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Very Good

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Genesis 1:1-2:3
March 9
David A. Davis
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When I was on sabbatical in 2008, I traveled to South Africa and stayed with my dear friends Malan and Marlese Nel. The Nels are worshipping with us for a month or two as they once again are in town for a study visit. A highlight of that trip to South Africa was a visit to Kruger National Park. The goal of a visitor to the park hoping to see wildlife is to find the Big 5: lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and buffalo. The Nels made a booking for me for a nighttime guided ride out into the park with a dozen or so other tourists in an open-air jeep kind of thing. It lasted a couple of hours as darkness fell. Two guides, flashlights, headlights, slowly driving on dirt roads far from the paved public access roads. Two hours. Beautiful moonlight. No animals. We didn’t see one animal.

The next day we piled into Malan’s car, for what we used to describe to our kids as “a car hike”. Driving all through the park along with other cars weaving through the park. By the end of that several-hour car hike, we saw all of the Big 5 and a whole lot more of the animals of God’s creation. The truth is that Malan and Marlese always, always saw the animals before I did. Well, other than the elephant herd crossing the road that was hard to miss. The stunning birds up in a tree, the lion to see through the trees, the rhino in the water with nothing showing but his snout. The baby elephant is being hidden and protected by the grown-ups. They had the eyes, the expectation, the experience of being a witness to the beauty of God’s creation. And they helped me to see, hear, and experience that beauty. They gifted me with a glimpse of the awe and wonder of God’s creation.

That’s how we ought to read Genesis 1. Side by side with those who have the eyes, the expectation, the experience, even the longing for the beauty of God’s creation. Reading the seven days of creation in a community of God’s people longing for the awe and wonder of the very goodness of all that God has done.

Genesis 1:1-2:3

            Reading Genesis 1 together with awe and wonder. Reading Genesis 1 together, as Jesus would say, with the ears to hear. Folks read Genesis 1 in all kinds of ways, for all kinds of reasons. But what if you and I read Genesis 1 together to sort of press the reset button on the awe and wonder place in your soul. The awe and wonder for all that God has done. Like our forebearers in faith, who wanted to turn from the worship of many Gods and the plethora of idols, and offer a witness to the one God of all creation, the One God who made heaven and earth, that same God who gives breath to all humankind. Genesis 1; it’s a kind of palette cleanser. Allowing you to rinse after drinking from the world’s firehose of idolatry and chaos and darkness and destruction. A bit of refreshment for the sacred imagine. Taking in the beauty of God’s creation where the light arose out of the darkness. Once again ponder all the good of God’s creation and receive with awe and wonder the promise and the knowledge that you have been created in the image of God. And that, like all of creation, you belong to God, and you are precious in God’s sight. “God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good.” 

            Years ago, I invited Professor Paul Rorem to give about 20 of my colleagues from around the country a tour of some of the religious art in the Princeton University Museum.  A frequent leader of adults here at Nassau Church, Dr. Rorem is a retired professor of European church history. Looking at a piece of stunning artwork with Paul Rorem is sort of like driving through the Kruger Park with the Nels. He would point out details in the art that the unexpected, inexperienced eye could so easily miss. Sometimes, with a laser pointer directed a large work up on the wall. Other times with his pinky finger pointing out the smallest of detail. After several of these experiences with Dr. Rorem over the years, I have observed his practice of allowing and inviting, the community of observers gathered around him to take time with a piece of art and not rush.  Paul always asks the group to look not just at the beauty of the art but to search for the theological takeaways of the art. He would step away from the piece and allow the group standing together to search for the theological symbolism, to note the smallest of details, and ponder what the artist was trying to say about God, God’s promise, and the place of God’s people in that promise.

Reading Genesis 1 together and pondering what it says about God, God’s promise and the place of God’s people in that promise. God the artist, sculpting a creation that reflects God’s own goodness. Humankind was created in God’s image, in God’s likeness, blessed by God to fill and rule the earth. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Even before God stepped back to rest on the seventh day, “God saw everything that God had made and indeed, it was very good.”  Very good. Indeed.

I made a rookie mistake this week at lunch with Dr. Nate Stucky. I told him my sermon title for this morning was “Very Good”.  He asked me what was “very good.” I knew right away it was a trap question, and I was going to blow it. “Well, it comes after God created humankind.” Nate rose up in his chair but across the table. His face was equal parts shock, dismay, and then disappointment in his pastor. “That’s the big mistake everyone makes”, he said. Very good is not just a reference to humankind.  God saw everything, everything, EVERYTHING God made and indeed, it was very good.” That is one mistake I won’t repeat again. I promise.

Here is where we take a few steps back from the work of art and ponder. Everything God made was very good. Everything. Very good. Humankind was created in God’s image, God’s likeness. On day 6, God brings the children of God into the family business. Humankind is blessed by God and entrusted with creation, to be god-like in relationship to the very goodness of creation. To be in relationship to creation in a way that reflects the Creator and the Creator’s goodness. To somehow rule the very good earth in a god-like way. Rule like God rules.

As we stand here together a few steps back, however, those words still leap off the canvas of the text. Subdue. Dominion. Perhaps the frailty of language is what also comes into view as well. Words that seem inconsistent with our theological learnings. Because words like subdue and dominion cannot be softened or explained away in the Hebrew. Scholars point out in Hebrew, the connotations are even stronger and not very nice. Perhaps the words fail us in trying to ponder not just the artistry and beauty of God, the very good of God. But also fail us as we try to ponder humankind in relationship to God and to that god-like relationship to creation. Words not just coming up short in terms of theological imagination. But words foreshadowing and perhaps in the history of interpretation even contributing in some way to the harm humankind has done and continues to do to God’s “very good” creation. Words that land more like scars in the artwork. Or better said, a lasting echo that ought to sound like a trumpet’s call to humankind to be more god-like when it comes to God’s creation.

Reading Genesis 1 together not just in awe and wonder but in lament as well. Pondering the theological takeaways of the art that tells of God creating, of humankind being created in the image of God, of humanity’s relationship to all that God has created. Very good. Indeed. Reading Genesis 1 together and sparking our collective sacred imagination. Push the reset button for your soul when it comes to awe and wonder and lament. Awe and wonder and lament. While it sounds a bit like a title of a book by Anne Lamont. It also sounds a lot like what it means to be a child of God living in the in-between of death and resurrection. It sounds like what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ pretty much every day. Awe, wonder, and lament all mashed up. And still morning comes after the evening. Light still shines in the dark. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Very good. And you and I, we cling to, proclaim, and dare to believe the impossible. The resurrection promise that darkness shall never, ever, conquer the light of God.

Come to the Table this morning. It is the Risen Christ who invites. We take this bread, this juice. We take the elements of God’s creation and we feast on Christ and his life, death, and resurrection. We are nurtured here at this table by the impossible. For the God of creation is the the same God who authored salvation in and through Jesus Christ and by God’s grace and in God’s love, claimed us as God’s own beloved children. God’s new creation. “If anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Godself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation….So we are ambassadors for Christ. God making God’s appeal through us.” (II Cor 5)

God is blessing humankind and entrusting us to reflect God’s very goodness, by God’s grace and in the power of the Spirit, to dare to be god-like in our relationship with all that God has done. Yes, impossible. But remember what Gabriel said to Mary. “Nothing will be impossible with God.”  Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Very Good, Indeed.

 

The Light of Glory

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John 1:1-16
December 24
David A. Davis
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I have told you before, and some may remember my description of the manger scene outside the Methodist Church a few miles from where we lived in south jersey. I drove past the Chews United Methodist Church almost every day for 14 years. Every Advent and Christmas the creche was staged right next to the church sign just off an intersection that had a stoplight. It was simple manger scene. A sort of barn-like back drop, some hay strewn around, with a manger that looked a bit like a fireplace grate. The only characters were Mary and Joseph and the Babe lying in the manger. No animals. No shepherds. No Magi. Stopped at the red light in December year after year, I sort of watched Mary and Joseph age before my eyes. Their bright clothes started to fade. Their faces started to chip. Their pious gaze started to look tired. They looked weathered in more ways than one. To be honest, they looked more like big lawn ornaments. I assumed since they were about waist-high, they were meant to be kneeling. But then during one red light, I realized they had no legs. Interestingly, over the years the Baby Jesus never got older or any bigger; never seemed to fade for that matter. He was always tucked in that manger.

One morning after a stormy, windy, snowy, night, I sat at the light and saw Mary and Joseph knocked over. It was a sorry sight. Mary and Joseph like turtles turned on their backs who couldn’t get up. The hay was all blown away. Part of the barn top was flapping just a bit, waving at the morning commuters. But Jesus, Jesus was there in the manger oblivious to the chaos of the night or the absence of his adoring, watchful parents. It was when my inspecting eyes turned to the Infant Holy, Infant lowly asleep but not on the hay. I made an unfortunate discovery. I found out why Jesus had not been disturbed from sleep by the storm. The baby was secured to that fireplace grate with a chain wrapped around his ankle. Chained and padlocked the baby was.  That baby wasn’t going anywhere. That Jesus was never going to leave the manger.

You know, and as you heard, there is no Baby Jesus in the manger here in the Gospel of John.  No “Do not be Afraid; for behold, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.” No “let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place.” Here in John, all the pageant stuff is nowhere to be found. No angels. No shepherds. No Star. Not even a Mary, or a Joseph.  No babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.

            Instead of “Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger”  in John “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” Instead of “So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying the manger” in John it is “He was in the world”.  John’s version of the babe swaddled in the manger is this: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word became flesh. The Word that was with God and was God sheltered among us. God took sanctuary in the flesh. The Word became flesh. Flesh as in flesh and blood. Flesh as in what it means to be human. Flesh as in humankind. “We have seen God’s glory…God’s only son, full of grace and full of truth”.  God’s glory is not in the heavenly host. Not a glory shone all around. No, the light of God’s glory is revealed in the grace and truth of Christ Jesus.

If you have not read David Brooks’s recent essay in the New York Times, you should find it and read it this Christmas. The title is “The Shock of Faith: It is Nothing Like I Thought it Would Be”. Brooks tells his own story of coming to faith as an adult and only in the last 10 or 15 years. He writes in a refreshingly personal and honest way. As he tries to find the words to describe both his faith and his journey to faith, he drops in quotes from scholars and theologians. But it was his own words at the very end of the piece I found most compelling. Brooks comes to the conclusion that for him,  “faith” just isn’t the right word. He writes, “The word “faith” implies possession of something, whereas I experience faith as a yearning for something beautiful that I can sense but not fully grasp. For me faith is more about longing and thirsting than knowing and possessing.” Brooks continues “Sometimes I feel pulled by a goodness that seems grand and far-off, a divine luminosity that hovers over the far horizon. Sometimes I feel pulled by concrete moments of holy delight that I witness right in front of my face — the sight of a rabbi laughing uproariously as his children pile over him during a Shabbat meal, the sight of a Catholic priest at a poor church looking radiantly to heaven as he holds the bread of Christ above his head. I’ve found that the most compelling proofs of God’s love come in moments of radical delight or radical goodness — in the example of those who serve the marginalized with postures of self-emptying love. Some days this longing for God feels like loneliness, separation from the thing desired. But mostly it feels like a venture toward something unbelievably worth wanting, some ultimate concern.”

Yearning for something beautiful that can’t be fully grasped. Longing for a goodness that is not just on some far horizon but a goodness revealed in concrete moments of holy delight right in front of our face. Compelling proof of God’s love in the example of those who serve the marginalized with postures of self-emptying love. Postures of self-emptying love. Use the word faith or not but it sounds a whole lot like a life of following the gospel that comes from the lips of the Christ Child lying in the manger tonight.

Another preacher once suggested that many seem to prefer the Jesus of the manger because he hasn’t said anything yet. Cute and cuddly is always safer than touching a leper or serving the poor or taking on the religious or forgiving a sinner or turning the other cheek or announcing a kingdom or dying and rising. Cute and cuddly is always safer than allowing your flesh to be transformed by his and knowing deep within his love for you is forever and seeing the world through his eyes and not yours. Cute and cuddly is always safer than holding the light of his glory up to the world’s darkness and then bearing witness in how you live to the wonders of his love. His love yearns to make of this old world, a new own in and through those who are his hands and feet.

Many seem to prefer a Jesus bound to the manger. When the earth aches for peace and people in far too many places in the world can’t remember a silent night, you can’t keep Jesus in the manger. When a heart somewhere near you is broken or forgiveness has become a lost art in a family or a lost soul is longing for home, you can’t just leave Jesus in the manger. When grief among those you love is real and raw, when the frailty of our humanity hits you like a truck, when death’s shout threatens to drown out resurrection hope and promise, you can’t leave Jesus in the manger. When people you love are afraid, when strangers around you live in fear, when so many aren’t sure who or what to trust, you can’t leave Jesus in the manger. When the shadows of hatred lengthen and blinding fear is stoked and the darkness of bitterness once again threatens the light, you can’t settle for a Jesus bound to the manger. When the empires of this world have run amok on power, serving the richest and most privileged while trampling on the weak and most vulnerable, those in power would of course prefer that Jesus and his gospel teaching be left shackled and drawn there in the manger. The powers and principalities of this world prefer a Baby Jesus in the manger who hasn’t said anything……yet.

But Jesus can’t be kept in the manger. Yes, the call of the light of God’s glory at Christmas is to stand and look into the manger and be overwhelmed, forever changed, by the Child’s fullness. Full of grace. Full of truth.  And to be forever moved and transformed by his enduring love that will not let you go. Full of his grace. Full of his truth. Full of his love. Kneeling at the manger tonight, earning for something beautiful that can’t be fully grasped. Longing for a goodness that is not just on some far horizon but a goodness revealed in concrete moments of holy delight right in front of our face, crazing postures of self-emptying love. As you kneel at the manger tonight, never forget that God’s call on our lives is the call to unbind Jesus from the manger and turn to change the world with the shine of his love, the glory of his love.

The Light of Mystery and Wonder

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Luke 2:8-20
December 22
David A. Davis
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Last week as I watched the Christmas Pageant on livestream, I was struck by how our young people sort of matriculate through the pageant to different roles as they grow older. Mary and Joseph (Adeline and Pierre) were both high school seniors. They were likely angels and shepherds years ago. I had a similar thought after we finished our Wee Christmas flash mob pop up pageant a few weeks ago. The last few years of Wee Christmas, members of the youth group help out with the littlest ones as they transform into Josephs and Marys and angels and shepherds and animals and wise ones. Wee Christmas has been around long enough that many of those youth group members would have been participants back in the day. I wish I remembered the kids who were shepherds several years ago. Actually, it was 2018. Some of you were there. Some of you have heard about what happened to the shepherds that day.

In 2018, I thought it would be a good idea to shake things up for Wee Christmas; to try something different. Of course, the script can’t really change. I thought we could introduce a bright shining star. I asked Edie Estrada if he could dig out one of his work lights that he uses for various projects around here and help me with Wee Christmas. As I led the shepherds around sanctuary with their stuffed sheep under their arms, we stopped here at the top of the aisle and I pointed to Ed who was standing on a small step ladder over near the piano. As I said  “a angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them”,  Ed flipped the switch on the small work light that he was holding up high. Well, I should have checked how bright the small work light was going to be. I think we temporary blinded the shepherds. I didn’t get to the part in the pageant describing the shepherds in fear covering their eyes because the poor shepherds had already hit the ground and covered their eyes. I guess I gave the angel line, “for see, I am bringing you good news of a great joy for all people.” That was unfortunate because the angels couldn’t see anything. It was likely the best year for the shepherds being terrified.

“The glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for behold, I am bringing you good news of a great joy for all people”.  As the choir will sing in just a few minutes:

Glory to God in the highest,

and peace on earth 

to those of good will.

Rejoice in God, all the earth;

serve the Lord with gladness.

Glory to God in the highest…

Come into God’s presence with joy.

Daniel Pinkham is the composer of this morning’s Christmas Cantata. “Glory to God in the highest. Come into God’s presence with joy. Glory and joy

This is a bit of an awkward thing to say on the fourth Sunday of Advent, but there is not as much “great joy” in the gospels as we would tend to think. I mean the phrase “great joy”. It only occurs three times in all four gospels. Here with the angel and the shepherds. In Matthew, it’s Easter morning when the women run from the empty tomb with “fear and great joy”. And then the only other occurrence of the words “great joy” comes again in Luke. It’s all the way at the end. After the empty tomb, after the Emmaus Road, just after the Risen Christ ascends into heaven, Luke records that the disciples “worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” That’s sort of it when it comes to “great joy”. The birth of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, the ascension of Jesus…..and a whole lot of gospel in between.

As for “Glory of the Lord”, well, that’s pretty much an expression in the Hebrew bible Exodus, Moses, Mt  Sinai, and the pillar of fire, the cloud. Exodus is full of “the glory of the Lord”. The “glory of the Lord” is pretty much the prophet Isaiah’s go to. “Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed”. (Is 40) “The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard” (Is 58). “The glory of the Lord has risen upon you” (Is. 60). The glory of the Lord and the Old Testament, like hand and glove. “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea”. (Habakkuk 2:14)

When it comes to the New Testament and the “glory of the Lord”, not so much. To be sure there are plenty of examples of praise and adoration being offered to the glory of the Lord. An act of praise, a doxology offered to the glory of God, the glory of the Lord. But that’s a bit different than “the glory of the Lord shone all around”. The Apostle Paul asserts that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” But that’s not the same as blinding eyeful of the God’s glory.

Luke front loads the glory of the Lord and the great joy. The glory of the Lord and great joy bundled together. It comes here with some lowly, vulnerable shepherds in the middle of the night. Glory and great joy hovering in the sky over a birthing room that had to have been a life and death moment for both mother and child. On night when sheep, shepherds, mother, child were all at risk. Glory and great joy there at his first breath, the first cry. Glory and great joy paired not at the end but at the beginning. And the accent on glory forever shifted. The definition of glory shone forever changed. The gaze of on glory forever turned. “You will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” It is as if Luke is standing there with baby in hand, rocking the child, pointing with his head because his hands are full, cradling glory. As the choir will sing,

What a great mystery

and wondrous sacrament,

that the animals should behold 

the new-born Lord

lying in a manger.

Glory. Joy. Mystery. And Wonder.

The glory of God come all the way down. The mystery and wonder of the Incarnation is the fancy way to say it. From the hosts of angels that served as a tent to those shepherds living in the field, a tent of God’s glory, to the child Jesus nursing at his mother’s breast. The glory of the Lord came down. Not just in the Child there in the manger, but God’s love made known in the flesh, in his life….in this life…..in this blasted life of ours. In his life, his teaching, his tears, his suffering, his death, his resurrection. Witnessing glory in his touch of sinners, welcoming strangers, caring for the sick, raising the dead, challenging power. Forgiveness unrestrained. Boundary lines crossed. The hungry fed. The oppressed lifted. The rich challenged. Widows and orphans tended to. Lepers touched. In the mystery and wonder, glory shines.

I checked in with New Testament Professor Eric Barreto about glory and great joy in Luke. Dr. Baretto pointed out to me that glory and great joy might not flow all through Luke but one theme that does is fear. Those terrified shepherds aren’t the only ones in fear in Luke. Fear is not only to angel appearances but to healings and miracles all through the gospel. For the shepherds here in chapter two, the angel of the Lord speaks of great joy smack in the midst of their fear. As the shepherds witness the glory of God made known not just in the heavenly host but in the Child Jesus there when they get to the manger, the light of God’s mystery and wonder leads them from fear to glorifying and praising God for ALL they had heard and seen. The shepherds own experience of joy in the mystery and wonder never that far from their fear. Terrified there in the field and still joy comes.

Think of the disciples at the end of the gospel when great joy comes back. They dropped their nets to follow Jesus and by any earthly measure, it didn’t go so well. Hollywood and Hallmark and call it the greatest story ever told. That’s not how to describe the storied lives of those 12 disciples. That’s not how to describe all that they witnessed along the way with Jesus. There was very real-world stuff along the way where the darkness was pulling ahead. They stood by as the crowds gathered for his torture and his murder. What Luke describes as a “spectacle”. You remember the two walking along the Emmaus Road trying to process it all before the Risen Christ comes alongside. They were walking along full of a grief most of us can understand. Amid all the fear of Luke’s gospel, still joy comes. Amid all that the darkness had to bring, still joy comes. Basking in the light of the mystery and wonder of his resurrection and ascension, great joy makes a comeback in Luke. A joy that is resistant to the word’s darkness.

I don’t need to remind you that we don’t live in a Hollywood/Hallmark world either. Amid all the real-world stuff of our lives, when darkness seems to be pulling ahead again and again, when the world shakes, when all that we witness and experience seems so very distant from the world God intends and the gospel we have learned from the lips of Jesus, still great joy comes in the resurrection hope and promise of God. God’s gift to us  at Christmas, is that like the shepherds,  we get to go to the manger and bask in the mystery and wonder of God’s love come all the way down. But as we stand here, by God’s grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit, we can see all the way to the great joy that comes on the gospel’s far side as well. Amid all the real life stuff that comes in between, the mystery and wonder of the Christ Child, the one who is Risen indeed, is that great joy still comes in the here and now. Or as the choir will sing

Glory to God in the highest….

Know that the Lord is God:

it is God who made us and not we ourselves.

Glory to God in the highest…

Alleluia!

Cathy and I have a Christmas tradition of attending a performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto’s each year. Every year the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center offers a performance through McCarter Theater behind me at Richardson Auditorium. We attended the performance last Monday night. We have been to the Brandenburg’s a lot, more than I can count including one year at Lincoln Center. I also listen to classical music when I write my sermons. What comes first on my play list is the Brandenburg Concerto’s. I sat there on listening on Monday night realizing the beauty of the music has been the soundtrack of my sermon writing for twenty years. I think Monday was the most beautiful performance. The rather long performance of all the concertos seemed to pass so quickly. The exuberance of the musicians touched me in a fresh way. The connection of the incredible work of art to the weekly grind of sermon writing. It warmed my heart. What I am describing is that Monday night was an experience of joy.

I am guessing that technically, musically, aesthetically, these particular musicians didn’t play Bach any better or any different than all those other performances we have heard. But when darkness seems to be pulling ahead again and again, when the world shakes, when all that we witness and experience seems so very distant from the world God intends and the gospel we have learned from the lips of Jesus, finding just a bit of the mystery and wonder, the beauty and goodness in life, well, it brings such great joy. God’s gift of joy to a weathered pastor on just a Monday night. Looking for the light of joy in the world’s darkness. A bit of joy and a taste of resistance amid the real-stuff of life.

The Light of Fearlessness

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Luke 1:26-38
December 15
David A. Davis
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Perplexed and pondered.  Mary was perplexed by and she pondered the angelic greeting. “Greetings, favored one!” is how the angel started. “Mary was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.” She was perplexed by and pondered the angel’s words. Perplexed by what the angel said. No mention by Luke of Mary’s reaction to the angel’s presence or the angel’s appearance. Just Mary’s response to what the angel said. “Greetings, favored one!”  Perplexed and pondered.

Like a well-rehearsed pageant cast member, the angel Gabriel stuck to the script. “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” The angel went with what angels are supposed to say. What angels always say. “Do not be afraid.” Perhaps an angelic version of “mansplaining”. “Mary, when an angel shows up you are supposed to be afraid.” When Gabriel appeared to Zechariah, he was “terrified and fear overwhelmed him.” When the angel of the Lord stood before the shepherds and the glory of the Lord shone all around them, they were so afraid it hurt. You remember in the King James, they were “sore afraid.” On the first Easter morning when the women go to the tomb in Luke and see the two figures in dazzling clothes, “they were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground.” In Matthew, at the empty tomb the angel appeared and the guards shook with fear and became like “dead men.” In each of these cases, the response to the understandable and expected fear is the same. “Do not be afraid.”

So maybe Gabriel gets a pass in misreading Mary’s reaction, for assuming, for projecting, for injecting Mary’s fear. When such strong language is used throughout the gospels to describe the fear of angels, one ought to be struck by no mention of fear here in Luke. Pondered. Perplexed. No fear. It is interesting to note that many versions of the bible translate Mary’s reaction to the angel’s words as “greatly troubled”. “She was greatly troubled and kept pondering what kind of salutation this might be”. (New American Standard) But the dictionary definition of the Greek adjective is “confused, perplexed, or greatly perplexed”. “Greatly troubled” seems to lean toward distress and fear. It is as if the tradition, like the angel Gabriel, presumes Mary’s fear; even great fear.

With fear not mentioned in the most notable of annunciations, it might be better to portray Mary as “inquisitive”.  She wants to know more from this angel who appears before her and calls her “favored one.” Mary listens as Gabriel explains her favored status a bit more. “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High and the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Perplexed and pondering probably doesn’t do Mary’s reaction justice after all of that the angel has to say. But it is not the “Son of the Most High” talk, not the “throne of his ancestor David” or “kingdom with no end” talk that still perplexes Mary and leads to her only question. What still confuses her is the biology. “How can this be?”

Mary listens some more as the angel continues and offers more explanation, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the six month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then, here in Luke, without missing a beat, without taking a breath, Mary says “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” It is way too easy to miss Mary’s fearlessness. The lack of any fear is mentioned here in Luke. Mary’s fearlessness is remarkable. Mary’s fearless courage is breathtaking. Mary’s fearless lack of hesitation reveals her now divinely inspired grasp of the very promise of God. Mary’s fearless faithfulness regarding the reign of God. Mary and her incomparable “Here am I”.

On Wednesday morning in the weekly bible study that I share with some Presbyterian colleagues, my friend Lisa Day the pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Hightstown, shared her screen so the rest of us could see one of her favorite artistic renderings of the Annunciation. It is from a children’s book by an Australian illustrator named Julia Vivas. The book is called “The Nativity”.  The website describes the children’s book as a down-to-earth portrayal of the human side of the story. The page that depicts the Annunciation to Mary includes the verse from Luke: Take a look at this rendering of the Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary. Notice the very ordinary and a bit disheveled angel Gabriel wearing a robe-like thing with some holes in it. The only angelic characteristic is that huge pair wings that rise off his back. There is no radiant glow. Young Mary looks to be wearing something like a housecoat with an apron tied on. Her slippers are my favorite part. Sitting there at the kitchen table each holding a large mug. The work lacks two aspects associated with the art of the Annunciation through the centuries: there is no heavenly glow and there is absolutely no fear. Gabriel and Mary look like two friends sharing a leisurely Saturday morning conversation over a cup of tea.

Mary and her fearless “Hear am I”.  Mary wrapping her head, heart, and soul around God’s favor. For in favoring Mary, God reveals God’s favor of the poor and the oppressed and the outcast, and the shunned. For God called one of the least of these to bear God’s only Son, the Savior of the world. Mary wrapped her head, heart, and soul around the promise and the reign of God. When Mary starts to sing “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant”, her spirit-filled ability to see the world God intends is revealed as well. Mary sings of God scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts and bringing the powerful down from their thrones and lifting the lowly, filling the hungry with good things, and sending the rich away empty. Singing about a future full of emptying, lowering, lifting, filling, and sending without fear. A fearless Mary now peering into the vast span of the heart and the heartbreak of God. A divinely inspired vision of God’s future. So one wonders if even now Mary can see all the way to Golgotha. God can. Maybe Mary can. We certainly can. And still, Mary is fearless.

History has a way of softening Mary. Yes, she was a young, vulnerable woman. But her response to the Angel Gabriel comes from a place of strength. Strong faith. Strong courage. Strong vision. Strong answer. In a season where so many are living with fear, long-standing fear or fears now fresh, at a time where fear of violence and war fill so many parts of the world, this Advent season of 2024, it is the strong faith Mary that inspires me. It is the strong courage Mary that lifts me. It is the strong vision Mary that leads me. It is the light of Mary’s fearlessness that encourages me.  For it takes faith to believe that in Jesus Christ, God is still at work to do a new thing. That in the power of the Holy Spirit, God on high still comes afresh to bring light to the world’s darkness and peace to the world’s turmoil. It takes courage to believe that God still favors the poor and the oppressed and the outcast, and the shunned. It takes even more courage to embrace, share, and act on that favor of God in the world today. It takes strength to help broken hearts find joy again, to insure that love wins, and to stand in solidarity with those whose fears are real and breathtaking.  It takes vision to claim that the promise of Jesus Christ still breaks forth like a radiant light as the followers of Jesus witness to, live by, act on, respond to, and deliver the endless mercy and abundant grace of God in the ordinariness of life. Advent 2024. Being the church of Jesus Christ and drawing faith, courage, strength, and vision from Mary and her unhesitant, faith-filled, fearless “Here Am I”.

I read this week about Grace Thomas in a book entitled Testimony written by Tom Long, one of my seminary professors. Grace Thomas was an African American woman who ran for governor of Georgia in 1954. 1954 was also the year of the Supreme Court’s Brown vs the Board of Education. After years of part-time education, Grace Thomas graduated from law school and told her family she was entering the election. There were nine candidates. 8 men who vehemently and angrily denounced the court decision…and Grace Thomas. Her campaign slogan was “Say Grace at the Polls”. Few people did. According to Long, she finished dead last.

In 1962, Grace Thomas ran again. She campaigned on racial tolerance, unity, and goodwill. Along the way, Grace Thomas endured hateful hecklers and death threats. Dr. Long tells of a campaign stop in the little town of Louisville, Georgia. The center of town in Louisville was an old slave market where human beings were treated like animals and worse. As she stood there in front of a hostile crowd, Grace Thomas said “The old has passed away and the new has come. This place represents all about our past over which we must repent. A new day is here, a day when Georgians white and black can join hands to work together.”  Grace Thomas’ speech didn’t go over well. Someone shouted at her and accused her of being a communist. She said no she wasn’t a communist. “Well then, where did you get those blankety-blank ideas.” Grace Thomas thought for a moment and looked over a church building on a nearby corner. She pointed to church and Grace Thomas said, “Well, I got them over there in Sunday School.”

“Say Grace at the Polls”. Tom Long’s writing about Grace Thomas has a startling relevance. Both her fearless witness to the gospel and the anger and threat from the crowd. You know the populations of people who are scared today. I don’t need to list them for you. The fear is real. But so is God’s call to the church of Jesus Christ to be a light of fearlessness. Congregation by congregation, disciple by disciple, inspired by Mary’s unhesitant, faith-filled, fearless “Here Am I”, walking in her steps and his with faith, courage, strength, and vision. As Nassau Church’s own vision statement concludes,

By God’s grace in our lives, we engage with the world,

yearn to do what is just and fair

encourage what is kind and helpful

and seek to walk humbly before God and alongside our neighbors.

 

Mary had her “Here Am I”.

And so do we.

The Light of Obedience

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Matthew 1:18-25
December 8
David A. Davis
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This morning we continue in our Advent sermon series on “the annunciations”. The angel Gabriel announced to Zechariah that his wife Elizabeth would give birth to John. Gabriel announced to Mary that she would be with the child by the Holy Spirit. The angel and the heavenly host announce to the shepherds in all their splendor and glory. This morning, it is angel of the Lord appearing to Joseph in a dream. For Joseph, it is something other than “an annunciation” because, of course, Joseph already knew that Mary was pregnant and he was trying desperately to discern what was the right thing to do.

Zechariah had the benefit of a conversation with the angel Gabriel. Joseph had to settle for a dream. Joseph was a righteous man and unwilling to humiliate his betrothed. According to Matthew, Joseph had decided to “dismiss Mary quietly” to avoid the “public disgrace.” One can easily imagine the whispers, the shaming, the finger-pointing, the shunning. A biblical version of a social media firestorm. What is more difficult to picture is what Mary’s life would have been like as a young, vulnerable, pregnant woman becoming a nobody or less in the blink of an eye. What it would have been like for Mary to be “dismissed quietly”.

Through the angel of the Lord appearing to Joseph in a dream, God has other plans for Joseph, for Mary his fiancé, and for the child she is carrying in her womb. Mary is not to be “dismissed quietly”. Compared to the other angel appearances, the “do not be afraid” line in Joseph’s dream has a different take. When the angel Gabriel tells Zechariah and then Mary to not be afraid, the takeaway is to not be afraid of the ethereal angelic presence. But here the angel tells Joseph to not be afraid to get married. Go ahead marry Mary, the angel says. The pregnancy is a God thing. Mary is going to give birth to a son and you Joseph are to name him Jesus. “When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.” For Joseph, the angel dream is not an annunciation, it is a command. God’s command to Joseph.

Joseph has no lines in the Christmas pageant when it comes to the gospel page. He doesn’t get into a conversation with the angel like Zechariah or Mary. He doesn’t get to sing like Mary’s Magnificat. Joseph doesn’t speak anywhere in Luke or in Matthew. But notice Matthew’s literary move here as the nativity story comes to an end. Matthew gives Joseph the last word. It doesn’t come as a dialogue with quotation marks. “He did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took Mary as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.”  “Joseph’s first and last word comes in the naming of Jesus.

Joseph named him Jesus. “You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Call him Jesus. He will save. Mary bore a son. Joseph named him Jesus. It’s more than Joseph getting to say something.. It is Joseph’s obedience. His obedience. His faith statement. It is Joseph’s move from participant observer to preacher, proclaimer, and evangelist. Joseph named him Savior. In his silence, Joseph became the proclaimer. As Joseph portrayed by Philip in the video showed obedience by getting up and immediately packing a bag, here in Matthew Joseph’s obedience comes in the naming. Joseph did more than speak. He named him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

You and I are participants in a pageant that unfolds all around us year after year. We are participant observers in a pageant of everyday life that mushes the secular and the sacred all together. As we here on life’s stage, try to discern the faithful and right way to live in a complex, swirling world. Our roles have us moving, often unaware, from the mundane to the holy. We seek to respond to the call of the Christ Child with the obedience and discipleship of our lives, and most of us I imagine, like Joseph, prefer the silence of a non-speaking part.

As the congregation gathered around the fount this morning for Kai’s baptism, a few lines were spoken. “What is the Christian name of your child?” Another naming. The sacrament of baptism drips with our obedience to Christ. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them….” Time and time again, the entire congregation surrounds a child, surrounding the one baptized, where a few splashes of the mundane become holy. It’s not just a naming. It’s a faith statement: all of us promising to “tell this child the good news of the gospel, to help them to know all that Christ commands, and by your fellowship, to strengthen their family ties with the household of God” That is a sacred task. A promise fulfilled less with words and a whole lot more with the obedience of our lives in the everyday pageant. Joseph’s response to God’s command and ours.

“You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall name him Emmanuel’ which means ‘God is with us’”.  Name the child Jesus, Joseph. He is God with us and he will save.

Frederick Buechner offers a reflection on Emmanuel and the promise of God with us. He offers an invitation to ponder the power of the here and now of God with us.  “To look at the last great self-portraits of Rembrandt or to read Pascal or hear Bach’s B Minor Mass is to know beyond the need for further evidence that if God is anywhere, God is with them,” Buechner writes. “God is also with the man behind the meat counter, the woman who scrubs floors at [the hospital], the high school math teacher who explains fractions to the bewildered [student]. And the step from ‘God with them’ to Emmanuel, ‘God with us’, may not be as great as it seems. What keeps the wild hope of Christmas alive year after year in a world notorious for dashing all hopes” Buechner concludes, “is the haunting dream that the child who was born that day may yet be born even in us.”

The wild hope of Christmas. Joseph’s dream and ours. That by God’s grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit, we might bear the light of the Christ Child in the world’s shadows with the obedience of our discipleship. For the light of the Christ Child forever shines like a bright morning star. A light that the darkness shall never overcome. A light that pierces through the night with the promise of God’s steadfast faithfulness offering peace and goodwill when both are noticeably absent. A light that flickers with the everlasting hope of God’s wisdom breaking into a world that prefers foolishness and folly. A light that shines ever brighter with the assurance that God would dare to become somehow like us, come all the way down to us, to make holy the sinfulness of our flesh. The light of the Christ Child for us and for our salvation. Emmanuel. God is with us. He named him Jesus.

Our wild hope for the world at Christmas meets God’s wild promise.

“When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel commanded him….he named him Jesus.”

The Preparation of Light

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Luke 1:5-25
December 1
David A. Davis
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The day before Thanksgiving as I pulled out of our driveway, a van was parked at the curb in front of our next-door neighbor’s house. The logo on the side of the van said “bright nights”. The neighbors moved in this summer and have been having quite a bit of work so I didn’t think much about it. When I came back to our house a few hours later, I realized that the “Bright Nights” contractor was putting up our neighbor’s holiday lights.  It wasn’t like the tree company putting lights on the tree in Palmer Square. The company wasn’t stringing lights along high eaves of the house like families in the neighborhood celebrating Diwali. These were tiny sparkling lights in the bushes. I don’t think they even needed a ladder.

With the lights on our neighbors’ bushes now lit, Cathy and I had a conversation remembering how our families did or did not decorate the outside of childhood homes. When I was young, the Christmas tree wasn’t even in the house before I went to bed on Christmas Eve. I have distinct memories of my father’s routines the weeks before. I can see him placing spotlights to shine up into the evergreen trees that lined the driveway. I can remember him hanging out an open window to put the string of lights around every front window. The kind of string with what seems like big bulbs now that broke very easily and then you had trouble getting the remains out of the socket. I remember very well when the mantle of preparation passed to me. My brother was off to college and it was now my turn to help. My father would hold my legs as I stretched out the second-floor window with a hammer nailing brad after brad into the caulk of the window to hold that string of lights. While I can remember the house all decorated on the outside, the memories of the preparation are much more vivid. I am guessing that for many of us, the preparations for the Thanksgiving meal likely hold more memories than the meal itself this week. Sometimes the preparation is the best part. When we were preparing the nursery for Hannah, our firstborn, I put the crib together in the upstairs hallway in the manse we lived in at the time. I had to put that crib together twice after we discovered it would not fit through the doorway to the bedroom. A little bit more focus on the preparation would have been helpful.

The story of the angel Gabriel, Zechariah, Elizabeth, and baby John shines a light on preparing the way of the Lord. Yes, John the Baptist is pretty much the definition of “preparing the way of the Lord.” But even here in Gabriel’s annunciation to Zechariah, the focus is on preparation. As the angel describes the gift and purpose of Zechariah’s son to him, Gabriel puts it this way: “to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

The group of priests Zechariah was assigned to were on duty that day. That is like his communion server team, his usher team. Zechariah’s name was picked out of a hat and he was the one to go into the sanctuary and light the incense at the appointed time. It was in there at the altar of incense where none but the priests could go that the angel appeared. While the angel and Zechariah chatted a bit at the altar, the people outside were wondering what was taking so long. Apparently, the lighting of the incense was a rather ordinary everyday religious chore that shouldn’t take all that long. People “wondered at his delay in the sanctuary”. When Zechariah came out, they figured out from his gestures, his excitement, and the look of wonder on his face, that he had seen a vision there in the sanctuary. But Zechariah was unable to tell what had happened, what he was told, who he was with.

While it must have been notable to the people gathered outside of the sanctuary that Zechariah came out unable to speak, it also seemed like a rather ordinary day around the sanctuary. As one member of the staff observed in our discussion of the passage on Tuesday morning, the bible records that Zechariah didn’t go home until the “time of service was ended.” The angel announced that Elizabeth was going to have a baby and Zechariah stayed to finish his shift! He didn’t rush home to share the news, he finished the work day. According to Luke, Zechariah went from terrified and overwhelmed with fear to learning Elizabeth was going to have a child to losing his ability to speak to just hanging around to clock out.

Readers of the gospel are drawn to all the religiosity and piety described in the story: Zechariah and Elizabeth were “righteous before God” and “living blamelessly.” That theme of barrenness and fertility that never seems to leave the scriptures page points to a familiar theological theme. There is, of course, the angel talk. And Gabriel says that John “will be great in the sight of the Lord….even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Before his birth. That must be how he knew in utero that Mary was carrying the Messiah. That time when John leapt into Elizabeth’s womb. He was filled with the Holy Spirit. Yes, the passage has all the trappings of religion and the miraculous that one would expect when one of the angels shows up.

Yet, it also seems like making ready “a people prepared for the Lord” started on an ordinary day at the office for Zechariah and the people of God. For Matthew, the preparation begins with the long list of genealogies. Mark begins with John the Baptist proclaiming in the wilderness. You remember that John’s gospel starts “In the beginning”. Here in Luke, the preparation begins with a local priest going about his day in the neighborhood parish down the street. As to the nature of the preparation, Gabriel foretells? “With the spirit and power of Elijah, John will go before the Lord, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous” Or in the words of Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase “John will herald God’s arrival in the style and strength of Elijah, soften the hearts of parents to children, and kindle devout understanding among hardened skeptics—he’ll get the people ready for God.”

Getting ready for God by proclaiming the Word, tending to the most important relationships, and nurturing within God’s people a craving for the wisdom of God in their lives. Announcing the coming reign of God, filling tender hearts with love, and sparking a yearning for the righteousness of God. Pointing to the coming of the Christ Child with energy and enthusiasm and excitement, fueling a contagious spirit of kindness and mercy, and looking to the presence of God to shed the light of meaning in our lives, a meaning that looks to God’s wisdom, God’s justice, and God’s way. Getting people ready for God in the everyday routine of life.

This may not be a surprise to you, but people often have an inflated view of church work. They overestimated the daily piety of members of the clergy or thought that working at a church was like one long extension of a youth retreat. I don’t want to shatter any of your illusions, but for those of us who work here at Nassau Presbyterian Church, our lives are just like yours. Our work lives are like your work lives. Some days are just long and boring. Some weeks are more of a grind than others. As Frank, who works at McCaffrey’s said to me in the parking lot Friday after I greeted him and asked how he was doing, “Well, you know how it is, same job, different day.” It can be pretty everyday and ordinary around here. And here we all are amid that daily, weekly, mundane routine of life. Here we are preparing for the coming of Christ in our lives. Together trumpeting the gospel of Jesus with a Spirit-fed, Spirit-let joy. Together, sharing love in our relationships at home, here, out there. And together, discerning God’s call to discipleship. God’s call to us to live these ordinary days guided by God’s wisdom, God’s justice, God’s righteousness. And yes, amid our collective effort to get ourselves and others ready for God, sometimes an angel shows up and takes your breath away.

Once or twice a year, in the Cook Davis kitchen, we pull out Nana Lease’s hand grinder. We attach it to the counter. Take the cranberries, the orange slices, and some other fruit out of the fridge. We spread newspaper on the floor because grinding up the cranberry dressing always makes a mess. As their mother did before them, our young granddaughters stood on a stool at the kitchen counter, turned the crank, and giggled at the mess being made. Four generations or more with that grinder and cranberry sauce. Here’s another secret, nobody at the Cook-Davis table actually likes the cranberry dressing. But it never was about the sauce, was it?

As you come to the Table today, look around the room, and ponder all the ordinary, everyday ways that we prepare ourselves and the world for the coming of Jesus. Getting ready for God by proclaiming the Word, tending to the most important relationships, and nurturing within God’s people a craving for the wisdom of God in their lives. From one generation to the next generation and the generation after that. It’s what it means to be the church of Jesus Christ bearing witness to his light amid our preparation.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.