“Tools in the Hands of God,” A Sermon preached by The Rev. Canon Dr. C. Denise Yarbrough on Sunday, December 19, 2010 at Church of the Ascension, Rochester, New York
19Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. (Matt. 1:19-20)
Well, we’ve made it. It’s the fourth Sunday of Advent. Our season of expectation and longing and anticipation is almost done and we are ready to join the secular culture in the final push of preparations for the festival of Christmas, just five days away. Even those of us who observe Advent and wait to do anything Christmas’y until it’s over, have to buckle under this week and do shopping, prepare food, decorate the house, put up the tree, and try to make everything perfect for this holiday that has become the archetypical festival of joy and celebration. And, as we all know, while Hallmark and made-for-TV movies suggest that Christmas is a time of love and joy and family togetherness, the truth is that for many families, Christmas is a very difficult time of year. The expectation of good cheer and joyfulness is hard to fulfill when economic times are hard and there’s not enough money to pay the rent, never mind buy expensive presents, or when someone we love has died since last Christmas and the holiday will be punctuated by a deep sense of loss, or for those recovering from addiction who struggle to get through this bacchanalian feast without falling off the wagon, or when Christmas is spent in a homeless shelter or a hospital bed. For all those for whom Christmas is a struggle, Matthew’s birth story is a beacon of hope and good news.
Matthew’s birth story is very different from the one in Luke. It focuses on Joseph and his experience of God’s entry into the world in human form. Unlike the story we know so well from Luke, Matthew’s birth story is not replete with angels and shepherds, animals in a manger and choruses of “Glory to God in the highest, and Peace to God’s people on earth.” This one is very different. Matthew tells us a story of a young man who discovers that his betrothed is with child before they have come together. Joseph is angry, hurt and feels betrayed. A world that once seemed joyful and full of hope and expectancy for this young couple preparing for a life together as husband and wife, is suddenly shattered by an event over which Joseph had no control. His life that once felt so full of promise and possibility is ripped asunder and he is left to pick up the pieces. His first Christmas presents him with a painful personal struggle and a major decision to make about his most important personal relationship. And like it or not, God is right in the middle of the mess.
While the imminent birth of a child is ordinarily a joyous event, it usually complicates things when the child is conceived out of wedlock and by someone other than the husband. According to Jewish law, Joseph could divorce Mary which he seriously considers doing. He also could allow her to undergo the appropriate punishment for what amounts to adultery, which is death by stoning. He is perfectly entitled to such recourse against her and no one would have thought ill of him had he chosen to enforce his rights.
Enter the angel. The angel tells Joseph in a dream that this child that Mary carries is the work of the Holy Spirit. The angel advises Joseph to go ahead and marry Mary as planned and adopt the child. Poor Joseph is asked to believe that God arranged this unwanted pregnancy and that the child to be born of it will have a special mission in the world. The angel even tells him what to name the child. Joseph obeys the angel, even though this entire scenario makes little sense to him and certainly represents a considerable departure from the expected and ordinary course of events that he signed on for when he agreed to marry Mary. Nothing in Joseph’s life prepared him for this remarkable turn of events, and for him, there is little to celebrate based on the facts.
While this Matthean story of the birth of Jesus is much sparer than the one in Luke, and lacks Luke’s endearing elements, it is an incredibly powerful and gripping story. If we could forget all the elements of the Lukan birth story that have been so often portrayed in millions of Christmas cards, carols and crèche scenes, we would find ourselves with a starkly different beginning to the life of Jesus of Nazareth and an entirely different take on what Christmas is all about. In Matthew, the birth of Jesus arises in the midst of a very messy and incredibly painful human predicament in which the presence of God is embedded in every turn of the story. Matthew portrays a human situation that is fraught with pain and shame and confusion. While Joseph becomes aware of the presence of God in the midst of his pain through the words of the angel in the dream, we learn that God was involved in all of it long before the human agents had any idea what was happening. It is only when the complicated human situation comes to light that Joseph and God have their encounter. At that point, Joseph has to jettison his own ideas about how things were going to play out in his life in order to respond faithfully to God. And Joseph has to accept that God is working through, in and under, the painful, shameful, hurtful things that he is experiencing. The idea of Emmanuel, “God with us” is made real for Joseph in ways he would not have imagined.
For Joseph, this first Christmas is painful and frightening. He has to decide what is the right thing to do in the midst of an apparently sordid human predicament. Fred Craddock, in his sermon on this text, points out that Joseph had a couple of options. He could talk to folks in town, find out what they thought he should do. But he doesn’t want to disgrace Mary, so that option isn’t the best. He could listen to the religious folks and they would advise him to read the Bible, do what the Torah says. Problem there is that the Bible that Joseph knew was pretty clear about what he should do. “She is to be taken out and stoned to death in front of the people.” (Deut. 22) “If a man finds something displeasing in his wife, let him give her a divorce and send her out of the house.” Biblical or not, neither of those options appealed to Joseph’s sense of right and wrong. Craddock describes Joseph as “the first person in the New Testament who learned how to read the Bible. Like Joseph, we are to read it through the spectacles of the grace and goodness and the love of God.” (Cherry Log Sermons, p. 5) As Episcopalians we already know that, at least we know that we don’t look just to the Bible in working through difficult or trying times in our lives or for the solution to ethical and moral dilemmas. We also look for God in our human experience. Like Joseph, we listen for God speaking to us at the crossroads of our lives in dreams, through other people and in the unfolding of history and life events around us. Emmanuel means God with us and God is with us, not only in the moments of peace and serenity, happiness and joy, but most especially in the times of hardship and struggle, shame and confusion, despair and bitterness.
In a book by Max Lucado, entitled “He Still Moves Stones” there is a chapter entitled, “Joseph’s Prayer” in which Joseph reacts to the news of Mary’s pregnancy as follows:
'I'm a carpenter. I make things fit. I square off the edges. I follow the plumb line. I measure twice before I cut once. Surprises are not the friend of a builder. I like to know the plan. I like to see the plan before I begin.
'But this time I'm not the builder, am I? This time I'm a tool. A hammer in your grip. A nail between your fingers. A chisel in your hands. This project is yours, not mine....'
I suspect many of us can resonate with Joseph’s prayer and his struggle to come to terms with the reality that “this project is yours, not mine.” Life all too often takes turns we never expected and we are brought up short, having to face the reality that the project of our lives and the course of events through which we live is God’s not ours. No matter how carefully we plan things, God has a way of changing the plans leaving us to learn to think on our feet and adjust our expectations and desires, or wither away with frustration and despair when things don’t go as we expected. Learning to be a tool in the hand of God is a tough spiritual lesson in obedience. Christmas, according to Matthew, is not about unbridled joy and singing hallelujah, as much as it is about surrendering our expectations to God and being open and ready to be tools in the hands of God in ways we did not plan to be. In the Greek text in Matthew’s gospel, the word “birth” is actually, “genesis” – “Now the genesis of Jesus of Nazareth happened in this way” – suggesting a story about God’s action in creation and God’s ongoing creative work woven through all the events of human lives and the course of human history.
When Joseph awoke from sleep he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. Perhaps all of us need to follow Joseph’s lead as we approach the festival of Christmas and a New Year that holds we know not what new challenges and opportunities. Awake from sleep and do as God commands us. The promise of Emmanuel, “God with us” sustains us as we live through the surprises in our lives, the twists and turns and bends in the road that were not part of the plan as we understood it. To do as God commands takes courage and flexibility, a willingness to go to new places and think in different ways. Joseph didn’t do what everyone thought he should with Mary – he wouldn’t put her away. He followed his heart and the voice of the angel, despite what others thought of him. And in so doing he did his part in the genesis of Jesus of Nazareth.
As we conclude our season of expectation and longing, hope and anticipation, may we all be prepared like Joseph to be tools in the hands of God. May we echo Joseph’s prayer, giving ourselves to God as the chisel in God’s hand, the hammer in God’s grip, the nail between God’s fingers. The project is God’s and we are the tools, not the builder. The joy of Christmas lies buried in the midst of the most painful experiences of our lives for even there, God is with us and is creating something rich and meaningful out of the apparent chaos of human history. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment