An Epic, Multigenerational Love Story

from Luke 1:26-38 and Isaiah 66:7-13 - Delivered December 20, 2020

How did you first hear the story? Where and when did you first understand the true magic of Christmas? What makes this story sacred to you?

I remember Juanita Luessen and Lodema Jensen directing my church Christmas programs as a child. There was an importance and gravity to the preparations. Meeting in the church Fellowship Hall. Taking out the script. I often joke that I was often Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus in our Christmas plays. . . . But great care was taken to include as many people as possible. I remember memorizing my lines so seriously . . . hopefully.

And I remember the book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, written by Barbara Robinson. This book—so formative for me—tells the story of the six delinquent, misfit Herdman children— Imogene, Ralph, Claude, Leroy, Ollie, and Gladys—who volunteer to star in the town’s Sunday School Christmas Pageant. Now, the Herdmans are best known for their cigar smoking, cussing, drinking jug wine, and shoplifting. They only start going to Sunday school because they hear they offer snacks.

And because they’ve never heard the Christmas story before, they take extraordinary interest in it. And they bully the usual cast members into remaining silent when the director calls for volunteers. So, as a result, the Herdmans take all the lead roles in the pageant: Mary (Imogene), Joseph (Ralph), the Three Wise Men (Claude, Ollie, and Leroy), and the Angel of the Lord (Gladys)—smack-mouth superhero fierce!

Everyone expected the Christmas pageant to be a disaster, but the Herdmans’ unconventional performances actually make the whole show much more realistic, moving, and thought-provoking. They ask questions about the story’s harshness—like the innkeeper forcing a pregnant woman and her baby to sleep out in a barn and the Holy Family having to run away from a murderous king who wants to kill baby Jesus. And instead of walking on and off stage like actors, the Herdmans are uncertain about where to go and what to do—just like the Holy Family and the Wise Men must have been. Imogene as Mary refuses to lay the baby Jesus doll in the manger and insists on holding it as if it is really her child. The Wise Men choose to bring the baby Jesus the large ham from the Herdmans’ own gift basket instead of the “crummy” frankincense and myrhh in the story. And Gladys the Angel of the Lord sufficiently terrifies the shepherds so that they look authentically awed by her announcement of Jesus’s birth. During the final scene, Imogene is seen weeping softly while holding baby Jesus. The Herdmans demonstrate that even the most troubled among us can show us the true meaning and power of Christmas.

And this deep commitment to humanity is a theme shared with Luke’s gospel and particularly the Annunciation story we hear this morning when the angel Gabriel comes to meet with Mary. ...
Luke tells us that God is coming into the world in unexpected, hidden, and subversive ways. In a world dominated by the authority of older men—Jesus will come into the world through the faith and strength and body of a young woman. In a world dominated by Rome and Jerusalem—Jesus will come into the world through a family from Nazareth, a “nowhere” town unmentioned in all of Hebrew scripture. In a world dominated by imperial power and violent strength—Jesus will come with a soft spot on his head and Mary’s milk on his breath. Luke relates Jesus to the common humanity of everyday people while also connecting him to King David and the long line of Hebrew prophets.

In these ways, God demonstrates deep care for all of humanity. God’s love—expressed in and through Jesus—isn’t something brand new that happens at Jesus’s birth; instead, this love is an unfolding force throughout history—taking shape through generations of ordinary, unexpected, and often vulnerable people—culminating in the arrival of Mary’s baby. This epic, multigenerational love story has been travelling through centuries to meet you today—a great river with tributaries reaching back to some of the most ancient wellsprings of scriptural imagination. And here it is. The good news. The love we have been waiting for. Do you have your emergency confetti ready?!

And still the story continues—that great river. God’s love . . . for all creation. The 13th century German mystic Meister Eckhart claims: “We are all called to be mothers of God—for God is always waiting to be born.” And I truly believe Mary is calling each one of us today to be a Mother of God— birthing love and courage and hope and peace in the world around us.

And soon, no doubt, Mary’s son will call us to do the same. He will undoubtedly encourage us to humble ourselves—and insist that the humble will be exalted and the exalted humbled. Nurtured, no doubt, by the revolutionary songs Mary will sing to him as a babe in arms, Jesus will inspire us to lift up the lowly, to feed the hungry, to live in merciful and compassionate ways, to work and fight for those who can’t work and fight for themselves. ...
He will nurture in us the hope for a new age, a new era, a new way of being—one characterized by peacefulness and love—one motivated by humility, kindness, compassion, and grace.

Deep down in my heart that is no doubt what I want. A more peaceful world. A more welcoming and loving place for my son and for all his contemporaries and all that will come after him—where differences are celebrated and all of creation is valued as sacred—where broken relationships are restored, hunger is met with bread, genuine opportunities create meaningful work, and all have the safety and shelter they need.

This is what I hear in the Christmas story. Unexpected possibilities giving birth to unexpected possibilities. An epic, multigenerational love story coming to life through prestigious prophets and “nowhere” towns; venerable priests and vulnerable young women; cigar smoking Marys and a smack- mouth Angels of the Lord; stars and shepherds; candles and confetti; you and me.

Bring all you are in humility, and God will use it in that great river of love that continues to water the earth. This story is not over. . . .

Let it be so. Amen.

How Shall We Respond?

 Remembering that it happened once, / We cannot turn away the thought,
As we go out, cold, to our barns / Toward the long night’s end, that we
Ourselves are living in the world / It happened in when it first happened,
That we ourselves, opening a stall / (A latch thrown open countless times
Before), might find them breathing there, / Foreknown: the Child bedded in straw,
The mother kneeling over Him, / The husband standing in belief
He scarcely can believe, in light / That lights them from no source we see,
An April morning’s light, the air / Around them joyful as a choir.
We stand with one hand on the door, / Looking into another world
That is this world, the pale daylight / Coming just as before, our chores
To do, the cattle all awake, / Our own white frozen breath hanging
In front of us; and we are here / As we have never been before,
Sighted as not before, our place / Holy, although we knew it not.
        —“Remembering that it happened once” by Wendell Berry

There is a tender beauty to the Christmas season. An honesty. An opening. It invites us into a realness that transcends all the decorations and lights of Advent. And it moves us toward greater authenticity, even rawness, like what we hear in the gritty, down-to-earth longing of Mary’s song (Luke 1:46-56): God will cast down the powerful, and lift up the lowly. God will fill the hungry, and send the rich away empty. This tender beauty is grounded in our messy humanness and deepest needs.  It is a gift of Incarnation. And it asks us to imagine what sort of world we hope for— what sort of world we want to be a part of—what sort of world we want to build. The beauty—and the holiness—is already here; we just have to recognize it, allow it to open our hearts, and invite it to move and inspire us.
 

2020 was such a hard year for so many people for so many reasons. It exposed layers of injustice and layers of grief. And while much of this year was incredibly difficult, it also points a way forward for us as a community that strives to love and care for others. In this new year, I hope we will gather our learnings from 2020, the stories of our hardships, the unexpected blessings that found their way to us, and our deepest longings—and create and live into a vision that responds to the sacred call that God places upon us and responds to the human call of the needs of our neighbors. Beauty and possibility are all around us. How shall we respond?

See you in (zoom) church,  
Christy