Will We Sing with Them?

Luke 1:39-55      

In the midst of everything else about this Christmas season, the secular attachments and the religious meanings; at the very center of it this is a story about women having babies. It’s about pregnancy and childbirth. And today we rest our minds on that.

In Luke’s gospel, it is a story about two women – Elizabeth and Mary – both finding themselves pregnant in the most unexpected circumstances. 

Elizabeth, older cousin to Mary and wife of the temple priest Zechariah, is too old for having babies. For Elizabeth, those years have passed and left her empty. She is barren, like other women we have seen in the scriptures: Sarah, the wife of Abraham; Rachel, the wife of Jacob; Hannah, the wife of Elkanah. All these women waited for their turn to come, while they watched their peers’ swelling bellies and glowing faces; they waited, while month after month they came up empty.

Yet, to each of these long-empty wombs, was given a child who would change the world: to Sarah was given Isaac, to Rachel was given Joseph, to Hannah was given Samuel. 

God made these women and men wait – and in God’s time and God’s place, they were given a child with God’s plans for them. This is the story of our faith. God will often bypass the expected in favor of the unexpected.

And there is Mary, young girl, wife of no one. Promised to Joseph, but not yet given to him, Mary is a woman with no worldly experience. Sure, she knows plenty about the harshness of the world – I have no doubt. Mary is a Jew in an occupied land. She has seen the intimidation tactics of the Roman soldiers. She knows how her people can suddenly, without warning or explanation, be forced to serve the soldiers by carrying their load for them. And she knows that at the slightest misstep her people can be charged with treason and crucified, their bodies left hanging for days to make sure every Jewish man, woman, and child is terrorized by the sight.

Mary is a young, unmarried woman, a nobody. She is a Jew in the Roman Empire, a nobody. She is a child of nobody, living in the outskirts of civilization. Mary is nobody.

She has no agency of her own, according to the laws of the society in which she lives. She is the property of her father, until such time as she becomes the property of her husband. And as a Jew in the empire, she is in many ways, property of the Romans. 

And then Mary, this nobody, is visited by an angel of God and told that she will bear a child, who will be great – the son of the most high! This is the story of our faith. God will so often bypass the somebodies in favor of the nobodies.

Elizabeth and Mary. Two women who have no reason to expect anything, yet God has seen them. And God has lifted them and blessed them.

Mary runs from her home in Nazareth to Judea, to Elizabeth. It seems the better part of wisdom that she did. In spite of the equanimity in her response to the angel – let it be with me according to your word– her head must have been reeling. What does an unmarried teenage girl in ancient Palestine do with this news? Does she imagine her parents will receive it joyfully? Or her fiancé, Joseph? Or anyone in her community? No. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Mary chooses to flee.

She probably joined a caravan of people traveling south toward Jerusalem. That would have been the prudent thing to do – no one with any sense would have taken the journey alone. She would be vulnerable to bandits or maybe soldiers, who would have seen a young girl alone as easy prey. But there is some safety in numbers, as so many others have learned. In a caravan, travelers have the shelter of one another.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth is in her sixth month of pregnancy. No doubt she is feeling all the discomfort and the fatigue of carrying a child, especially in her older body. No doubt, she is, even so far along, still feeling this is too good to be true. Will it last? Will she really give birth to a healthy baby? 

Yet, I am also sure Elizabeth is quiet about any doubts she might harbor. Months ago, her husband Zechariah was visited by the same angel who came to Mary and was told his wife Elizabeth would conceive and bear a child. Hearing this, Zechariah blurted out the equivalent of “I doubt that.” And the angel said, “Ok then, we don’t need to hear any more from you.” Zechariah was struck dumb. For the duration of Elizabeth’s pregnancy Zechariah would be mute, so Elizabeth was enjoying a quiet gestation.

And there she is, Elizabeth, in this quietness, this stillness; and Mary steps through her door. “Elizabeth,” Mary calls out, and the unborn baby leaps in Elizabeth’s womb.

I have no idea how well Elizabeth and Mary knew each other. There is a big discrepancy in their ages. They did not live near one another. Maybe Mary only knew Elizabeth from brief stopovers while her family made pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem. Maybe they barely knew each other, but at some time they had seen a soul connection. They had, maybe, recognized kindred spirits in one another, and so when Mary learned of her condition, she thought of Elizabeth.

And when Elizabeth heard Mary’s voice, and felt her baby move, the word that leaped into her mind was blessed. Blessed are you, Mary, among women. Blessed is the fruit of your womb. Blessed is she who believes.

Blessed. You and I are blessed, Elizabeth sings out.

And Mary opens her mouth, too, and sings.

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.

I have heard that some of the earliest translations of the Bible into the common languages, English and German, did not translate Mary’s song because it would be so offensive to kings – to read “he has brought down the powerful from their thrones!” Better to leave it in Latin and hope they don’t understand it. 

But this, dear brothers and sisters, is the story of our faith. God bypasses the powerful in favor of the powerless. God bypasses the rich and the full in favor of the hungry and the needy. God bypasses the proud and lifts up the lowly. And the powerless, the hungry, the lowly sing their songs of joy.

Mary and Elizabeth sing for themselves and for the powerless, the hungry, the lowly in all times and all places. They sing because the children they carry in their bodies will grow up to become powerful voices for the powerless, the hungry, the lowly. They sing because in their lives of suffering and uncertainty and risk, they have been blessed by the hand of the almighty, who is in them and for them – for this is the story of our faith. God is in and for the powerless, the hungry, the lowly. 

God’s hand rests on the ones who need him most – the homeless, the hungry, the refugee. God is in and for these ones.

In a world that worships power and wealth, God is in and for the poor ones. In a world where so many people, beloved children of God, are valued so little, God is in and for them all. There are times, it must be said, when this does not come to us as good news. Like kings and others with great power and wealth, there are times when Mary’s words can seem threatening even to us.

But when we remember how our savior came to us … from the bottom, not the top; from the margins, not the center; from the disgraced, not the proud.

Remember …

And in these moments the heavens break open and we see a glimpse of the truth that Elizabeth and Mary knew, the truth that made them sing.

Will we sing with them?

What Then Should We Do?

Zephaniah 3:14-20     

Luke 3:7-18       

Does anyone know if the war on Christmas is still going on? I’m just wondering. I haven’t been paying much attention to it, so I’m not really up to speed on it. I would feel bad about that – except that I don’t.

I am tired of this particular war. I can’t work up any enthusiasm for it, frankly, because if you want to know the truth I am more concerned about the war on Advent. You don’t hear much about that one –probably because it has been so successful.

Seriously, when was the last time you had anyone wish you a Happy Advent? How often do you see Advent decorations or get visited by Advent carolers? Never?

It’s all “Christmas this” and “Christmas that” – Christmas trees, Christmas carols, Christmas movies. Even here in the church. The struggle is real, my friends. The war on Advent is winning.

But today our friend John the Baptist is in the fight, and he stands firmly on the side of Advent. Today, Christmas will have to wait because John has a few things to say.

Last week John’s words to us were a proclamation that he is coming, the Messiah, the one we have been waiting for. He is coming, so prepare his way. Make a way for him, and all flesh shall see the salvation of the Lord! Truly inspiring words.

But in the very next verse, his tone changed dramatically, and he lashed out at the crowds: You brood of vipers! Who warned you?

Confusing, yes? Because wasn’t it John who just warned them that the Lord is coming and to prepare the way? Wasn’t John just going about proclaiming this baptism of repentance and now shaming those who have come forward to receive it?  What is going on here?

He seems to know something we do not know. because he continues to berate them, saying, “Don’t just say we have Abraham as our ancestor.” Don’t assume you can use Father Abraham as your calling card or your get-out-of-jail-free card. Where and who you come from will not matter in this dawning age. It is what you do that will matter more than anything. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” he tells the crowds.

It really seems like he caught them at a vulnerable moment – a moment when they have no defense against him. They don’t take offense at his words. They don’t shout back at him, in an attempt to defend themselves against his charges. They don’t walk away in a huff, saying “that’s fine we’ll just go to the baptistry down the street, where they’re much nicer.” None of that happens.

They simply stand before John and take it. They are surprised, maybe hurt, probably dismayed. They were hoping for baptism and instead they get fire and brimstone. And I think that is why they say to John, “What then should we do?”

The crowds ask John, “What then should we do?” You say we should bear fruit worthy of repentance; you say that we should not look back to our ancestors to give us worth, but to bear good fruit. How do we do that? What should we do?

The tax collectors, those reprobates of Jewish society, also came to be baptized. These men who were already on the margins of acceptability, the ones we love to hate, came along with everyone else, looking for their salvation. And they say to John, “What should we do?”

Soldiers came, men who inspired fear and dread among their own people; they too wanted the baptism John offered. And they too say to John, “What should we do?”

Everyone is looking to John for direction. And John offers a response to each of them.

What should we do? Share what you have, if you have more than you need.

What should we do? Take no more than what you deserve; don’t steal from your people.

What should we do? Be content with what you have; don’t add to the woes of the oppressed.

Can you see a pattern here?

You can almost imagine them coming forward, approaching John one by one to receive the waters of baptism and John’s words of direction. What should we do? they ask and John tells them as explicitly as he is able. Because vague generalities won’t cut it. Grand sweeping statements won’t fit the need. Because right now, at this moment, there is a need for specificity.

The people need to know what they should do.

It’s a question you may find yourself asking as well. We all know that there is plenty that needs to be done.

We brace ourselves against the daily news. There are children in Yemen who are starving to death and I see their bodies in the papers and on my laptop screen. There are migrant children dying as they come to us seeking refuge. There is so much pain in the world, much more than we can alleviate. We avert our eyes because it is a degree of suffering that we feel powerless against.

And we earnestly wonder, what should we do?

There are a very few people who will somehow rise to a level of prominence in the world that they may become an influence on public policy – change the world. But for most of us, we operate on a small scale.

We simply make decisions every day about how we will use our time and our money. We make decisions to be kind or not, to strive for empathy or not.

And even though it is true that the world’s pain is enough to crush us, there is an answer to our question.

What should we do? We should bake pies and cook for the soup kitchen. We should donate groceries to Lazarus. We should help pack weekend backpacks for the at-risk children at Chipman.

What should we do? We should be kind to the men and women who congregate around our building on Mondays and Fridays when HOPE and the Seton Center Ministries opens their doors downstairs. We should remember the words Jesus said to his disciples, that whenever you do such kindnesses to one of the least of these my children, you do it for me.

What should we do? We should show up on Sunday afternoons to help the Haitians in our community learn to speak English. It’s a very hard thing, to learn a new language as an adult. But they desperately want to master the language so they can have a future here, and they need our help.

What should we do? We should visit the sick, welcome the stranger, share what we have with others, especially with those who need it. And this, John tells us, is the good news.

All of this – the caring and the sharing and the welcoming – this is the good news.

This is the gospel. It is precise and to the point. It is whatever kind of giving fits the need that is before us. It involves listening, paying attention, caring, and sharing. This is the good news of Jesus Christ.

It is nothing less than this. And I think of these words from John when I recall a conversation I had with a young college student years ago. He told me about a new church in town he was attending. They were worshiping in the local elementary school on Sunday evenings. I asked him to tell me what the church was like.

He said their whole focus is on getting out the good news. They were young and struggling to get their footing in the community, so they decided that it would be wise to just stick to the fundamentals for the time being – to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, he told me they don’t do anything else. They don’t do service, he told me, because it is important for them to keep their focus on the good news.

But, I ask you, if you take away service to others, what is left of the good news?

We need John during this time of the year, to help us keep our focus on the season of Advent – the season of preparing our hearts for the coming of Christ. It is the preparation we need, to ask what then should we do? How shall we serve the Lord? What can we do to prepare his way, make straight his path, lift every valley and make the rough way smooth?

John, in all his roughness, gives us some words of grace, telling us that it is in the small acts of kindness we are all able to do, that we are addressing the brokenness of the world and carrying bits of God’s love into the dark corners.

This is what we need Advent for, to prepare the way for Christ by preparing our own hearts. So today Christmas will have to wait a bit more. It is Advent, and we have some preparing to do.

Photo: John the Baptist surrounded by the crowds. By Pieter Brueghel the Younger - Art Renewal Center – description, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4817012

He Is Coming; Prepare the Way

Malachi 3:1-4     

Luke 3:1-6

Our youngest child, Henry, had some interesting ways of saying things when he was little. He soaked up information like a sponge, but sometimes his brain got a little ahead of his mouth and things came out funny. For example, he would tell you that our town of Bloomsburg sat along the banks of the Sexy-Hanna River. Also known as the Susquehanna River.

One day he and I were in the car driving along a road that was known locally as The Narrows, because it was a narrow, winding road with railroad tracks on one side and a straight, jagged rock wall on the other. Henry pointed toward the rocky wall and said to me, “You know why it’s like that? It’s because they daminated the mountain to make this road.” It took me a second to translate what he said from daminated to dynamited. For a moment we both marveled at the industrious nature of humankind. Then I wondered: maybe damination would be a better word for what they did to the mountain?

It’s along the same lines, it seems, as what John the Baptist was proposing. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” But John is not talking about laying to waste the grandeur of God’s creation. I think John had other kinds of mountains and crooked ways in mind when he spoke these words. What could he have meant?

Where to begin? Luke nudges us in the right direction as he sets up this scene in the third chapter. Hear this:

“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”

We might not know who all these people are – for that we can consult the history books – but we do know what they stand for: they are the movers and the shakers of the day. Picture this: Luke, the great first-century cinematographer; his camera pans over them all – the emperor, the governor, the rulers, and the high priests – we see them, and then they are gone, the camera moves on – and stops at last, focusing on a lone figure out in the wilderness, poorly dressed: John.

Wild and lone the prophet’s voice echoes through the desert still.

And here is what John is saying: turn around. Turn around; you have been looking the wrong way.

For isn’t it always the case that we look to the strong, the powerful, the influential ones? It is here we place all our admiration, our honor, our hope. Yet, Luke tells us, you are looking the wrong way, for God has chosen that crazy-looking guy out in the wilderness.

It is the way things have always been with God. God has always made the unexpected choice. Jacob, the quiet one chosen over the ruddy, outdoorsy Esau to be the father of Israel. David, the littlest one in a family of big strapping boys was chosen to be the king of Israel. God is always choosing the second-born over the first-born, the weak over the powerful, the poor over the wealthy. It is the way it has always been and, yet, it is a sign of new things to come. God is doing a new thing: God will come to us as one of us, and it will not be as a prince or a matinee idol: God will come to us in the midst of poverty and humility. If we are blinded by all that glitters, we might miss seeing him.

John has a message for us: He is coming; prepare the way.

He calls to us as the refiner’s fire, bidding us to come be refined and purified until we can see the way he sees.

For, just as God gave the word of repentance to the powerless man who stood at the margins of society, just as God came to earth as the poor, helpless infant, child of the oppressed, it is the same today: he is calling to us from the edges. We will see him in the faces of the least, the last, and the lost.

So let us turn around, look for our coming Lord, and prepare the way. Let us place our honor and our hope in the one who is both shepherd and lamb, let us give praise and glory to his name.

Awake, awake and greet the new morn, for angels herald its dawning. Sing out your joy, for soon he is born, behold! the child of our longing.

Photo: The Narrows

Looking for the Fig Tree

Jeremiah 33:14-16     

Luke 21:25-36   

Years ago, Kim and I visited the Muir Woods, north of San Francisco, to see the giant redwoods. They are truly magnificent trees, thick and tall, ancient and glorious as they soar up to the sky. They have existed on this earth for hundreds of thousands of years; each one can live to be hundreds of years old. They seem to live forever. But eventually they die, just like every living thing dies.

We saw some fallen redwoods in the forest, and that was the most interesting thing. Some of these long dead trunks had trees growing out of them, long straight new trunks reaching up to the sky. Even in death, these amazing trees gave birth to new life.

I learned later these are called nurse logs, or nursers. In the forest environment, these fallen trees are able to provide a suitable ecosystem for new seedlings to take root and grow. Consequently, when one tree dies, several can take its place. It doesn’t always happen, but it is beautiful when it does.

Just when it looks like death has the victory, life reasserts itself.

I look around at this time of the year at how everything seems to be dying, and I wonder if there ever was a time when people looked at the same signs and didn’t know if life would return to the land. Would the dry leaves that fall on the ground ever return to the trees, would the grass ever again grow, would the plants ever again bring forth food.

Would the warmth of the sun return. Would new life be born. I wonder if there was a time when people did not know that spring would come. I wonder what it would be like if you didn’t have that hope.

I lean on the poet T.S. Elliot, who said it better than I could:

What is the late November doing

with the disturbance of the spring

and creatures of the summer heat

and snowdrops writhing under feet

and hollyhocks that aim too high

red into grey and tumble down

late roses filled with early snow?

In the end of the life cycle is a beginning. Knowing this is to have hope. Because knowing, trusting, that the season of death and dormancy will pass, that beneath the surface new life is even now at work preparing for the spring, this is hope. And hope is where we begin on this first Sunday of Advent.

The season of Advent marks the beginning of the new year on the church calendar. We begin with preparing ourselves for the arrival of the Christ, newborn infant, new life, but also with the second arrival of the Christ, the idea that signifies the end of life as we know it. It is, indeed, a strange thing that we are beginning with both the beginning and the end of things.

We are beginning the Christian story with the end of the Christian story. During Advent, it is as if time collapses on itself: we look back, at the same time we look forward.

At the same time, we attempt to live in the present moment.

During this season of Advent, we will reflect on the practice of living in the present moment, something that is surprisingly hard to do. I can speak from personal experience when I say that the times when life hands you very stressful events, these are the times when we might find it nearly impossible to stay present in the here and now. We are hopelessly distracted. Our minds race between questioning what we should have done and wondering what might become, while trying to assert some control over things as they are now – things that seem well out of our control.

Despair overrides our efforts to be alert, be aware, be present.

It happens because we are afraid, afraid of all these things that are out of our control. Afraid of the worst possible things happening, afraid that we are already living in the worst possible thing. Sometimes we are so afraid that all we can see are the things we are afraid of.

And then we hear these words: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”

A promise breaks through our fear! And, like so much of prophecy, we need to hear this as a promise that has been fulfilled already but also that we are still waiting for. It is something that has happened in the past but has not happened yet. And we are living in these strange between times, when we still see death all around us, but hold on to the promise that all life is being renewed.

In the hidden places all life is being renewed. In the end there is the beginning. And in the beginning is the end.

But these transitions can be terribly rough and jarring and unknown. This is clear as the scriptures speak of distress among nations, fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world. We don’t glide through the transitions effortlessly, I am afraid.

Here again, Elliot has the words that I need:

In order to arrive at what you do not know

you must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.

In order to possess what you do not possess

you must go by the way of dispossession.

In order to arrive at what you are not

you must go through the way in which you are not.

We do not have a road map for this journey. So we listen to Jesus, we look to the fig tree. Jesus says to his disciples, “Look at the fig tree.”

The poor little fig tree is weighted down with so much baggage in the scriptures, more than it should have to bear. We should not confuse this parable of the fig tree with a different parable of the fig tree, in which the landowner threatens to cut down a three-year-old fig tree because it has not yet borne fruit. Nor should we confuse this parable with the stories in which Jesus curses a fig tree because it is not bearing fruit – although it is not the season for fruit.

In this parable the meaning is simpler, thankfully. Jesus reminds his disciples to watch the fig tree, and other trees. Notice when they sprout leaves. Because you know that when they sprout leaves summer is near. The leaves will be followed by fruit, the cycle of life will repeat itself.

Notice what he says here, because it’s important. Watch for the sprouting leaves. Jesus could have said to watch for when the leaves fall from the trees, because then you know winter is coming, and death. He does not say this – he says to look for the new life. Look at what is sprouting, look at what is about to be born.

These are the things we might fail to see – if we are not paying attention.

This is the way it is, when we are concerned with the past – regrets or wistfulness – and when we are concerned with the future – either what we are longing for or what we are dreading. When we are distracted by the past or the future, we neglect to be alert to what is happening right now.

But in this season of Advent, as we mark the beginning and the end, the new baby Jesus and the return of the Christ, let us look for signs of new life right in our midst.

There is no question that we see signs of change all around us. Our bodies change, very often in ways that do not please us. Our community changes, sometimes in ways that may worry us. The church changes in ways we don’t understand and we wonder what the future will bring. We don’t know what the future will bring.

But here is what we do know. We know that Jesus Christ is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. We know that life brings forth life and that in death there is the beginning of new life. We know that in our church and in our community, there are people who are caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, giving shelter to the homeless. We know there are people patiently teaching children the things they need to learn. We know there are people who are listening to others who need to be heard, lending a shoulder to those who need their strength. We know there are people who are intentionally spreading peace by small acts of kindness.

Look at the fig tree, see what it is doing. Look at the signs of life all around us, see where new things are sprouting. And remember that in each end is a new beginning. Look for the new beginnings, for there is our hope.

photo credit: A nurse log in Schooner Trail, Pacific Rim National Park, British Columbia, Canada. By Wing-Chi Poon, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=430261