Wakeful Night: Rahab and Mary

Transcription

1 George A. Mason First Sunday of Advent Wilshire Baptist Church 30 November 2014 First in a series Noche de Paz Dallas, Texas Wakeful Night: Rahab and Mary Joshua 2:1-15; Luke 2:26-38 Some of God s best work is done at night. I m not sure why that is, but we might find hope in that truth at this time of year, when the light grows shorter and the nights longer. Our theme for Advent this year is Noche de Paz, literally Night of Peace, but more commonly translated Silent Night. All the more reason to learn to see in the dark by the coming light of the one who himself is the Light of the world. We will look into two Bible stories of God s good night work during each of the four Sundays in Advent and on Christmas Eve. Today we look at the stories of two women Rahab and Mary with particular attention to the virtue of wakefulness that led them to be agents of God s grace. We have just made it through another Black Friday. The day is suffering from mission drift, I tell you. I remember when Black Friday was just a normal day after Thanksgiving before it had a name associated with retail shopping. (By the way, it s called Black Friday because merchants hope to do so well on this day that their yearly income statements end up in the black that is, with profits rather than losses, which in the old days of handwritten ledgers used to be marked in red, though now we use minus signs or parentheses. Your Accounting 101 lesson for the day, don t you know?!) Nowadays Black Friday isn t just a shopping day; it s a liturgical mini-season worshipers bring their offerings to the gods of commerce, even lining up days ahead to get the best pews in secular sanctuaries. It s become a kind of holy week that starts before Thanksgiving and extends all the way to Cyber Monday. People used to camp out in pup tents in front of Walmart or Best Buy on Thanksgiving night, hoping to be first in line for bargains when the store opened at 8:00, then 6:00, then 4:00, then midnight on Friday morning. Now many are opening at 5:00 on Thanksgiving night. Alas. So this week two U.S. Army veterans who served in Iraq got the jump on everyone else in a New Jersey suburb. Cousins Julio Garcia and Raul Renteria started camping out in front of the Best Buy in Woodland, N.J., about midday on Tuesday for the 5

2 p.m. opening on Thanksgiving night. The snow and freezing temperatures didn t deter them. From their military tours they knew about living out of tents and eating rations. The sacrifice was no big deal, considering the payoff. They were waiting wakefully for the big deal they would get on big-screen TVs. Being here, they said, it s like second nature to us. A lot of people are lazy. Besides, I think we re all going to have to live like this someday anyway. Might as well get started. 1 Well, now, there are so many things I could say about that, but let s just take a cue from them and say that we might as well get started living wakefully. How can we make an Advent spirit of wakefulness second nature to us, when the temptation all around us is toward spiritual laziness? Rahab and Mary will be better guides than Julio and Raul for our purposes. At first you might think them an odd pairing, these two women. Rahab is a lady of the night, a woman of ill repute. Mary is beyond reproach. Rahab has known many men, and Mary none. And yet somehow each 1 oodland_park_best_buy.html found favor with God; each was able to perceive God s intent to use them, and each put everything on the line to be advocates for the future they sensed was coming with or without them. There are three qualities of their wakefulness that I would highlight for you today: alertness, acceptance, and action. Alertness first. The shopping cousins were right about so many people being lazy, but that also includes spiritual laziness. Alertness is a critical component of spiritual wakefulness. It s why we have Advent devotionals to read daily during the month. We are trying to combat the somnambulism of our everyday lives where we are virtually sleepwalking through life, eyes closed to God s presence and activity in the world. You will never be ready for the spectacular good news of what God is bringing about in the world unless you go conscious that is, unless you open your mind in wonderment of what is happening and what might happen. To be wakeful is more than not falling asleep to God, though; it s being able to imagine the possibilities of a new day. 2

3 This is also what happens during this shopping season. Merchants are selling you on the idea that you can be a new person because of what you can buy. They know how hard it is to get our attention. The advertising Rule of Three is instructive here. The goal is one, cognition; two, desire; and three, behavior. Once they get our attention, it takes three more times to create the desire to act on it. It was said in pre-internet times that it took about 13 ads to get enough awareness to move the process forward. I imagine that 13 has become more like 113 these days. But this is why we come to church in part to train our minds on the story of God, to be alert to what God might be doing in the world and even to know what to look for. Rahab was a part of the oldest profession in what is sometimes called the oldest city in the world Jericho. She was probably more informed about what was going on in the world than most people. She likely ran an inn where strangers would come through and stay, but like an Old West saloon, it had a special service upstairs for those who would pay a little extra. Madam Rahab had heard all the stories of what God had done for the people of Israel, leading them out of Egypt through the sea and giving them victories over the kings of the surrounding lands. While her Canaanite neighbors hearts melted in fear, Rahab was alert to the possibilities. She wanted to be part of what God was doing and to share in it. Likewise Mary, though much younger than Rahab when the angel visitor came to her home, was curious enough not to dismiss such talk about what God wanted to do in and through her. She was open-minded to it. She was alert to the possibilities, even if she didn t understand their implications. But alertness next has to be matched to acceptance. It s one thing to become aware of what God is up to; it s another to accept it personally. Wakefulness requires an open mind but also an open heart. We have to be willing to take in the Lord. Baptists know something about this language of spiritual hospitality. We often take about spiritual conversion as accepting 3

4 the Lord into our hearts or receiving Jesus into our lives. Rahab welcomed the spies of Israel into her brothel. It s hardly the same thing as a Baptist conversion, but in its own way it was an acceptance or a receiving of the God of Israel. That would have been a dangerous move in that day, one that her countrymen would have counted treasonous. But this is faith, after all: All faith in the one true God is an act of treason to all other gods. Mary teaches us that, too. Accepting the good news from the angel Gabriel that she would be with child by the Holy Spirit meant opening her heart to something that would eventually seem to violate the social and religious values of marriage purity. But there was a higher purity at stake here. Purity of heart a willingness to say yes to God, even if others would not understand. But finally, wakefulness involves alertness, which leads to acceptance, which leads to action. It s one thing to have a keen mind that is alert to God. It s another thing to have a tender heart that welcomes God s presence. It s another thing altogether to have busy hands that put that acceptance into action. Rahab didn t just believe in her heart and mind; she risked everything and saved her family in the process. She actively advocated for the spies, hiding them safely and lowering them from her window at the wall with a scarlet robe. Mary didn t just believe in her heart and mind; she risked everything by saying her Let it be to becoming the mother of the Christ. She was willing to bear the scorn of others and put her quiet life with Joseph on the line for the sake of the child of God. These two women were heroines of faith. And we know that both Judaism and Christianity have exalted them for it. The rabbis say that Rahab was one of the four most beautiful women in history something remarkable to attribute to a harlot. They say she married Joshua and was the ancestor of the prophet Jeremiah and the prophetess Huldah. In Matthew s genealogy Rahab is an honored ancestor of Jesus himself. And Mary what can you say about the woman whom Michelangelo carved in marble holding her dead son after his 4

5 death on the cross in that beautiful Pieta? This woman is held in such esteem worldwide that her devotees sometimes go overboard and raise her to a status in which she is worshiped, not just revered. These women are heralded because they acted. They understood that they would be criticized by those who were content to keep things the same. But they were alert and accepting of what they perceived God was trying to do in the world. Last week we witnessed an enormous range of emotion and reaction to what happened in Ferguson, Missouri, after the noindictment decision of Officer Darren Wilson for the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. I have loads of thoughts on the entire affair, but what I want us to focus on now is this: what is a Christian s duty in the face of circumstances like these? Are we going to play to our base, which tends to employ our basest instincts and keeps us a divided people? Or are we going to risk our comfortable tribalism and reach out to be peacemakers? One hopeful story concerns Lt. Jerry Lohr of the St. Louis Police Department, whose job it was to oversee security at the Ferguson Police Station. Unlike most of his white colleagues, Jerry refused to wear armor or other protective gear in dealing with protestors. He walked among them and talked to them, unarmed. In doing so, he has completely disarmed the crowds. Allowing people to talk on a oneon-one level does a lot as far as building bridges, Lieutenant Lohr said. They may not agree with what I m doing, but now they at least know my name and my face. I m human again. They realize that I m a person. I m not just a uniform. We have to bridge this gap. It s not going to happen overnight. This is going to be a long-term relationship, a longterm commitment that both sides are going to have to make. 2 That s the wakefulness we re talking about. It gives God something to work with. And that makes me hopeful about a better future. Instead of a perpetual night of unrest, it nurtures a noche de paz, an unending night of peace. 2 ficer-defused-eruptions-as-crowds-grewvolatile.html?smprod=nytcoreipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share 5