
The covenant relationships we make in life are inevitably flawed and imperfect. We're only human. Yet who's to say what good can come of these flawed, imperfect covenants -- if God is in them?
Some Words on the Word
Mary and Joseph are familiar characters in the Christmas narrative, but in actuality we know very little about them. Tradition tells us Mary was a teenager and Joseph an older man -- although there's nothing at all in the Bible that reveals their ages. If they were like most other couples in their culture, Mary and Joseph had probably become engaged years before -- possibly while they were still children -- through a formal contract between their respective parents.
When both of them reached the marrying age, they became betrothed. That stage typically lasted for a year. During that year, their neighbors considered them a couple in every respect but one: They did not actually live together in a physical relationship as husband and wife.
To break a betrothal in first-century Israel was a serious matter. Jewish law considered it virtually the same as divorce. For one partner of a betrothed couple to behave unfaithfully inflicted terrible shame upon the one betrayed. It was, according to the Law of Moses, a capital offense, punishable by stoning (Deuteronomy 22:23-24).
In Matthew's account of Jesus' birth -- unlike Luke's -- Joseph is by far the most important character, after Jesus himself. Mary's role, quite apart from carrying Jesus for nine months and giving birth to him, is minor. There's no Annunciation, no visit to cousin Elizabeth, no Magnificat. There's just Joseph, the righteous man who declines to exercise his prerogative under the law to have his unfaithful fiancée stoned to death, taking instead the more merciful course of "dismissing her quietly."
By the ordinary standards of that culture, that restraint alone would have been enough for Joseph to become known as righteous and merciful. Yet, after hearing from an angel in a dream, Joseph takes the further step of marrying Mary. His initial inclination to dismiss her quietly sets him apart as a man of virtue, but his decision to marry a girl who was carrying a child not his own would have seemed like sheer lunacy. Joseph, of course, by this point in the story knows something his contemporaries do not: that "the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit" (v. 20).
Balanced on the sturdy shoulders of this humble working man is nothing less than the future of the world. In defying convention and taking Mary to be his wife, Joseph is saving her and the baby from social ostracism, from grinding poverty, and probably from an early death. More than that, as Matthew's extensive genealogy reveals, Joseph is giving the child not only a name but also a lineage -- a royal lineage, stretching back to King David and beyond. Without Joseph, the prophecies of the Old Testament could never have been fulfilled, for -- at least as Matthew constructs the family tree -- it is through Jesus' adoptive father, Joseph, that the link to David proceeds.
To first-century Jewish ears, it's not the birth of Jesus that's the heart of this story but his naming. It's the naming that sets the stage for Jesus to become who he truly is. And the naming is all up to Joseph.
A Map of the Message
Joseph is the odd man out when it comes to the Nativity story. Everybody knows, when it's time to cast the Christmas pageant, that Joseph's role is the easiest to fill. All an aspiring Joseph needs to do is stand there and lean on his staff. It's like the message television stations flash across the screen, when they're having technical difficulties: "Please stand by."
That's Joseph. He's the guy who stands by. He has no lines in the pageant (the Bible records not a single syllable he ever said). An occasional, benevolent smile in the direction of Mary and the baby is a nice touch, but optional. Woody Allen once quipped that 95 percent of life is showing up; and that, as far as most Christians are concerned, is Joseph's most important attribute.
Matthew tells us Joseph plans "to dismiss her quietly." What a world of meaning resides in that verb, "to dismiss"! It is, in its own way, a chillingly officious word. Dismissal is not outright rejection or repudiation. Rather, it's based on an elaborate rationalization.
In order to dismiss other people, we must feel justified in doing so. We have to feel intrinsically more important than they, and to believe their very existence somehow collides with our personal priorities. The word "dismiss" describes what we so often do, in our minds, to the pesky person holding up the supermarket line, to the other driver who annoys us on the highway, to the homeless beggar on the street corner -- all of whom seem to goad us by their very existence.
Joseph is more magnanimous than that. If love means ascribing value to others, then this is indeed what Joseph does for his bride. In the eyes of her society, Mary's seemingly illegitimate pregnancy renders her and her child worthless. Joseph takes the two of them and accepts them anyway.
Across the long years of any deep and loving human relationship, there are multiple occasions for accepting the other. The traditional marriage ceremony asks, "Do you take this woman...?" "Do you take this man...?" In their early, starry-eyed idealism, most couples imagine that accepting their loved one is always going to be easy. Yet as the years go by, and partners hit the predictable rough spots in their journey together, it becomes more difficult to actively choose the other. Sadly, some give up trying. They either let the relationship degenerate into a hollow shell of societal convention, or they seek to end it in divorce.
Absurdly high expectations are to blame. Popular culture so idolizes courtship -- both its romantic and physical aspects -- that many couples have few models to follow in crafting a durable, long-term covenant. The emphasis is more on finding the right person than on being the right person. Few movies are ever made, few romance novels ever written, about long-term couples triumphing over predicable difficulties to forge an even stronger relationship. Yet this repeated pattern of conflict, reconciliation, and renewal is the rule rather than the exception, in most successful marriages.
All too often, couples can only envision an ideal marriage. What they have trouble imagining is a good-enough marriage. Mary and Joseph provide a role model in that regard. When Mary accepts the heavy responsibility of mothering the Son of God, and Joseph defies convention to cast his mantle of protection over the frightened teenager he loves, they are forever giving up any claim to an ideal marriage. The prophecy Simeon speaks to Mary is ample evidence of that: "A sword will pierce your own soul too" (Luke 2:32). What Mary and Joseph are left with is a good-enough marriage, and by the grace of God, that proves to be more than enough.
Another area of life where absurdly high expectations often rule is the Christmas holiday. Many a family's celebration has foundered upon the rocks of unrealistic expectations. Instead of yearning for an ideal Christmas, it's far better to look for a good-enough Christmas -- for there are more than enough small blessings, in this bright and holy time, to satisfy us all.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: I suppose most of us have heard Mae West's quip, "Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution yet."
The idea that marriage is an institution, or an "estate," or an "order of creation" seems alien to the romantic idea that it's a marvelous and even transcendent condition of two people who are in love. The institutionalization of marriage, with all the contract-like aspects that go with it, seems to reduce the status of marriage from a total physical-plus-spiritual relationship to a matter of law, economics, and politics. But perhaps it also makes marriage too important for people to feel entirely comfortable with. If marriage has something to do with the larger scale welfare of society, and even the whole creation, then it's too much responsibility for a couple that just wants to look out for itself.
Perhaps marriage seems like an odd thing to be talking about on the Sunday before Christmas, and it certainly is possible to overemphasize it in connection with the Nativity stories. I once saw a service for the Christmas season with the theme, "Mary and Joseph are getting married!" -- which isn't really the point. The heart of the story is the birth of the child, not the status of the mother and adoptive father. But there are reasons to give marriage some attention here. Marriage, and especially that of Mary and Joseph, is part of the human situation into which Christ enters. More than that, marriage as part of God's intention for creation is related to God's ultimate intent for creation which is given in Christ.
Marriage is often spoken of in the Reformed and Lutheran traditions as part of the "order of creation" (or as one of the "orders" -- both ways of speaking are used). The understanding here is that marriage, the distinctive relationship between husband and wife, is part of the way in which God has organized the world. And the story of the marriage of the first man and woman in Genesis 2:21-25 certainly supports that idea. God says that it is not good for people to be alone, and God not only creates the woman but (to be a bit playful) escorts her down the aisle to the waiting man, as the culmination of the second creation story.
The state, the ordering of society, is also seen in these traditions as part of the order of creation and in fact may be understood as derived from the institution. (And if that's the case, the commitment of a man and woman to enter into this relationship has priority over the state's decision about whether or not they can be married -- a result that has implications for some current issues.) But it's important to make some distinctions.
As the Bible tells the story, God creates marriage before the problem of sin enters the world. The state, on the other hand, including its police power, comes into being only when sin has become a problem. Even the state's authority to use force to protect some people from others (cf. Romans 13:1-7) is only given in order to protect creation.
Thus, more precise language would say that marriage is an "order of creation" but that the state is an "order of preservation" (cf. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords [New York: Harper & Row, 1967], p. 179). It's a distinction between what God wants creation to be and what God does to preserve creation for what it is to be -- in a sense between God's "proper work" and God's "alien work."
And a still further distinction is necessary, one that (finally!) makes some connection between my remarks and the Christmas theme. God's ultimate purpose for creation is not simply that people be happily married. In the resurrection they "neither marry nor are given in marriage," as we discussed here a few weeks ago (Luke 20:35). The ultimate purpose of creation is revealed in the birth of Christ, for God's "plan for the fullness of time" is "to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Ephesians 1:10). If that is the case then even marriage is an "order of preservation" (though of a higher order than that of the state), intended to be part of the way in which the reconciliation of all things in Christ is accomplished.
I don't think that this at all demeans marriage. Quite the contrary, it says that marriage is indeed part of God's cosmic plan, though it is not the final goal of that plan.
The fact that marriage is part of God's purpose in history points up the fact that we shouldn't speak of "orders of creation" as a matter of giving people and institutions their proper places on a static organizational chart. (Edward H. Schroeder, "The Orders of Creation: Some Reflections on the History and Place of the Term in Systematic Theology," Concordia Theological Monthly 43, 1972, p. 165, is helpful here.) Creation is dynamic, and the significance and practice of marriage between man and woman is dynamic as well. In Genesis 2 the man leaves his family and "clings to his wife." In most of our cultural traditions, it's the other way around.
A discussion of marriage at this point in our history will inevitably raise questions about same-sex unions. I cannot see any compelling reason why the biblical understanding of marriage as a relationship between a male and a female should be changed. But for the welfare of society as a whole, and particularly for that of homosexual persons, it might be appropriate for the church to consider recognizing same-sex unions as another type of "order of preservation." The column by William Raspberry, "A sacrament and civil law are rightly very distinct," that appeared in the 13 December Akron Beacon Journal has some reflections on this issue. He makes use of C. S. Lewis' distinction between marriage as a civil institution and marriage in the eyes of the church. (Raspberry is mistaken, however, in referring to Lewis as a "cleric.") The question of same-sex unions is not the one Lewis had in mind, but it's helpful to remember that we're not just concerned with a single question, "What is marriage?"
Chris Ewing responds: Following the Supreme Court of Canada's December 9 ruling on same-sex marriage, the CBC radio aired, on the morning of December 10, a panel discussion on marriage and its meaning in our society. The spectrum of opinion was aptly captured in a couple of on-the-street interviews with which the program opened. Asked what marriage meant to her, a young Vancouver woman echoed what appears to be a growing attitude, wondering why one would bother. "What benefit is there to it? Maybe some tax breaks ..." Another young woman, however, with a more traditional outlook, said that to her marriage was "an opportunity to show your loyalty" to someone.
Love and personal loyalty have been a large part of the meaning of marriage in our society for the last century or two, but some are quick to point out that this is a recent phenomenon. The historical roots of marriage are in the transfer of property from one family to another -- with the woman often being considered as part of the property. It is true that marriage protected dependent women and children, ensuring their access to male income; but it has also functioned oppressively in limiting power and defining roles. This is changing: gender roles are evolving, and the development of a social safety net has made women and children less economically dependent on marriage. But it remains a noticeably patriarchal institution, as is evident in the symbolism that frequently attends weddings even today: the "giving away" of the bride from father to husband, vows that may still include a reference to obedience, and the probability that the bride will change her name.
Cohabitation is now the usual precursor to marriage, and is increasingly a long-term alternative to marriage. Perhaps many of our young people feel as Mae West did: "Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution!" In the province of Quebec, which provides the greatest legal recognition and support to common-law relationships, half of all children are born outside of marriage. And while common-law relationships in general have exhibited less stability than married ones, Quebec is seeing common-law relationships with children demonstrate a degree of permanence comparable to that of marriage.
This suggests that, if a judge's or minister's approval is not necessary, there is still more power than we often acknowledge in social and legal recognition. Indeed, a sociologist on the CBC panel noted that it is precisely the element of social support that many couples seek when they do decide to marry: They feel others will be more supportive of their bond if they make a public commitment, and they recognize that they need that social expectation of them as a couple in order to stay together.
Ironically, the matter of staying together, of building a healthy and lasting relationship, is often lost to view when a couple decides to marry. The wedding industry has succeeded in redefining "marriage" to mean "wedding." Any minister can attest that most couples coming to them for marriage are far more interested in the big day than in preparing for the long lifetime. A poverty lawyer in Toronto said that she has seen a number of cohabiting couples who have chosen not to marry because they can't afford a wedding!
In this climate, we need to remember again that, as one of the panelists said, "Families are defined more by what they do than what they look like." The gospel account of Joseph's choice to stand by Mary and her child is a powerful example of "doing" family while letting appearances take a back seat.
Marriage is what we make it, the sociologist reminded the panel. It has had different meanings over time. Whether we are exploring and even changing our understanding of marriage and who has access to it, or whether we are simply trying to keep our own union afloat in challenging circumstances, this is perhaps the most important message from Joseph to us: Marriage is what we make of it. Families are defined by what they do. God calls us to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with each other and our God.
Related Illustrations
Submitted by Carlos Wilton
Michael Lindvall, a Presbyterian minister, has written a story called "The Christmas Pageant," as part of his collection of stories, Good News from North Haven (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992). Set in the mythical town of North Haven, Minnesota, it tells of the year the young mothers of Second Presbyterian Church organized a rebellion.
Alvina Johnson had directed the Christmas pageant at Second Presbyterian for forty-seven years. In nearly half a century, there had not been a single change in the script, which was lifted straight out of the King James Bible. Youthful faces came and went, but the Christmas pageant remained the same, unshakable as Gibraltar.
That is, until the year of the young mothers' rebellion. They demand a new pageant, one that will have parts for all the children. Alvina resigns in a huff, and it falls to the young mothers to plan the program. The result is not exactly a model of precision:
"... Mary and Joseph were to walk on as the Narrator read, 'And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem ... to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.' At least this is what the Narrator was supposed to read. It was what the Narrator had read at the rehearsal. But a few hours before the performance, one of the young mothers had observed that none of the children could much understand King James English, so they voted, in their ongoing mood of revolutionary fervor, to switch to the Good News translation of the Bible.... 'What kid knows what "great with child" means?' they asked.
"The Good News translation is much more direct at this point. So, as Mary and Joseph entered, the Narrator read, 'Joseph went to register with Mary who was promised in marriage to him. She was pregnant.'
"As that last word echoed from the narrator through the PA system into the full church, our little Joseph ... froze in his tracks, gave Mary an incredulous look, peered out at the congregation and said, 'Pregnant? What do you mean, pregnant?' This, of course, brought down the house. My wife, wiping tears from her eyes, leaned over to me and said, 'You know, that may well be what Joseph actually said.' "
***
The poem, "The Longly-Weds Know," by Leah Furnas, depicts a durable, good-enough marriage. This marriage:
"... isn't about the Golden Anniversary at all,
But about all the unremarkable years
that Hallmark doesn't even make a card for."
The full text is available at
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/docs/2004/11/29/index.html#Thursday
***
The Smartmarriages.com website has many resources for positive preaching and teaching about marriage:
http://www.smartmarriages.com/
***
William Willimon writes of unrealistic expectations at Christmas, or at any other time:
Oversell maybe part of the problem, over-expectation, hyperanticipation. But there's also a problem that, when the wait is over, the yearning is ended and a promise is fulfilled, and one stands face-to-face with the subject of one's desire....
I've got a friend who wrote a great article titled, "You Always Marry the Wrong Person." That is, we tend to marry that person who we believe to be the person who thinks that we are wonderful, perfect, all wise, and caring. But often, say a year to two into marriage, we wake up with a person who has been smart enough to discover, all on her own, that we are not that person at all, that we are not wonderful, perfect, and so on. And then what do you do?
You either separate, legally or emotionally, or you discover the grace of living with someone who actually knows the truth about you, and who will use the truth against you if she needs to. Therefore marriage may be our deepest experience of living with and loving someone who knows the truth about us but who still loves us.
If my friend is on to something about marriage, and I think he is, then we are talking about the difference between being engaged to be married and being five years married. And it's not the difference between stupid, idealistic fantasies of the perfect marriage and the grim reality of being married. It's the difference between the not knowing of waiting to be married and the truth of being married.
Tonight, this night of nights, the wait is almost over and we are about to meet the truth, truth that has a face, a name....
We love babies. And one of the things we love about babies is the anticipation. Will this wee one in the crib grow up to be a senator, a famous scientist, a baseball player?
We love the baby Jesus. There he lies in a manger, "the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes." No claim, no truth, no demands upon us. But when that babe of Bethlehem grew up, when the anticipation of, "Mary, you are going to have a baby" was transformed into, "World, we have got us a Messiah!" well, it wasn't that easy for us.
-- William Willimon, "The Wait Is Over," an occasional paper from Logos Productions, Inc., November 2004
***
For one being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke
***
Love is an orientation and not a state of the soul. Anyone who does not know this will fall into despair at the first onset of affliction.
-- Simone Weil, "Gravity and Grace"
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Most people have an idea of love that's a mile wide and an inch deep.
-- William Sloane Coffin, Credo
***
I knew couples who'd been married almost forever -- forty, fifty, sixty years. Seventy-two, in one case. They'd be tending each other's illnesses, filling in each other's faulty memories, dealing with the money troubles or the daughter's suicide, or the grandson's drug addiction. And I was beginning to suspect that it made no difference whether they'd married the right person. Finally, you're just with who you're with. You've signed on with her, put in a half century with her, grown to know her as well as you know yourself or even better, and she's become the right person. Or the only person, might be more to the point. I wish someone had told me that earlier. I'd have hung on then; I swear I would.
-- Anne Tyler, A Patchwork Planet
***
Many of you remember the humorist Sam Levenson. Sam tells the story about the birth of his first child. The first night home the baby would not stop crying. His wife frantically flipped through the pages of Dr. Spock to find out why babies cry and what to do about it. Since Spock's book is rather long, the baby cried a long time. Grandma was in the house but, since she had not read books on child rearing, she was not consulted. The baby continued to cry until Grandma could stand it no longer and she shouted downstairs, "For heaven's sake, Sarah, put the down the book and pick up the baby!"
Good advice. Put down the busyness and pick up the baby. Put down the overweening career and pick up the baby. Put down all the material things and pick up the baby. In a survey done of fifteen thousand children, the question was asked, "What do you think makes a happy family?" When the kids answered, they did not list a big house or fancy car or new video games as the source of happiness. The most frequently given answer was "doing things together." When you do things together, it seems that then they can best hear the song of hope. Pick up the children.
-- William Bausch, Storytelling the Word (Mystic, Conn.: Twenty-Third Publications, 1996), pp. 143-146
***
So this is what that righteous man is not: he is not self-centered! If Joseph suffers a blow to his ego, his masculinity, his stallion pride, we don't see it. He shows no anger, no public outrage, no withering scorn. He doesn't pull a gun on her. He doesn't beat her. He doesn't launch a campaign to smear her. He never says, "She owes me" or "She'll pay for this," as if her sin owes something to him. Mary's adultery seems to have absolutely nothing to do with his reputation! And the righteous man does not view justice as something he receives for damages.
But today, in systems of law that ignore God altogether, and in hearts too filled with selves, folks demand justice as their own due! "She'll pay for this" means "I'll get that pay!" And we seek punishment to satisfy nothing but ourselves....
Joseph resolves to keep the law, yes, but with such lenience that Mary's life will not be destroyed in the process. There will be no accusation, no trial at all (though a trial by ordeal is indicated where no witnesses can be found, cf. Numbers 5:11-31), no public shame, nothing save the writ of divorce and two witnesses.
What, then, is righteousness? These two things: the obedience we owe to God and the mercy God grants us to grant others. It looks first to God, second to the other, never to the self -- yet the self experiences a most holy peace in these relationships.
-- Walter Wangerin, Preparing For Jesus (Zondervan, 1999), pp. 108-109
Worship Resources
OPENING
N.b. All copyright information is given from the first cited place where found. Some copyright information may differ in other sources due to adaptations, etc.
A word about this week's music ideas: Since some will be celebrating this as "Christmas Sunday" while others will be keeping strictly to observing this as Advent 4 and many will do a balancing act between the two, I have offered only a few suggestions that are aimed at the theme. You probably have enough "suggestions" from others to more than take care of the day.
Music
Hymns
"Good Christian Friends, Rejoice." WORDS: 14th cent. Latin; trans. John Mason Neale, 1855; MUSIC: German melody; harm. Gary Alan Smith, 1988. Harm. (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 224; Hymnal '82: 107; LBOW 55; TPH 28; TNCH 129; CH 164.
"Hail To The Lord's Anointed." WORDS: James Montgomery, 1821; MUSIC: Gesangbuch der H. W. K. Hofkapelle, 1784, alt.; adapt and harm. W. H. Monk, 1868. Public domain. As found in UMH 203; Hymnal '82: 616; LBOW 87; TNNBH 187; TNCH 104; CH 140.
Songs
"Lift Up Your Heads." WORDS and MUSIC: Steven L. Fry; (c) 1974 Birdwing Music/Cherry Lane Music Publishing Co., Inc. As found in Renew 73.
"I Exalt You." WORDS and MUSIC: Pete Sanchez, Jr. (c) 1976 by Pete Sanchez, Jr. As found in Renew 44.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: The God of faithful covenant calls us to worship.
People: We come in awe of the One who is always faithful.
Leader: The God who created us, calls us to love one another.
People: Because we are all God's children, we care for each other.
Leader: The God who is unity in diversity calls us to reflect that image.
People: We are very different but we are sisters and brothers.
Leader: The One who came to us all, calls us all together.
People: In response to Christ's love, we love God and others.
COLLECT / OPENING PRAYER
O God, who has patiently remained in covenant with your wayward people: Grant us the grace to be faithful to our covenants, both to you and to each other; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
We enter into your presence once again to worship you, O God, aware of your faithfulness to an unfaithful people. We celebrate today the your faithfulness and the faithfulness of Mary and Joseph to you and to each other. Help us to find in this couple an example that will call us to be faithful in our relationships. Amen.
Response Music
Hymns
"O Lord, May Church And Home Combine." WORDS: Carlton C. Buck, 1961; MUSIC: USA folk melody; arr. Annabel Marris Buchanan, 1938; harm. Charles H. Webb, 1988. Words (c) 1961, renewed 1989 The Hymn Society of America; music (c) 1938, renewed 1966, J. Fischer and Bro. Co.; harm. (c) 1989 J. Fischer and Bro. Co. As found in UMH 695.
"Where Charity And Love Prevail," WORDS: 9th cent. Latin; trans. Omer Westendorf, 1961; MUSIC: Alexander R. Reinagle, 1836; harm. from Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1861. Trans. (c) 1961 World Library Publications, Inc. As found in UMH 549; Hymnal '82: 581; LBOW 126; TNCH 396.
"Help Us Accept Each Other." WORDS: Fred Laam, 1974; MUSIC: John Ness Beck, 1977. Words (c) 1975 Hope Publishing Co.; music (c) 1977 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 560; TPH 358; TNCH 388; CH 487.
"Blest Be The Tie That Binds." WORDS: John Fawcett, 1782; MUSIC: Johann G. Nageli; arr. Lowell Mason, 1845. Public domain. As found in UMH 557; LBOW 370; TPH 438; AAHH 298; TNNBH 341; CH 433.
"Love Came Down At Christmas." WORDS: Christina G. Rossetti, 1885; MUSIC: trad. Irish melody; harm. David Evans, 1927; alt. Harm. by permission of Oxford University Press. As found in UMH 242; Hymnal '82: 84; TNCH 165.
"The Friendly Beasts." WORDS: 12 cent. French carol; trans. anon.; MUSIC: Medieval French melody; harm. Carlton R. Young, 1987. Harm. (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 227.
Songs
"Ubi Caritas" (Live in Charity). WORDS and MUSIC: Jacques Berthier and the Taize Community; arr. J. Michael Bryan. (c) 1979, 1996 Les Presses de Taize, by permission of G.I.A. Publications, Inc. As found in CCB 71.
"They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love." WORDS and MUSIC: Peter Scholtes. (c) 1966 F. E. L. Publications, assigned to the Lorenz Corporation, 1991. As found in CCB 78.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION / PARDON
Leader: We have strayed from the God who has called us into covenant. Let us confess our sins to God and before one another.
People: God of faithfulness, we confess that we are a stiff-necked people. We are headstrong and persistent in going after other gods. We seek material wealth rather than riches of a deepening relationship with you or with each other. Just as we break our promise to be your faithful people, we break faith with our brothers and sisters. We abandon our marriage when things get tough; we distance ourselves from those who love us when the demands seem too great; we talk about the importance of marriage and family and then give little time to our spouse and children; we talk about being united in you and then gossip and snipe at one another. Forgive us for being such poor reflections of the unity you possess. Reclaim us one again by the power of your Spirit and draw us together in good times and in bad. Amen.
Leader: The God who has not forsaken you in the past will not forsake you now. God calls you to the divine life and to the heavenly life lived in the presence of all God's children.
GENERAL PRAYERS, LITANIES, ETC.
We praise your Name, O God of steadfast love. Your unity and diversity in the Godhead are so awesome they are beyond our ability to describe them. As you are ever one in the midst of being three, so you have opened up yourself to welcome us in to wondrous communion with you and, through you, with all your people.
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
We confess, O God, that we are unable to articulate your unity within yourself or with your creation. Although you created us to reflect your own self, we seldom seek unity with you and we often reject unity with our brothers and sisters. When our relationships do not meet our expectations, we walk away from them. We demand perfection from others and from our relationships with them while we know that we are not perfect and that our commitment is only half hearted. We want relationships that meet our needs but make no demands on us. We want spouses who will always have our best interest at heart while we offer them only the leftovers of our time and energy. We expect our children will love us and respect us and grow up to make us proud but we do not give them the love and direction they need to grow up as mature Christians. We want friends who come when we call but we do not want to be inconvenienced by their demands. We look into the manger and see the One who was willing to give all for us and we know we have not grown into that kind of love and devotion either to God or to each other. Forgive us and strengthen us by the power of the Holy Spirit to become the faithful ones you created us to be.
We give you thanks for your faithfulness and for those in our lives who have been faithful to us. Though many have failed us there have been those who have steadfastly lived your presence before us. We give you thanks for family, friends, and strangers who have reflected your steadfast love in their lives.
(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)
We offer up to you the brokenness of our world. Marriages, families, and friendships are disrupted. Nations are at war and factions within nations use violence against their own kind to achieve their own ends. Instead of living in balance, labor and management are out to destroy one another. Our selfishness and lack of commitment to one another does not promote our own self-interest by weakens us and make us sick unto death. Heal us, O God of love and compassion.
(Other petitions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray, saying, "Our Father...."
Hymnal & Songbook Abbreviations
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church
LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship
TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
TNCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd EditionRenew: Renew! Songs and Hymns for Blended Worship
A Children's Sermon
The meaning of names
Object: Select the names of the children who most often attend the children's sermon and put them on cards. Look up the meaning of each name in a baby book.
Based on Matthew 1:18-25
Good morning, boys and girls. How important is a name? (let them answer) Do you think your name is important? (let them answer) Most of us really like our name and we feel proud of it because it's a name that was chosen especially for us. Some parents study books for months before their child is born to find exactly the right name. Not only do we have a name, our names mean something, too.
(select some of the children whose names you have looked up and begin to tell them what their names mean) Did you know that Aaron originally meant "high mountain"? Or did you know that David meant "beloved"? These names were first created in the person's original language and described what that person was like. So, the first person named Aaron reminded others of a high mountain.
The reason we are talking about this is because Joseph had a dream about the birth of the baby Mary was carrying in her body. The dream reminded Joseph of the words of the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah said that a Savior would be born to a virgin mother and the child would be named Emmanuel, which means, "God is with us." Emmanuel is the word used by the ancient Jews and Jesus is the word used in the language of the people in Jesus' day. They both mean the same thing: that God is with us.
I think it's very special that Joseph had a dream about the name of the baby that would be born to Mary. The name God wanted him to be called was Emmanuel or Jesus. This means that though Jesus came in a special way with special gifts, he also came to live with us and share his life with people just like you and me.
Emmanuel and Jesus also mean "he will save us." Jesus was born to care for us so that when his work was done we would be saved and live in the kingdom of God.
Remember what your name means, and if I didn't have the meaning of your name here, look it up and see what it means. If you can't find your name, give me a call and I will try to find it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, December 19, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
Fourth Sunday of Advent, Cycle A
Dear Fellow Preachers,
Ephesians 5:32 refers to marriage (or at least to Genesis 2:24) as "a great mystery." Many will agree with this assessment, and it certainly applies to the marriage of Mary and Joseph, as described in the appointed Gospel lection for the Fourth Sunday in Advent, Matthew 1:18-25. In this issue of The Immediate Word, Carlos Wilton reflects on the meaning of marriage -- and, more broadly, of family -- during this holy season. How can we foster healthy relationships in our households, making them refuges of acceptance and places that lead to well-being and wholeness?
Other team members offer their distinctive perspectives on the institution of marriage in our time. Included also, as usual, are illustrations, worship resources, and a children's sermon.
All of us at The Immediate Word wish for you, your families, and your parishioners a blessed and memorable Christmas celebration.
A GOOD-ENOUGH MARRIAGE
Matthew 1:18-25
Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19; Romans 1:1-7
By Carlos Wilton
The Gospel on a Postcard
Marriage has been in the news in recent months. Ballot initiatives in a multitude of states have proposed various measures that their proponents believe will strengthen marriage. The president and others are promoting an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman.
At Christmas, all eyes naturally look to the Christ child in the manger. Yet it's easy to overlook the fact that, at the heart of the Nativity story, there is also a real, very human marriage: that of Mary and Joseph. Their marriage was no different from so many others, then or now. When Joseph wed Mary, the circumstances were hardly ideal. A whiff of scandal, an on-again, off-again engagement -- there was plenty there to entertain the gossips down at the village well. Yet the reality was quite different than their neighbors imagined. Joseph was "a righteous man," who paid attention to dreams. And Mary, a painfully young bride, listened to angels. Together, they built a home that nurtured the Savior of the world.
What enabled Mary and Joseph to do this was a conscious decision they undoubtedly made at some point in that wild, tempestuous journey that had begun with the news of Mary's pregnancy. They decided to cease seeking after a perfect marriage, and to cherish their good-enough marriage. Mary never asked to be what the Greek church calls theotokos, "God-bearer." But when the angel told her of her calling, she said, "Let it be with me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). Neither did Joseph expect to become father to a child who was not his own. But after hearing from an angel in a dream, he cancelled his plan "to dismiss her quietly" (Matthew 1:19). For this couple, the road ahead was hardly what they'd planned -- but then, what family ever experiences exactly what they've planned?
Christmas is a time when families gather, and often struggle with unreasonably high expectations -- both for the holiday, and for the sort of experience they will have with each other. No Christmas celebration can be perfect, of course -- just as no family is perfect. But somehow -- with hard work, prayer, and more than a little faith -- our significant relationships can prove to be good enough, and then some.
The covenant relationships we make in life are inevitably flawed and imperfect. We're only human. Yet who's to say what good can come of these flawed, imperfect covenants -- if God is in them?
Some Words on the Word
Mary and Joseph are familiar characters in the Christmas narrative, but in actuality we know very little about them. Tradition tells us Mary was a teenager and Joseph an older man -- although there's nothing at all in the Bible that reveals their ages. If they were like most other couples in their culture, Mary and Joseph had probably become engaged years before -- possibly while they were still children -- through a formal contract between their respective parents.
When both of them reached the marrying age, they became betrothed. That stage typically lasted for a year. During that year, their neighbors considered them a couple in every respect but one: They did not actually live together in a physical relationship as husband and wife.
To break a betrothal in first-century Israel was a serious matter. Jewish law considered it virtually the same as divorce. For one partner of a betrothed couple to behave unfaithfully inflicted terrible shame upon the one betrayed. It was, according to the Law of Moses, a capital offense, punishable by stoning (Deuteronomy 22:23-24).
In Matthew's account of Jesus' birth -- unlike Luke's -- Joseph is by far the most important character, after Jesus himself. Mary's role, quite apart from carrying Jesus for nine months and giving birth to him, is minor. There's no Annunciation, no visit to cousin Elizabeth, no Magnificat. There's just Joseph, the righteous man who declines to exercise his prerogative under the law to have his unfaithful fiancée stoned to death, taking instead the more merciful course of "dismissing her quietly."
By the ordinary standards of that culture, that restraint alone would have been enough for Joseph to become known as righteous and merciful. Yet, after hearing from an angel in a dream, Joseph takes the further step of marrying Mary. His initial inclination to dismiss her quietly sets him apart as a man of virtue, but his decision to marry a girl who was carrying a child not his own would have seemed like sheer lunacy. Joseph, of course, by this point in the story knows something his contemporaries do not: that "the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit" (v. 20).
Balanced on the sturdy shoulders of this humble working man is nothing less than the future of the world. In defying convention and taking Mary to be his wife, Joseph is saving her and the baby from social ostracism, from grinding poverty, and probably from an early death. More than that, as Matthew's extensive genealogy reveals, Joseph is giving the child not only a name but also a lineage -- a royal lineage, stretching back to King David and beyond. Without Joseph, the prophecies of the Old Testament could never have been fulfilled, for -- at least as Matthew constructs the family tree -- it is through Jesus' adoptive father, Joseph, that the link to David proceeds.
To first-century Jewish ears, it's not the birth of Jesus that's the heart of this story but his naming. It's the naming that sets the stage for Jesus to become who he truly is. And the naming is all up to Joseph.
A Map of the Message
Joseph is the odd man out when it comes to the Nativity story. Everybody knows, when it's time to cast the Christmas pageant, that Joseph's role is the easiest to fill. All an aspiring Joseph needs to do is stand there and lean on his staff. It's like the message television stations flash across the screen, when they're having technical difficulties: "Please stand by."
That's Joseph. He's the guy who stands by. He has no lines in the pageant (the Bible records not a single syllable he ever said). An occasional, benevolent smile in the direction of Mary and the baby is a nice touch, but optional. Woody Allen once quipped that 95 percent of life is showing up; and that, as far as most Christians are concerned, is Joseph's most important attribute.
Matthew tells us Joseph plans "to dismiss her quietly." What a world of meaning resides in that verb, "to dismiss"! It is, in its own way, a chillingly officious word. Dismissal is not outright rejection or repudiation. Rather, it's based on an elaborate rationalization.
In order to dismiss other people, we must feel justified in doing so. We have to feel intrinsically more important than they, and to believe their very existence somehow collides with our personal priorities. The word "dismiss" describes what we so often do, in our minds, to the pesky person holding up the supermarket line, to the other driver who annoys us on the highway, to the homeless beggar on the street corner -- all of whom seem to goad us by their very existence.
Joseph is more magnanimous than that. If love means ascribing value to others, then this is indeed what Joseph does for his bride. In the eyes of her society, Mary's seemingly illegitimate pregnancy renders her and her child worthless. Joseph takes the two of them and accepts them anyway.
Across the long years of any deep and loving human relationship, there are multiple occasions for accepting the other. The traditional marriage ceremony asks, "Do you take this woman...?" "Do you take this man...?" In their early, starry-eyed idealism, most couples imagine that accepting their loved one is always going to be easy. Yet as the years go by, and partners hit the predictable rough spots in their journey together, it becomes more difficult to actively choose the other. Sadly, some give up trying. They either let the relationship degenerate into a hollow shell of societal convention, or they seek to end it in divorce.
Absurdly high expectations are to blame. Popular culture so idolizes courtship -- both its romantic and physical aspects -- that many couples have few models to follow in crafting a durable, long-term covenant. The emphasis is more on finding the right person than on being the right person. Few movies are ever made, few romance novels ever written, about long-term couples triumphing over predicable difficulties to forge an even stronger relationship. Yet this repeated pattern of conflict, reconciliation, and renewal is the rule rather than the exception, in most successful marriages.
All too often, couples can only envision an ideal marriage. What they have trouble imagining is a good-enough marriage. Mary and Joseph provide a role model in that regard. When Mary accepts the heavy responsibility of mothering the Son of God, and Joseph defies convention to cast his mantle of protection over the frightened teenager he loves, they are forever giving up any claim to an ideal marriage. The prophecy Simeon speaks to Mary is ample evidence of that: "A sword will pierce your own soul too" (Luke 2:32). What Mary and Joseph are left with is a good-enough marriage, and by the grace of God, that proves to be more than enough.
Another area of life where absurdly high expectations often rule is the Christmas holiday. Many a family's celebration has foundered upon the rocks of unrealistic expectations. Instead of yearning for an ideal Christmas, it's far better to look for a good-enough Christmas -- for there are more than enough small blessings, in this bright and holy time, to satisfy us all.
Team Comments
George Murphy responds: I suppose most of us have heard Mae West's quip, "Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution yet."
The idea that marriage is an institution, or an "estate," or an "order of creation" seems alien to the romantic idea that it's a marvelous and even transcendent condition of two people who are in love. The institutionalization of marriage, with all the contract-like aspects that go with it, seems to reduce the status of marriage from a total physical-plus-spiritual relationship to a matter of law, economics, and politics. But perhaps it also makes marriage too important for people to feel entirely comfortable with. If marriage has something to do with the larger scale welfare of society, and even the whole creation, then it's too much responsibility for a couple that just wants to look out for itself.
Perhaps marriage seems like an odd thing to be talking about on the Sunday before Christmas, and it certainly is possible to overemphasize it in connection with the Nativity stories. I once saw a service for the Christmas season with the theme, "Mary and Joseph are getting married!" -- which isn't really the point. The heart of the story is the birth of the child, not the status of the mother and adoptive father. But there are reasons to give marriage some attention here. Marriage, and especially that of Mary and Joseph, is part of the human situation into which Christ enters. More than that, marriage as part of God's intention for creation is related to God's ultimate intent for creation which is given in Christ.
Marriage is often spoken of in the Reformed and Lutheran traditions as part of the "order of creation" (or as one of the "orders" -- both ways of speaking are used). The understanding here is that marriage, the distinctive relationship between husband and wife, is part of the way in which God has organized the world. And the story of the marriage of the first man and woman in Genesis 2:21-25 certainly supports that idea. God says that it is not good for people to be alone, and God not only creates the woman but (to be a bit playful) escorts her down the aisle to the waiting man, as the culmination of the second creation story.
The state, the ordering of society, is also seen in these traditions as part of the order of creation and in fact may be understood as derived from the institution. (And if that's the case, the commitment of a man and woman to enter into this relationship has priority over the state's decision about whether or not they can be married -- a result that has implications for some current issues.) But it's important to make some distinctions.
As the Bible tells the story, God creates marriage before the problem of sin enters the world. The state, on the other hand, including its police power, comes into being only when sin has become a problem. Even the state's authority to use force to protect some people from others (cf. Romans 13:1-7) is only given in order to protect creation.
Thus, more precise language would say that marriage is an "order of creation" but that the state is an "order of preservation" (cf. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords [New York: Harper & Row, 1967], p. 179). It's a distinction between what God wants creation to be and what God does to preserve creation for what it is to be -- in a sense between God's "proper work" and God's "alien work."
And a still further distinction is necessary, one that (finally!) makes some connection between my remarks and the Christmas theme. God's ultimate purpose for creation is not simply that people be happily married. In the resurrection they "neither marry nor are given in marriage," as we discussed here a few weeks ago (Luke 20:35). The ultimate purpose of creation is revealed in the birth of Christ, for God's "plan for the fullness of time" is "to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Ephesians 1:10). If that is the case then even marriage is an "order of preservation" (though of a higher order than that of the state), intended to be part of the way in which the reconciliation of all things in Christ is accomplished.
I don't think that this at all demeans marriage. Quite the contrary, it says that marriage is indeed part of God's cosmic plan, though it is not the final goal of that plan.
The fact that marriage is part of God's purpose in history points up the fact that we shouldn't speak of "orders of creation" as a matter of giving people and institutions their proper places on a static organizational chart. (Edward H. Schroeder, "The Orders of Creation: Some Reflections on the History and Place of the Term in Systematic Theology," Concordia Theological Monthly 43, 1972, p. 165, is helpful here.) Creation is dynamic, and the significance and practice of marriage between man and woman is dynamic as well. In Genesis 2 the man leaves his family and "clings to his wife." In most of our cultural traditions, it's the other way around.
A discussion of marriage at this point in our history will inevitably raise questions about same-sex unions. I cannot see any compelling reason why the biblical understanding of marriage as a relationship between a male and a female should be changed. But for the welfare of society as a whole, and particularly for that of homosexual persons, it might be appropriate for the church to consider recognizing same-sex unions as another type of "order of preservation." The column by William Raspberry, "A sacrament and civil law are rightly very distinct," that appeared in the 13 December Akron Beacon Journal has some reflections on this issue. He makes use of C. S. Lewis' distinction between marriage as a civil institution and marriage in the eyes of the church. (Raspberry is mistaken, however, in referring to Lewis as a "cleric.") The question of same-sex unions is not the one Lewis had in mind, but it's helpful to remember that we're not just concerned with a single question, "What is marriage?"
Chris Ewing responds: Following the Supreme Court of Canada's December 9 ruling on same-sex marriage, the CBC radio aired, on the morning of December 10, a panel discussion on marriage and its meaning in our society. The spectrum of opinion was aptly captured in a couple of on-the-street interviews with which the program opened. Asked what marriage meant to her, a young Vancouver woman echoed what appears to be a growing attitude, wondering why one would bother. "What benefit is there to it? Maybe some tax breaks ..." Another young woman, however, with a more traditional outlook, said that to her marriage was "an opportunity to show your loyalty" to someone.
Love and personal loyalty have been a large part of the meaning of marriage in our society for the last century or two, but some are quick to point out that this is a recent phenomenon. The historical roots of marriage are in the transfer of property from one family to another -- with the woman often being considered as part of the property. It is true that marriage protected dependent women and children, ensuring their access to male income; but it has also functioned oppressively in limiting power and defining roles. This is changing: gender roles are evolving, and the development of a social safety net has made women and children less economically dependent on marriage. But it remains a noticeably patriarchal institution, as is evident in the symbolism that frequently attends weddings even today: the "giving away" of the bride from father to husband, vows that may still include a reference to obedience, and the probability that the bride will change her name.
Cohabitation is now the usual precursor to marriage, and is increasingly a long-term alternative to marriage. Perhaps many of our young people feel as Mae West did: "Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution!" In the province of Quebec, which provides the greatest legal recognition and support to common-law relationships, half of all children are born outside of marriage. And while common-law relationships in general have exhibited less stability than married ones, Quebec is seeing common-law relationships with children demonstrate a degree of permanence comparable to that of marriage.
This suggests that, if a judge's or minister's approval is not necessary, there is still more power than we often acknowledge in social and legal recognition. Indeed, a sociologist on the CBC panel noted that it is precisely the element of social support that many couples seek when they do decide to marry: They feel others will be more supportive of their bond if they make a public commitment, and they recognize that they need that social expectation of them as a couple in order to stay together.
Ironically, the matter of staying together, of building a healthy and lasting relationship, is often lost to view when a couple decides to marry. The wedding industry has succeeded in redefining "marriage" to mean "wedding." Any minister can attest that most couples coming to them for marriage are far more interested in the big day than in preparing for the long lifetime. A poverty lawyer in Toronto said that she has seen a number of cohabiting couples who have chosen not to marry because they can't afford a wedding!
In this climate, we need to remember again that, as one of the panelists said, "Families are defined more by what they do than what they look like." The gospel account of Joseph's choice to stand by Mary and her child is a powerful example of "doing" family while letting appearances take a back seat.
Marriage is what we make it, the sociologist reminded the panel. It has had different meanings over time. Whether we are exploring and even changing our understanding of marriage and who has access to it, or whether we are simply trying to keep our own union afloat in challenging circumstances, this is perhaps the most important message from Joseph to us: Marriage is what we make of it. Families are defined by what they do. God calls us to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with each other and our God.
Related Illustrations
Submitted by Carlos Wilton
Michael Lindvall, a Presbyterian minister, has written a story called "The Christmas Pageant," as part of his collection of stories, Good News from North Haven (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992). Set in the mythical town of North Haven, Minnesota, it tells of the year the young mothers of Second Presbyterian Church organized a rebellion.
Alvina Johnson had directed the Christmas pageant at Second Presbyterian for forty-seven years. In nearly half a century, there had not been a single change in the script, which was lifted straight out of the King James Bible. Youthful faces came and went, but the Christmas pageant remained the same, unshakable as Gibraltar.
That is, until the year of the young mothers' rebellion. They demand a new pageant, one that will have parts for all the children. Alvina resigns in a huff, and it falls to the young mothers to plan the program. The result is not exactly a model of precision:
"... Mary and Joseph were to walk on as the Narrator read, 'And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem ... to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.' At least this is what the Narrator was supposed to read. It was what the Narrator had read at the rehearsal. But a few hours before the performance, one of the young mothers had observed that none of the children could much understand King James English, so they voted, in their ongoing mood of revolutionary fervor, to switch to the Good News translation of the Bible.... 'What kid knows what "great with child" means?' they asked.
"The Good News translation is much more direct at this point. So, as Mary and Joseph entered, the Narrator read, 'Joseph went to register with Mary who was promised in marriage to him. She was pregnant.'
"As that last word echoed from the narrator through the PA system into the full church, our little Joseph ... froze in his tracks, gave Mary an incredulous look, peered out at the congregation and said, 'Pregnant? What do you mean, pregnant?' This, of course, brought down the house. My wife, wiping tears from her eyes, leaned over to me and said, 'You know, that may well be what Joseph actually said.' "
***
The poem, "The Longly-Weds Know," by Leah Furnas, depicts a durable, good-enough marriage. This marriage:
"... isn't about the Golden Anniversary at all,
But about all the unremarkable years
that Hallmark doesn't even make a card for."
The full text is available at
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/docs/2004/11/29/index.html#Thursday
***
The Smartmarriages.com website has many resources for positive preaching and teaching about marriage:
http://www.smartmarriages.com/
***
William Willimon writes of unrealistic expectations at Christmas, or at any other time:
Oversell maybe part of the problem, over-expectation, hyperanticipation. But there's also a problem that, when the wait is over, the yearning is ended and a promise is fulfilled, and one stands face-to-face with the subject of one's desire....
I've got a friend who wrote a great article titled, "You Always Marry the Wrong Person." That is, we tend to marry that person who we believe to be the person who thinks that we are wonderful, perfect, all wise, and caring. But often, say a year to two into marriage, we wake up with a person who has been smart enough to discover, all on her own, that we are not that person at all, that we are not wonderful, perfect, and so on. And then what do you do?
You either separate, legally or emotionally, or you discover the grace of living with someone who actually knows the truth about you, and who will use the truth against you if she needs to. Therefore marriage may be our deepest experience of living with and loving someone who knows the truth about us but who still loves us.
If my friend is on to something about marriage, and I think he is, then we are talking about the difference between being engaged to be married and being five years married. And it's not the difference between stupid, idealistic fantasies of the perfect marriage and the grim reality of being married. It's the difference between the not knowing of waiting to be married and the truth of being married.
Tonight, this night of nights, the wait is almost over and we are about to meet the truth, truth that has a face, a name....
We love babies. And one of the things we love about babies is the anticipation. Will this wee one in the crib grow up to be a senator, a famous scientist, a baseball player?
We love the baby Jesus. There he lies in a manger, "the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes." No claim, no truth, no demands upon us. But when that babe of Bethlehem grew up, when the anticipation of, "Mary, you are going to have a baby" was transformed into, "World, we have got us a Messiah!" well, it wasn't that easy for us.
-- William Willimon, "The Wait Is Over," an occasional paper from Logos Productions, Inc., November 2004
***
For one being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke
***
Love is an orientation and not a state of the soul. Anyone who does not know this will fall into despair at the first onset of affliction.
-- Simone Weil, "Gravity and Grace"
***
Most people have an idea of love that's a mile wide and an inch deep.
-- William Sloane Coffin, Credo
***
I knew couples who'd been married almost forever -- forty, fifty, sixty years. Seventy-two, in one case. They'd be tending each other's illnesses, filling in each other's faulty memories, dealing with the money troubles or the daughter's suicide, or the grandson's drug addiction. And I was beginning to suspect that it made no difference whether they'd married the right person. Finally, you're just with who you're with. You've signed on with her, put in a half century with her, grown to know her as well as you know yourself or even better, and she's become the right person. Or the only person, might be more to the point. I wish someone had told me that earlier. I'd have hung on then; I swear I would.
-- Anne Tyler, A Patchwork Planet
***
Many of you remember the humorist Sam Levenson. Sam tells the story about the birth of his first child. The first night home the baby would not stop crying. His wife frantically flipped through the pages of Dr. Spock to find out why babies cry and what to do about it. Since Spock's book is rather long, the baby cried a long time. Grandma was in the house but, since she had not read books on child rearing, she was not consulted. The baby continued to cry until Grandma could stand it no longer and she shouted downstairs, "For heaven's sake, Sarah, put the down the book and pick up the baby!"
Good advice. Put down the busyness and pick up the baby. Put down the overweening career and pick up the baby. Put down all the material things and pick up the baby. In a survey done of fifteen thousand children, the question was asked, "What do you think makes a happy family?" When the kids answered, they did not list a big house or fancy car or new video games as the source of happiness. The most frequently given answer was "doing things together." When you do things together, it seems that then they can best hear the song of hope. Pick up the children.
-- William Bausch, Storytelling the Word (Mystic, Conn.: Twenty-Third Publications, 1996), pp. 143-146
***
So this is what that righteous man is not: he is not self-centered! If Joseph suffers a blow to his ego, his masculinity, his stallion pride, we don't see it. He shows no anger, no public outrage, no withering scorn. He doesn't pull a gun on her. He doesn't beat her. He doesn't launch a campaign to smear her. He never says, "She owes me" or "She'll pay for this," as if her sin owes something to him. Mary's adultery seems to have absolutely nothing to do with his reputation! And the righteous man does not view justice as something he receives for damages.
But today, in systems of law that ignore God altogether, and in hearts too filled with selves, folks demand justice as their own due! "She'll pay for this" means "I'll get that pay!" And we seek punishment to satisfy nothing but ourselves....
Joseph resolves to keep the law, yes, but with such lenience that Mary's life will not be destroyed in the process. There will be no accusation, no trial at all (though a trial by ordeal is indicated where no witnesses can be found, cf. Numbers 5:11-31), no public shame, nothing save the writ of divorce and two witnesses.
What, then, is righteousness? These two things: the obedience we owe to God and the mercy God grants us to grant others. It looks first to God, second to the other, never to the self -- yet the self experiences a most holy peace in these relationships.
-- Walter Wangerin, Preparing For Jesus (Zondervan, 1999), pp. 108-109
Worship Resources
OPENING
N.b. All copyright information is given from the first cited place where found. Some copyright information may differ in other sources due to adaptations, etc.
A word about this week's music ideas: Since some will be celebrating this as "Christmas Sunday" while others will be keeping strictly to observing this as Advent 4 and many will do a balancing act between the two, I have offered only a few suggestions that are aimed at the theme. You probably have enough "suggestions" from others to more than take care of the day.
Music
Hymns
"Good Christian Friends, Rejoice." WORDS: 14th cent. Latin; trans. John Mason Neale, 1855; MUSIC: German melody; harm. Gary Alan Smith, 1988. Harm. (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 224; Hymnal '82: 107; LBOW 55; TPH 28; TNCH 129; CH 164.
"Hail To The Lord's Anointed." WORDS: James Montgomery, 1821; MUSIC: Gesangbuch der H. W. K. Hofkapelle, 1784, alt.; adapt and harm. W. H. Monk, 1868. Public domain. As found in UMH 203; Hymnal '82: 616; LBOW 87; TNNBH 187; TNCH 104; CH 140.
Songs
"Lift Up Your Heads." WORDS and MUSIC: Steven L. Fry; (c) 1974 Birdwing Music/Cherry Lane Music Publishing Co., Inc. As found in Renew 73.
"I Exalt You." WORDS and MUSIC: Pete Sanchez, Jr. (c) 1976 by Pete Sanchez, Jr. As found in Renew 44.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: The God of faithful covenant calls us to worship.
People: We come in awe of the One who is always faithful.
Leader: The God who created us, calls us to love one another.
People: Because we are all God's children, we care for each other.
Leader: The God who is unity in diversity calls us to reflect that image.
People: We are very different but we are sisters and brothers.
Leader: The One who came to us all, calls us all together.
People: In response to Christ's love, we love God and others.
COLLECT / OPENING PRAYER
O God, who has patiently remained in covenant with your wayward people: Grant us the grace to be faithful to our covenants, both to you and to each other; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
We enter into your presence once again to worship you, O God, aware of your faithfulness to an unfaithful people. We celebrate today the your faithfulness and the faithfulness of Mary and Joseph to you and to each other. Help us to find in this couple an example that will call us to be faithful in our relationships. Amen.
Response Music
Hymns
"O Lord, May Church And Home Combine." WORDS: Carlton C. Buck, 1961; MUSIC: USA folk melody; arr. Annabel Marris Buchanan, 1938; harm. Charles H. Webb, 1988. Words (c) 1961, renewed 1989 The Hymn Society of America; music (c) 1938, renewed 1966, J. Fischer and Bro. Co.; harm. (c) 1989 J. Fischer and Bro. Co. As found in UMH 695.
"Where Charity And Love Prevail," WORDS: 9th cent. Latin; trans. Omer Westendorf, 1961; MUSIC: Alexander R. Reinagle, 1836; harm. from Hymns Ancient and Modern, 1861. Trans. (c) 1961 World Library Publications, Inc. As found in UMH 549; Hymnal '82: 581; LBOW 126; TNCH 396.
"Help Us Accept Each Other." WORDS: Fred Laam, 1974; MUSIC: John Ness Beck, 1977. Words (c) 1975 Hope Publishing Co.; music (c) 1977 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 560; TPH 358; TNCH 388; CH 487.
"Blest Be The Tie That Binds." WORDS: John Fawcett, 1782; MUSIC: Johann G. Nageli; arr. Lowell Mason, 1845. Public domain. As found in UMH 557; LBOW 370; TPH 438; AAHH 298; TNNBH 341; CH 433.
"Love Came Down At Christmas." WORDS: Christina G. Rossetti, 1885; MUSIC: trad. Irish melody; harm. David Evans, 1927; alt. Harm. by permission of Oxford University Press. As found in UMH 242; Hymnal '82: 84; TNCH 165.
"The Friendly Beasts." WORDS: 12 cent. French carol; trans. anon.; MUSIC: Medieval French melody; harm. Carlton R. Young, 1987. Harm. (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 227.
Songs
"Ubi Caritas" (Live in Charity). WORDS and MUSIC: Jacques Berthier and the Taize Community; arr. J. Michael Bryan. (c) 1979, 1996 Les Presses de Taize, by permission of G.I.A. Publications, Inc. As found in CCB 71.
"They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love." WORDS and MUSIC: Peter Scholtes. (c) 1966 F. E. L. Publications, assigned to the Lorenz Corporation, 1991. As found in CCB 78.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION / PARDON
Leader: We have strayed from the God who has called us into covenant. Let us confess our sins to God and before one another.
People: God of faithfulness, we confess that we are a stiff-necked people. We are headstrong and persistent in going after other gods. We seek material wealth rather than riches of a deepening relationship with you or with each other. Just as we break our promise to be your faithful people, we break faith with our brothers and sisters. We abandon our marriage when things get tough; we distance ourselves from those who love us when the demands seem too great; we talk about the importance of marriage and family and then give little time to our spouse and children; we talk about being united in you and then gossip and snipe at one another. Forgive us for being such poor reflections of the unity you possess. Reclaim us one again by the power of your Spirit and draw us together in good times and in bad. Amen.
Leader: The God who has not forsaken you in the past will not forsake you now. God calls you to the divine life and to the heavenly life lived in the presence of all God's children.
GENERAL PRAYERS, LITANIES, ETC.
We praise your Name, O God of steadfast love. Your unity and diversity in the Godhead are so awesome they are beyond our ability to describe them. As you are ever one in the midst of being three, so you have opened up yourself to welcome us in to wondrous communion with you and, through you, with all your people.
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
We confess, O God, that we are unable to articulate your unity within yourself or with your creation. Although you created us to reflect your own self, we seldom seek unity with you and we often reject unity with our brothers and sisters. When our relationships do not meet our expectations, we walk away from them. We demand perfection from others and from our relationships with them while we know that we are not perfect and that our commitment is only half hearted. We want relationships that meet our needs but make no demands on us. We want spouses who will always have our best interest at heart while we offer them only the leftovers of our time and energy. We expect our children will love us and respect us and grow up to make us proud but we do not give them the love and direction they need to grow up as mature Christians. We want friends who come when we call but we do not want to be inconvenienced by their demands. We look into the manger and see the One who was willing to give all for us and we know we have not grown into that kind of love and devotion either to God or to each other. Forgive us and strengthen us by the power of the Holy Spirit to become the faithful ones you created us to be.
We give you thanks for your faithfulness and for those in our lives who have been faithful to us. Though many have failed us there have been those who have steadfastly lived your presence before us. We give you thanks for family, friends, and strangers who have reflected your steadfast love in their lives.
(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)
We offer up to you the brokenness of our world. Marriages, families, and friendships are disrupted. Nations are at war and factions within nations use violence against their own kind to achieve their own ends. Instead of living in balance, labor and management are out to destroy one another. Our selfishness and lack of commitment to one another does not promote our own self-interest by weakens us and make us sick unto death. Heal us, O God of love and compassion.
(Other petitions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of Jesus who taught us to pray, saying, "Our Father...."
Hymnal & Songbook Abbreviations
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church
LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship
TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
TNCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd EditionRenew: Renew! Songs and Hymns for Blended Worship
A Children's Sermon
The meaning of names
Object: Select the names of the children who most often attend the children's sermon and put them on cards. Look up the meaning of each name in a baby book.
Based on Matthew 1:18-25
Good morning, boys and girls. How important is a name? (let them answer) Do you think your name is important? (let them answer) Most of us really like our name and we feel proud of it because it's a name that was chosen especially for us. Some parents study books for months before their child is born to find exactly the right name. Not only do we have a name, our names mean something, too.
(select some of the children whose names you have looked up and begin to tell them what their names mean) Did you know that Aaron originally meant "high mountain"? Or did you know that David meant "beloved"? These names were first created in the person's original language and described what that person was like. So, the first person named Aaron reminded others of a high mountain.
The reason we are talking about this is because Joseph had a dream about the birth of the baby Mary was carrying in her body. The dream reminded Joseph of the words of the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah said that a Savior would be born to a virgin mother and the child would be named Emmanuel, which means, "God is with us." Emmanuel is the word used by the ancient Jews and Jesus is the word used in the language of the people in Jesus' day. They both mean the same thing: that God is with us.
I think it's very special that Joseph had a dream about the name of the baby that would be born to Mary. The name God wanted him to be called was Emmanuel or Jesus. This means that though Jesus came in a special way with special gifts, he also came to live with us and share his life with people just like you and me.
Emmanuel and Jesus also mean "he will save us." Jesus was born to care for us so that when his work was done we would be saved and live in the kingdom of God.
Remember what your name means, and if I didn't have the meaning of your name here, look it up and see what it means. If you can't find your name, give me a call and I will try to find it.
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The Immediate Word, December 19, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503.
