The Wonder of Mary

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
December 9, 2012
Rev. Mark R. Miller
Luke 1:33-65
“The Wonder of Mary”

            We have heard the announcement of a royal birth!  A child will be born who will rule!  A new King will be born… or a queen depending on the sex of the child of Kate and William.  The world is dying to know about this child.  Will Kate’s morning sickness be something graver?  And those who are truly interested in the lives of British Royal family can add to this list.

The best news is that this is Advent… and Christians know something about waiting for the birth of a child.  The problem is that no one was really waiting for the birth of Jesus except Mary and Joseph.  The world did not get a play-by-play of Mary’s morning sickness.  The world press of Rome did not take notice of this upcoming birth.  No one noticed that a young, soon to be married woman was going to have a child.  No one noticed and no one cared. 

And why should they care?  After all, this woman and her family came from a village of less than two hundred people.  Nazareth was a small village where most, if not all people, still lived in caves.  To make matters worse, the hill country of Judea was known for little else than bandits, revolutionaries, and backwoods troublemakers.  Who would or even should notice the upcoming birth of a person who had no value to the Roman Empire?  The life of this child, let alone the mother, and even her whole village, wasn’t worth noticing at all.

In a world based on balance sheets, and insurance formulas, the life of Mary and the future life of Jesus her son had no value.  But the good news is that God is not bound by such foolishness.  Where we see waste, where we see death, where we see loss … God is at work turning the whole world upside down.  And the good news is that Mary new her faith well enough to recognize when God was at work.

Maybe it was the stories she had heard on the Sabbath … stories about Sarah … Leah, Rachel, and Hanna … stories where God had done the unexpected … stories of the Exodus … And now, stories of her cousin Elizabeth.  God was going to work through her.  Someone no one expects, someone no one knows, someone no one, outside of the Judean hillside and cave dwelling town had ever heard about.  It is this person who God calls, the most blessed woman. 

It is safe to assume this because of what we call the Magnificat.  This beautiful piece of poetry that has been set to music in so many memorable ways is one of THE most revolutionary statements ever made.  I say one, because there is another woman who has spoken in similar ways.  Instead of proof texting let me read it for you here.  I Samuel 2:1-10.  “The bows of the mighty are broken and those who stumble are lifted up … those who are full are hungry and the hungry are filled with good things.”  Mary clearly knew the song of Hannah but takes it and makes it her own.  The power of knowing the stories of our own faith is that we are able to see more clearly when God is at work all around us.

Mary must have been in awe and wonder.  Mary probably felt fear and uncertainty as well because, despite having heard the word from the angel, she was going to have to tell other people as well.  This would mean the possibility of ridicule, shame and possibly being shunned from her village.  We have no record of what happened or who the first person was she told.  But it is clear that others had heard of Elizabeth and that is why Mary goes to see her cousin.  Despite the community talk Mary knows that Elizabeth will understand. 

 It is a pretty incredible story.  Not the part about how Jesus is born, but just about everything else.  We know the story so well that we forget the raw power and frightening implications of how this happens.  The creator of the universe, the author of love, becomes vulnerable in the form of a baby.  This happens not where anyone is going to notice but in the person of a poor young woman on the outskirts of the Roman Empire.  No one waits for the birth of this child except those closest to Mary.  God is born in obscurity, risk and even scandal.  And that is how it all started.

The problem is that the church throughout history has taken this revolutionary story, this revolutionary ballad, and this revolutionary woman and domesticated it all.  We tell stories about how Jesus was born on a quiet night when all was beautiful.  I have seen a couple of births – three to be exact - and while a beautiful thing, it was not neat clean or remotely quiet.  And then with Mary the church has focused on her virginity, her purity, and so obscured the fact that she is God’s first disciple that we either scorn her as unimportant or domesticate her into fairly harmless intercessor.  So what are we to do with the revolutionary ballad?

With all due respect to Handel and to the versions we use this morning, I think that it is time someone does a version of the song that expresses the struggle, the anger, and the hope for our own time.  I have heard it said that the reason it was sung in Latin for so long was to keep people from hearing how dangerous it was for those in power.  But more importantly than how the story is told is that it is told in each and every age.

If God chose to enter the world in this way it has very serious implications for our lives, and our journey of discipleship.  Because of Mary we are reminded that god is always working on the margins of our world.  God’s revolution of love will not be televised.  It will be ignored, and ridiculed and be risky.  It will not occur in the great cathedrals or in the transformed sports stadiums but in the least expected places... the abandoned houses in forgotten places… rural hamlets… but what is more important than the place will be the people.

I love nativity scenes.  I like to see how people interpret what happened when God entered into the world in such a strange and obscure way.  All our attempts at historical accuracy really do not matter all that much.  What matters is figuring out how we can enter and how we tell the story.  Having the announcement of the impending royal birth gives us the opportunity to remember that Jesus was born in desperate times and was not chronicled in the 24 hour news cycles.  And so this week … as you remember the witness and wonder of Mary … as you hear the music of the Magnificat … ask yourself – if God was going to be born today … where would it be?  What would it look like?  And how should I respond?   We answer that question most faithfully when we answer it with our whole lives.  Amen.

 

 

 

Was Ruth and Illegal Immigrant?

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
November 4, 2012
Rev. Mark R. Miller
Ruth 1:1-18
“Was Ruth and Illegal Immigrant?”

            When we take scripture out of context we can make is say what we want.  We can take a single passage, divorce it from the passages around it, and turn it into something strange and unrecognizable to the original text.  This has always been a problem for the followers of Jesus.  And while I am aware that it happens in other faiths and with the rise of new atheism, that is a topic for another day.  I want to focus on Christianity particularly in the political season that has seen an explosion of ignorant fundamentalism.  But this error is not limited to fundamentalist interpretations.  This beautiful passage from the beginning of the book of Ruth has been used for marriage ceremonies and commitment ceremonies.  But this passage does not express that sort of love and frankly is not appropriate for a marriage ceremony, unless you hack off the rest of the book.  So, let’s find out why that is the case.

            The book of Ruth is a story about famine.  It is set in a time of insecurity, dislocation, despair and death.  It is a story about immigration, economic migration, and how the people of God are called to respond to those events.  Naomi has lost her husband and all her sons.  She is left with two daughter-in-laws and no way to support herself in a foreign land.  And, she is not only in a foreign land; she is in an enemy land. 

The Moabites have a low reputation in Israel.  Even the name Moab indicates the scandal of their founding.  Moab means “of the father.”  It is meant to remind us that the people of Moab came into being through the union of Lot and his two daughters during a drunken stupor.[1]  But despite this reputation, the famine was so bad in Israel that the land of Moab offered the only hope for Naomi and her family.  But now things have changed.  Her sole means of support – her husband and sons – are dead.  So Naomi changes her name to “bitter” and decides to head back to Israel.

When faced with dislocation and devastation the natural reaction is to return to your own kind.  But this turn for Naomi is deeper than xenophobia.  She turns back to Israel because she knows that in a time of nation crisis, famine and economic struggle, the followers of God will not choose the way of austerity.  At least in Israel, the poor, the widow, and the immigrant alien, will not become a national scapegoat but instead have enough to survive.

Throughout Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the law is very clear.[2]  When the harvest comes in, you are not to take everything from the olive trees and fields.  God demands that enough of the harvest be left so that the poor, the widow, and the immigrant alien, be able to eat.  There is no conversation about creating a culture of dependency.  There is no tirade about taking away initiative if you provide for those people.  No, in fact, God does not suggest, or say it would be a ‘nice thing to do.’  God DEMANDS that the people of God leave enough so that those who do not have enough will have enough.  PERIOD!  And this is not conditional on whether or not there is a famine in the land.    

            In times of national struggle and financial difficulty we have been told everyone, with the exception of the richest one percent, has to tighten their belts.  God says that is hogwash.  So it might mean that those who lounge on ivory couches will have to give up weekend home in the Galilean mountains.[3]  You may have to check the book of Amos on that one if you think I am making this up.  But let me get back to Ruth.

            Naomi knows that she can find food, so she returns home.  But now with Ruth by her side, pledging fidelity to her and to God, she has a problem on her hands.  She has to explain why she left Israel for Moab, the enemy territory, why she allowed her sons to take foreign wives and why she brought one of those people, home, not just to dinner, but for good.  And yet, despite this expectation from this reader, Naomi does none of that.  She does not do it, because Naomi knows that people who follow God protect the vulnerable.  She goes, and will eventually arrange for a leading citizen, a relative, to marry this Moabite woman.  And this Moabite woman becomes the great-grandmother to the great King David.  It is a scandal that needs no explanation to those who first heard this story.

            About the same time that the story of Ruth was put into its final form, a couple of other books came into being.  Those books are those of Ezra and Nehemiah.  This is important because they have a very different take on what to do with outsiders.  In Ezra and Nehemiah the leaders – the politicians and priests – seem to know well what had caused all their trouble.  They know why the economy is bad and the standing in the world has fallen.  They know – but God never actually agrees with them in the book.  The issue was purity.  If they could just remove the impurity, God would surely be on their side once again.  So they did everything in their power to purify the land.  And in this great scapegoating it was decided the cancer was foreign women and their children.  So in a national move to please God they expel them all.  But God never says this is what I want.  It is always the people of God putting words in God’s mouth when it comes to such things.

            So, in many ways Ruth is a protest against the expulsion of foreign women.  Ruth, an enemy, a foreign woman, a Moabite is the model of faithfulness to God.  It is this woman who shows all of Israel what faith in action looks like.  It is this woman who reminds even Naomi that bitterness is not God’s last word.  It is a story that needs a retelling anytime the national mood becomes exclusivist or begins to bang the drums for purity or suggests that the poor, the widow, or the alien immigrant are the problem that can be solved with austerity. 

So is Ruth an illegal alien?  After all, that was the title of the sermon.  Well, the answer to that is quite simple.  In the bible, no people are illegal.  In the bible God isn’t concerned about green cards and proper identification.  In the bible God isn’t concerned about the taking of jobs.  God is concerned that all people have enough to eat and to survive.   This is not to suggest national policy, but to put the whole conversation in a different light.  And to say, those who wish to talk policy with the bible better be prepared to find out . . . that God isn’t on their side.  I am not suggesting that I have a plan for our nation’s leaders.  That is way above my pay grade.  However, it is a simple truth that God is always on the side of the most vulnerable.  God is always on the side of the silenced.  God is always on the side of those we call enemy.  God is always calling us to do the same.  This is the way of our faith.  Amen!

---

[1] Genesis 19:30-37

[2] There are many references to glean in the Old Testament.  Two that illustrate this are Leviticus 19:9-10 and Deuteronomy 24:19-31. 

[3] This is an allusion to Amos 3:12-15

So You Want to Be Great?

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
September 23, 2012
Rev. Mark R. Miller
Mark 9:30-37
“So You Want to Be Great?”

            Jesus is going to die.  This is probably as much as the disciples truly understand.  Jesus is going to leave, so a succession plan is in order.  Our future and the future of the movement are important so we need to plan.  The key question in all this is who is going to take Jesus’ place.  Or at least who is going to lead us when Jesus is gone.  And that is where the trouble starts. 

            Who is going to be in charge?  Well, Peter, James and John went with Jesus up to the Mountain.  It was these three that Jesus entrusted with the opportunity to see Elijah and Moses, and to hear the voice of God.  But among these three who is the logical choice?  Peter seems to always take the lead but often messes things up.  And if it were not for Andrew, Peter would never have met Jesus.  And before long you begin to hear each one of them making a case for their ascendency to leadership.  And this was all very important and serious business which needed their attention.  However, it devolved into an argument about who was worthy to take over when Jesus was gone.

            The disciples have finally put together that there is a problem.  And they compound the problem by addressing it before they fully understand and can even name the issue.  They think the problem is succession when the problem is about priorities and ministries.  The problems of the church are never really about power and control.  The problems in church are always, always, always based in a misunderstanding of priorities and mission.  Instead of worrying about gaining power or controlling the outcome of whatever is the most recent power struggle, Jesus’ followers are supposed to be focused on imitating Jesus.  It is a perennial problem for the followers of Jesus. 

From the congregation throughout our denomination and in every flavor of Jesus’ church we are still struggling with the same issue.  There are more arguments over who is worthy to lead.  We still argue about the arrangement of power.  Sometimes is it out front, but more often than not it is in the subtle ways we try to assert our control over others and the church.  This pride and hubris is alive and well.  The followers of Jesus – in every age – give lip service to mission while using vast resources on institutional arrangements and who is going to have the last word about how the money is used.  But the good news is that Jesus doesn’t beat us up and tell us what fools we are. 

With a question, Jesus reveals our foolishness, our egotistical nature, and our misguided energy.  So, what were you are talking about?  What is that discussion that was taking so much of your energy?  The silence of the disciples speaks volumes.  It is as if they received their wake up call.  Jesus did not need to tell them what they were doing was foolish.  All they needed was a little nudge, a reminder that the energy about [fill in the gap with your favorite argument] was a foolish waste of time.  But Jesus, like any good teacher, does not end there. 

Jesus recognizes that this is a teachable moment.  This is the time to drive home something truly radical for the disciples.  Whether they fully grasp what Jesus does next is another story all together but that does not stop him from teaching.  Using a live prop, Jesus says, welcoming a child is the same thing as welcoming God.  We know this story.  It is why we spend so much energy making sure there are events and activities for children.  But in doing so we have actually missed what Jesus was after.  It is not that we should not do these things.  It is that Jesus was after something even bigger than children.

In the ancient world children did not have the same social status as they do today.  In the ancient world children were lower in the social strata than slaves.  Slaves had a more prominent place than children.  Until they were of the age of majority they were non-entities.  So when Jesus picks up someone lower than a slave and says welcoming them is welcoming me… he is going way deeper than whether there is money in the budget for children’s programming. 

When Jesus says “welcome” he is saying that the disciples should treat those at the bottom as though they were equal or of greater status than themselves.  The normal social behavior in the ancient world dictated that you would only offer hospitality to those of equal or greater social status.  So Jesus is saying in these moments that we are supposed to throw the whole social structure on its head. 

In other words, God could care less about our arguments about who is worthy enough to be a leader in the church.  God could care less about our political games and attempts to control.  God could care less about how much money we have or don’t have.  What God cares about is how we are treating those who are truly at the bottom of the social structure.  In God’s world the poor are not victims to be scapegoated nor are they to be used for political power.  How we treat them is how we are treating Jesus. 

What were you discussing on the road?  Where are you spending your energy?  It is time we hear that question again.  Where do we need to hear that question?  Where do you need to hear that question?  The truth is that it is all about welcoming the powerless.  It is about turning the world upside down.  Those at the bottom will be brought up… there is a reckoning coming.  So what are we to do in the mean time?  The disciples of Jesus are called to live that reality right now.  Welcome the children… and anyone else who does not receive a welcome by the world.  Amen?  Amen!

The Trouble with Jesus

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
September 16, 2012
Rev. Mark R. Miller
Mark 8:27-38 
“The Trouble with Jesus”

            Before I went to bed last night I checked Facebook one last time.  One of my pastor friends wrote:  “Late night sermon writing fun on Facebook…Just answer this question in eight words or less:  Who do you say that Jesus is?”  Unless you know the author it can seem like she was trying to get others to do her work for her.  But, knowing her work well, she needs no help.  I was fascinated to find out what people had to say.  It got so interesting in fact, that I changed the beginning of my own sermon this morning.

            My initial thought was to ask each one of you to weigh in on the same question.  Do not worry, I am not going to put you on the spot.  Instead, I am going to share a few of the answers.  It should come as no surprise that twenty-three people wrote in response and almost all of them used more than eight words.  Most of her friends are pastors after all.

            So here is some of what people said:  The face of God.  A Man of inclusive love and full of compassion.  God incarnate.  Brilliant social reformer.  Savior.  Lover of the world.  Pioneer and Perfector of my faith.  Teacher, Friend.  The reason I believe in forgiveness.  The Son of God.  A prophet.  And my favorite – God with flesh on.  Maybe some of those you can relate to and others you aren’t particularly sure of or even comfortable with.   

The question of who Jesus is and was is the essential struggle in the church.  The answer to this question is the foundation for the Christian faith.  And it is one reason that there are so many flavors and expressions of the Christian faith.  Some we embrace fully and others we wonder what bible they are reading.  But the good news is that at the end of the day, what we say about Jesus says more about us than it does about Jesus.  The parts of the Gospel we cling to can tell us more about our desires and wants that anything else.

And that is why Peter is so important.  Just like Peter there is the Jesus he wants and the Jesus he gets.  And the trouble is that we cannot take one without the other.  Now, Peter is always an easy target.  His pride, his arrogance, his energy and his love for Jesus come together to show us a real and deeply flawed human being.  His witness is a gift and a curse.  The curse is that he merely becomes a punching bag for us.  We point out his flaws and then congratulate ourselves at how unlike Peter we are.  The gift of Peter’s witness comes only if we are able to admit that Peter represents our flaws, our pride, and our arrogance – as the church. 

After all this work on who Jesus is, I am beginning to think it misses the point.  In fact, I am convinced that when Jesus asks this question to the disciples it really is not a question.  When we stop after Jesus asked the question it enables us to pick and choose.  It leaves us with the impression that we have the final say on the role and presence of Jesus in our lives.  Jesus is not asking a question so much as he is clearing up confusion about his identity.  It is not a matter of which version of Jesus you want to lift up.  It is not a matter of defining Jesus with the right theological lens.  Jesus doesn’t say – the proper answer to the question is… Instead, Jesus says he will suffer for his stance.  He will suffer and be rejected and die on a cross.  Our only choice in the matter is whether or not we will put our whole selves on the line.  Will we willingly pick up the cross – give our whole selves to the cause of loving justice? 

            “Everyone has their cross to bear…”  I heard this saying so many times as a child.  The problem is that it lost meaning for me.  The idea of picking up one’s cross became connected with doing things you might like not to do.  Or it had something to do with engaging people you did not particularly like in a kind manner.  Or it had to do with facing some illness or other personal struggle in life.  But I heard it so much that the idea of picking up one’s cross seemed like drudgery and something beyond one’s control.  But there is a choice, not in which version of Jesus we might like, but in whether or not we will pick up the cross.  And that is the troubling part.

            The cross was a symbol and instrument of state sanctioned torture.  It was a public execution that was intended to humiliate cultures and peoples who were unwilling to play by the rules of Rome.  It was a sadistic action that began with whipping.  It continued with the condemned having to carry the upper cross bar of the cross through the streets facing more public humiliation.  And then large nails would be driven through the fore arms and legs and the final death would come through suffocation.  Once the person was dead the body would be left for the vultures, ravens, and dogs.  It was the most horrific and humiliating way to die.  And this form of death was most often reserved for revolutionaries and rebels.  And this is the most common symbol of our faith today. 

            So when Jesus says pick up your cross it does not seem appealing.  But Jesus was talking to a people who had few choices.  When you were crucified the cross was placed upon you.  Jesus is talking about taking back power.  They may kill you, but you are not powerless.  And as a result of this, one of the most feared and a powerful symbol of death ever invented is now known as a strange religious symbol or some cool jewelry. 

            So what does it mean for us to talk about picking up the cross?  It is an important reminder about the heart of our faith.  The first is that we are called to proclaim hope in the midst of despair.  We are called to go to the places of greatest humiliation and suffering knowing that is where Jesus would be today.  It means that when the call to kill or go to war is made that Christians are called to say no and to pray with and for those called enemies.  We are to stand with any group that is being singled out as a scapegoat.  We are called to point out the places of suffering and go and plant ourselves. 

Picking up the cross is a choice – it’s a choice to live in a self-centered world drenched in rational self-interest and say no.  The cross is liberating when self-chosen but not when put upon by others.  And that is why Jesus says it is a choice.  And the trouble with Jesus is not in our theological arguments about who he is but in our living out those statements by picking up the cross and standing in solidarity with the humiliated and scapegoated of the world. 

            The greatest threat to faithfulness is not other people.  This passage makes it clear.  Those most troubling, those most likely to play the part of Satan are Jesus’ followers and the religious establishment.  When we lose sight of the heart of our faith the cross is a stark reminder of the simplicity and the struggle.  The cross we are called to bear is not one that will be thrust upon us.  And who we say Jesus is matters little.  What matters is always keeping our eyes open for those who are thrust aside and scapegoated in society.  And that is where we must go, that is where we must stand.  And that truly is the trouble with following Jesus.