 By David Sund, Lay Preacher
I love it when the lectionary brings us to Luke for Advent and Christmas. We’re given a fresh opportunity to see the seasonal stories from Mary’s point of view. It’s in Luke that we meet Elizabeth and Anna at Christmas time, and later we are introduced to Lazarus’ sisters, Martha and Mary. This gospel and it’s companion piece, the book of Acts, present a host of 1st century women who are passionate, three dimensional characters who speak and act and participate in Jesus’ inner circle. They articulate their feelings honestly, offer insightful conversation and model admirable responses to crises. Last week we were reminded that the heavenly messenger Gabriel has delivered earth shattering news to the teenage Mary from No-wheres-ville, Galilee (A.K.A. Nazareth). God was taking the initiative: it was Messiah-time and Mary was chosen to be an un-wed teen Mom who would give birth to that Messiah. Mary, as a virgin, is first and foremost, confused! Whatever else she might be afraid of, she’s not afraid to express her confusion! Gabriel gives her a quick course in incarnational theology, and, as if to emphasize the Point that God is in the Miracle business, Gabriel tells Mary that her cousin Elizabeth, quite elderly and previously incapable of having children, is now six months pregnant. At this point Mary consents to a plan in which she has had no say, probably well aware of what the future held: disapproval, gossip, scandal, ridicule, and possibly much worse! This costly consent has inspired countless sermons. I find it amazing that there’s no hint of resentment or resistance. Wouldn’t most of us push back at someone else, unilaterally making risky plans for our lives? I have much more in common with the reluctant Noah than the humble, accommodating Mary! First century Palestine was a dangerous time and place for anyone to be traveling… Patrols of entitled Roman soldiers, Bands of desperate rebel zealots, and ruthless highwaymen were all vying for advantage and control of the rough roads and empty spaces between the Galilean and Judean hill-towns. But Mary is willing to make the trek to cousin Elizabeth’s because she must see for herself. If Gabriel is telling the truth about Elizabeth, then maybe He can be trusted with this news that is about to change the entire trajectory of her own life. If anyone will believe this virgin-birth-business it will be the cousin with her own miraculous story to tell about a truly geriatric pregnancy. As Mary crosses the threshold it doesn’t take a trained midwife to observe that Elizabeth is indeed expecting! After a trip full of questions and emotional upheaval there is a glimmer of hope! When it comes to the mile-stone moments in our lives it is easy to become the stars of our own internal scripts. Isn’t it true that usually, we’re pretty ego-centric when it comes to our amazing, or horrific, or newsworthy head-lines? But Elizabeth is prompted to take a different path. As soon as she hears Mary’s “Shalom” she shifts the attention from herself and offers center stage to Mary. Elizabeth’s personal news is a big deal but her focus isn’t on her own BIG EVENT. With a nudge from the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth discerns that this average teenage girl is carrying an extraordinary child that will transform human history. There is a 400 year prophetic parenthesis between the last words of the Prophet Malachi, and the first words exchanged between Elizabeth and Mary. Malachi, the last of the Hebrew prophets had predicted the births of these two children. 400 years later these two women tie a bow on his message. Suddenly we have a new prophetic era and it all starts with two women, sensitive to the Spirit of God, while trying to make sense of their unusual circumstances. Elizabeth’s first word is the focus for the rest of this sermon. “Blessed!” “Blessed.” In other words, Elizabeth declares Mary happy. Mary shows up at her doorstep a confused, concerned, frightened teen. But Elizabeth, 6 mo. into her own miracles affirms the goodness and grace of God to them both. To paraphrase verse 45 of our text, “You will be sincerely, deeply, truely happy AS LONG AS you choose into the belief that God not just a maker of promises but a keeper of promises. Focus on the promises, not the circumstances, Mary, focus on the promises not the circumstances. Elizabeth IS NOT saying, Mary, you should be happy, or you will be happy but you ARE happy because, just by being here you proved that You take God seriously. In Elizabeth, Mary had found someone who not only accepted her, and opened her home to her, but more importantly, someone who blessed her. And that is all that Mary really needed, all that she was seeking, whether she knew it at the time or not. She just needed to be accepted, loved, and blessed by another. If you reflect on the Creation story, the very first thing that God did after creating Adam and Eve, was to bless them. God created them and then immediately blessed them. The Lutheran priest and author James Laurence puts it this way, “You might even say that God created them in order to bless them. And you might say the same for us...God created us to bless us and to love us; to be in a relationship with us; a relatioinship that is built on love, and filled with grace and mercy. There is nothing that God wants more than to bless us. Each and every one of us were born to be blessed. But, somewhere along the way, the brokenness of this world causes us to forget that we are blessed by God. That forgetting is the root of so many of our problems. Adam and Eve forgot they were blessed and focused on what they thought they didn’t have. And don’t we do that too? By focusing on what we don’t have, we forget that we are already blessed in countless ways. We need to cling to the truth that we are blessed to be a blessing. We are loved to love. We are forgiven to forgive. This world, even the person sitting next to you right now, is just like young Mary. This world, or that person next to you, shows up on our doorstep. Alone, scared, confused, desperate for someone to simply open the door and offer a blessing. Just as Elizabeth did for Mary all those years ago. Elizabeth didn’t change the world that day. She didn’t need to. All she had to do was to open her door, and offer a blessing. God would do the rest. And as Elizabeth said to Mary, in that tender scene, so I now say to you and to myself: Blessed are you who believe this. And may God bless you as you live out your blessing on the stage of the lives of those around you.” I’d like to close with a quote from Henri Nouwen’s book, Life of the Beloved. “To bless means to say good things. We have to bless one another constantly … In our society, so full of curses, we must fill each place we enter with our blessings. We forget so quickly that we are God’s beloved children and allow the many curses of our world to darken our hearts. Therefore we have to be reminded of our beloved-ness and remind others of theirs.” Amen.
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 by David Sund, Lay Preacher
Almighty and Loving God, by the power of Your Spirit, may the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, in Jesus’ name, Amen! I need your help doing a little Word Association exercise: First, I’ll turn up my hearing aids, now I’ll ask you to shout out your favorite word to describe Jesus: No sentences or phrases, just single words, please. O.K. Begin! What about Angry? Today’s Gospel reading is all about an Angry Jesus! (Time for a big Gulp!) And that brings me to a question. How do you and I ‘come’ to church? I’m not asking whether you drove, walked or peddled here. I’m not asking you show me your literal route with a Smart Phone app. When I ask, “How do you and I come to church?” I want us to examine our states of mind, the condition of our hearts… In everyone’s favorite books of the Hebrew Scriptures: Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy; every detail of the sacred space (The Tent of Meeting, or Tabernacle) was mandated and there were also lists outlining required minimum attendance. Jacob’s descendants were expected to make pilgrimage to the worship center at least three times a year: Passover, Pentecost (which in the Hebrew Scriptures is a harvest festival), and the Feast of Tabernacles. There were also confusing and exhaustive lists of observances and rites. Over 3,000 years later, modern, western folks like us perceive those practices as uncomfortably strange: (Especially if, like me, you can be a bit squeamish!) But careful study of all these details reveals an elaborate, exquisitely crafted symbolic system that provided object lessons about the nature and character of YHWH, and how God chose to relate to beloved children. Boil down the system to its essence, and you will discover a Deity who sought and instigated relationship with humanity. Here was a truly perfect, supernatural person, offering imperfect humanity a clear, accessible path of discovery and even intimacy. Here was a God who, even with all the dishes, flatware, furniture and drapery; modelled and inspired reconciliation, restoration, justice, integrity and community. Here was a Creator who promised to love, bless, sustain, heal, teach and listen. Each role and rite was an object lesson pointing to a present God who sought out fellowship. This fellowship expressed itself as a lifestyle of love, forgiveness, hope, peace, generosity, honesty, mercy and compassion. Not that the symbolism was always understood or taken to heart. More often than not the job of the prophets was to call for reformation, for renewed commitment, for course correction in the midst of crisis. While so much of Tabernacle and Temple life was prescribed, what wasn’t prescribed was HOW one CAME to worship. Then, in all those familiar Psalms, we finally discover that the state of one’s heart and mind doesn’t seem to matter at all! Fearful? Come to worship. Joyful and Celebratory? Come to worship. Confused and Doubting? Hurt and Offended? Bitter and Vindictive? Angry? Come to worship. Just Come, honestly, as we are, and an encounter with God will (sooner or later) sort it all out. God is enough and more than enough. Showing up at the Temple with honest, if raw emotion brings us back to the Angry Jesus in today’s Gospel narrative. Jesus and his friends arrive at the Temple. Elsewhere in the Gospels we’re told that Jesus’ friends loved this immense, campus: the beautiful, monumental architecture was a source of civic pride. But Jesus, being Jesus, sees beyond the façades and the civic pride and is eager to confront a textbook example of institutional religion run amok. Let me use our sacred space to illustrate what I mean by that. Imagine how you would feel, if you entered this beautiful space next week to find some serious changes that were both concrete and symbolic. How many of you, like me appreciate the reredos and the stained glass? Nope! They are obscured by a heavy tapestry and only the presiding bishop sees them once a year. A wall has been constructed, partitioning off the apse, so that the altar is accessible through a door that can only be entered by the priest in charge. All the pews have been taken out and another wall, with a gate in it, has appeared at about the spot where we are used to the Gospel being read. You can’t get through the gate unless you’re an Episcopalian, born and bred, baptized and confirmed, and male by DNA testing. Women and non-Episcopalians can enter the church but they can’t come through that gate. That’s strange enough, but on top of that some greedy forces are at work which make a God-Encounter all but impossible for women, gentiles and other designated ‘outsiders.’ Furthermore, the space in which they are confined has been co-opted. It’s best described as a commercial and financial circus. The powers that be, intent on institutional maintenance, and eager to line their pockets, insist that you pay for everything: your wafer, your sip from the cup; candles, leaflets, etc. Everything has a price tag. Pledges are due upon entering the narthex. Weirdly there is also a sort of wet-market with special livestock and poultry for sale if you want to celebrate any special occasion on-site. The kicker is that you can’t use regular currency or credit cards for all your purchases: you have to use special “Episco-dollars.” The exchange rate is exorbitant and exploitive. So only people of means can participate. Furthermore, the system isn’t up for debate. The amazing edifice was in danger of becoming a farce. Ritual and regulation have eclipsed relationship. Exclusivity has trumped invitation and community. Justice has been pre-empted by spectacle. Exploitation has commoditized souls. If this worship scenario is distasteful to us, then how could it be anything but infuriating to Jesus? It’s no wonder that Jesus goes all prophetic: turning over tables, liberating livestock, and going full-on Mosaic with the loan sharks. The narrative seems compelled to explain Jesus’ uncharacteristic lashing out with a quote from Psalm 69, “Zeal for Your House has eaten me up.” In which, the psalmist so identifies with God, that when God’s character is besmirched and God’s reputation is tarnished, especially in Temple Worship, the psalmist takes it personally and reacts from the deepest emotional level. What comes to mind when you hear that phrase, “zeal for your house has eaten me up?” Put another way, do you have an “all-consuming passion?” Is there something for which you would tap all cherished resources, exhaust your talents, and invest you time? Is there a dream or goal, with which, you are so identified that IF it’s questioned or challenged you take it personally? For Jesus, that personal investment was all about unimpeded access to, and relationship with, GOD. I suggest that in our text, the “House” of God is about more than just property and geography. The letters of Paul remind us that for Jesus-Followers, God’s precious house, about which Jesus is so passionate, has nothing to do with monumental architecture or institutional maintenance, and everything to do with being vibrant faith communities. Isn’t it awe-inspiring to realize that you, that I, that we are that Spiritual Temple that stirs up the protective passions of Jesus? But also, the text is a warning to honor Jesus’ passion by never trampling the sacred spaces that are the hearts of our spiritual siblings! We must never exploit the vulnerable, exclude marginalized seekers, extinguish the joy of the expectant, manipulate the religious system, commoditize souls, design hurdles to worship, or allow a lust for power or control to motivate “doing church,” or “being church.” Jesus, thank you for all your passions and grant us your passion for all your people! Amen. |