Before I begin, I want to once more say thank you to the four who offered their reflections this Advent season: Karen, Casper, Charlie and Anna.
Advent is truly one of my very favorite seasons here – it is incredible to me how each year members of this community agree to offer part of their story to us. They share where they do or don’t find God in their lives. They are vulnerable and wiling and their stories change us – connect to our stories and help us to grow in our own relationships with the Divine.
So, thank you.
Throughout Advent, some of us have been gathering at 4pm to consider a study written by theologian Walter Brueggeman. Over the four week we read the prophesy in Isaiah chapter 9, of one who is to come who will be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. We thought about what the implications of these titles were and how Jesus may or may not have lived into them.
While we cannot with any reliability assume that Isaiah predicted the birth of Jesus, these are titles that we use in talking or thinking about Jesus the Christ, (with thanks in part to Handel’s Messiah).
Those of us on this side of the story know that the way in which Jesus may or may not have lived into any of those titles was not as anyone would have expected. This Messiah came to show us how to live and to help bring life to those who had previously been prevented from living fully.
Most often names that include Prince or Mighty or Everlasting, accompany one who has achieved their status through might or means or maybe even cohersion.
This was not that.
Together we considered questions that I think bear asking in the wake of the celebrations of the beginning of Jesus life and ministry. And maybe even as we come to the close of one year and anticipate the beginning of another – as we consider possible resolutions or things we might like to give up or take on.
So I’ll read some of the questions that Bueggeman used to set the tone for our conversations and I’d like to invite you to just notice what you hear or what stands out for you:
Questions such as:
- What might a new regime that displaces the order of violence and extortion, look like?
- How did (or does) Jesus threaten the established order?
- How should the church threaten the established order?
- How might we practice the authority that Jesus gives to his disciples to cure the sick?
- How do we see the church displaying the power of God today?
- How do you experience the abiding power of a Mother or Father God in church?
- How are we paying the consequence for neglecting foreigners and those who might be considered ‘weaker’ members of society?
- If we are peacemakers who resist empire, how to we live forgiveness? Share generously? Break class stratification? Attend to the vulnerable? Show humility? Deny ourselves for the sake of our neighbours?
These are hard and uncomfortable questions that can have big implications for us and our lives and the lives of our neighbours, if we live into them.
Today in Matthew, we hear the rest of the story. The after everyone goes home, after the Magi have found their way and gone home by another route, and the implications of the birth of this child begin to settle in.
This child who – as the story goes- was born to parents willing to risk their reputations (Joseph) and possibly their lives (Mary)– in order to bring them into this world; a world which even today so badly needed/needs them.
Tonight, those implications are made clear to us.
This child is dangerous to the powerful. This life scares the rich, the king, even to the point that he is willing to take drastic measures in order ensure his own security and end the possibility of what this child might do.
There is no getting around it, this story tells us, the Jesus story has big and scary and messy implications.
And Rachel wept for her children and she could not be consoled. Rachel, who If we recall the story from Genesis, in chapter believed her whole worth was in giving her husband a son and who in chapter 35 dies while giving birth to her son Benjamin, according to scripture in Bethlehem. Rachel, who reminds us that all babies are important and beloved and deserve protection.
Children, babies mean so many different things to people, depending on your culture or possibly status. But always new babies are new life, new possibility, a new way of being, a new human who may just change everything. A new human who will live into whatever mess those who came before, have created and find their own way or challenge us all to a new way.
And THIS baby – this baby was so scary that, according to the ruler of the day, all new possibility, new life had to be destroyed.
And this story, is also a reminder of the power of our dreams. This is the second time in this story where Joseph has been spoken to by God in a dream. The first telling him to stay with Mary. That this child was important and that Mary had been chosen as the bearer of this life. And now, God speaks again to tell Joseph to get up and get out of town. To keep them safe.
There is incredible risk and effort that goes into ensure that this baby first makes it into the world and then lives.
This child, what he represents is important and we are to pay close attention to what will follow.
Questions and the implications of the answers, new life and all of the possibility that it holds and dreams and visions.
All of these things, if we choose to engage them, encourage us to take a good look around and consider what difference the birth of this child, the celebrations that surround it make to our lives as we step out, after everyone goes home.
This is not just some idealized story about a baby who never cries (I’d bet Mary would have a different version of away in a manger, if she we here and we could ask her) or a child who was always good – as all good Christian children ‘should’ be – (again I think Mary would have a different version – I think there is no chance you could be as outspoken as Jesus was as an adult and not be a little precocious as a child) – but that is probably a different sermon…
This is a story about how a new life threatened the established order, scared the powerful, even to the point of taking drastic measures and what the implications of that life are for us who claim to be followers of his way – because of how he might live into those titles: Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father.
My worry is that Rachel continues to cry for her children and she will not be consoled until we hear her cries and seek to make safer the world around us for them.
How do we engage one another as a result of what we learn about Jesus, and listen to his teachings about raising up the powerless and sharing with and loving our neighbours. What are the questions that we need to ask ourselves and talk about because we have implicated ourselves in this dangerous story?
What difference does it make for us?
And what dreams come to you? What do you hear God inviting you into? Where do you hear God’s voice, if you do? Who might you help be kept safe? Who are we as a church being called to keep safe?
Because make no mistake, the powerful still have power and new life is still in danger.
The Jesus story is one of beauty and danger. And this is our story. And it holds for us the invitation to come and hear and see and then, like the magi – to go home by another way – changed by what we have seen and refusing the expectations that have been set by the established order that surrounds us. Ready to protect one another and to refuse to be taken in by the order of the day.
So let me read those questions to you once more and then I’ll sit down and as we prepare to live into a new year and a new way once more, tell me, what stands out for you?
- What might a new regime that displaces the order of violence and extortion, look like?
- How did (or does) Jesus threaten the established order?
- How should the church threaten the established order?
- How might we practice the authority that Jesus gives to his disciples to cure the sick?
- How do we see the church displaying the power of God today?
- How do you experience the abiding power of a Mother or Father God in church?
- How are we paying the consequence for neglecting foreigners and those who might be considered ‘weaker’ members of society?
- If we are peacemakers who resist empire, how to we live forgiveness? Share generously? Break class stratification? Attend to the vulnerable? Show humility? Deny ourselves for the sake of our neighbours?
