12-17-17 - “I Believe in God” from the “I Believe, Even When” Series

12-17-17 - “I Believe in God” from the “I Believe, Even When” Series

   For the past two years I’ve been working my way through a massive three volume history of WWII in Africa and Europe. In this collection, called The Liberation Trilogy, author Rick Atkinson uses thousands of sources from all sides of the conflict in order to understand the planning, preparation, power struggles, and perseverance that shaped the battle against fascism and Naziism in the middle of the last century.

   The third and final volume of this epic Pulitzer Prize winning series begins with preparations for D-Day, the largest military invasions every carried out.

And quoting from the book jacket, “D-Day marked the commencement of the European war’s final campaign. The brutal fight in Normandy, the liberation of Paris, the disaster that was MARKET GARDEN, the horrific Battle of the Bulge, and finally the thrust into the heart of the Third Reich…Atkinson tells the tale from the perspective of participants at every level, from presidents and generals to war-weary lieutenants and terrified teenage riflemen. When Germany at last surrenders, we understand anew both the devastating cost of this global conflagration and the enormous effort required to win the Allied victory.”

   The Liberation Trilogy. Three volumes about the liberation of Africa and Europe from the forces of wickedness and evil that was Hitler’s Third Reich. 

Three volumes that detail the overarching presence of leaders called from different places around the world to come together to fight against a common foe, a shared evil. Three volumes that relate the sacrifice of so many millions of Allied soldiers and innocent civilians, some willing and some unwilling but caught up in battles, attacks, counter-attacks, and invasions that were planned by the gods of war who were the political and military leaders of the time. 

   From a theological point of view, Liberation theology looks at the story of God’s liberation of God’s people throughout Scripture in much the same way, albeit apart from the idea of military conquest and massive loss of life for the sake of lines drawn on maps. In fact, theologian Richard Boyce likens Mark’s Gospel to the announcement of an invasion writing,  “Mark is the story of an invasion, an invasion of this world by God and God’s reign. Most human invasions involve some preparation - planning out the route, softening up the resistance, spreading some propaganda regarding the invaders. In some very basic ways, John the Baptist serves this purpose. However, in Mark, even John’s work seems perfunctory, and rushed, and orchestrated somewhere offstage. This is an invasion that is going forward without any invitation. This is an invasion that neither expects nor requires any real receptivity on the part of those for whom the invasion is planned...This is an invasion that only begins in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, because it is an invasion that is still going on.” 

   In fact, this invasion of God into the world, as imagined by Boyce in the Gospel of Mark, is perhaps less like the storming of the beaches at Normandy than it is H.G. Welles’ War of the Worlds, where the alien invaders simply appeared out of nowhere, with no warning, and like nothing that had ever before been seen. Unlike the invasion of June 1944, there was no preemptive artillery barrage to soften up the enemy, there were no propaganda leaflets dropped to encourage the oppressed and terrify the oppressors. None of that happens in this invasion. Oh, there had been prophetic voices that warned of the coming intervention, but nobody listens to prophets until it’s too late. No, there are simply the words with which Mark begins his good news, his gospel: “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

   As Mark Yurs points out, “Mark’s first word, arche’, can mean ‘beginning, source, and/or norm.’ English has no single word with all three connotations; here it has overtones of all three English words. There were many versions of the Christian message in Mark’s day, as in ours. Not all were equally valid…The author of Mark wants to provide direction for how the gospel can be authentically proclaimed. He does this not by stating a creed or a list of principles [or doctrines] to which the Christian message should conform, but by claiming that the narrative to follow is the beginning, the source, and norm for the church’s proclamation of the gospel” - the good news. 

   Mark, the first of the gospels to be written - and I remind you that the word gospel in that time had not taken on the meaning it now has as a book or writing about the life of Jesus; it simply meant good news - begins not with angelic proclamations or genealogies, but with a bold pronouncement: the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. No quiet build up; no ethereal comparisons as in John. Just a bold shot across the bow of any who might doubt. And there is no mistaking who Mark claims Jesus to be.  As Boyce puts it, 

   “This is not a story of a people crying out and God coming down (as in Exodus). This is not a story of God infiltrating the world through the righteousness of Joseph (Matthew) or the obedience of Mary (Luke). 

No, this is the story of a God who will bring [God’s] reign, come hell or high water. Ready or not, here God comes!”

   Then, to further solidify the point he makes,  Mark wraps his proclamation in the words and writings of Israel’s history. It is said that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. There is a concept called the “tyranny of the latest” that suggests that those who don’t study history make the assumption that their situation, their times, are certainly the most difficult ever experienced. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, historian David McCullough, responding to what he saw as a misunderstanding and misrepresentation of that period as the worst in American history, wrote his epic 1776, about the period surrounding the American Revolution, and suggested that, no, in fact that period in time was much more destructive and divisive to our country and the fabric of our national being than were the 2001 attacks in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Other historians have written similarly about the period of the U.S. Civil War, and how that period in our history was so much more traumatic for our collective well-being than any other. The “tyranny of the latest” aside, 

Mark anchors his story in the history found in the scriptures, in Exodus, Malachi and Isaiah, because as Yurs suggests, “stability can come when we see that the faith we profess has seen people through all kinds of circumstances, and there is no reason to believe it will be undone by those we face today.”

   And he says that’s an important lesson for us today because, “Today there is a particular hunger for ‘good news’ from religion. Religion has become associated for so many with bad news, harsh attitudes, and caustic spirits. 

The treatment of women, of children, of [LBGTQ folks,] of people of color [or differing race or nationality,] is something that comes down hard on people. 

The more negatively religion is perceived, the less appealing the life of faith appears.” And it is that very association that Mark seeks to counter.

   Theologian Leah McKell Horton reminds us that, “Mark doesn’t begin his narrative in the ‘churches’ of Jesus’ day or even among the religious people of the time. Instead, it is John, a man living on the fringes of society, far from the halls of power, who first points to God’s coming grace. From the wilderness, he calls out to the people, offering them forgiveness for their sins. They are, says Mark, “people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem.” That is, John calls to the people on the fringes, the outside, those who really need the good news of a God invasion in their lives, not to those who lay claim to God’s message of “comfort, comfort, my people” while being comfortably housed, clothed, and fed in the worship of materialism, consumerism, and capitalism. God’s good news invasion doesn’t come in an “Onward Christian Soldiers” militaristic way, but arrives first in the guise of a smelly, bug-eating, animal skin-wearing prophet, and then, in the one that prophet points to: Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

   I don’t know about you, but when I think about Mark, I don’t imagine the usual image of a holy man, scribe, or apostle. No, my mind always gravitates toward an image of a first-century version of a 1950s era Beat poet, in a dank underground club with “cool” jazz providing a soundtrack, wearing a black sweater, a black beret, smoke haloing around his head from the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, trying to be confrontational or to set a different tone, create a different vibe with his latest avant-garde creation at a poetry slam. 

   You see, Mark is unconventional. Matthew and Luke, they took what Mark wrote and added to it, cleaned it up, dressed it up, put some lipstick on it, and in effect tried to tame it.  But Mark wasn’t hung up on form and completeness. The urgency of his gospel invades our senses as much as it proclaims God’s presence. Mark, as they say, marched to the beat of a different drummer. 

Much of the time Christians today experience the story of Jesus Christ as ancient history, as something that happened once but ended. Mark’s declaration of Jesus Christ as the invasion of God into the world, though, says “not so fast.” As Horton reminds us,  “Mark does not offer a conventional conclusion to his narrative, where things are wrapped up neatly, as we find in the other Gospels. Instead, his Gospel actually end in 16:8 with an empty tomb.”

“The unfinished nature of his testimony, juxtaposed to this strong, affirmative opening statement, suggests that for Mark, the life, ministry, death, and even the resurrection of Jesus Christ are not the end of the story. They are, instead, the events that set the gospel in motion. The ‘good news’ story of Jesus Christ, Son of God, is an ongoing one, continuing into the story of the church’s birth and expansion, and into the lives of those who meet the living Christ today.”

  So why do we need to hear this message of good news? And why now? Because many who claim to be Christians have fallen away from Christ and his teachings, embracing the world, the power structures, the comfort, and idolatry that Jesus warned us would come between us and God. And often we’re either too blind to see it or too complicit to acknowledge it. We also need the good news of a God invasion because many of us carry guilt with us like the proverbial albatross around our necks or a ball and chain that that keep us locked down and that threatens to hold us on the bottom while the relentless tide of life rises over our heads. What guilt, you ask? Guilt over broken relationships or broken vows. Guilt over not spending enough time with family or too much time at work. Guilt over words left unspoken until it was too late or caustic words spoken in anger that can never be unheard. Guilt over choices made or not made. There is plenty in this life that brings guilt down on our heads, some of it well-deserved and other of it only intended to market some “guilt-free” solution to us. 

   What Marks’ gospel - from beginning to end - challenges us to do is to, like Christ, enter into a “wilderness,” if you will, as the way by which God provides for us to confront our guilt, confess our sins, change our lives, embrace the good news, and then come out the other side as disciples of Jesus Christ.

   Mark’s challenge for us is twofold. First, it challenges us to consider “what could it mean for a congregation, any congregation, THIS congregation, to believe that we are, here today, part of this ongoing story of good news,” as Horton put it,  “this ongoing invasion of God,” as Boyce phrased it, and “that the end of the story has not yet been written?”

   And second, who are the ones on the outside, on the fringes, in the streets and in the shelters, in the hospitals and in the prisons, that God points us to? 

Who are the ones God wants us to share the good news with? Who are the fringe people that God’s invasion is intended to liberate? 

   The good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ, is not for our private consumption to be kept from those we might consider unworthy. It’s a message burned on the heart of every disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that we must bear witness to in our lives and with our words, in our living and in our giving. God’s invasion is coming, a liberation trilogy, or trinity, that has already landed on the beaches. 

   I believe in God, even when the world drowns out God’s message of love with the propaganda of hate. 

I believe in God, even when God’s story isn’t neatly packaged with a bow but is left open and unfinished, 

as with Mark. And I believe in God, even when God seems silent, because God’s still small voice is still speaking, in those who resist hate, those who reject war, and those who embrace grace. 

That’s the God Mark boldly and brashly proclaims as good news and that we hear on this third Sunday in Advent. Amen.

12-10-17 “I Believe in Love,” from the "I Believe, Even When..." Series for Advent

   “I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining,” the poet wrote. “And I believe in love, even when there’s no one there.”  We don’t often think about “love” as something we “believe in.” It’s something we experience, it’s something we do, it’s something we feel. But something we believe in?

   You’ve heard me say many times that when we think about “belief” as it pertains to Jesus, we need to think not about giving mental agreement to the idea of Jesus, but rather that we should understand “belief” to mean trust in Jesus. Does the same hold true for “love?”  Should we mentally agree with love, or trust in love?  Or, does the poet suggest something else here? 

Does the phrase, “even when there’s no one there” change what or how we think about love? Does love require an object to love or a subject of our love? Deep questions for a Sunday morning, huh?  And what does any of this have to do with our scripture readings?

   Well, our scripture reading comes in two very distinct packages today - one, the genealogy, and two, the Joseph story. You can be forgiven if, when you read Matthew’s gospel you “slide” over the genealogy; all of those “begats,” as the King James Version puts it, can get pretty boring pretty quickly. But bear with me if we don’t skip over them today. Hidden in these first 17 verses of Matthew are some gems.

   One of the dominant themes in the Bible is this idea of messianic hope - the hope that God would send a messiah to save the people. Based in the promise given to Abraham and passed on through the generations, the hope of a messiah has become palpable by the time of Jesus’ birth. Israel had been held captive in Egypt for hundreds of years before being led out in the Exodus. Later they were conquered by imperial powers, first by the Assyrian Empire, then by the Babylonians, the Persians, and now by the Romans. They’re REALLY hoping for a messiah to come sooner rather than later at this point.

   So in light of that hope, the writer of Matthew makes a big, bold, hairy, audacious theological statement in this gospel - Jesus of Nazareth IS that messiah, the one promised and hoped for throughout Israel’s history. 

Even as most “messiah watchers” were certain that the coming messiah would be a military leader who would raise up an army to overthrow imperial rule, and even despite the fact that this Jesus that Matthew promoted had actually died at the hands of this very same Roman empire, Matthew stands firm. And in support of that declaration, he begins to make his case by providing a genealogy. But more than a mere list, Matthew provides a link to Israel’s history, and God’s promise, by laying the groundwork for how he will continue to tell the Jesus story going forward.

   The first step in this story is simple, as he writes, 

“A record of the ancestors of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham.” 

So in the very first sentence Matthew tells us where he’s going with this: Jesus Christ (Christ is the Greek word for Messiah - it’s not Jesus’ last name) son of David (Israel’s greatest King, to whom God promised that his heir would always sit on the throne), son of Abraham (a direct line all the way back to the very beginning of the covenant, the promise God made to Israel.)  So this opening line tells us where Matthew is headed, the next 16 verses shows us how he gets there. So he begins this listing of descendants, starting with Abraham and progressing through the generations. 

   And here’s the first hitch. Matthew is not being totally literal here, he’s being largely symbolic, and a close reading will bear that out. Matthew lays out this genealogy in three groups of fourteen generations, saying that there are fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile, 

and fourteen from the exile to Jesus. And that’s very convenient, but it’s not accurate. In Matthew’s gospel there only thirteen in the last group, not fourteen. So that being the case, let’s consider for a moment the possible symbolism here. Do you remember in the series on Revelation how we talked about the symbolism of numbers and names that were used in that book? Do you remember what I told you was considered the “perfect” number? Seven, right? Because God created everything in seven days, so seven represented wholeness, completeness, perfection. So what is fourteen compared to seven? 

It’s double - twice as good. The number fourteen here is symbolic of double perfection, double sacredness. Matthew is giving us a clue as to how to understand these genealogical lists given in double-sacred-number size. How can we be sure? Well, there’s a couple of ways. One simple way is to count the generations as listed in the passage. The first two have fourteen, but the last one doesn’t. It’s one generation short of a trifecta. So one way is to simply count the generations. The other way of concluding that Matthew is going for symbolism here rather than historical accuracy is by comparing the genealogy here, specifically in verse 8, with the royal genealogy given in 1 Chronicles 3. 

As bible scholar David Jacobsen points out,  “Just when you think that the indispensable chain of male succession is going to guarantee the promised pedigree of Jesus, something interrupts the flow. Sometimes someone other than the firstborn male carries the line forward. Sometimes a known king or three are left out of the succession to ensure numerical symmetry (cf. 1:8 and 1 Chr 3:11-12).”

To be clear, three generations of descendants that are listed in Chronicles, compiled centuries earlier, are left out of Matthew’s genealogy. Matthew is using religious symbolism to show a continuous and sacred line from Jesus to Abraham, in order to further his point that Jesus is the messiah, the promised one. 

   Bible scholar Susan Andrews points out another interesting piece of information that can be found in the opening of Matthew as well. She says that more than a mere genealogy, or listing of descendants, the opening of Matthew provides a genogram. A genogram looks at ancestry more deeply than just lineage, it looks for characteristics and patterns. It examines closeness or distance in relationships. Does your lineage show patterns of illness, of addiction, of abuse or some other characteristic that occurs and reoccurs in multiple generations? Is there a pattern of strained or broken relationships between siblings or between parents and siblings that occurs on one side of your family tree. That’s the type of thing, or kinds of patterns, that a genogram looks at. So Andrews suggests,  

   “The beginning of Matthew is a genogram of Jesus’ life. Tracing forty-two generations all the way back to Abraham, we travel through triumph and tragedy, exaltation and exile, lostness and foundness.”

   And she goes on, after making the point that genealogies in this era, mostly confined to wealthy and powerful families, not the families of carpenters, are exclusively mapped through male descendants, writing,

   “In Joseph’s genealogy, the surprises abound. "Four women make the list - all of them Gentiles, three of them [Tamar, Rahab, and Bathsheba] defined by sexual sins - and yet all of them play redemptive roles in God’s unfolding drama of salvation.  Are we surprised that God uses what culture abuses to plant life in a broken world? Do we wonder why Jesus is so predisposed to [loving] the [marginalized] and despised among us? Such a surprising compassion is simply part of our Savior’s spiritual DNA.”

   Spiritual DNA. We don’t think about “spiritual DNA” when we think of lineage. I don’t remember ever seeing a single episode of Maury Povich where he proclaimed after a televised paternity test, “You’re the daddy, this kid has your spiritual DNA!” Am I right? But Matthew forces us to think differently about this when, at the end of this long presentation linking Jesus to Abraham, he includes Joseph at the end of the family tree. Joseph, who we are to understand is not the biological father of Jesus. But Andrews invites us to think about it this way:

   “Why is Joseph listed as a progenitor? By confusing us, God surprises us and encourages us to dig deeper in the complexity and contradictions of the faith. 

We are pushed to understand generativity and birth in a spiritual way, not just a physical way.”

   That is, to understand what Matthew is trying to convey, we have to think differently; we have to think outside the box of literalism and get to the symbolism that Matthew employs here. Matthew sees in Jesus the result of all that God has been doing over the generations to fulfill the promise that God made beginning with Abraham. Are there bumps and twists and turns along the way? Absolutely! But does that change the nature of the love that God has for Israel and for all of humanity that Matthew is trying to help us understand? 

Absolutely not! So, when you read this genealogy, or when you, like most people, skim over it, don’t get so caught up in the factuality of it, rather, consider the message Matthew is trying to convey through this symbolic representation.

   Moving, then, to the second part of our passage today, all of this symbolism suddenly becomes very real for us - it takes on flesh and bone. As Andrews put it, “In this text from Matthew we are invited inside the Joseph version of the annunciation story - not a virgin story, but a vision story. We meet Joseph the dreamer - a righteous man who trusts relationships rather than rules - an obedient man who responds to dreams rather than to demands.” 

   Mary’s story, as told in Luke’s gospel that we shared last week, is a very different kind of story than Joseph’s. Let’s get outside of our Christmas pageant thinking around this story in order to understand the dynamics at play here. These are real people with real emotions, not Hallmark card characters playing a role. And they’re engaged. As David Lose clarifies, 

   “In the first century world of Joseph and Mary, this is not a romantic declaration of intent. Rather, it is a legal contract, binding in every respect.

To be engaged – or espoused, betrothed, or pledged (some of the other words used in English translations) – was essentially to be married…without having consummated that marriage or as yet living together. Which means that when Joseph learns that Mary is pregnant, he can only conclude that she has been unfaithful to him and so likely experiences the pain, anguish, and sense of betrayal that any of us would have felt at such a devastating revelation.”

   And we all know what betrayal feels like - maybe not of this variety or scale, but we’ve all surely, at one time or another, felt the sting of betrayal. 

In this time and culture, infidelity, which is what Joseph has to assume is the case, is dealt with in one of two ways usually. Joseph could publicly declare what has happened, in which case Mary could likely have been stoned to death for adultery, or he could divorce her - “– the translation ‘dismiss,’” Lose points out, “softens the reality as “engagement” did earlier – her quietly, and he chooses the latter course.” Why? Because Joseph is, as Andrews described, “a righteous man who trusts relationships rather than rules - an obedient man who responds to dreams rather than to demands.”

   And we can imagine that in the days or weeks, whatever amount of time passed between when Mary told Joseph about this pregnancy and when the angel visits Joseph finally in his dream, that Joseph felt not only betrayal, but loss. Real people with real emotions, his life was no longer a dream, but a nightmare. 

   But it’s in a dream that an angel tells Joseph not to hesitate to make Mary his wife, and points out to him that Mary’s pregnancy is the work of the Holy Spirit. 

And the angels goes on to say that, “She will give birth to a son, and you will call him Jesus,” which means “he will save his people from their sins.” YOU will call him Jesus, the angel says. Not “she will name him,” or “he will be called,” but “You will name him Jesus.” The power of naming in this culture belongs to the father. The angel is telling Joseph that he will be this child’s father, his spiritual DNA will guide this child’s life.

   And then Matthew, again tying the birth of Jesus as the messiah to a passage in Isaiah 7 that points to the coming messiah as part of God’s promise, in an aside to the reader writes,“Now all of this took place so that what the Lord had spoken through the prophet would be fulfilled: 

Look! A virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, And they will call him, Emmanuel.

(Emmanuel means “God with us.”)”

   So, first of all - and make of this what you will - Matthew misquotes Isaiah here; the Hebrew word Isaiah uses, almeh, doesn’t mean “virgin,” it means “young woman.” Matthew, on the other hand, uses a Greek word, parthenos, that means “virgin.” The two authors use two different words with two different meanings. The reason for that is an entirely separate sermon.

More importantly for us today is that, in quoting Isaiah’s reference to “Emmanuel” Matthew is telling his readers that Jesus, this child born to Mary and Joseph, is “God with us.” Matthew declares what we call the “Incarnation,” God in the flesh. And needless to say, after all of this, Joseph responded positively to the admonition.

 Matthew concludes the chapter, 

“When Joseph woke up, he did just as an angel from God commanded and took Mary as his wife. But he didn’t have sexual relations with her until she gave birth to a son. Joseph called him Jesus.”

   Renowned Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann reminds us “that all the dreams in Scripture have something in common. They represent the intrusion of God into a settled world - an unbidden communication in the dark of the night that opens sleepers to a world different from the one they inhabit during the day - an intrusion that generates a restless uneasiness with the way things are until the vision and the dream come to fruition.”

   Joseph is described here by Matthew as being a righteous man. Joseph’s righteousness, however, is based on love, not on law. He loved Mary, he loved God. His righteousness is not a kind of self-righteousness where, feeling he has been wronged, he feels he deserves to be made right. No, it is a righteousness based on being in right relationship both with God and with the dream of God. Remember, Joseph valued relationship over rules. Joseph trusts the message he receives. Where we might write off such a dream as the results of a bad late night snack choice, Joseph embraces it, and in doing so, embraces the heart of God.

   Now, with all of that said, it’s probably a safe assumption that, as David Lose phrased it, “the months leading up to Christ’s birth was not one blissful baby-shower after another but were fraught with anxiety and concern and flights of emotion we have all experienced at various times.”

   “And that, of course, is the point. We have – each of us – experienced similar upheavals. Indeed [this very morning…] who knows how many of [us here or people we know] are struggling to hold it all together. Families who struggle with discord, couples who feel disconnected, kids wondering what future they may have, elders wondering the same [thing] from a different point of view. Some seek jobs, some relationships, some any sense of acceptance or worth.”

   This passage speaks to those concerns though. 

Read alongside our poem, it calls us to believe in the sun, even when it’s not shining, to believe in love even when no one’s there, and to believe in God, even when God seems silent. Why? Because in the incarnation of Christ - God in the flesh - God is with us. God is here. God is in us and we are in God. The apostle Paul said that it is in God that we live and move and have our being. 

This story reminds us that God works through real people - everyday people - like you and like me. God didn’t choose a fairy tale princess to give birth the Savior, but an unwed peasant girl. God didn’t choose a king or successful business man to name and care for Jesus, but a man with his own doubts, his own very real fears and questions, who wanted to do the right thing but needed a little bit of a push to get there. 

And quoting Lose, 

  “All of this helps flesh out the name “Emmanuel” that Matthew draws from Isaiah to apply to Jesus. God with us.” Or, we might want to say, “God REALLY with us.”  

  That is, God coming to be with us as we are. Not as we know we should be, or are trying to be, or have promised to be, or will be some day, but with us as we are now…today…in this moment. Perhaps that’s the promise at the heart of this passage – that as God came before to be with, use, accept, and hallow Joseph and Mary at the birth of Christ, so also God comes to us in Christ to be with us, use us for good, accept us as we are, and hallow us by God’s own presence.”

   Why do all of this we ask? Because God is love. And the God who is love, loves us so much that God came to us, became one of us, became one with us, and is with us, really with us. And regardless of the how, that is WHY the birth of Jesus Christ took place. 

And that is the heart of Matthew’s message for us today. Amen.

12-3-17 “I Believe in the Sun” - The “I Believe, Even When…” Series

12-3-17  “I Believe in the Sun” - The “I Believe, Even When…” Series

   PBS is broadcasting a new documentary film from Ron Howard about the Beatles, called “Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years.” We saw it a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say, as a lifelong Beatles fan, it’s one of the best if not THE best Beatles documentary I’ve ever seen. If you haven’t caught it yet on PBS look for it - if you’re a fan at all you’ll enjoy it. 

   Among the the more poignant images in the film is to see how Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have aged while John Lennon and George Harrison, both of whom died fairly early, remain eternally young. I remember reading in a Beatles fan magazine as a teenager a piece titled “When I’m 64” which offered artists’ renderings of how the Fab Four might look at that age. 

We’ll never know with John and George, but for Ringo and Paul, as I recall, it was pretty spot on. 

Especially for Paul.

   When you see Paul he’s clearly aged, but aged well, 

I think. He has developed jowls that were only hinted at earlier, he has crows feet around his eyes, and his hair 

is thinning and graying - but whose isn’t. 

But the so-called “cute Beatle” is 75 years old now. 

He can’t always hit the high notes in his songs anymore, but you know what he can do? He can still sell out stadium concerts in mere minutes.

   I got to thinking about Paul McCartney and the Beatles after seeing that documentary, but also as I was studying today’s scripture. That was a long reading today - the entire first chapter of the gospel of Luke- and there’s a lot in there to consider. Thanks to our readers for making it come alive for us. But think about the key things that happen in Luke 1:

• There are two angel visitations in the first chapter. 
• Two very different responses to those visitations. 
• There’s the subject of barrenness -  introduced in our last series with Sarah that is revisited with Elizabeth this time. 
• There’s Zacharias’ loss of his voice in the midst of performing the service in the Temple that he has trained for, waited for, his entire professional life - which could suggest a message on being heard, or who in our society isn’t being heard or has had their voice taken? There’s some really good stuff here. 

   Then there’s the whole shame issue at play with both Elizabeth and Mary - the one because she is old and has never been able to conceive a child - a sign that she has lost favor with or has even been cursed by God - and the other shamed because she is a teen age girl, unmarried but engaged, who is pregnant but Joseph ain’t the daddy! But it’s Mary's response, framed by Luke in the gospel as a song, that I want us to consider today. And what does she say? Let it be. Let it be with me according to your word. Let it be. 

McCartney put it this way:

When I find myself in times of trouble

Mother Mary comes to me

Speaking words of wisdom,

"Let it be."

And in my hour of darkness

She is standing right in front of me

Speaking words of wisdom,

"Let it be."

   So, amidst the cornucopia of potential messages in 

this passage, I want us to think about Mary today. Mary is venerated, that is, not worshiped but given a reverential respect by many Christians, especially by our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. Conversely, many Protestants and Evangelicals act as if she doesn’t exist - you NEVER hear about her. But the truth is, Mary is the first disciple, displaying radical faith and trust in God. 

   Marcia McFee invites us to think about it this way. Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase “‘dark night of the soul,’ “a phrase often used to describe moments in our lives when light, understanding, and hope seems to elude us.” 

Well McFee points out that Mary, maybe fourteen years old at most, is “a young woman barely out of childhood [who] receives the message that she would bear a son out of wedlock - something that could have doomed her circumstances for her entire life.”  And we should remember, that angel didn’t come to her to ask her if this would be okay, the angel came to pronounce, fancy word for “tell” her that this was going to happen - the same thing the angel did with Zacharias. This wasn’t a consult, there was no negotiation. The only “negotiable” here, if you will, was how Mary would respond. And we see that she didn’t have a lot of time to think about it either. She didn’t get sleep on it, it was just there. Which makes her response all the more incredible, and genuine. The way she responds to this call of God on her life reflects who she was, and how she was. 

   And McFee suggests that it pushes this question onto us: 

“When things that seem irreparable happen in our lives, how can we turn perceived doom into a belief in an opportunity for rebirth?” More than “making lemonade out of life’s lemons,” or looking at the glass as “half full,” we’re talking about a kind of death and resurrection here. How do we allow God to transform the difficult, even unthinkable things that happen to us in that dark night, the consequences of our actions or decisions, or just life in general, into something that goes beyond us, something bigger than us, something that brings new life and new hope out of some kind of death or despair? 

How do we find the faith to go forward in the midst of life-altering circumstances?

   Unlike Zacharias, who, make no mistake, is a good 

and faithful man, Mary doesn’t express doubt. She never suggests that she doesn’t believe the angel in this annunciation like Zacharias does. She only asks the question, “how can this be?” And as Ken Carter puts it,  “The call of God is to an ordinary woman, and yet the call is to do something extraordinary. God chose an ordinary human being—Mary—to be the vessel through which the Son of God would be born.” And when the angel tells her, reminds her, assures her that nothing is impossible for God, her response is the purest, most honest profession of faith that, perhaps, has ever been spoken, “I am the Lord’s servant. Let it be with me just as you have said.”

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.

Whisper words of wisdom,

“Let it be.”

   As a result of this trust in God, Mary became a very special person in the life of the church. But in the moment, in the time leading up to this annunciation, Mary was just a normal person, going about her everyday life, doing the things that normal people did in that day. So in this busy time of the year, when we and others like us scurry about to get done the normal things that life brings to us at this time of year, it’s important to gain some clarity about what this message means for us. God calls, God uses normal everyday people, to accomplish God’s desires in the world, people like you and me. This is how God has always worked.

   In Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth he talks about this, saying, 

“Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But . . . God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:26-28).

   Or consider the series we just completed, about how God provides a way out of no way. God calls Abraham and Sarah, an elderly childless couple, to be the parents of a nation. Nobody saw that coming! 

Or Moses, who when called by God responded more like Zacharias than Mary, suggesting he was not a good public speaker and that his brother would be better candidate. And we find this throughout scripture, not just in our passage today. God calls ordinary, everyday people - Mary, you, me  - and makes extraordinary things happen when we respond in faith.

   Mary’s response is exactly that, a response of faith in the midst of almost tragic uncertainty. She understands, “I am an ordinary person. I am not perfect.” 

As Ken Carter says, 

“The good news of the gospel is that when God begins 

to search for us, God is not seeking perfection. 

God chooses the ordinary. God loves the unlovable. 

In fact, God reverses just about every expectation we might have of how the Lord would enter into this world and save it. 

Does God flatter the proud? No, God scatters the proud. 

Does God seek an invitation from the throne? No, God brings those from thrones down, and lifts up the lowly. Does God hang out at the finest restaurants? No, God throws a banquet for the poor. Does God choose a queen or a princess to be the mother of Jesus? No, God chooses [an unwed teenager,] Mary. Does God choose the wise, the noble, and the powerful in this world to accomplish the divine will? No, God chooses [murderers, adulterers, fishermen, tax collectors] you, and me. Does God love those who are lovable? Yes, and God loves the unlovable; God forgives the imperfect; God reaches out to the lost. Christmas is really all about this attribute of God, who loves us, who reaches out, down to us, who stoops to our weakness.” Who becomes one of us.

“And when the brokenhearted people

Living in the world agree

There will be an answer,

Let it be.

And though they may be parted

There is still a chance that they will see

There will be an answer,

Let it be.”

   In the first chapter of his gospel, Luke retells the ongoing unfolding of God’s salvation history with the world, but he does it with both “drama and simplicity,” as Travis Franklin referred to it. “In a nutshell,” he offers, “God acts in life. Humans are encouraged to listen, question, seek understanding, and dialogue, but ultimately respond with trust and faith to what it is God is seeking to do.”

   And so in Advent, as we make our annual journey to the manger this story invites us to respond to God’s call once again. God comes to us, maybe not with the flash and flurry of the angel Gabriel, but in other ways that, if we are open and present to them, we will recognize. How does God come to us? Maybe it’s in a message like this, or in a song, or at Christ’s table. Perhaps God’s angel is the homeless person we meet on the street, or while serving at the free store, or in the food panty. Or maybe God’s angel is the person in the car in front of us that we honked at because they didn’t go fast enough when the light turned green. Maybe God intrudes on your life through a book or a movie or a poem. Or maybe God’s call to faith comes in the midst of a tough diagnosis, or when you’ve just learned that you’re going to be laid off, or when tragedy visits you or your family. Such intrusions by the God who is always present with us often catch us off guard in these moments, when we’ve been trained to look for mighty angels or chubby cherubs with wings and trumpets making bold proclamations. Still, such intrusions into life, even when hidden in the still small voice of God, always call for a response from us. 

   These moments in life, depending on how we respond, can strengthen us in our faith, or they can destroy us. When Lynn’s brother Bob and his wife Louann died in their accident three years ago, it would have been very easy to get lost in anger or worse towards the young man whose carelessness led to their death. 

Sadly, that’s how many on Louann’s side of the family have responded. And we can all understand that reaction to some degree because that seems like the response that our culture, our society, often breeds. Lynn’s side of the family, though, realizing early that hating this young man would only hold them captive but do nothing to him, chose to respond with a grace born of their faith. Was it challenging? Absolutely it was. But even as it took little time for them to get there - it was a natural ultimate response for them because that’s how they are.

   The poem that inspires this series, written by an unknown prisoner and found on the wall of a German concentration camp in World War II, speaks to the kind of faith that carries a person through the most difficult of times, the kind of faith that Mary exhibited as a way of life: 

“I believe in the sun

even when it is not shining

And I believe in love,

even when there’s no one there.

And I believe in God,

even when he is silent.

I believe through any trial,

there is always a way.

But sometimes in this suffering

and hopeless despair

My heart cries for shelter,

to know someone’s there.

But a voice rises within me, saying hold on

my child, I’ll give you strength,

I’ll give you hope. Just stay a little while.”

   It’s this kind of faith, I believe, that leads God to Mary in the first place because God knew Mary’s heart, knew Mary’s faith. And her response is one of ultimate trust in God. She had no way of knowing what was going to happen, but she understood the stigma, the public shaming this would place on her. 

And she had to understand that this would be difficult for Joseph as well. But in order to say “yes, let it be with me as you say,” she also had to trust that God was at work in Joseph as well. 

   And the passage says that she immediately went up to the hill country to see her cousin Elizabeth, who, the angel had just told her, was also having a baby. And the Holy Spirit is present in this moment as these two mothers-to-be and these two holy children come together. And in this moment, Mary’s response takes on an even deeper meaning as she embraces what God is doing in and through her and her yet unborn child.

"My soul lifts up the Lord! 

    My spirit celebrates God, my Liberator!

    For though I’m God’s humble servant,

        God has noticed me.

    Now and forever,

        I will be considered blessed by all generations. 

    For the Mighty One has done great things for me;

        holy is God’s name!

    From generation to generation,

        God’s loving kindness endures

        for those who revere Him. 

    God’s arm has accomplished mighty deeds.

        The proud in mind and heart,

        God has sent away in disarray. 

    The rulers from their high positions of power,

        God has brought down low.

    And those who were humble and lowly,

        God has elevated with dignity.

    The hungry—God has filled with fine food.

        The rich—God has dismissed with nothing in their hands.

    To Israel, God’s servant,

        God has given help,

    As promised to our ancestors,

        remembering Abraham and his descendants in mercy forever."

   As Rev. Alan Brehm points out, “While Mary’s song is a song of hope and joy, there’s just no way to avoid the fact that there is a barb in the good news that God is working to restore the human family. That barb is this—most of us fall into the category of the “full” and the “rich” who will be sent away hungry and empty-handed. Mary’s song of hope is a joyful one for those who are lowly, humble and humiliated, the least and the last. And yet, even here there is good news—the future Mary looked forward to is a vision of hope and of the restoration of the whole human family.  She saw in the birth of her son the establishment of the justice that makes it possible for all people to thrive, to reach their God-given potential, to experience the joy and the vibrancy that God intends for us all."

  "What that means for those of us who are “full” and “rich” here and now is that the only way for us to sing Mary’s song with the same kind of joy—the joy of the “lowly” being lifted up—is if we actually engage in God’s work of restoration. The only way for us to sing Mary’s song with joy and hope is for us to work at lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry, and restoring those who are disenfranchised. 

That was what Jesus came to do—to begin God’s work of making all things new, of setting right the wrongs and lifting the burdens we all carry.  That’s why we celebrate Advent and Christmas.  It is a time for us to focus our attention on God’s work in this broken world. It is a time of looking for the salvation that God has promised, and a time of singing for joy over what God is already doing among us.  It is a time to celebrate the work of restoration God is carrying out in the human family—the whole human family. And it is a time for us to join that work.”

   Mary’s faith allows her to look beyond what’s right in front of her to God’s preferred future. Her faith is such that, even if she doesn’t understand what God wants to do in and through her, she trusts implicitly in God’s goodness and faithfulness. Even when her immediate future appears cloudy she believes firmly in the God who promised to turn the world upside down. 

   The issue for us always, however, is can we, like Mary, just let it be as God desires? Often, we need to know what’s next and be in control. Can we simply let go and let God, as they say? Mary’s faithful response provides us with a living illustration of how to be as we, too, ponder the Bethlehem stable. Without seeking to control or glamorize or add or overanalyze, can we just let the story be what it is this Christmas? Can we allow God to say what needs to be said through this simple birth? 

Can we step back in awe and wonder of a child and just ponder these things in our hearts and allow God to do what God needs to do with us, in us, and through us?

 Can we, when we don’t know what the future holds, when we don’t know how God will bring about good, can we believe in the sun even when it isn’t shining? Can we just let it be? Amen.