Christmas, 25-A: We are the manger

Lectionary: Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96, Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14(15-20) 

En el nombre de Dios: creador, redentor, y santificador… 

In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen. 

For whatever reason, when we think about the birth of our Savior, we picture it happening in the dark of night. I think of the hymn Silent Night, which we will sing later in this service.

I don’t know if art gave that to us, or if we reasoned that the natal star signifying Jesus’ birth would be seen at night or if it actually did happen at night. However we got there, it seems a perfect picture.

Darkness is such a powerful spiritual symbol. It’s a place of quiet in which God creates. In the deep, dark soil of the earth, God transforms a seed into a fruitful harvest. In the dark quietness of a woman's womb, God creates new life.

Darkness is attractive to us. We sleep in the dark, restoring our bodies and minds. In darkness, the world is at rest (unless they are at war). 

We love a candlelit dinner or prayer service, like our weekly Taizé service. The quiet calms us. The peace enters us. God enters us.

Darkness can also seem frightening. Unable to see our surroundings can put us off balance and make us afraid to move.

That’s the beauty of darkness, though. When we’re off balance or can’t move, we have the opportunity to walk by faith, not by sight. In the darkness, we can rest in the faith that God loves us, protects us, and is always waiting to be known to us in a new way, which is what Christmas is all about.

Culture tends to judge darkness as bad and light as good. Even church culture often does that. But there can’t be one without the other, so instead of holding them as opposing, we can appreciate them as symbiotic, mutually beneficial.

Without darkness, the light would overwhelm us. Without light, the darkness would swallow us. Both are of God and both give us life.

One of my favorite modern-day theologians, Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor, gave a lecture in 2013 at the Rothko Chapel in TX. Seeing the paintings in that chapel in person, Barbara+ noted that what stood out for her were the deep royal blues, violets, and the gold she saw. She said, “The darkness of these panels is the luminous kind, and not the bossy kind. They don’t tell me what to see. They make room for me to see whatever I see, even if that is gold in the dark.” (Source) (Image: Philip Jonson)

Christmas is this luminous kind of darkness that opens us to see the gold.

The world teaches us to be afraid of the dark. God demonstrates to us that darkness is sacred, fertile, and life-giving. The world teaches us to fear and sometimes scorn our humanness, but by becoming one of us, Jesus revealed to us our own sacredness and the sacredness of all humanity. This was the reconciling work Jesus started and asked us to continue in his name.

How are we doing with that? Have you seen the news lately? Do we respect, protect, and honor the dignity of every human being as we vow to do in our Baptism?

I’m a real fan of British and Russian literature: Bronte, Austin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky. Part of what I like, apart from the brilliant writing, is the cultural mirror it provides. Humanity may not be where we should be yet, but we’ve come a long way from the entrenched classism of the19th century Golden Age… or have we?

Whenever we hear rhetoric that dehumanizes or denigrates anyone or any nation, language that elevates one group above another, we have turned away from our faith in the reconciling work of Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God, whose birth into the human race, we celebrate today. Whenever we glorify earthly or military power or coerce of people through threats of destruction or starvation, we have turned away from the way of love established by the Prince of Peace who is born in us again at Christmas.

Christ was born in a manger more than two millennia ago. He is born again today in us.

We, individually and a a church community, are the manager where Christ is born today because we are the dwelling place of God in the world. The reason God is born again in us this day is so that we might live into our divine purpose, which is to bear the love of God into the world until all people, all nations know that God’s love is real, present, more powerful than anything or any way devised by humans, and already working to redeem all things, all people, all the time.

Our Bishop, Deon Johnson, said this about Christmas: 

“As we walk once more to the manger, we do so in a world marked by division, fear, and deep uncertainty. This is nothing new. Jesus was born into a time much like our own, a world shaped by anxiety and unrest, where the powers of authority were firmly in control, where fear was weaponized to still and to silence. And yet, God chose not spectacle or force, but vulnerability. God came among us as Emmanuel, God-with-us, disarming the powerful through the ordinariness of love made flesh, redeeming the world not from above, but from within.”

We are partners with Christ in this continuing work of redemption. In the ordinariness of our flesh dwells the powerful, transforming love of God. I think Marianne Williamson was right when she said, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” We are powerful beyond measure, not because of us, but because of God’s spirit in us.

Tonight (today), I invite us all to bask in the Christmas experience as we worship. After sharing the holy food of Communion, we will pause, dim the lights, kneel before the Lord (in our bodies or our spirits), and sing Silent Night. As we sing (or listen), we have the opportunity to open ourselves to enter the luminous darkness where we find that the love of God in Christ has entered us, making us all holy, sacred, reconciled, and powerful through him.

Christ is born in us this day. Alleluia! 

Merry Christmas! Amen.

Advent 4, 2025-C: Extraordinary faithfulness

Lectionary: Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25

 

En el nombre de Dios, creador, redentor, y santificador… In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen. 

Extraordinary faithfulness. This was a term used by one of our Bible studiers this week as we engaged our readings for today. Mary and Joseph both showed extraordinary faithfulness in recent gospel stories - last week with the angel’s in-person (so to speak) visitation to Mary, and this week with the angel’s visitation to Joseph in a dream. 

The question came up: Will we do now what Mary and Joseph did then? It’s a good question, which we’ll get to shortly.

First, let’s take a look at our Collect because it speaks to how Mary and Joseph lived extraordinarily faithful lives. The Collect begins: “Purify our conscience, Almighty God, with your daily visitation…”

What do we hear when we hear the word “purify?” If we look at how Jesus used this word during his ministry (think about the Beatitudes we read recently), we learn that to be pure is to be completely aligned with the will of God.

Our readings today give us a clue about what God’s will is. God is ready to do a new thing, to be known in a new way, and God needs us to stop thwarting that plan, as Ahaz did, and get on board with it, as Joseph did.

In the reading from Isaiah, the Jewish people have been besieged by war, but their King, Ahaz, who is visited by God, can’t or won’t respond faithfully because he has put his obedience to the human-made rule of not putting God to the test ahead of God’s current call to him.

Seeing this, Isaiah issues a prophecy: “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” This isn’t a prophecy about Jesus. It’s about a boy born then whose identity we don't know, but we do know the outcome of the prophecy: God acted through the boy, and by his adulthood, the city and the nation were saved.

In our gospel story, this prophecy is referenced and connected, but taken even further. The angel tells Joseph that he is to name the son born of Mary, Jesus, Jehosua, which means YHWH (God) is salvation, for he will save his people from their sins.

Jesus isn’t the first person in our Scripture with this name. The first Jehosua, Joshua, who succeeded Moses as the leader of the Israelites, led his people to military victory, saving them from their enemies.

This Jehosua, Jesus, will save the people from their sins. This matters because that’s something only God can do. This Jehosua, Jesus, is not just a man in whom God is acting. This Jehosua is God.

In the gospel story, Joseph is presented as a faithful Jewish man. His betrothed, Mary, has turned up pregnant and he knows it isn’t his. In his day, the law required Joseph to divorce Mary, that is, to nullify their contract to marry. The law also required that Mary be stoned to death as an adulterer.

Joseph, being a decent man, considers disassociating from Mary quietly, ostensibly, not outing her as pregnant, in order to spare Mary’s life and her family the shame. Anyone who’s ever lived in a small town, however, knows it won’t be long before the whole town knows the whole story.

An angel, speaking to Joseph in a dream, tells him that Mary has not been unfaithful to him or their contract. The angel then quotes Isaiah to him, assuring him of God’s presence in this moment.

If he consents to participate in what is being asked of him, Joseph will pay a heavy social, religious, amd interior price. His consent will require him to let go of his expectations and all of the religious guardrails that gave him security. He will have to trust, and launch into something new and unknown - with Mary and Mary’s baby - as protector and usher of this new thing God is doing in the world. 

Extraordinary faithfulness.

Looking back at last week, the same is true for Mary. The angel is asking her to become pregnant before she marries, putting her very life at risk. Mary asks the obvious, ‘How would that work?,’ then accepts the angel’s explanation that it is God at work in her. Mary consents, surrendering her whole life to God’s care. Mary had to let go her own expectations for how her life would be and the religious and social guardrails that safeguarded her. She would have to deal with the shame-filled rumors that would follow her and head off with Joseph into something new and unknown. And she did!

Extraordinary faithfulness.

When Steve and I were newly married and trying to start a family - it wasn’t easy. I suffered multiple miscarriages and was feeling desolate and afraid.

I had quit working full-time in marketing to reduce my stress, hoping that would help my body hold on to a pregnancy. We finally did have two babies, 13 months apart! God’s abundance (ha!).

It was a LOT, so we made the decision for me to say at home. This was a huge emotional risk for me: becoming financially dependent on a man again (even though this one was good and worthy of my trust).

Living without my salary meant we couldn’t keep up with our country-club lifestyle. When Christmas came around, we couldn’t load the living room with gifts as we’d done before.

It became clear to us that we had been trapped in the societal commercialization of Christmas: the decorations and parties, presents for everyone, ensuring our kids had the “it” gift for the year… It was exhausting and expensive.

So, we made a decision. We stepped out of the rat race of commercialized Christmas and refocused on what Christmas means: the love of God being born in us in a new way. How could we experience and share that?

We decided to connect with loved ones and make memories, rather than buying gifts. We informed our extended families and friends that we were no longer buying them presents. Instead, we would spend time doing something fun - making memories to last a lifetime. We wondered if our friends would abandon us and our strange new way, but they didn’t.

This new way gave us a sense of freedom we still enjoy. It also has given us so many cherished memories, something we value far more than any trendy new gadget or toy.

Moving outside of accepted expectations and established societal and religious structures can be scary and lonely. We need support. We need each other, and God makes those connections for us.

Last week I led a retreat at a church in VA where I met a woman of extraordinary faithfulness. Two of their members, young immigrant women with proper documentation, had been illegally arrested by ICE, and sent to detention in FL. (News article) The church was (and is) reeling from the injustice and terrified for the girls’ safety.

The rector found herself fighting against an unjust system outside of her knowledge, experience, and expectations as a rector. She gave her ‘yes’ to God and suddenly had a whole new job, on top of leading her church.

On the edge of burnout, she texted me: “I’m jaggy and cranky, over-tired and worried. I’m usually good but somehow the potential deportation to certain death of women I love has taken my normal self care off the table.“

My reply to her was: “Give all you have without fear. God’s abundance is enough and will carry you through. Please listen to your body and trust the moments of rest God sends you. All shall be well. You have been chosen.”

“The Holy Spirit did a good thing when she connected us. [the rector said]. I was expecting something amazing for our Vestry and congregation …but I wasn’t expecting a soul-friend at the same time.”

Society looks out for itself. God looks out for us. 

 Knowing which expectations and societal or religious structures to walk away from or fight against requires discernment: time in prayer with God, listening for the voice that tells us when, how, and where to go. As we prayed for in our Collect: Purify our conscience, Almighty God….

Inviting God to purify our conscience is a daily practice, not just an Advent thing. We must intentionally, prayerfully, and daily enter God’s presence so that God can guide us just as God guided Mary, Joseph, and so many others in the stories of our faith.

So… back to the question: Will we do now what Mary and Joseph did then? Will we a) listen for the voice of God, b) ponder the request God makes of us with open hearts, c) let go of our expectations and guardrails, and, d) respond with our yes?

I pray, for the sake of the world Jesus loved and gave his life for, that we will. Amen.