“Dreams and Visions” -- Isaiah 7:10-16, Matthew 1:18-25 -- Dec. 22, 2013

Apparently there was always some question about Jesus’ parentage.  That was one of those “givens” that the Christian tradition had to deal with in telling the story of Jesus, and when they looked to the culture around them, one solution was to contend that he was born miraculously, specifically, born of a virgin.  That’s what was said about Alexander the Great–that he was born of a virgin, was the son of god, and, by the way, he died when he was 33.

When the writer of Matthew’s gospel began to tell the story of who Jesus was, he began, like many other ancient biographies, with a genealogy–“An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham,” this gospel begins.  We hardly ever read these first 17 verses of Matthew–name after difficult name, 14 generations from Abraham to David, [Matthew explains] and 14 generations from David to the deportation to Babylon, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, 14 generations.  In that list of names are 5 women, 5 great-great, however-many-great-grandmothers of Jesus, and all of them women of, shall we say? questionable reputation–Tamar, the madame of a brothal; Rahab, a prostitute; Ruth, a foreigner who, frankly, seduced Boaz, a relative of her mother-in-law; Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, whom David had an affair with; and Mary, the mother of Jesus, who was found to be “with child” before she and Joseph were married.  Matthew says it was through Joseph that Jesus was of the lineage of David, for the Messiah would come from that line.

“Only Matthew speaks about Joseph,” Nancy Rockwell writes, “acknowledging his doubts about the marriage, about Mary’s unexpected pregnancy, how he struggles in his mind and is disturbed in his sleep.”  (The Bite in the Apple, 12/14/13) We often hear the phrase, “gentle Mary, meek and mild”–and remember, “meek” doesn’t mean milquetoast, it means totally open to be used by God. Gentle Mary, meek and mild.  But similar words could be used for Joseph–gentle Joseph, allowing himself to be used by God.  He was a “righteous man,” Matthew says, trying to be faithful to the law, but when he learned of Mary’s pregnancy, he knew that life didn’t always fit neatly into the law.  The law said that Mary should be stoned to death.  But, Matthew tells us, “unwilling to expose her to public disgrace [or death, we might add], [Joseph] planned to dismiss her quietly.”  One gets the sense that his heart was broken.

“It is easy to be smitten by the goodness of Joseph,” one commentator observes (Rockwell, op cit.).  We can see a reflection of Joseph in Jesus’ later refusal to condemn the woman caught in adultery.  Joseph was Jesus’ father in many real ways.  He also reverses the role of husband in that patriarchal culture, at least as tradition tells it, in that he was servant to his wife, taking care of her in all sorts of situations, taking her and her infant son away to Egypt to escape Herod’s rage, providing for her behind the scenes and disappearing from view.  We don’t know what happens to Joseph, though it appears that he is dead by the time Jesus begins his public ministry.

Yet here at the beginning, in Matthew’s version of the birth of Jesus, it is to Joseph that the angel comes, in a dream, to announce that the child in Mary’s womb is a holy child, a child from God, and he, Joseph, is to have an important part in this child’s life.  “You are to name him,” the angel tells Joseph-- an important role in a child’s life– “you are to name him Jesus,” which in Hebrew means “saves.”
“There were many babies in the Old Testament with the name Save,” Walter Brueggemann points out [Day 1, 12/19/04]– Joshua, Isaiah, Hosea.  “You are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins,” the angel says.  He will show his people that they don’t have to be separated from God, which is another way of thinking about sin.  And in fact, that’s the other name the angel gave Joseph for the child to be born–Emmanuel, God with us–just like that child the prophet Isaiah told King Ahaz about, back before the exile.

Ahaz, king of the southern kingdom Judah, is worried about the military alliance that the northern kingdom Israel has formed with Assyria, but Isaiah assures him that God has other plans for that alliance.  If the king of Israel thinks that Assyria will save him, he has put his trust in the wrong savior.  So, God says to Ahaz through Isaiah, “Ask a sign of the Lord your God: let it be deep as Sheol or as high as heaven.” Ahaz goes all pious on Isaiah and says he won’t put God to the test, but Isaiah knows that the king has barely any relationship at all with God.

So he says, OK, since you won’t ask for a sign, here’s the sign that God will give anyway:  [and remember: this is not an intelligence report.  This is poetry, to get Ahaz to consider bigger possibilities, to open up his mind]  “Look, a young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.  He shall eat curds and honey[typical peasant diet], and by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, [maybe in 3years? 4?] “the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be destroyed.”  Who is Isaiah talking about?  Who knows?  Probably not Jesus.  But Isaiah is almost surely not worried about the circumstances of this birth, whether it is miraculous or not.  The Hebrew word here for young woman is ‘admah, which usually means young woman .  It can mean virgin, but Hebrew has another word for that – bethulah –which is usually used.  When the Hebrew got translated into Greek and then into Latin, the word virgine was used, so when Christian scholars looked into the ancient texts to understand who Jesus was, this is one of the texts they turned to.  But, a case could be made that what both Isaiah and Matthew were trying to say was that God is with us in the midst of the direst situations.

“All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’  When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.”

“The name, Jesus,...[one writer says] is [Joseph’s] gift to the Child.  Matthew says, the angel whispered it to him.”  (Rockwell, op cit.)  Joseph named Mary’s child Saves-- Jesus-- and knows him as God with us-- Emmanuel.  This husband of Mary, known more by his wife’s name than his own, chooses to be part of God’s story, part of God’s plan for “saving” us–from our sin or separation from God, from our fear of death, from our alienation from our true selves and each other, as well as from God.

It is up to us to decide what we will name this Child.  Do we see in him, in his way, in his life, death, and resurrection, do we see in him the way out of our darkness and despair? Or do we see in him another foolish dreamer, who gets mown down by the people who have the real power.  Do we see God with us in him? Or is he God-above/beyond-us, having very little to do with our lives here and now, but only after we die?  Do we see in him God’s only dabbling in incarnation, in becoming flesh, or do we see in him the fullness but also the beginning of God’s incarnation in all of us, what we all might become? Is God still speaking?   Is God’s Word still becoming flesh in us?   Are we saved by that one death, or/and are we saved at any moment when we choose to follow in that Way, when we open ourselves up to being filled with God, so that God is with us too?

Consider Joseph, the carpenter, the dreamer, gentle Joseph, meek and strong.

Sin fractures the Vision, not the Fact [wrote W.H. Auden in his Christmas oratorio, For the Time Being]; for
The Exceptional is always usual
And the usual Exceptional.
To choose what is difficult all one’s days
As if it were easy, that is faith.  Joseph, praise.”

The time is drawing near.  Now is the moment to choose to be part of the story.  Places,
everyone!

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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For 12/14/13 “Speaking of Religion” page–

“The poor you will always have with you,” Jesus said.  Pure statement of fact.  There will always be those who lack the physical, mental, social, or emotional resources to provide for themselves in any given economic system, so “deal with it,” Jesus says.  “Deal with it,” not by condemning them, or sending them away, or treating them as worthy of any less dignity and respect and kindness than you’d deal with me, he said.  In fact, whenever you feed or house or visit or bind up the wounds of any of these, my brothers and sisters, Jesus said, you’ve done it to me.  Deal with it.  The poor are part of every community that’s remotely open, i.e. not gated or walled in or protected by 24-7 security guards.
The ongoing community discussion about the Panhandling Ordinance passed by the Select Board is an opportunity for us to “deal with it.”  Some tourists have said that they’re made “uncomfortable” by the presence of “panhandlers” outside of local businesses.  While safety is a legitimate concern, “discomfort” can be a helpful thing.  We all should be “uncomfortable” with the fact that there are those in our community who do not have enough to eat or adequate housing or sufficient support for their physical or mental needs.  The ones who are out on Main St. are simply the obvious ones, but there are dozens– hundreds actually- of our neighbors who consistently hungry, lack decent housing, are numbing the pain of their depression, discouragement, hopelessness, illness with a variety of various substances.  We know that at least a quarter of the families in Bennington rely upon the Kitchen Cupboard for food each month.  The Free Clinic is full to overflowing.  Good Shepherd Shelter can house 6 people on any given night, leaving dozens without a place to sleep or even find shelter from the elements, with or without the ban on sleeping in cars.
There are many good and compassionate people working everyday to assist the poor and those down on their luck in our community.  Agencies from the Department of Human Services to Sunrise to BROC to the Homeless Coalition to PAVE to the Greater Bennington Interfaith Community Services to any number of faith communities work tirelessly–and even “tiredly”!–to be of assistance, to stand in solidarity, to work through systems with those who find themselves in need.  But too often it can feel like sticking fingers in the dike, holding back the flood of human need that any day might overwhelm us.
This is an issue that demands a wider discussion, greater creativity and imagination, more sectors of our community involved in coming to the table.  Pope Francis, in his recent Apostolic Exhortation, called on the people of faith to address the structures that keep people in poverty.
Those structures include tax codes, educational systems, distribution of resources, advertising that defines us as consumers only, social systems that separate people into permanent different economic classes, health care systems, economic systems that put profits over people.  Addressing the structures that keep people in poverty is neither simple nor easy.  But “deal with it” we must.
While many people’s experience of life is one of scarcity–scarcity of resources, of hope, of safety, of health, of joy–the underlying principle of the two religious holidays we celebrate in this season–Christmas and Hanukkah–is abundance.  Out of the fullness of God’s grace and love, Jesus came to live among us, to preach good news to the poor, to embody the truth that Love and Light are in fact all around and within each human being.  Hanukkah celebrates the abundance of oil which allowed the flame in the Temple to continue burning, symbolizing the abundance of God’s faithfulness and care for God’s people.
So may we acknowledge that abundance and together work toward making our community one in which all have enough, all are treated with dignity and respect, children and youth can grow up with hope, adults are empowered to contribute to the common good, and visitors will marvel at how we live together.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
Pastor, Second Congregational Church, UCC

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"Something’s Not Right"-- Isaiah 11:1-10, Matthew 3:1-12-- Dec. 8, 2013

Though we light the 2^nd Advent candle this week–the Candle of Peace–I like to think of this second Sunday in Advent, particularly when we’ve got today’s gospel reading from Matthews, as "Brood of Vipers Sunday." Good ol’ John the Baptist, cutting through all the pre-Christmas glitter and sweetness with a healthy dose of telling it like it is. "You brood of viper!" he yells at the Sadducees and Pharisees who had come out into the wilderness to see him, "Who told you to flee from the wrath to come?!" Wow, don’t hold back, John! Tell us what you really think!

"The people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to [John], and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins." You could say John was the anti-celebrity, in his clothing of camel’s hair and leather belt around his waist, eating locusts and wild honey, and screaming at the top of his lungs–"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." And yet people streamed out into the wilderness to hear him and be baptized by him. Maybe they were tired of living their lives the way they were. Maybe John’s call to change, or get back on the right path, was actually refreshing. "Perhaps," as one commentator suggests, to know that "there is a God who holds us accountable–that the world is not amoral" is actually "good news." It affirms that gnawing feeling that something’s not right here. "To be confronted by such a holy God [this commentator says]...is to discover who one really is, which though it may be painful, may also be a relief." (Texts for Preaching, Year A, p. 17)

It was clear that something wasn’t right when Isaiah prophesied to Israel. This familiar passage about the shoot coming out of the stump of Jesse is set in the context of a whole lot of stumps. The Lord God will clear cut Israel, in fact, Isaiah says just before our text. "Look," he says, "the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts, will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the tallest trees will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low. God will hack down the thickets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon with its majestic trees will fall."

In the midst of this devastation, "a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse [David’s father], and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord...with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.." Is he talking about Jesus? we Christians assume. Or maybe talking about a leader like Nelson Mandela became.

But what’s wrong with Isaiah’s vision? The wolf living with the lamb, the leopard lying down with the kid, the calf and lion and fatling together? The cow and bear grazing together, the lion eating straw like the ox–how long do you suppose the lion will be satisfied with that?! And throughout this portrait, images of the little child–"A little child shall lead them..." "The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den." What’s wrong with this picture? There was no more vulnerable or powerless figure in Isaiah’s–or Jesus’–time than a little child. So many died in childbirth or infancy, they were the last to get fed. This utterly vulnerable one shall lead the nation? Shall play in the midst of very real dangers and threats? Surely this is only the stuff of children’s paintings and fairytales. And yet....and yet...

This vision of the "peaceable kingdom," as Edward Hicks’ famous painting of the scene is entitled, this portrayal of shalom –of peace, of wholeness, of harmony– is a vision of creation time, as Walter Brueggemann puts it (cited by Kate Huey in Sermon Seeds, 12/9/13). "The big ones eating the little ones is not the wave of the future...The leader who upends the strong over the weak is himself vulnerable and humble." What is normal or abnormal? This is the promise of something better than what we’ve gotten used to as "normal."

In his book, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, Charles Eisenstein talks about his nostalgia for the cultural myths of his childhood, when "everything worked"–

"a world in which there was nothing wrong with soda pop, in which the Super Bowl was important, in which America was bringing democracy to the world, in which the doctor could fix you, in which science was going to make life better and better, and they just put a man on the moon."

 

If you worked hard, you would succeed, he recalls.

[But] as my horizons widened [he says] I knew that millions were not supposed to be starving, that nuclear weapons were not supposed to be hanging over our heads, that the rainforests were not supposed to be shrinking, or the fish dying, or the condors and eagles disappearing. I could not accept the way the dominant narrative of my culture handled these things: as fragmentary problems to be solved, as unfortunate facts of life to be regretted, or as unmentionable taboo subjects to be simply ignored. On some level, we all know better.

We’re reluctant or afraid to give voice to that knowledge or feeling though.

Addiction, self-sabotage, procrastination, laziness, rage, chronic fatigue, and depression are all ways that we withhold our full participation in the program of life we are offered. When the conscious mind cannot find a reason to say no, the unconscious says no in its own way. More and more of us cannot bear to stay in the ‘old normal’ any longer.

(Excerpted from Dec. Kripalu Compass online)

"The wolf shall live with lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them." Is that the "new normal"? And if Isaiah wrote this 2500 years ago, when is this "new normal" going to appear?

Isn’t it interesting that at the center of this vision of the "new normal" promised by God is the figure of vulnerability. Who of us wants to be vulnerable? How risky and naive is that? The world eats up the vulnerable, we say, we know.

And yet, in her research on shame and vulnerability, sociologist Brene Brown has found that the willingness to be vulnerable is an essential quality of what she calls "wholehearted living." Vulnerability, in fact, is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. (Brown, Daring Greatly, pp. 33-34)

You may have heard Krista Tippett’s interview with Brene Brown this morning on VPR’s

OnBeing. Krista asked Brene to explain a statement she had made: "Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experience." So explain that sentence to me, Krista said to Brene.

Vulnerability, I think, you know, when I ask people what is vulnerability, the answers were things like sitting with my wife who has Stage III breast cancer and trying to make plans for our children, my first date after my divorce, saying I love you first, asking for a raise, sending my child to school being enthusiastic and supportive of him and knowing how excited he is about orchestra tryouts and how much he wants to make first chair and encouraging him and supporting him and knowing that's not going to happen. To me, vulnerability is courage. It's about the willingness to show up and be seen in our lives. And in those moments when we show up, I think those are the most powerful meaning-making moments of our lives even if they don't go well. I think they define who we are.

And further, Dr. Brown says:

And I can tell you as a researcher, 11,000 pieces of data, I cannot find a single example of courage, moral courage, spiritual courage, leadership courage, relational courage, I cannot find a single example of courage in my research that was not born completely of vulnerability. And so I think we buy into some mythology about vulnerability being weakness and being gullibility and being frailty because it gives us permission not to do it.

(Transcript, OnBeing.org)

If we define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure, as Brown does, then think about love. Surely love involves uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. No vulnerability, no love. Are we willing to pay that price? And the products of vulnerability–

creativity, imagination, empathy, courage–can you think of any more essential qualities we need in our leadership, our common life, our family and individual lives right now?

"A little child shall lead them," Isaiah says of God’s vision for us. Vulnerability is at the heart of this vision. Love is at the center. The arms of the cross intersect in the middle of this vision. John the Baptist saw the ax at the root of the tree, Isaiah saw a shoot growing out of the stump. Jesus came as a little child.

"O tidings of comfort and joy!" the carol sings out. It’s what we all want. But to get to comfort and joy we must be willing to go through the discomfort and risk of vulnerability. We have to allow ourselves to feel, not to numb, all those feelings of discomfort and sorrow– our fears of being exposed or failing or being imperfect–we have to allow ourselves to feel those uncomfortable things if we are also to feel the things we want to feel–like joy and love and courage and belonging. There is no such thing as selectively numbing just the unwanted feelings. We end up numbing all feelings, even the good ones.

We can risk all this because the Love that came (down) at Christmas is also not selective. It is for all of us. Each one of us is worthy to be loved. Even those whom some would call a "brood of vipers." "The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, [Isaiah said], and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den." That’s where the vipers live! We are–all of us-- loved. That’s the old and the new normal for God. "O, tidings of comfort and joy!" Amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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At any moment...."-- Isaiah 2:1-5, Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:36-44 -- Dec. 1, 2013

 

There is a wisdom in learning how to meditate which teaches that when you notice your mind has wandered to your grocery list or what you might have said to your teenage son when he came in late last night, when you notice that your mind is no longer focused on your breath or the word you had chosen to repeat, then you are simply to "begin again"...to come back to your breath or your word without judgment; no need to beat yourself up, the mind is just doing what the mind does, just begin again.

Advent is the time for us to begin again; but the Scripture lessons for this first Sunday in Advent, let us know that this is not just a baby shower. This is not your typical New Year’s Day party. There is a decided "wake up and smell the coffee" tone about Advent. "Now is the moment to wake up," Paul says, "the night is far gone, the day is near." "Therefore you also must be ready," Jesus says, "for the Son of Humanity is coming at an unexpected hour." It’s a promise, but also a warning.

Surely there is no more challenging time for us than December to "begin again" on any sort of intention to get our act together, to pay attention to our lives, to be more mindful of the people and moments of our lives, to get our priorities right. This is the time, at least in the West, for the full press offense of the Powers That Be to convince us that the most important thing in our lives is Consuming. In fact, it’s our patriotic duty to support the economy, to provide jobs, to measure our worth by how much stuff is under our tree.

Maybe Paul’s advice to "put on the armor of light" isn’t such a bad idea. We can use all the help we can get.

When my husband Bruce was working in Syracuse with clients who were HIV-positive or had AIDS, he heard from many of them that knowing that your days are numbered has a way of clarifying things, a way of changing the way you live your life. That’s what Jesus and Paul were talking about. That’s the wisdom of these Advent texts. "The night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. Let us live honorably, then, as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ...."

How would you live if you knew your days were numbered, that the time left for you to live was short? How would you look at your loved one’s face? How would you regard the sunlight coming through your kitchen window?

One of the rare moments of grace during the Civil War came during the surrender negotiations at Appomatox. General Grant told General Lee to be sure that all the horses be sent home with his men because they would need them for plowing the fields, for it was April, and the time for planting crops was growing short. And each man was to be allowed one rifle to take home, for hunting, for feeding his family. "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares," Isaiah saw.

On the plaza in front of Marsh Chapel at Boston University is a monument to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who got his doctorate at Boston University School of Theology. It’s a sculpture of 50 abstract doves, one for each state, whose wings are decidedly swordlike, taking flight. It’s entitled, "Free at last," giving shape to Dr.King’s vision of freedom, based in Isaiah’s vision of swords being turned into ploughshares, symbols of peace, where each one would live in freedom and dignity. Walter Brueggemann compares Isaiah’s vision where nation shall not rise up against nation and beating their swords into ploughshares to Dr. King’s "I Have a Dream" speech. It’s important to enter into Advent, to begin again, with these visions in our heads, rather than merely visions of sugarplums.

"The night is far gone, the day is near.... Now is the moment for you to wake from sleep." In his recent Apostolic Exhortation, Pope Francis urged his priests to preach the Gospel of joy–don’t be sourpusses, he said. He also proclaimed the necessity for embracing change and letting go of "we’ve always done it this way." And finally, Pope Francis urged the church to take seriously the poor and to get at the structures which keep people in poverty.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I find myself listening to Francis as a spokesperson for the Church which has even the remotest claim to being the Body of Christ. "The night is far gone, the day is near...Now is the moment to wake up from sleep." Joy. Change. Poverty. Now there are priorities worth setting. Wake up. Keep alert.

We may hear these scriptures as dire warnings and miss the promise they contain. "Therefore you also must be ready [Jesus said], for the Son of Humanity is coming at an unexpected hour." Though there are plenty of texts that see the Son of Man or the Son of Humanity as ushering in violent end times, that see him as what is called "an apocalyptic figure," we might also see the Son of Humanity or the Fully Human One as a different kind of "end" or purpose--as the intention and fulfilment of our creation. "Eschatology" talks about the end times less as a battle or explosion and more as the goal or fulfillment. "Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Humanity is coming at an unexpected hour." At any moment, an opportunity to act like fully realized human beings might arise. At any moment, a decision might be made to do the right thing, to live out of our best selves, rather than our worst. At any moment, a flash mob could form that would bring beauty and music and meaning to an otherwise ordinary moment.

Would you be ready? Would you notice? Right now, how close are you to being the fully realized human being God created you to be?

Here at the beginning of Advent, as calendars are filling up, even as Snowball Bazaar Frenzy is beginning, what if you carved out 10 minutes every day–preferably at the same time every day–first thing in the morning, 4 o’clock in the afternoon, just before supper or just before bed–and simply paid attention...attention to your breath, to the sounds around you, "nowhere to go, nothing to do," is how the sages describe it. Talk about a radical idea, subversive even. Pay attention to your life. Wake up.

"The night is far gone, the day is near...Now is the moment for you to wake from sleep." "Therefore you also must be ready [Jesus said], for the Son of Humanity–the Fully Realized Human Being-- is coming at an unexpected hour." Maybe this one. You might begin by really tasting this bite of bread, this sip of juice; notice how it feels on your tongue and in your mouth. Picture it going down your throat, becoming part of your body and blood, you becoming more of the Body of Christ. Notice. Pay attention. You never know when you might just become who you are supposed to be. You never know when God will turn up as a word of kindness, an act of courage, a change in history, a moment of grace. Wake up. Get ready. Let us keep the feast.

Amen, and amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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