One Christmas I got a package in the mail from a faraway friend. In it were three refrigerator magnets and a homemade CD of some of her favorite songs. On the printed title list, she added this note beside number two: “Sing along! You know you want to!”

And I did.

“Jeremiah was a bullfrog/was a good friend of mine./I never understood a single word he said”—

The second cut on the CD was “Joy to the World,” not the carol, but the song by Three Dog Night. It just happens to be true that the first record album I ever bought for myself was purchased at a yard sale for 25 cents, and although it had a torn dust cover, it also had that song. I played it over and over again. It’s rowdy and noisy and celebratory. It made me happy.

I sang along then, and I would do it again now. I wanted to have that bright, shining feeling of joy that we associate with Christmas.

I want it right now, too.

But there are things that hold me back, global things like people without health insurance, and people still looking for work and worried about what will happen if their unemployment insurance comes to an end before a job can be found. I worry for the people who live with war outside their doors every day, ordinary people threatened by the way the world works, with no power to change things. I stop myself when I remember people far away and people very close to home who feel their joy limited by illness and uncertainty.

 There must be more to a Christian’s joy than happiness about things we have achieved.

There must be more to a Christian’s joy than trumpets and drums and partridges in pear trees.

Mary said:

   With all my heart, I praise the Lord,  and I am glad because of God my Savior.

    He cares for me, his humble servant.

   From now on, all people will say God has blessed me.

    God All-Powerful has done great things for me, and his name is holy.

(Luke 1:46-49, Contemporary English Version)

She was a very young woman, barely more than a girl. Getting pregnant before getting married was the worst thing that could have happened to her. In fact, she didn’t quite know what to do with the news. Probably she worried about telling her mother and father. Certainly she worried about how Joseph, the man she was pledged to marry, would react to the revelation.

And so she left home and went to a safe place. She headed for the hills and her cousin Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was also in the midst of an unexpected pregnancy. She was a little too old, and had never been pregnant, and had long ago given up on becoming a mother. The baby she was carrying would be John the Baptist, the one who would prepare the way for Jesus to bring his message to the people of the world.

But at this moment, the two men who would someday upset the political and religious scene in Jerusalem were not yet born. They were only expected. And although both mothers were joyful, their lives were disturbed by the news that they would bear these special children.

I think it’s likely that every woman who has received the news she will have a baby has been disturbed at least a little. Even the most wanted pregnancy will change the lives of the parents; even the most wanted child breaks forth from the mother in a way that means nothing will ever be quite the same again.

Having a child is a disturbing joy.

Our gospel lesson began with the Annunciation, the shocking visit of an angel to a very young woman, hardly more than a girl. “Do not be afraid,” he says. Fear not! Fear not? Who wouldn’t be afraid of this shining figure? We might think we want to see an angel, but are we ready for the circumstances the angel’s presence indicates?

This angel describes a seemingly impossible scenario. Mary, portrayed by Luke as serious and thoughtful, prone to pondering things inside herself, asks a very practical question – “How can that happen when I have never slept with a man?” Then she agrees to do as the angel tells her. “Let it be with me according to your word.”

There’s a bumper sticker that says: “Virgin Mary? What if your daughter told that story?” Now, we live in a time when getting pregnant is not the end of the world; people have and take a range of choices. They may even end up on “Dancing With the Stars!” But for a young woman then, an unmarried young woman, it would have been the end of her standing in her family and her community, the end of her life as she knew it and the end of all future possibilities. Her best chance was being hidden away somewhere, quietly.

Mary risked everything by saying yes to God’s disturbing joy.

Luke’s story takes us away from how other people might have responded, to a place where someone understood, to the place where the child growing inside Elizabeth jumped for joy at Mary’s arrival.

Elizabeth exclaimed:

“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. …blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

Bless you, Mary, for believing in the unbelievable. Bless you for saying “yes” to God.

Mary responds with words about God’s plan to turn things upside down and inside out, to make the world a markedly different place.

The Lord has used his powerful arm to scatter those who are proud.     He drags strong rulers from their thrones and puts humble people in places of power.     God gives the hungry good things to eat, and sends the rich away with nothing.

(Luke 1:51-53, Contemporary English Version)

When I read such words, I want to say, “Yes, Lord, do that. Joy to the World! All the boys and girls! Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea. Joy to you and me!”

God’s scattering and shaking brings about joy, but it is a joy that disturbs the status quo.  I wonder if we really want God to shake up the world, and how prepared we are to be scattered.

It feels good to think of God lifting up the needy and giving a little smackdown to those who are on the “up” side of life—as long as we don’t count ourselves among the comfortable.

God’s joyful world to come is not about malls and sales or success and victory. God’s joyful world to come will disturb us, as surely as a baby’s cry wakes us in the night.

In a truly changed world, in a transformed world, the people who are comfortable now will wake up and wonder where that baby came from and who is going to tend to his demands.

We read Mary’s words most Decembers, but most of us simply wait for God to work the change alone. We hope for a simple solution, one that requires no action from us. Imagine listening to a 14-year-old prophet, a mere girl, and taking her seriously. Imagine responding to God as she did, with courage: “Let it be with me according to your word.”

Mary allowed God to break into her life in a way most of us would fear to do, and it’s very important to remember that nothing happened until she gave her consent.

If we don’t feel challenged by her willingness, if we see it as something simple and sweet as a Hallmark Christmas card, we probably need to think again. Most of us, and I include myself, cross our fingers and hope what we’re doing with our lives will be enough to please God, without attracting too much notice from angelic messengers. Most of us would rather maintain a low profile.

 I wonder if God might not be waiting for us, too.

Do we dare say what Mary said?

 “Let it be with me according to thy word.”

“Let things happen to me as you have told me they might, even though it makes no sense, even though it may mean trouble, even though it will make me different from everyone else. Let it be.”

If we could all respond so willingly to God’s disturbing joy, perhaps we could finally give birth to the world Mary prophesied. And then there might really be — sing along, you know you want to — “Joy to the World! All the boys and girls! Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea. Joy to you and me!” Amen.

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(P.S. This is admittedly an update of a sermon preached in Freeport two years ago, chosen because I found so many people did not know much about Mary's visit to Elizabeth. And because I hoped I could get the people to sing along. Which they did!!!)

(A sermon for Advent 2A    December 5, 2010    Matthew 3:1-12 with a nod to Isaiah 11:6-9 and Wendell Berry's The Peace of Wild Things)

I grew up without any kind of Advent traditions. I had no wreath with lighted candles, nor did I sing the hymns of this season I have since come to love. My mother did keep Christmas as much to the last minute as possible for us; we did not rush to it. She focused on the nativity and did her best to duck other people's demands for pictures of my little brother and me with Santa Claus. But only when I was grown-up did I realize there was a whole season devoted to preparing for the arrival of Jesus. 

It’s a season that reminds us how askew things can be in the world. Last week we heard Jesus warning that his own arrival would take us by surprise and upset our expectations. And this week we meet the one who came to prepare the way for him.

John the Baptist went out into the wilderness when despair for the world grew in him, and every Advent we find him there by the Jordan, preaching and baptizing and basically raising hell and heaven with anyone who will listen. Just when we are calculating how much time we have left before we must mail that package, when we are doing the mental geometry about our wrapping paper supplies and the algebra of pleasing others, he appears. Just when we wonder if that beaded blouse we bought ten years ago ever went to the dry cleaner and can we get it cleaned in time for the office party, he takes the stage. Just as we try to remember where we stored the sweater that used to be cute but now belongs at a young person’s Ugly Christmas Sweater themed party, he raises his cry.

Repent!!! 

He is the voice, crying in the wilderness, in the wild place with the wild things, clothed in skins and eating nothing but locusts and honey.Just when we are wondering why Weight Watchers brought out a new plan that punishes carb-eating and alcohol-imbibing in the midst of the holidays, he rears his head, raises his voice and demands our attention.

Repent!!!

Turn away from your sinful ways, and turn toward God. The voice crying out in the wilderness warns of what is to come, a fire-baptizing God-made-man who will sort out the evil from the good, who will shake us up and leave behind the people who don’t get the message. 

Repent!!!

He roars his message, calls names and dunks people into the waters of the Jordan as a sign that their sins are forgiven and they will live a different life, a life of keeping a sharp lookout for the one coming after him. He comes to us, every Advent, to remind us that the sweet story of a baby born in a stable is only the beginning.

Turn away from the things that separate you from God and pay attention!! 

Something new is coming.

And in between hanging that huge wreath out front (which included a field trip to the bell tower for me that I found a little nerve-wracking!) and the hanging of greens in the sanctuary and the assorted preparations we will make in our homes, we wonder how we can keep from being wild and distracted and where in the world we will find a little peace.

It’s that peace we find in the little snippet of Isaiah we heard when we lit the Advent wreath:

The wolf shall live with the 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. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:6-9, NRSV)

When the one who is coming finishes threshing us and baptizing us with fire, we will get to live in that unlikely peace. Predators will lie down next to their innocent prey, and poisonous serpents will leave babies alone, and carnivores will be happy with straw, and all will be delight.

At our house, a carved St. Francis about six inches high looks over a collection of figures of cats and dogs and a lion and a lamb. It’s a tradition that when we get the Christmas decorations out, the animals surround Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, all still at peace together. It’s my own reminder of the peace of wild things envisioned by the prophet.  But this isn’t really a story about animals getting along together. They live according to their nature, and even if, like me, you avert your eyes or change the channel when the lion catches up with the zebra, you have to admit that’s the way God made them. 

Like John, Isaiah held out a hope that people might find God’s peace. In a kinder, more poetic fashion, Isaiah pictured a world someplace beyond war and victimization and persecution, a place where everyone would know God so well that the temptation to hurt and damage others would quite simply cease to exist.

The funny thing is that Isaiah’s vision of peace sounds a lot more like most of what we know about Jesus than John’s fire-breathing thresher. Later in Matthew’s gospel, John, by now in jail, will send Jesus a message, asking if he really is the one John was talking about, after all. Could he possibly be, given the meals he eats, and the company he keeps? Should the Lamb of God sit down with tax-collecting wolves and asps of ill repute?

Yes.

He would do all sorts of other unlikely things: fall asleep in the back of the boat, go into the wilderness to pray, get himself arrested…you know the rest of the story.

But mostly he would talk to people, just like us, telling stories to them that we still read today, touching their hurt places and making them well and leaving us the reminder that love is for everyone, no matter how poor or disordered or difficult they may seem be.

That’s all good news, especially when we’re feeling poor or disordered or difficult ourselves. If you haven’t felt any of those ways lately, I salute you, and would like to know your secret! Because even at the best of times, even when we know the right things to do and have all the necessary preparation and advantages, life is complicated and challenging. 

We may wish we had the gifts of the wolf and the lion and the adder and the asp, their natural abilities in the area of self-preservation. We divide ourselves from the rest of the world and picture other people in those roles and ourselves as the gentle lambs and the innocent children.

I promise you this, so did the Pharisees and the Sadduccees who went out to the river to see what John was doing, and to be baptized by him. By their heritage and by their practice and by their understanding of scripture, they were the ones in the right relationship with God. Or so they thought. 

But John, first, and then Jesus, would push them over and over again to realize that it doesn’t matter where we worship or what we wear or who our granddaddy was, it matters how open we are to God’s love and forgiveness and how willing we are to share God’s love with others. 

What matters is being willing to own up to the ways we are unwilling and disconnected and to turn away from those attitudes and tendencies and turn toward God. 

Repent!!!

It is the cry of Advent.

Turn around and see what is coming.

Turn around and see Jesus.

Turn around and see God’s vision for the future.

Turn around and see all the world, content together.

Turn around and see the peace of wild things. Amen.

(A sermon for Advent 1A      November 28, 2010     Matthew 24:36-44)

I don’t know about you, but at my house, we just spent several days cooking and eating and reheating and rearranging the elements of our Thanksgiving feast in as many ways as possible, from pie for breakfast to turkey salad for lunch to Thanksgiving soup for dinner. Maple syrup found its way into pumpkin pie and whipped cream and even gravy! Everyone had a little wine—LP had her first taste—to which the response was “Bleh!!!” 

The number of pies was actually ridiculous. We started out with three for six people, which seemed a little over-generous, and then a neighbor brought another to our door Thursday morning. Mid-afternoon, the doorbell rang unexpectedly. “Who can that be?” I wondered aloud, and someone joked, “Pie delivery!” Sure enough, it was my children’s grandfather, making a quick stop to drop off a pecan pie.

As my oldest pointed out, that gave us .83 pies per person.

"But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24:36-39, NRSV)

In those days, we were eating and drinking and basting the turkey and whipping the cream and nogging the egg.

Well, we didn’t actually do that last one. But we had fun, and we went about it in the ways that are some conglomeration of my childhood and the family habits of my children’s father and the practices we’ve developed together, and it all felt good. We were happy, and talking about people we love and things we’ve enjoyed and dreaming of the magnificent futures of our young people and eating holiday food and washing my great-grandmother’s china by hand, and even the most mundane of chores, like sweeping the kitchen floor, felt beautiful and celebratory. 

And that’s what people were doing, says Jesus, just before the flood. They were doing all the ordinary and festive things, eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage. Other than a mystifying set of conversations God had with old Noah, urging him to build an enormous boat in a place nowhere near water, the rest of the world was just going about its business.  There were no signs of oncoming doom.  

And then the water poured over their heads and that was the end.There was just…disaster.  Utter disaster.  I remember reading a picture book about the flood with #1 Son when he was a little fellow, and I remember his distress at an image of the water coming up and over the animals left behind by the ark.  And we find Jesus here in some distress about what is to come. Here at the beginning of the church year he is saying the same kinds of things he heard in another gospel just two weeks ago as we ended the last one, warning that at an unexpected time, the whole world will come crashing down. 

And we don’t really like to hear it.

Well, I don’t.

“Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.” (Matthew 24:40-41, NRSV)

Two brothers will be in the yard, one holding the bag open while the other rakes up the leaves; one will be taken and one will be left. A mother and daughter will be washing the china, admiring the painted chrysanthemums and the gilt edges on the pretty old plates; one will be taken and one will be left.

Jesus describes an unthinkable moment, in which two people can be working together and just like that, like the snapping of a finger, one will be gone.  It’s a dark image, because it threatens our expectations and our understanding of how life should be. And we wonder, what does this image mean? We’ve come to think of the people being snatched away, literally disappearing; that’s the influence of “The Late Great Planet Earth,” the Hal Lindsey book I poured over in high school, and its descendants, the “Left Behind” series of novels. But we’ve just been hearing about a flood.

Will one be swept up? Swept away?

We’re in the dark about the details.

This first day of the church year, the first Sunday of Advent, isn’t that far off from the beginning of the new calendar year, in a little over a month. The thing they have most in common is that in the Northern Hemisphere, they come at a time of darkness. The days get shorter and shorter. The college student at my house, sleeping in on his first morning home, lost half the daylight! By 5 o’clock, it felt like midnight. 

I, on the other hand, woke up early the day after Thanksgiving, took our young musicians on a quest to North Conway to try out bassoons and drove back in the waning day. Even though I was exhausted, I found I could not go to sleep at a reasonable hour. The long darkness felt confusing. I tried reading, and watching a video, the very things that usually put me right to sleep, and still I lay awake. What was I waiting for? What made me so alert?

“Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.” (Matthew 24:43, NRSV) 

Keep awake, because you don’t know when the break is coming. But is it a break-in, a breakdown, or a breakthrough?

In the deepening darkness of the next few weeks, we will all feel the lack of daylight. Some of us will feel it more than others, especially on days when the weather is gloomy. In church we light the candles of the Advent Wreath, a reminder that we are in a season of preparation and anticipation. We consider qualities that God brings into the world in Jesus, and the words we associate with the wreath all sound much sweeter and kinder than the story Matthew tells about floods and thieves and people being separated from one another.

At our house, a great deal of discussion has centered on the question of a Christmas tree. Is this the year to downsize my expectations, to compromise my desires, to be realistic and hyper-practical? A tabletop tree or a tree to plant later—I’m sure those would be lovely, but I like a tree that takes up space. I considered getting one yesterday, while I still had young men around to help with it. 

Honestly, if LP and I are the two people setting up a Christmas tree, with our average height of 5 feet, 1 inch, or thereabouts, being the one taken away would be much the better fate than being left behind to try wrestling a tree into the stand. 

I want the light, as a hedge against the early nights. Last year we got the tree this early, and we only hung the lights on it. We waited weeks to add ornaments. We could have done the same thing yesterday, but somehow it felt too soon to me. I pulled into the tree lot, and then I pulled out again. Much as I would like to settle the question, I couldn’t.Sometimes we simply have to wait in the darkness and listen for God, wondering what we might hear next. 

“Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (Matthew 24:44, NRSV)

When I read this, I remember that Jesus wondered, too. Listen again to the way the passage begins:

"But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24:36, NRSV)

He would go to the cross wondering where God had gone and why he was alone, in a darkness deeper than the early sunsets of a Maine December.  He would lie in a tomb for three days, and then wonderingly and knowingly rise from the dead. He would shrug off the boundaries of shroud and stone, moving through the world and beyond its limitations. He would change us, not with violence against us, but overcoming the violence done to him with grace and goodness, with hope and peace and joy and love. 

Even for him, it could not happen without the darkness.

So don’t be too quick to plug in the tree. Wait a day, or even a moment. Watch in the darkness for the signs of Christ’s light. Amen.

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Two women grinding coffee, from the collection of the Library of Congress and found at Vanderbilt's wonderful lectionary site.

Other pictures mine.