12/20
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| Home Communion |
I stop in to the West Park worship service because my friend Russ is leading it. Right in the middle of his sharing a video of John McCutchen’s moving song, “Christmas in the Trenches,” about the Christmas Truce of 1917, I experience my first ZOOM bomb as a crude penis appears on the screen followed by the word “fuck” and then scribbling all over as demonic cackling fills the sound. Amazed at how violated you feel. It takes a few minutes to straighten all that out. You just can’t have ZOOM meetings without a waiting room.
Leading a Christmas service for my Beverley friends this morning. Here’s what I had to say:
Luke 1: 26-38
26In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 34Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35The angel said to her, “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. 36And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
Here we are…the final Sunday of Advent. Our journey is almost at an end. Just 4 more days until Christmas Eve in the most strange of Christmas seasons. As I've walked the city streets, everything seems subdued, toned down, quiet. There are still lights, the midtown shop windows, but it all seems, you know? The parties we’d normally be going to aren’t happening. The extended family visits also curtailed. We’re all shopping on line and the mail is slower than ever. We all wonder what’s up with this virus even as the vaccine begins to make its way around.
Can you see in your mind’s eye the inside of Beverley Church? Decorated for Christmas? And we walk down the stairs and see what Eugene’s been up to and share in the food we all have brought and enjoy the transforming decorations and fellowship with one another? That’s where we see each other today….in our mind’s eye.
Try to see in your mind’s eye a young woman. All we know when she enters the scene is that she is nobody famous. Who lives in a town, not a city, just a town, a non important town, Nazareth in the upstate region of Galilee. (As Nathanel says in John ,”Can anything good come out of Galilee?”) Tradition tells us she’s a teenager. Luke tells us she’s a virgin. And out of nowhere, an angel appears! And says “Greetings!” But this is where I like the King Jame version better…where the angel says
Hail Mary!
I’m sure Gabriel never imagined he’d become famous in football which didn’t even exist then…Of course that started at Notre Dame, but get this, it was a Presbyterian player who suggested they pray! He tells her Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
Which coming out of nowhere would shake anyone up…can you see the look on her face? Luke tells us she was “perplexed” and “pondering”…but it gets better..she’s going to “conceive” and “have a son.” Let that sink in..The angel goes on. But I’m sure Mary is still struggling with that pregnant part. Because her first words are, “How can this be, since I am a virgin' ….and for anyone who wants to bring up the fact that in her Hebrew of Isaiah that informs this passage, the word is just young woman, Mary makes it clear. He literal words in Greek are.. " I have never known a man”…which is to say, “ I have never had sex..”And Gabriel tells her ““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.” Okay then, how does the work? And earlier he had said, 2He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” That’s a lot to take in.
And if you’re Mary, what do you think? Well, maybe the first thing you think is, hmmm, most favored? Here I am engaged to a good man from a good family, yeah, he hasn’t done so well, but he’s a good man. And I’m going to be an unmarried pregnant woman? In this town? At best I’ll be a scandalized woman and maybe even taken out and stoned…doesn’t sound so blessed to me..
And the angel’s not done. Her cousin Elizabeth, an old woman, is now six months pregnant. Elizabeth is married to Zechariah, a priest in theTemple. They live in the fancy suburb of Judah just north of Jerusalem. Think Associate Pastor of 5th Avenue or Madison Avenue Presbyterian living in oh, say, Chappaqua. So that makes Mary the poor relative. Elizabeth’s late in life pregnancy os like that of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. SO making barren women pregnant is a standard Biblical event…a virgin is just one step beyond. Did you know around the world how common that Is ? Found at least 10 famous virgin births including Krishna, Bacchus, Hercules and down in Mexico, Quetzalcotel. The Muslims say, if God could created humans out of nothing, hey with a woman you’re halfway there!
Bottom line: with God, anything is possible.
So how long does Mary ponder? How along was she perplexed? Did she hesitate? She says, resolutely, , “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
So Mary goes off to visit her cousin, and when she arrives, the baby leaps in her cousin’s womb, Elizabeth confirms for Mary what the angel has told her and Mary sings this amazing song:
46b My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
It’s amazing because the baby isn’t even born yet and she sings as if all these things have already been accomplished. Like Desmond Tutu saying long before apartheit fell, We have already won. The others just haven’t figured it out yet. It’s that knowing, deep inside, at the heart of creation, that it is God’s will that the lowly will be lifted up, the hungry filled. (Mary’s song is a riff on Hannah’ song (1 Samuel 2: 1-10), the mother of Samuel.) It is the already and not yet.
In Nicaragua, in the 1980’s, I heard a woman who had just learned to read in their literacy campaign read this passage and then say that this had come true in her lifetime.
When I was growing up, we were taught that all this Mary business the Catholics do is at best idolatrous. But through my life I’ve come to understand that this song is the reason poor people around the earth venerate Mary as one of them and proof that God wants their concrete life circumstances changed now, not just in the sweet by and by. If you come to think about it, this is what Jesus was talking about in his sermon on the mount, the Beatitudes.
Hear this :Gabriel’s message to Mary and Mary’s song are at the very center of the meaning of the child who’s birth we will celebrate next Friday. This is the why and what of who this child, this Jesus is….
And see this…Mary’s been given limited information….it’s heavy, yes, but limited. She says yes to the risk of what many happen to her and without any idea of what will come next. And no idea that this most beloved son of hers will wind up executed by the imperial Roman oppressors as an insurrectionist, condemned by the religious leaders, abandoned by his friends. In spite of all she does not know, Mary says , Let it be, to me according to thy word.
We have lived through dark days. And they are not over yet. It will take courage to keep walking with one another to the other side.
So here’s the point…just as the angel had a message for Mary, God has a message for us…this Christmas, there is something waiting to be born inside of us. God has something ready to be born in each and every one of us. What we need is to have the courage, like Mary, to say, Here am I…let it be to me according to thy word. And more…if God has something to be born inside each of us, God has something to be born inside your community, inside Beverley Church. I can’t tell you what it is. You just have to listen together and let it be.
Remember …Nothing is impossible for God.
On last word, just like Mary riffed on Hannah’s sing, Paul McCartney and the Beatles riffed on Mary’s song. The words of Let it Be come straight from Luke. NO matter how dark the days, there will be an answer, Let it Be.
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| our concert |
In the late afternoon, my friend Steve and I do a virtual holiday concert. Last year at this time we did a pop up concert at the Bethesda fountain in Central Park. Drew a crowd of a 100 or so.Sang harmonies. Not this years. Solos on ZOOM and a team up on White Christmas. Hopefully brought some cheer in the darkest days of this pandemic.
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