The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel
Episcopal Diocese of Central NY (Retired)
This is the fourth Sunday of Advent. In the secular world, the preparations
for Christmas are in high gear, and we are all rushing about from store to party
to kitchen preparations to decorating, and trying to finish our Christmas cards
and, in the few empty times we have left, finish wrapping gifts. We certainly
don't have much time or opportunity to do any serious thinking, and we want
everything to be "just like Christmas always is"...we resent any changes to our
treasured traditions. And so, today's Bible readings take us up short. We are
not quite sure what to make of them.
The first reading is from the book of the prophet Micah, whose name in Hebrew
means "he who proclaims the Lord." And proclaim the Lord, Micah surely does.
Practically everything he says goes against the comfortable human habits and
traditions that the Jewish people had developed. First of all, Micah makes it
clear that bigger and fancier is NOT better in the Lord's eyes. Out of
Bethlehem, that little backwater town, a tiny suburb of Jerusalem, Micah says,
God is going to bring forward a person who is going to change everything for the
better...God's idea of the better, not peoples'.
I suspect that most of the folks who heard Micah preaching were pretty much
"turned off" by this. After all, they were comfortable with their customs and
traditions. What could be better than "the good old days and the good old ways?"
But here is Micah saying that their "good old ways" were not acceptable to the
Lord. They weren't really keeping the Covenant they had made with God...they
were just going through the motions. Going to Temple every week was fine, but if
they spent the time there daydreaming about getting rich and about other, more
comforting things, then the sacrifices and prayers didn't count for anything.
And the people did not like hearing that, any more than we would like being
reminded that we're really supposed to pay strict attention in Church, and not
think about clothes, or tonight's party, or gossip with our neighbors in the
pew. We're even supposed to keep the kids quiet and teach them what worship is
all about! Imagine!
So, Micah said, they were going to be punished. They already knew that the
Assyrians' armies were grouped on the borders of Israel, getting ready to
invade. This, it seemed, would be their punishment for just going through the
motions of worship, without putting their hearts into it.
And Bethlehem...such a small town, mostly peasants. Nothing exciting had
happened there since David, son of Jesse, had been picked to be king, long ago.
Jerusalem was so much better. Jericho, too. They were big cities, full of rich
people and exciting events. Surely God was joking...he couldn't seriously plan
to bring his great Messiah out of a little hayseed town like Bethlehem, could
he? Probably most people who heard Micah preach didn't take him seriously. It
simply did not make sense to them. Bethlehem, for heaven's sake. And being so
serious about going to worship, what was he talking about?
The letter to the church of the Hebrew Christians emphasizes part of what
Micah had told the people. Sacrifices and offerings were all very well, but they
are not in themselves important. It may have come as a shock to these Jewish
Christians to hear that it was not enough to go through the motions of worship,
but that they were supposed to take worship seriously...not just in the Temple,
but in everything they did in their lives. They, and we, are told very seriously
and emphatically that we are sent into this world for the same purpose Jesus
was. We, like Jesus, are sent into this world to do God's will, not our own.
Period! Micah had said much the same thing, long ago, but of course people don't
remember or believe things that don't please them.
And so, the letter to the Jewish Christians sounds like a replay of Micah...we
are sent to do God's will. We are to worship God not just in word and action,
but also in spirit and in truth, as Jesus had told a woman at a well
much later than Micah had preached these same ideas. That's how Jesus lived, and
that's how we are supposed to live. Going to church is not just to prove we are
nice people, it has to go much deeper than that...it has to be our whole life,
this doing the will of God in all things, every day of our lives. That is why we
are called Christians, because we try to live the way Jesus did, doing God's
will.
Today's Gospel is a beloved part of our Christmas story, but there are a lot
of things in it that most people don't notice or think about. Perhaps we know
the story so well that we overlook the hidden meanings.
First of all, we have two women, Mary and Elizabeth. They're cousins, and
Elizabeth is much older than Mary. And both of them are pregnant, and both
pregnancies are miracles. Elizabeth is about six months along, and Mary has just
recently been told by an angel that she is going to be the mother of God's son.
Elizabeth had been married many years, and had given up hope of ever having a
child...in fact, she was an old woman, too old to have a baby, really. But an
angel had come and told her husband that there would soon be a son born to the
elderly couple. And so Elizabeth and her husband rejoiced, for they had been
given a whole new lease on life, after having given up hope long before.
Mary, on the other hand, had a lot on her mind. Ever since the angel came to
her, she had been worrying, thinking, "What if....?" What if Joseph refused to
marry her when he found she was pregnant? He knew it couldn't be his child. What
if her parents threw her out, because she was pregnant before she got married to
Joseph? What if some busybody told the town leaders, and she was put to death
for getting pregnant outside of marriage? And how would she manage, living in a
small town where all the women would be gossiping about her and giving her dirty
looks? So, she decided to go see Cousin Elizabeth, who the angel had told her
was pregnant, too. She needed comfort, not worries and fears. And she went to
another woman for comfort, not to some man.
Now, we have to remember that in Israel at that time, just as in most of the
near and far East today, women didn't count. Ever since Adam and Eve got thrown
out of the garden, men had taken the important parts of life, and women mostly
stayed home and didn't even speak up in public. And since we usually forget
this, we usually don't notice how shocking it is that Luke wrote about two
women, sharing miraculous events together, with no man around telling them what
to do and how to do it. Some Bible scholars say that this is proof that God was
really doing a new thing when he sent Jesus into the world...women were being
people in their own rights, now, not just following their men around. Mary and
Elizabeth were showing their own feelings and standing on their own feet...Mary
hadn't had a male escort when she travelled to see Elizabeth, or at least not
that we know of...she did it on her own.
And what the women said next was equally shocking. Did you really pay
attention to the Magnificat? Some churches use it, today, as the psalm for this
morning, and other churches read it as part of the Gospel. But did you
really listen? It sounds like the basis for a revolution! The
mighty will be put down from their seats, sent away hungry...the poor and needy
will be given their fill of good food, and lifted up to places of honor. God
will protect and defend those who cannot defend themselves...and he'll leave the
rich and powerful to look after their own needs. Oh, my....Just as Micah
had said that the Messiah would come from an unimportant backwater peasant town,
Bethlehem, not from a rich and powerful city, Mary is confidently predicting
that God is going to overturn all the human customs and traditions of the world
and substitute his own ways, his own will, his own concerns. And it was a woman
who said these things!
This is the last Sunday before Christmas. Instead of putting all our
attention on baking, decorating, shopping, wrapping gifts, and partying, perhaps
we might take a little time to reflect on what the coming of Jesus into the
world actually meant for the people of that time and place where he was born.
Perhaps, also, we might give some thought to what it can (if we let it) overturn
and change in our lives and our world, today. That is, you know, why the church
has given us these readings...to help us understand what Christmas is all about,
and to prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ into a world of sin, where God
and his ways are pretty much ignored, and people's ways rule. It should really
be the other way around, you know. That's what the church is saying to us,
today. Are you listening? Do you understand? What are you going to do about it?
Amen.
