“Rocking Our World”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. David McMaster
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Text: Matthew 1:18-25
It's Christmas time again. The season of peace, joy, and goodwill is upon us. Everyone is running here, there, and yonder. There are parties to go to, office get-togethers, family events, gifts to buy for special people and the children in our lives. It's an amazing time of year. The shopkeepers love us. O, the shopping! Christmas is so big that it can even get the male aspect of our species into a shopping mall!
I generally dislike shopping. I can be found in a mall, perhaps only three times a year and two of those are around Christmas. Home Depot, I can go to regularly and enjoy myself tremendously, but the shopping mall … not so much fun.
A few years ago, I was lamenting the trials of Christmas shopping to a woman in our congregation and she said to me, “It's not that bad, David. It can be fun. You have to make a day of it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well,” she said, “You have to make a day of it. You go to the mall with a friend and begin with a nice latté and conversation. Then you shop for a while and go for a nice lunch … and don't go to McDonalds, make it a nice lunch. Then you shop some more until it's time for an afternoon coffee and then home. You have to make a day of it, David, it's fun.”
Well, I thought about it, that didn't seem like such a bad idea. So about four years ago, I set about finding a friend to go Christmas shopping with. That wasn't an easy task because: a) I was a male searching for another male to go shopping with; and, b) I am a minister and finding someone else who had Mondays off was impossible. Undeterred, however, I improvised. I began my shopping day with my old friend, The Globe and Mail. Over coffee, I read a section and made a list of people I had to buy for. I then looked around the mall for an hour and a half when “the nice lunch” idea came to mind. So the Globe and I found a nice restaurant and enjoyed a meal together for an hour before I tweaked my list and made a purchasing plan. In another hour and a half, I had rushed around the mall, buying the things on my list, stuffed them into the trunk of my car, and walked casually back to the coffee shop because ... I deserved a Caramel Macchiato to get me home. And, do you know something ladies, I think you're on to something, it wasn't a bad day.
But the throws of shopping are not foremost in our minds at Christmas time. Most of us really want to experience the hopes and dreams that are prevalent in our culture's thoughts and aspirations for the season. I experienced some of that on Wednesday evening. On Wednesday, I went home, turned on the Christmas lights and gazed out my front window. Snow was falling heavily, the great big flakes that cover the ground quickly. In the course of a quarter of an hour or so, the street that I live on began to take on a Currier and Ives look. I was glad to be inside though where it was warm and with the music of Wilcox and the choir of King's College, Cambridge emanating from my stereo speakers. It was just enough to get that Christmas magic.
I sat down and began to glance through Christmas cards that I had received. The majority of the cards mention the word, “peace.” I also noted that the words, “Season's Greetings” were prominent as were sunny words wishing me love, goodwill, cheer, happiness, and warmth. There were pictures of New England snow scenes, reindeer, chipmunks, raccoons, cardinals, cute grey mice, and of course Santa Claus and evergreen wreathes. One card depicted angels set in great light. As I sat there, my heart was warmed and I reflected back for a few moments on Christmases past, especially those of my childhood. I was getting that Christmas feeling.
The telephone snapped my mind back to reality, however, as I listened to a former parishioner tell me about a friend who was struggling to recover from surgery. A similar “snapping back to reality” occurred later in the evening as I began to think of this sermon and re-read the Christmas narratives from the Gospels. As I read, I encountered a very different tone than that brought to us by popular culture. In complete contrast to our usual Yuletide sentiments, it seemed that the advent of Christ brought not cheer but difficulty and disruption, not warmth but a cold stable, and not peace but danger. The coming of Christ made life much more complicated for the characters associated with the very first Christmas. And I heard the words of Dr. Paul Wilson, in last week's sermon when he advised us to go back and double-check, to take a second look to see what really happens when God comes among us.
Take Mary, for instance. In the account of the angel Gabriel coming to Mary, has it ever struck you that what was about to happen to Mary brought a lot less joy than our minds and Christmas pageants generally portray. Luke's Gospel tells Mary's story and informs us that she was a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph who was of the house of David. When the angel appeared, he said, “Hail, O favoured one, the Lord is with you.” It was not a happy moment, however, for the very next thing that Gabriel has to say is, “Do not be afraid, Mary,” before he goes on to say, “I have come to tell you what God is doing. The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you … you will conceive and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus (Luke 1:26-38).”
Now, we hear that story today as great news. It is wonderful, the coming of Christ is at hand but, if we can set aside the rest of the story that we know so well for a moment, what occurs really puts Mary in a predicament. Mary is scared. She is going to get pregnant. She is going to have a child. She is not yet married. She is betrothed but not married. She will have a child that is not biologically Joseph's. This whole thing puts Mary at odds with her culture, her religion, not to mention her fiancé. This advent thing leaves her entirely vulnerable. Among other things, Jewish law regarded a betrothed woman who became pregnant as an adulteress, subject to death by stoning.
Stoning is not a nice way to die. It can be a slow, painful, an ancient practice that has been largely set aside, though it still occurs in some places. Perhaps you have heard of the plight of Sakineh Mohammedi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman currently under threat of death by stoning due to a supposed adulterous relationship. The West has widely criticized Iran for this practice and the case of Ashtiani has caused great uproar in the press and organizations such as Amnesty International. Amnesty International is suspicious of what appear to be trumped up charges against Ashtiani, it is concerned about the unequal treatment of women vis-Ã -vis men, and a punishment that is inhumane.
Death by stoning is unfortunately still around in some places and it is equally unfortunate that it was prominent in the Middle East in Jesus' day. You may remember how religious leaders brought an adulterous woman to him in an attempt to test him, reminding him that the law called for her to be stoned and asking him what to do. And you will remember how Jesus stopped them in their tracks with the words, “Let the one that is without sin cast the first stone (Jn.8:7),” and the woman was freed to “Go and sin no more.”
This is the predicament that Mary was in. Yes, it was moving toward the first Christmas but the annunciation was not all peace, joy, and goodwill for Mary. At the very least there would be scandal. Probably, her life would be in danger. To be “with child,” would draw assumptions. Justice would be called for. We may all want love, goodwill, cheer, happiness, and warmth for the first Christmas but the annunciation brought disturbance and peril to Mary. There was more going on than we usually think about. Mary's world was turned upside down.
Then think of Joseph. The Gospels do not tell us much about Joseph but he seems to have been a decent man. Outside of this account in Matthew, we know that he fulfilled all righteousness in terms of going to Bethlehem for the census. We know that when Jesus was 12 years of age, Joseph took him and his family on the long trek to Jerusalem to fulfil the requirements of the law. Joseph, we also know, had a good trade and as a carpenter, would have been a “measure twice and cut once” kind of guy.
Mary and Joseph were engaged; the text opens with the words, “When Jesus' mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit (Mt.1:18).” Again, if we can just set aside the rest of the Jesus-story for a moment, just imagine Joseph being informed that Mary was with child. She could tell him till the cows came home about the angel and the Holy Spirit but I'm not sure that he would have believed. The coming of God turned Joseph's personal world upside down. Hopes were dashed and, we read, “being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, Joseph planned to dismiss her quietly (Mt.1:19).” A divorce was in the works to negate the betrothal-vows they had made to one another. But just before he dismisses her, an angel comes to Joseph in a dream. The angel tells him what God is doing and not to be afraid of taking Mary as his wife. One can only imagine the mix of emotions that Joseph must have had. Yes, he would follow God but one can only imagine the feelings and the doubts. Far from bringing him peace and joy and everlasting happiness, this turned Joseph's life upside down.
Neither was this advent a happy time for others. A group of poor shepherds was out in the hills around Bethlehem, minding their own business, caring for their sheep in the midnight hours when, suddenly, the skies lit up, an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around. I don't know about you but I think that must have been a frightening scene. I remember the Mississauga train derailment of 1979. A 106-car Canadian Pacific freight train carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals from Windsor, Ontario was derailed near Mavis Road and Dundas. The resulting explosion led to the evacuation of over 200,000 people, the largest peacetime evacuation in North America until the New Orleans evacuation of 2005. I had just turned the lights out and gone to bed in my home some ten kilometres from the blast. I was in pitch black when the explosion caused the sky to light up. It was like daylight in my room. At first I did not understand what was going on. Initial thoughts were of the end of the world and I am sure that when the sky lit up for those shepherds, they must have been absolutely terrified. As the KJV so poetically puts it, “They were sore afraid.”
That's the trouble with angels. Popular culture depicts them as warm, fuzzy beings, always there to bring comfort and support in every time of need. If you go on the internet and do a search, you will come across all kinds of wondrous sweetness and light associated with angels. But when we get back to the biblical text, the most common emotion associated with the appearance of angels is “fear.” The poor shepherds were beside themselves, frightened, alarmed, terrified by what they were seeing. When we think of it, this incarnation stuff is marked by fright, change, and disruption, and we haven't even talked about Herod who was “greatly troubled” (2:3), nor the plight of Joseph and Mary who, after the birth of Jesus, were forced to flee from Herod's wrath to Egypt and later Nazareth. This act of God meant there was no going home for Joseph and Mary (Mt.2:21ff.). Their world was turned upside down. When we truly read the Gospels, we find that the coming of God tended to rock people's worlds and, at least in the immediate term, not in a good way.
As we look further, however, the angels proclaimed, “Peace on earth.” And we who know the rest of the story can see it. But we have to think that in the immediate term, this peace was not an easy peace, it was a peace that would come only after a great deal of struggle, disruption, and difficulty. Perhaps, too, when we think of it, we should expect nothing less from the coming of God. God, after all, comes to set right things that are messed up, things that need to be changed, and transformations rarely happen without some sort of disruption and trouble.
The American preacher, William Willimon tells a story of a woman whose husband walked out on their marriage. He left Alice and the kids with barely enough money to make it through the week. Alice did not have a job; she had left her former employment when the twins were born. What on earth was Alice to do now?
Willimon said that he was proud to say that her church moved into action. Volunteers stepped up to help with child-care. People quietly made financial contributions. By early December, Alice had a job and things were beginning to look up.
“My new world is much more demanding than my old world,” Alice told her pastor. “I loved the old world. I thought that was the best I could do. When that world came apart, I thought I was going to die. But the new world I've been given is so much better than the old world I thought I had to have. In fact, my divorce may be the best thing God has given me yet.”
That is quite a statement - that a divorce and spouse's abandonment may be “the best thing God has given … yet.” But, perhaps, Alice is right too. Time and time again, we see people go through the darkest valleys in life and come out of it as bigger, better persons. And it is, perhaps, into the toughest aspects of life that God comes and does his work. However, we may be getting the cart before the horse here for in the Christmas narrative it is God who is the prime mover into the lives of those who are a part of it. It is the act of God coming into the world that evokes change and disruption in people's lives. Indeed, one wonders if we should expect anything less, for the NT speaks of rebirths, new minds, and being new creations when God comes. When God comes, transformations happen.
One thinks of the life of Charles Colson. Educated at Brown and George Washington School of Law, he served as a Captain in the Marine Corps before joining the staff of the Assistant Secretary to the Navy. He started a law firm in Boston and Washington at the same time as he became involved in politics at both state and federal levels. In 1969 he rose to become Special Counsel for the President and for four years served in a wide capacity, even earning the title, “the president's hatchet man” for his ability to be ruthless in terms of getting things done. Colson had power at his fingertips when Watergate occurred and the fall of President Nixon. In the midst of it all, however, God came to Charles Colson. Tom Phillips, chairman of the board of Raytheon Company spoke to Colson about Christianity and gave him C. S. Lewis's book, Mere Christianity, to read. It made sense to him. He wanted to know more. He joined a prayer group but just as his faith was getting going, he learned that he was to face charges, not for anything related to Watergate even though he had been named as one of the Watergate Seven, but he was charged with obstruction of justice in another case. In 1974, Colson was imprisoned.
But something had happened to Colson during those months. God had indeed come, and his new faith grew and grew. Even in prison, his life changed and what had been a life lived for self and power and the nation, turned into a life lived for God. When Colson got out of prison, he was concerned for the spiritual well being and needs of the prison population. So he started an organization called Prison Fellowship. That organization has grown and grown and is now active in many countries throughout the world. As he ministered, Colson became a sought after Christian speaker and author. His work began to be recognized and he has gone on to receive 15 honorary doctorates and the prestigious Templeton Prize in Religion given to a person who “has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension.” God came and rocked Charles Colson's world. As he moved from the heights of power to the depths of languishing in a prison cell, God was at work. There was struggle, disturbance, but as Colson himself would say, God had something greater in mind.
… And God had something greater in mind in the events around the first Christmas and as we enter another Christmas time, my prayer for us is that God would indeed come to give us peace and joy, even that peace and joy that comes from having our lives rocked by God's intrusive presence. Watch out for that presence. God's advent may bring disruption, it may bring change, but it may also be the making of us as God works out greater purposes in the world. Amen