Lectionary: Advent 4(C)
Text: Luke 1:39-55
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| Visitation |
The signs of Christmas are everywhere, however. From the
glittering lights to the window displays to the impossibly busy schedules and
appointments to be kept, one cannot escape the anticipation of Christmas.
Another sign, especially in a household with children and
grandchildren, may be the increasing count of gift-wrapped items under the
tree. There are small boxes, medium boxes, large boxes, wrapped cylinders and
awkwardly shaped items. With each additional item, the anticipation increases.
Christmas is almost here, but not yet. We know Christmas is coming, but we must
wait just a little while longer.
One of the key challenges I face, running a retail store, is
finding boxes for odd shaped items – mostly pottery pieces. When we order and
receive these items, we don’t receive them boxed individually. They come in
shipping boxes, with boxes inside holding multiple pieces each. Then when a
customer wants an item boxed and wrapped, we must sleuth out a box that is approximately
the correct size and shape. Sometimes though, we end up having to build boxes
from other boxes, or from larger sheets of cardboard that we cut apart and reassemble.
As I was thinking about today’s gospel text and the overall
Lucan gospel from where it comes, I was struck by the irony of trying to fit
gifts into boxes when the entire gospel message is about God not fitting into
the boxes of human expectations of who God is.
On the other hand, putting gifts into boxes is a perfect
metaphor of what humankind has been trying to do with God throughout history. We
want a God who fits our understanding and expectations. We want a God that
works according to our wishes and desires. We want a God who favors who we like
and acts against those we don’t like. In short, we want a God we can control.
We want a God that stays out of our lives until we need God to fix something. And
then God can go back into the box.
(Cats love boxes, but even most cats can’t be forced into a
box against their will.)[1]
Throughout most of history, human societies have had expectations
about how God communicates to them. Humans developed systems and hierarchies of
religions: religious traditions, ceremonies, rituals, and established roles to
mediate deities’ communication to us and back.
In the opening chapter of Luke, we read about a priest named
Zechariah. His pedigree is impeccable, traced back to Aaron, the original high
priest of Israel. He is described as ministering to God at the temple,
mediating between the people and God. If anyone should receive a message from
God, it is Zechariah. And in fact, he does, but his response is that which
doubts God’s power, and as a result is rendered unable to speak.
When the same messenger of God, Gabriel, announces an
unanticipated and unexplainable pregnancy to Mary, she has questions, but she
accepts that God can work outside of normal human experiences and even outside
the normal laws of biology.
From the very beginning, the God found in our Bible often reverses
human expectations. A younger child often becomes the one chosen to lead and
carry on the promise of God’s blessings: among them, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and
David. While the society and literature is patriarchal, women are not always
passive. Many feature prominently and there are several instances where they play
a critical role in allowing the people to survive. This includes the Hebrew
midwives in Egypt who saved their male infants, Miriam who saved Moses, the
woman of Jericho who hid the spies, Deborah the judge and leader, Hannah who
gave up her child Samuel to God, and Bathsheba who was the kingmaker for
Solomon.
The gospel of Luke begins with a reversal. The expected
communicator for God, Zechariah, is rendered speechless. Instead, prophecies
and blessings are pronounced through the mouths of Elizabeth and Mary. Elizabeth
is the first human individual (with help from her own unborn prophet John) to
recognize Christ in Mary’s womb.
In response Mary’s opens her mouth to praise God. Whether or
not she spoke the actual words of the Magnificat is debatable, but we can
accept it as reflecting the kind of young woman Mary was. The Magnificat may
have been composed following the pattern of Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel. Like
Hannah, the mother of Samuel, Mary’s faith and strength of character reflected
the attributes of the God they worshiped and served. While they were both humans
and with all our shared weaknesses, they exhibited a unique steadfastness and
determination to see justice worked out among their people. As a result, they
were chosen by God to bear children that would go on to do great things. Samuel
would go on to lead the Israelites and anoint their first two kings. And Jesus
would become the Savior of all people.
But perhaps even Mary could not see how expansive and broad
the gospel of Jesus Christ would be. The Magnificat ends with.
He has come to the aid of his
servant Israel,
remembering his mercy,
55 just as he promised to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever. (Luke 1:54-55 CEB)
In the Magnificat, the promise of the Messiah, the Savior,
is still found in a box limited to Israel and Abraham’s descendants. But when
the Christmas story does come around, when Jesus’ birth is announced by angels to
the shepherds, one of the angels says, “Don’t be afraid! Look! I bring good
news to you—wonderful, joyous news for all people.” (Luke 2:10)
In Luke’s gospel account, the first announcement of Jesus’
birth is not in royal chambers, not in the sanctum of the temple, not to
nobles, not to priests, but to shepherds – laborers – in the fields. They were
the first evangelists for and about Jesus. And the gospel they receive from the
angel is not limited to just their tribe and nation. It is for all
people: Jews certainly, but also for Romans and Greeks, for citizens and
non-citizens, slaves and free, men and women, young and old.
God isn’t limited to communicating through what humans think
are proper and established channels. God does indeed speak through priests and
prophets, through pastors and theologians. God does speak through Christian
churches and communities.
But what the Advent and Christmas stories tells us is that
we should not try to place God in a box. Women were not the usual and expected spokespersons
for God, but they are who God used to communicate the impending arrival of
Jesus Christ. Shepherds were not expected to be apostles and evangelists, but
that is who God used to announce Jesus’ birth.
Do we miss some of what God is trying to communicate to us because
we limit the channels through which we hope to hear from God? We might, in
theory, believe that God can speak outside of scripture, outside of pastors,
outside of churches, and even outside of Christianity. But how open are we to
hearing from outside the normal, established, and expected channels?
The gospel is a message that was first given to those in the
margins, received by them, and spread by those in the margins. To tame,
domesticate, and defang the subversive and dangerous power of self-sacrificing
love, the established powers took the gospel and placed it into boxes that they
could control. And so, it has continued to this present day.
Christians frequently speak about the impossibility of
placing God in a box. Yet that is what we do, because that is what we want.
Churches have silenced women, and many still do. Churches frequently
privilege the voices of those with wealth and status. Those on the margins are often
“ministry targets” that are patronized, rather than voices that need to be
heard.
Have we neutered the gospel by making it more comfortable
for us? What do the voices in the margins say? Do we even know where to go to
hear those voices? Can we listen without patronizing? Can we hear what God is
speaking through communities and voices that are not like ours? Through voices
that don’t belong to our tribe? Through voices that may not express the same
faith, beliefs, or perhaps none at all?
We think we know what the gospel is. But do we really? If we
haven’t taken the time to listen to those in the margins, to those who are
victimized and oppressed, from those who aren’t like us, how can we be certain
that what we think is the gospel is really the gospel to their ears?
During these final days of Advent and through the upcoming
Christmas season, perhaps we should take to heart the saying, “Talk less,
listen more.” Maybe we should take time to listen for the gospel found in
unexpected places and spoken through nontraditional channels.
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