"Transformed by Extravagant Welcome"

Sermon December 20 2015

Micah 5:2-5a

Luke 1:39-55

As I read today’s gospel text about Elizabeth and Mary, my mind was full of thoughts about the women in my family and I immediately began to realize the structure for relationship and connection that they had been. I struggle with some stories about family, kinship, connection, and generational family support in people’s story and in scripture because my family has experienced a lot of disconnect, especially after my grandmother died. I remember the days when we’d gather all together for holidays—and on summer vacation times—just to be together as a family. I’m sure I wasn’t aware as a child of all that it took to do that: all the shopping and cooking and cleaning. But I was aware of the laughter and tears and occasional shouting and arguments in the children and in the adults. We used to gather and find connection to one another through the agency of my grandmother and my aunts and uncles and parents, but after my aunts died, my mother died, and my grandmother died, it was very difficult to be connected to each other in significant ways. It was as if we lost the heart to do it anymore.

We lost the magnet that drew us together. Every single person wasn’t always there when we gathered, but when my matriarchs were alive, most were. They created within them and between them a net that caught us up and held us together, sometimes whether we wanted it or not. It was transformed for the worse when our main connection became more patriarchal and financial. What we had was a difficult thing to replace when it was lost—it may be impossible with some families.

So, sometimes I wonder we need to stop trying to recapture the past and instead create a new kind of connection for the future based in love and relationships that may include family and expand relationship and hospitality means.

That doesn’t mean that we can’t have relationships where people in families are connected to one another. It does reminds us that the kinds of connections we have in families and beyond are more fragile than we seem to act and that every kind of relationship takes work. We cannot take one another for granted, but live and act knowing that every bond and every gathering and every system of relationships we build must contain a very deep sense of hospitality and actions of extravagant welcome.

Within our particular faith system, we celebrate a tradition of extravagant welcome within the teachings of the Bible and within the traditions of our Christian faith to greater and lesser degrees over time.

We may not think of the teachings of the first testament of the bible when we think about hospitality and welcome or inclusion of many kinds of people in communities. But not only does the law provide for those born outside of the tribes of Israel, there were often times that God’s call to the people was very wide. The prophets saw God working in all kinds of people and called leaders and those with power to treat the poor, no matter who they were, with justice and mercy.  That’s just to say that hospitality didn’t start in the New Testament; it was and is a matter of survival and joy for people who live in a harsh environment and really for us all.

The story we read in today’s gospel lesson—a lesson that includes both a story and a song—is about what happened in Mary’s life right after God called her to be the mother of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Mary and Elizabeth create a mutually supportive commu­nity, which in turn acknowledges ties to a communal his­tory. Their brief, but meaningful encounter in today’s scripture creates a picture of the community and family into which Jesus would be born. Just before this text, Mary meets Gabriel who tells her that she has been chosen to bear the child of God, born of the Holy Spirit, and she agrees, “Let it be done to me as you say. Then a few days later, she left and went quickly to a town in Judea where Elizabeth and Zechariah lived.

We can speculate about why Mary left Nazareth so quickly, but it’s probably not too strange an act considering that she just found out that she, a single young woman, found out that she was going to have a baby. It may be a situation we don’t worry too much about here today (whatever our level of approval), but one that just a few decades ago would have been a scandal full of shame and in Mary’s day it was a family, faith, and cultural problem for her that might have been fatal. We have legends and stories about Mary’s parents, but nothing in the bible that names them. If I were looking at this like a story from my family, I’d say that it looks as if she went to Elizabeth for a more sympathetic face—one that could see her situation with a little more objectivity and distance than her mother and father might have. We are only told that Elizabeth is a kinswoman with no clear relationship, but I know that there were times that my sister or an aunt or older cousin was a much less judgmental face than either of my parents.

Mary may have known from prior experience that Elizabeth would provide her welcome, time, and space to understand her situation without parental pressure for explanations or decisions. Sometimes those we know best, daughters, sons, grandchildren, parents, close friends are judged more critically because of our disappointment or how their situations cause us pain. 

When we speak or act out of a belief or story that our church is a family, we sometimes carry the same kinds of expectations, disappointments, and assumptions we have learned in our families. We might have learned who to welcome and who to reject and in church we have to learn to welcome all or we might experience the different kinds of judgment or welcome that we and others have learned in all of our families.

Certainly the pregnant Elizabeth’s reaction to Mary and her pregnancy was a matter of faith—yet I also think it was a matter of knowing how much Mary needed her radical welcome, embrace, and approval. Mary needed her blessing and she got it in ABUNDANCE! Elizabeth greets Mary with three blessings: “blessed are you among women,” “blessed is the fruit of your womb,” and “blessed is she who believed.”

While she certainly was a supportive family member and maternal/feminine role model and figure; Elizabeth acts a prophet here. Elizabeth loved God, and she loved Mary. She was a prophet of the Most High, for she prepared the way for Mary to praise God. I can imagine and this text feels like Elizabeth’s words created a way for Mary to be grateful, exuberant, and full of anticipation in her pregnancy and not just obedient and willing to serve God’s will. The second would have been adequate, but to be an eager participant in God’s plan of salvation and life made God even more present to all those involved.

Mary’s life—body, mind, and soul—was changing radically with the birth of her child. What she taught him and how her life was centered was important, I would say vital, to all that Jesus would accomplish in his life. With this initial blessed welcome and embrace of her situation by Elizabeth, Mary sang her song of God’s salvation; a song that would be echoed in Jesus’ teachings, especially his first teaching in Nazareth where he read that the blind would see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and the imprisoned would be free.

Elizabeth’s welcome ushered in Mary’s embrace of her pregnancy, which in turn led to her song of praise to God:

⁴⁶ My soul magnifies the Lord,
⁴⁷   and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
⁴⁸ for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
   Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
⁴⁹ for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
   and holy is his name.
⁵⁰ His mercy is for those who fear him
   from generation to generation.
⁵¹ He has shown strength with his arm;
   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
⁵² He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly;
⁵³ he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty.
⁵⁴ He has helped his servant Israel,
   in remembrance of his mercy,
⁵⁵ according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
   to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

The birth of Jesus happened in the life of one young woman who lived in Nazareth; it happened in the lives of Mary’s family and friends, yet it also happened in the midst of the Roman occupation and oppression of the lands called Galillee, Judea, and in Ephrathah and Judah. And it happens to us as we accept and extend the extravagant welcome of the Elizabeth and Mary in our story.

And God’s promises are brought to life as we and others live out the presence of Christ in our lives and live Christ’s presence for all that it means.

It might mean embracing a young woman who might be rejected by some for her radical decisions and desire to thrive. She and others might need to throw off a family’s well-meaning, but restrictive expectations. We can create a situation for Jesus to be present in our lives and in the lives through our welcome and hospitality within our families and certainly within our churches. In our welcome and hospitality, we reveal our love and God’s love like Elizabeth, like a prophet, like one who sees the power of love and makes it real in others’ lives.

Mary’s song, the ‘Magnificat,’ invites us to be and become a community that celebrates God’s will for justice, hospitality, and peace. Mary sings the story of how the world changes for the good of all – there are still lowly ones to be lifted up and there are still thrones of power in need of bringing down. May we follow Elizabeth’s blessing and embrace how God is transforming us, our community, and our world.

To the glory of God this day and always. Amen.

"Born of Fire"

Sermon  December 6, 2015

Malachi  3:1-4

Luke 1:68-79

God, we turn to you for the peace that we cannot find by ourselves. We want to live in your light as your beloved children. Open our ears to the prophets of scripture and to the prophets in our midst. Lead our feet in the ways of peace that we may walk more and more closely with you. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our rock and our redeemer. Through the Prince of Peace, we pray. Amen.

For hundreds of years in the early church there was no celebration of Jesus’ birth. People worshiped on the first day of the week for a weekly celebration of the resurrection where they celebrated the Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper or Communion and when they remembered Jesus’ crucifixion around the time when the Jewish people celebrated Passover.

For a long time, people didn’t commemorate Jesus’ birth. There is no story about Jesus’ birth in Mark’s gospel or in John’s gospel. But after a few hundred years, a bishop or two decided to create a celebration of the birth and God’s incarnation in Jesus. And to prepare for this celebration, as Christians prepare for the remembrance of Jesus’ death and resurrection, there was to be a time of preparation—a time to think about Jesus’ coming: yesterday, today, and forever. So Advent began as a little Lent. A time to discipline ourselves, deny ourselves, and repent of our sins as we prepare for a terrific joy when God erupts into the world in a howling baby.

In our world (and in the ancient world, to some extent) Advent as a time of preparation has competition with the chipper, exuberant, fun of Christmas music and celebration. Events usually cleansed of specific religious content, though chock full of fun and sentimental anticipation or remembrance. And celebration is great! Advent can be joyful; it is also pensive, penitent, and a call to prepare. And not for dinner, gift-giving, or company. We are called to prepare our lives for the presence of Jesus by getting rid of or allowing God to get rid of the worst of who we are.

In the book of Malachi, which means “messenger,” we receive a message that most would not consider terribly cheerful, but some understand to be a necessary way of getting ready for joy, health, wholeness, peace, grace, love, serenity, contentment to come. God’s messenger comes to call people to repentance—to call, in this prophetic book, specifically the “Sons of Levi,” the priests and other servants of the temple to repent of anything that stands in their way of standing before God in the temple.

And in the New Testament, as people await the Messiah, as wait for the story of Jesus’ birth and the story of his life, we hear about the Messenger—the prophet—the preacher of repentance who will get people ready to stand before the Son of God as God sends Jesus with his teachings, his love, his life, and his death and resurrection into the world. On this day of preparation and anticipation, when we still await Jesus, then, now, and into some future, we hear from the father of another baby.

All of the gospels tell us that John the baptizer leads in the ministry of Jesus. In Luke’s gospel we hear about his family, too. His father was Zechariah, a priest who served in the temple in Jerusalem. All the priests rotated in to their duties, as I understand it, and 9-10 months before our scripture he’d been serving in the Holy of Holies/the inner sanctum/the place of the altar and sacrifice. And as he served, a terrible angel appeared to him and he was afraid.

This is another clash of culture we get from the Christmas celebration and cards. Angels, according to every reaction described in the scriptures, weren’t all that friendly looking or seeming. Here and elsewhere, the first things most people did when accosted by an angel was shake and nearly pass out.

So in our Advent preparation story, Zechariah heard—from this scary angel—that he and his wife were going to conceive and have a son that he would name John. And he would be like the nazarites, not drinking wine or other spirits. He would have the power of the Holy Spirit to call people to repent from their sin. But Zechariah was doubtful and the angel made him unable to speak until John was born—actually until John received the name the angel gave him.

And that’s the story that Luke tells, even before he tells the story of Jesus’ birth—even before he tells the story about the angel visiting Mary to announce his birth—Luke prepares us to be prepared by repentance, even before he prepares us to prepare for the birth of the Savior. We don’t have to stay all frowny faced and judgemental, like the words of Malachi can feel, but we do have a call to prepare, to realize what it is that God was/is/will accomplish through the people God calls.

In the time when Jesus was about to be born, life was difficult for the Jewish people--life was often difficult for them. The Hebrew people, throughout their history, experienced “the hands” of foreign domination: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks and – in the time of Jesus – Rome. All had their effect on the suppression of culture, religious traditions, and a sense of peace. They felt, at these times, unable to serve God freely and fully.

They were looking, as they had always been looking, for the fulfilment of God’s promises to Israel. Zechariah, as a priestly servant, as a man steeped in God’s word and ritual knew this and when, finally, his son was born, he saw in him—as Mary saw in this first part of Luke—God’s action, God’s breaking into the world through these two infants that God had sent and that God would call.

Sometimes, we think we are too old, too young, too inexperienced, or not smart enough to be able to be a good servant of God. We think that is a job for someone else to do and not something we can accomplish. When we think of prophets, we think of people who look and act very different from us. But in the gospel, we have a husband and wife who are simply living out their marriage—Elizabeth and Zechariah—and their son, John, born and then called to be a prophet. The texts today invite us to put on the robe of the prophet and see how it fits. God wants us to embrace our special role as messengers who will deliver God’s word and light to people who are in need.

Imagine Zechariah’s joy at the birth of his son. He holds his child in his arms and he sings praises to God. He doesn’t just trust in what God has done in the past to save his people from those who want to do them harm. He sees God’s promise for the future in his newborn baby. Zechariah knows that God is not just the God of his ancestors but that God is God of the today and tomorrow, and makes a prophecy about his son.
What might God be calling you and me to do? What kinds of oppression to we live under in today’s world? I think we live under various kinds of oppression, some of it that concerns more of our personal lives and more that causes pain, suffering, and even violence in our culture and world. Zechariah’s song concerned how God was addressing the kinds of societal oppression and suffering that suppressed the Hebrew people and many nations in all times and places.

On this day, the first thing that comes to my mind is the oppression stemming from the violence of the past few weeks. As we mourn deaths committed by people with guns in places that are undeclared warzones, I believe we are called to stand up and speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves. Let us speak for those most recently dead and for those thousands since the victims of elementary school children at Sandy Hook Elementary.

We may not be under the oppression of a foreign power like the Assyrians, Babylonians, or like the Romans, but I feel a persecution from a culture that reacts to violence with violent desires of retribution instead of the ways that Jesus has taught us to react. The birth and then the teachings of John the baptizer paved the way for Jesus’ teachings by telling us to repent. The words of God in Malachi teach us that there are ideas in our lives that have to be burned away, washed away, to make our lives the valuable things with worthy purposes that they can be.

Reacting to violence with violence shows us and everyone that we are afraid of the violence.  If we are blind to how fear oppresses us, we are no less oppressed. We are agreeing to the fear, agreeing to the process of violence against violence, instead of seeking out answers, responses, or actions that produce less fear and better futures.

Imagine your own parent holding you in his or her arms and looking into your newborn face, as you hear these words:  You, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare the way.

What is God preparing you to do; to be?
Maybe God calls you and me to speak up against violence. Maybe God is calling us to speak up for the children of this community and our surroundings whose educational futures are getting more and more precarious because our state government can’t agree to pay for it. Maybe God is calling us to speak up for the sake of the lowest wage earners who will suffer most if social security and retirement ages are raised because those with lower incomes live shorter lives. Maybe God is calling you and me to really see the living conditions of those whose lives are marked by the chaos of poverty and look beyond the mess and see that it isn’t more responsibility that is needed but more support and compassion. Maybe God is calling us to open our eyes to a life without fear of other humans and a life full of love for God and all of God’s children.

Imagine that this parent looks at you and says, “You will tell God’s people about forgiveness of sins.” What word of grace might God be wanting you to share with another?
Yes, we have done things that need to be forgiven. And God forgives without hesitation everything and anything that we have done or will do. Can we look into the eyes of the criminal, the sinner, the annoying and the messy, the irresponsible, the addict, and the life without hope and embrace the person, the human being that lives that life.

Because of our God’s deep compassion, the dawn from heaven will break upon us, to give light to those who are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide us on the path of peace.

Who do you know that could use God’s light in their lives? Where is there brokenness that you may be the one to bring healing?
Maybe it’s your life that could use a little of God’s light and maybe there are few people who can see it. Maybe you know someone else who could use your support and encouragement and you have a little light to share. If you help light their candle, there is more of God’s light to shine.

If you are broken, if you need time to heal, if you need someone to listen and to care, then call upon God and appeal to the church as your community of love to help. If you can see the brokenness and you can sit with the hurting—you don’t have to have solutions or special powers, the presence of God’s people is enough.

Zechariah’s song—often called the Benedictus—announces with a past tense kind of certainty that God has already kept God’s promises to Israel. And then as he looks at his newly born son John he sings the promises of God for a “kin-dom,” a dawning, a pathway, full of the lovingkindness of God’s own heart. It’s a big promise to hang on a new little one—but there’s a bigger promise about to be hung on another little one, another tiny child soon to be born.

The season of preparation—a birth by fire—of Advent—and the seasons of life—are full of collisions of joy and sorrow, love and painful transformation; sorrow at the way things are; joy at the world God is bringing; love in the eyes of our heavenly parent; and transformation in a rebirth of ourselves and our communities. Advent is a reminder to see that all are happening in our worship and in our world and in our hearts. As our holy parent looks at us and speaks to us with joy and hope, may we hear and know the expectations and gifts and love we are being given.

To the glory of our ever-living, ever-loving God. Amen.