December 23, 2018 Luke 1:39-55 The Christmas Birthday Burden Michael Stanfield

Transcription

1 December 23, 2018 Luke 1:39-55 The Christmas Birthday Burden Michael Stanfield In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me: that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be * a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord. And Mary * said: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever. Words of God for the people of God. Let us pray. Gracious and living God bless these words and this story surround the birth of your son that it may cause something new to be born in us, we pray in Christ s name, amen. When is your birthday? When are your children s birthdays? Our two children the children of Janet and me were both born in December: Grace on December 7 th and Carl on December 23 rd. Yes, Carl, our oldest s birthday is today, just two days before Christmas. I remember when we decided we wanted to begin having children that it took about four months to six months until Janet finally got pregnant. So it wasn t like we were trying to have children at Christmas. We wanted children period; and when was whenever God saw fit to give them to us. We just felt blessed that getting pregnant was relatively easy for us, because we knew firsthand how hard it was for Janet s sister and her husband. Little did we know that lots of couples at that time were actually refraining from trying to have children during certain months of the year and so actually tried to plan exact months and even days when they might be born. Janet and I didn t even want to know the sex of our babies. Part of our joy was being surprised. Once Janet got pregnant, like most couples we were excited and overjoyed at the prospect of the birth of our first child. But the closer to Christmas we got, and the bigger Janet became, the more she heard things like, Being born so close to Christmas, your child is going to be cheated out of a birthday for the rest of his (or her) life, or Poor child being born so close to Christmas, of even (and I kid you not), How could you do this to a child giving it a birthday so close to Christmas?

2 About a year after Carl was born, we took the same approach to having Grace as we had with Carl - with almost the same result. Her due date was the end of November, so we didn t hear quite as much, although I do remember one woman, who had no idea of when Carl was born, saying, Being born during the holiday season is not so bad as long as it s not close to Christmas. Are Christmas birthdays a burden or are they a blessing? First let s talk about Jesus birthday. Nobody knows when his real birthday was. December 25 was chosen by the early church, several generations later, as a way to blunt the impact of Roman winter solstice celebrations. As the pagans celebrated the coming of the s-u-n, Christians celebrated the birth of the S-o-n of God. The people who are there at the true birthday of Jesus whenever that may have been know him very well indeed. The only family members mentioned are Mary and Joseph. Tipped off by an angel, hard-living shepherds stumbling down from their high pastures show up, along with an angelic army arrayed in the heavens (although, as far as we can tell only the shepherds saw them). So, the birth scene in a Bethlehem stable is astonishingly low-key and intimate, considering the fact that this birthday boy is the Savior of the world. And how do Mary and Joseph receive the child? Is his birth a joyous celebration, or is it a burden? It would appear to be a bit of both. Earlier, when Mary is still pregnant and visits her cousin Elizabeth, she sings with joy a birthday song that is an anthem of God s triumph over evil. But it is not without its dark themes the scattering of the proud, the fall of kings. What a burden she has to bear! Yet, what a blessing she discerns in the midst of it all. As for our children, I would be lying if I said that a minister having children at Christmas was completely without stress. But there have been special traditions that have come up precisely because our children s birthdays are in December. Janet always went way out of her way to make those days special and separate from Christmas. As a result, I can honestly say that both of our children feel blessed rather than burdened by the dates of their birth. In fact, Carl called us last night from Alabama to remind of that fact. I would have to say that most of those things that are perceived as a tremendous burden turn out to be precisely those things that give birth to the greatest blessings. On the one hand, Jesus birthday is a burden for Mary and Joseph, no doubt about it. The news of Mary s pregnancy during her betrothal period sets off a minor scandal. It nearly leads to a breakup of her relationship with Joseph. And, as so often happens with awkward pregnancies everywhere, Mary travels away from home for a while. Whether her parents arrange to have her sent away, or whether she undertakes the journey on her own, no one knows. It could very well be that everyone needs to get a little distance from each other to sort out this ambiguous news this mixture of joy and anxiety.

3 Fortunately for Mary, she has somewhere to go, a place where she can be assured of a warm welcome a place where her pregnancy is not seen as a burden but is celebrated. Her older cousin Elizabeth is also expecting. Whatever her neighbors in Nazareth may be whispering about her, she knows her cousin Elizabeth will welcome her with loving arms. And, in fact, Elizabeth receives her with the warmest possible greeting: Blessed are you... It s not the sort of thing people typically say to an unmarried teenage mother. No, the people around such a young woman are more likely to say, Cursed are you. Cursed are you, to have brought such a disgrace down upon yourself and upon your family. Elizabeth, however, has no such reservations. She welcomes her kinswoman with open arms. She blesses her. More than that, Elizabeth treats Mary as her social superior, despite their difference in age: Why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? she asks. The very fact that Elizabeth s own unborn child leaps in the womb is an early sign of what the adult John the Baptist will one day say of his cousin Jesus: He must increase, and I must decrease. Yes, both Mary and Elizabeth sense the blessing in this upcoming set of birthdays. No doubt about it. Between them, they have more than enough faith to see this thing through, giving life to both Jesus and John: two men who, between them, will change the world. It couldn t have happened, though, without the faithful vision of Mary and Elizabeth. For they understand as gift what the rest of world sees only as an awful burden. But you know, I understand: it s not always an easy thing to see Christmas as much more than a burden. In the Lion King the spiritual guide, a baboon named Rafiki says to Simba, who, upon peering into the waters of an oasis says with disappointment that he sees nothing but his own reflection, Look harder. And when Simba does, he sees the blessing of his father, the king, and understands his identity as a prince. In the same way, God s presence and promise can be seen even in what only moments ago felt like nothing but shallow merrymaking Faced with the onslaught of Christmas materialism, it s easy for good, Christian people to get discouraged about the holiday. And what do we do when we get discouraged? We complain. We complain about Christmas trees going up at Sam s and Lowes in September. We complain in all kinds of ways about how the Holy Day has been hijacked from a season of what often seems more like an opulent celebration of having things. But perhaps we are drawing too bold a line in the sand. For while these things may be true, if we let our distaste for yuletide materialism eclipse the spiritual meaning of Christmas, then the empty materialists have won. The birthday will indeed have become nothing but a burden. There are two ways to become burdened by the birthday of Christmas: We can simply surrender, giving in uncritically to shallow materialism, or we can invest so much energy being resentful or angry about it or the burden of it, that we lose track of what Christmas is really all about.

4 It would be far better to go through these last two days of Advent smiling with amusement at the inane foolishness of it all while we yet remain attentive to the true gold that glimmers just underneath it all. And it is there; no doubt about it; but it can only be discovered by those who truly and earnestly seek it. Barbara Brown Taylor is one of our finest contemporary American preachers. She has this to say about what traces of God we can glimpse in the world around us, if only we open our eyes. She says: The same pattern of rebirth that I learned in baptism showed up in everything from bathing to watering plants. The same pattern of relationship that I learned in communion was available in every meal eaten mindfully. The laying-on of hands took place as I held a crying baby or rubbed the shoulders of a tired friend. With a little oil, I could even offer the sacrament of a pretty good massage. When I walked outside and looked at the smoking compost heap, I saw a sacrament of death turning into life. When I used my little bottle of Wite-Out to correct a mistake, I remembered that my errors did not have to be permanent. Everywhere I turned, the most insignificant things in the world were preaching little sermons to me. Everywhere I turned, the world was leaking light. And how do we teach this sort of spiritual discernment to others? One mother I know has a rather wonderful way of teaching her children to be attentive to signs of God s activity around them. At the end of each day, instead of asking her young kids, How was your day? or something similar, she asks them instead, Where did you meet God today? And they tell her, one by one: a teacher helped me, there was a homeless person in the park, I saw a tree with lots of flowers in it. She tells them where she met God, too so that before the children drop off to sleep, the stuff of the day has become the substance of their prayer. We could do much the same thing ourselves in these swiftly-passing days before Christmas. If, as we move in and out of both the sacred and secular manifestations of the holiday, we only ask ourselves, Where am I to find God in this? we may be pleasantly surprised at precisely what we do find. At heart, even such inane movies as National Lampoon s Christmas Vacation have a deep yearning for the good, the kind, and the beautiful. Better to try and affirm the good that s present everywhere we look than to lose ourselves in griping and criticism. It s a sure-fire way to make the birthday a blessing rather than a burden. In the words of Luke, Blessed are you, O Mary, who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken... by the Lord. Blessed are you, as well, if you walk through these final days of Advent with eyes wide open to the signs of God s presence and God s promise all around! In closing, [Archbishop Desmond] Tutu always said, Working through ordinary people like Moses and Mary, God can and does accomplish extraordinary things. Tutu once drew laughter

5 from a congregation in a South African village as he reconstructed the exchange between the Angel Gabriel and Mary: Knock, knock. Come in. Hello, Mary. Hello. I m Gabriel, the archangel. Mm-hmm. God asks, Will you be the mother of his Son? And she says, Whhh-what? You know in this village, you can t scratch yourself without them knowing that you ve done so, and you re asking me to be what? An unmarried mother? No, no, no, no, no. I m a decent girl. Try next door. Tutu then says, We would have been in a real pickle had that been her reply. But, mercifully for us, she said, Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord. And God was able to accomplish a splendid work. The Incarnation could happen. Jesus could be born, and our salvation be set under way. Tutu then goes on to say: For God, you are someone who is indispensable. There isn t anyone quite like you. There isn t anyone who can both observe how God works and then serve God quite like you. There isn t anyone who can replace you. And God depends on you. Tutu ended by sharing that, an unsophisticated Russian priest once had a young, brash physicist rush up to him, and having lifted up all the normal arguments for atheism, the guy then says, And therefore, I don t believe in God! And the little priest, completely unphased, says, It doesn t matter. God believes in you. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in a sermon at the Cathedral of St. John in Providence, Rhode Island, February 20, 1999 (Episcopal News Service). God believes in you. Indeed. If Christmas has become a burden, remember God believes in you. If our culture has become a burden, remember, God believes in you. If those in power have become but a sickening reminder of how corrupt our system has become a burden, remember, God believes in you. If the way the marginalized are being treated has become a burden, remember God believes in you. How can I say this? because God believed in Mary and look what Mary had to say about her burden: From now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name...he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. Bearing the son of God to the world: indeed bringing any child into this world: is it a burden or a blessing? The way you answer that question means all the difference in how you decide to live. Let us pray. Loving God, help us to see the blessings in our burdens that we may be sources of blessings rather than burdens for others in your name. And now bless these gifts that they may translate those burdens into blessings. We pray in the name of the Christ, amen. (the original idea for his sermon came from homileticsonline December 2018)