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Luke 1:1-25
A sermon preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
Over the next month, I want us to concentrate during this sermon time on the stories that are part of our lives. Each of us have stories that we bring to this place. The stories are unique, as unique as each individual in this room. The common denominator is that each of us mingles our own stories with the Biblical stories, and the stories that happen in each other’s lives as we come together. Through all of that interaction, these stories weave together a tapestry of life and holy life that might make our own stories a bit more meaningful.
Each Sunday, I will concentrate on a Biblical character and his or her story. But the real story I hope you will reflect on is your own. How do these biblical characters intersect with or inform your own story? How do they give voice to what you do or say? That’s the task of Advent.
The way we know that the stories mean something to us, is the way we speak them. Listen to the passion. Listen to the voices that pour through. When we give vice to something, miracles can occur.
On Thursday afternoon, as the turkey did its sleepy magic on our bloated stomachs, my brother Mike suggested we do some singing. With the kids in the basement playing together, us adults gathered around the piano, pulled out the guitar and started singing. As we mixed our voices, each one with its own timbre, each one with its own memories, each one with its own culture, if you will, something magical happened. After a few tentative stops and starts, we found something that we could all harmonize on. With each of us adding our own flavor, we sang a few songs and reveled in the joy that the music brought us. It was wonderful to do something together as a family. My mom asked, “Do you sing whenever you get together?” My brother Mike and looked at each other and confessed, “No, we never do.” Maybe if we sang some more than we could get farther on breaking down the adolescent barriers that we build between us.
That’s one of the reasons I love Sacred Harp singing. Few of us agree theologically, politically or otherwise. But we put all of that aside to sing these sacred harp songs. When we join our voices with those across the square and mystically with those across the centuries, we witness to a power that is beyond ourselves. It only happens when we use our voices—when our voices join together to make a new sound.
I hope you use your voice this Christmas. I know I will. Maybe all of our voices will be a bit different this year in unexpected ways.
Today’s scripture is one which is often overlooked in the Christmas season. We are not talking about Jesus, not about Mary and Joseph, but about the conception of John the Baptist.
Well, why talk about John the Baptist at Christmas time?
Maybe I’m choosing it because I’m partial top stories about Baptists.
But you know, I think that all the Gospel writers were partial to Baptists, at least John the Baptist.
In the Gospel of Luke, Mark and John, the very first person talked about is John the Baptist. Even before Jesus.
I don’t mean to say that John the Baptist is more important than Jesus, not by a long shot. What I do want to say is that something wonderful happened in the birth of John the Baptist which speaks to me as I venture to speak to you this day.
Now, the story goes that Zechariah and Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s parents were advanced in years. Let’s call them “mature adults.”
We don’t know how old, but certainly past child-bearing age.
Now, they had been trying to have children for a long time. All of their attempts were unsuccessful. I know many people who are like them. I bet you do, too.
They were kinda depressed about it. They tried to put their lives together in a way in which children no longer took center stage.
Zechariah
devoted his life to his priestly duties in the temple. Perhaps
One day while Zechariah was burning incense in the temple just like he had always done, an angel appeared to him. And Zechariah was terrified. I mean it’s not everyday that an angel comes and stands on the left side of the altar, let alone the right.
But the angel said, “relax, your prayer is heard.”
Zechariah, we can imagine scratched his head thinking, “which prayer?”
The angel answered, “Your wife Elizabeth will bear a son and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness and many people will rejoice at his birth. This boy, John, will prepare the way of the Messiah.”
Zechariah must have looked terrified, for the angel said, “well, aren’t you happy?”
Skeptical
Zechariah might have been thinking, “well, if you
wanted to answer prayers about children, you could have done it a long time
ago. Why wait until now, when we’re
old?” The angel didn’t like this
response and shut Zechariah up for the next nine months. There might have been great rejoicing in
With
Zechariah silenced, it was now
“This is what God has done to me when God looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.” (2x)
People
might not have heard
What was the disgrace she endured? It was that she was barren. It was that she had little or no worth. It was that she was useless. That’s what patriarchy thought of her. That’s what religion thought of her. As the embodiment of religion, it could have even been what her husband thought of her.
And it was to the person and people that religion ignores and humanity decides are useless, worthless and barren that God comes to the most at Christmas.
Have you ever felt useless?
Have you ever felt barren?
Have you ever been put down and punished by those with more power?
Have you ever had to endure disgrace among your own people?
Have you ever felt left out by a religion that devalues your life, your voice, your story?
If you
answered yes to any of that, then
But both Elizabeth and Mary shared unique and seemingly unholy conceptions in their wombs. They would later sing blasphemous songs in the ears of those in power. They had a power from God which showed them, and all the world that will listen, that God’s priority is not with those who hold worldly power. God is with the outcast. God is with those who have endured disgrace from their own people. It doesn’t matter how much leaders invoke the name of God, God is always with the poor and marginalized.
That’s what
It doesn’t say that God redeemed her.
It doesn’t say that God forgave her.
It doesn’t say that God looked with favor upon her, although God did.
She said, “God took away the disgrace I endured from my own people.”
That disgrace never came from God, only from “God’s” people.
In other words, people’s thoughts about me no longer matter.
I have power.
And that power is no longer dependant on how others think of me.
It comes from God who has taken away my reproach among the people.
God has not
left
I have to admit, there are times when I have felt put down and defeated. I let other people’s judgements get underneath my skin and pound me down.
I have taken the reproach of others
way too seriously. Sometimes they were
right. Other times they weren’t. But I tell you, it is hard to forget a
put-down. Someone can make a hundred
compliments, but I will remember the handful of criticisms more than anything
else.
It says that God is always with us no matter what someone else says.
It says that we are not to be defined by another’s judgement, but only by the judgement of God. It rewards our faithfulness.
As most of you know, after four
months of letter writing, agitating and prayer, this week we received a
response from the Green Lake Board of Directors. They made the decision to uphold our church’s
exclusion from the
Sisters and brothers, we’ll hear
lots of voices this Advent season. The retail industry depends upon us
listening to their voice—that we are incomplete without this or that product;
that we are simply not good American consumers if we didn’t fight the crowds to
the malls on Friday. In the midst of all
of this, we need to remember
The world might see us as crazy, but
we have power because of the encouragement of the
For who knows what creative power might be gestating within us.
We know
that like