“Making Sense” (Matthew 2:13-23)

Christmas music begins the day after Thanksgiving in the Keener household and continues well into the month of January . . . Dana loves Christmas and would keep it going for as long as I can tolerate it.  There is something beautiful about Christmas with God coming to the world in love . . . not in a judgmental way, but in way that makes it difficult to not want to jump into that love and fully embrace it.  God comes as a little baby . . . and, who among us does not love little babies?  Who wouldn’t want to hang on to that feeling for as long as possible?  To keep it going?  This celebratory version of Christmas is hard to shake, especially in the Keener household . . . but, there is a darkness that looms over the Christmas story . . . a darkness waiting to jump out from the shadows and remind us that life is not simple.

Life is complicated.

Life is complicated even when it comes to our salvation story.

As soon as the wise men left, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream with a warning: “Get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt.  Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”  Joseph is warned that Israel is no place for him and his family . . . that there was danger in staying . . . grave danger.  Heeding the warning of the angel, Joseph packs up his family and hightails it to Egypt . . . runs for their lives.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (as they say in all the great Westerns), Herod realizes that he has been duped.  The wise men do not return with the information of where the new king of Israel has been born; nope, they have skipped town.  Furious Herod does the only thing that he can do to remedy this competition . . . he issues an edict to kill all the boys in the vicinity of Bethlehem who were two years old and under.  This was the only way he could be assured that this challenge to his power would be eliminated.

The darkness moves quickly to squash out the beauty of the Christmas story. The children are killed.  A nightmarish tragedy echoes forth from the story as death moves through families and communities.  A prophecy has been fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

Such actions kind of put a kabash on the Christmas story . . . no one really wants to sing Christmas hymns and songs knowing that innocent lives were taken.  It doesn’t make much sense does it?  And, yet, this is a part of the story of Christmas . . . a part of the reality of our salvation story.  Darkness engulfs the story . . . and, it just does not make sense.

So, the baby Jesus is whisked off to safety in the land of Egypt.  Kind of ironic that Egypt would be the place of safety for the saviour of the world?  Egypt which had been a house of bondage to Israel . . . the land of their exile for so many generations . . . a place where they were oppressed . . . a place where their children suffered.  Ironic, yet so symbolic.  For it was out of Egypt that Israel was born . . . it was out of Egypt that Israel found itself as God’s children . . . out of Egypt from where it was saved and had its beginning.  Once again, it will be out of Egypt that the family of God will be born anew . . . that it will be established as a new creation . . . a new beginning.  It is difficult not to note the parallel of this story with the story of Israel’s exodus from bondage into life.

But, again, does this make sense?

In light of the fact that we were just getting our Christmas groove on, does any of this make sense?  Does it make sense that so many innocent children would be allowed to be killed?  Does it make sense that Joseph drags his family off to Egypt--not quite one of the top ten places for Jews to go and take an extended vacation?  All of this puts a damper on our Christmas celebration . . . from joy to crushing frustration and ultimately, depression . . . as darkness casts a shadow over the promise and the hope of the season.  Doesn’t make much sense does it?

One biblical commentator stated that this was a “trial of the faith of Joseph and Mary.”  In my mind and heart, this is a pretty harsh trial of faith.  From the beginning it has not been easy for either of them . . . an unexpected pregnancy before the wedding has even happened . . . news that their kid would be the saviour of the world . . . no room in the inn . . . a birth in a stable . . . strangers showing up all goo-goo eyed over their kid . . . angels coming with messages and telling them to get the heck out of Dodge . . . running off to Egypt.  That is a lot of stress on the newly married couple who have just had their first baby.  Nothing normal about it.  And, I imagine that both Joseph and Mary were overwhelmed with feelings of frustration . . . nothing made sense.

But, God is funny that way.  Not “funny” as in a “ha ha” sense of the word, but “funny” as in “peculiar”.  God likes to throw a lot of curveballs in a world that expects fast balls.  But God never said it would be easy.  Jesus never promised that it would be easy.  Heck, faith is hard.  Because we really do know how difficult and hard faith can be . . . and, we also know that God has the capability to simply fix it all with a simple motion of love and grace to make all things work out . . . we just don’t understand why it has to be so difficult and hard.  Why do we have to go through all this muck and mire?  So why doesn’t God just fix it?  

It just doesn’t make sense.

As we were growing and continue to grow, did it make much sense if our parents, teachers, and mentors did everything for us?  No, it didn’t.  If our parents, teachers, and mentors did everything for us, what would we have learned?  Nothing.  And, what would we have become?

God understood and understands this.  If our parents, teachers, and mentors did all the work for us, would we be the people we are today?  Would we know who we are?  Probably not, and for that reason we have to go through life experiencing all of its ups and downs for ourselves . . . having to make the decisions for ourselves . . . having to learn the lessons.  No one else can do it for us . . . not even God.  The choice is always ours.  And, a lot of the time, the choices we make do not make a lot of sense at the time that we make them.

But, we have to believe.  We have to believe in the promise.  We have to believe in the gift.  We have to believe that God will not abandon us.  We have to believe that we are on the right path . . . a path blazed for us in the life and example of Jesus.  We have to believe in love and grace in the face of a world that seems to be spinning towards darkness.  We have to believe.

And, to believe . . . to believe is our choice.

Throughout the Christmas story, all of the leading characters had choices to make.  God did not force them to go one way over the other, but allowed for them to make choices.  In the story we read of the choices that they made even though we do not quite understand the choices that they were given.  This is probably not the way we would have written the Christmas story had we been given the chance . . . we would have had it end with “. . . and they all lived happily ever after.”  Thus we are confused . . . confused and attempting to make sense of it all.

Darkness invades the Christmas story just as it invades our lives.  That is the way life is . . . the way that faith is.  It is hard and often times unexplainable and difficult to understand.  And, we wonder . . . we question . . . we attempt to make sense of it all.  The truth of the matter is, darkness is a part of the Christmas story . . . plain and simple, just as it is a part of life.  What makes it easier to endure is the choice to believe . . . to believe in the promise . . . to believe in the love and grace . . . and, to set that belief into action in the way that we live our lives.  That much of our story we can control.  That is our choice.

This darkness that invades our joyful celebration of the Christmas story does not have to be the end of our joy or our celebration.  Christmas hymns and songs can continued to be sung despite this darkness that produces a bump in the journey of faith.  True, it is a part of the story . . . a gruesome part . . . but, a part nonetheless.  As such, it presents us with a choice . . . a choice of how we confront the darkness that enters into our lives.  We can acknowledge the darkness, and we can respond with belief.

Belief that Immanuel . . . God with us . . . is where we begin.  With such belief we begin to live life.  God’s ways may not make sense, but God does.  In that we believe and live.  Amen.

"The Scandal of Faith" (Matthew 1:11-25)

Scandal does not fit the Christmas story we know so well . . . the Christmas story we celebrate.  In the story of Christmas we remember the birth in a stable . . . a babe laid in a manger . . . angels singing gloriously . . . shepherd gathering to worship . . . the wise men appearing . . . a star brightly shining.  We sing beautiful hymns to commemorate this holy event.  We worship . . . we rejoice.  There is no scandal in the story of Christmas we know . . . and, yet, it is there.

It is there in the words we heard from Matthew in our scripture reading: “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.  His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child . . .”   Mary was pregnant with the child of another man.  True, the scriptures tell us that the “other man” was the Holy Spirit; but, at first Joseph does not know this.  All Joseph knows is that Mary is pregnant and it is not his child . . . it is the child of someone else . . . Mary has been unfaithful.  This was a scandal . . . a scandal punishable by death.

In Deuteronomy 22:23-24 it is written: “If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry for help in the town and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife.  So you shall purge the evil from your midst.”

This was one of the options that Joseph had at his disposal for dealing with this scandal . . . have Mary stoned to death.  But Joseph was a good man, a righteous man the writer of Matthew tells us; and, because of this he did not want to expose Mary to public disgrace.  Nor did he want to have her killed even though it was allowable by his faith.  No, he decided to take a different route . . . he would quietly divorce her and be done with her . . . let fate have its way with her and this child she carried.

Of course, we remember, that God sends angels to Joseph in a dream to tell him that it is “okay.”  Tells him it is okay because the father of the child is none other than God through the Holy Spirit, and that this child would save the people from their sins.  The angel tells Joseph to not be afraid to take Mary as his wife . . . it’s “okay.”  And, we remember that Joseph wakes from his dream and took Mary as his wife.

Buried beneath all of the beauty and wonder of the birth of Jesus on Christmas . . . of what we celebrate . . . is this scandal.  This is not quite the stuff one wants when entering into any relationship, especially a marriage and starting a family.  There is distress, the sense of betrayal, and a whole host of other emotions and feelings Joseph must have been experiencing.  It was a messy situation.  These are real people--like you and me . . . with ups and downs, with bumps in the road, with moments of frustration and confusion, going through all kinds of things, some that are quite damaging, some that hint at scandal . . . and, yet God uses them nevertheless to accomplish God’s purposes.

The Christmas story is not a typical story . . . not a fairy tale or myth.  It does not start with some romantic vision . . . with some stylize success story from rags to riches.  No this story starts with normal people . . . people like you and me . . . people living in the real world, dealing with real problems, and hoping to make the best of it each and every day.  This is not some Disney story where everything seemingly ends “happily ever after.”  No, this is a story that grows out of a scandal to become the greatest story ever told.

Out of the ordinary comes the extraordinary.

The scriptures do not tell us much about Joseph.  He was a carpenter . . . a hard-working man we assume.  He was a righteous man . . . a person of deep faith we are told.  From what we little we know we assume that he is not much different than any other person . . . maybe a little bit, or a lot, like us.  And, we know that he is human . . . with hopes and dreams.  In this story we have to wonder about Joseph’s hopes and dreams.  I seriously doubt that this is the way that he envisioned his marriage to Mary . . . the birth of his first child . . . the life that he hoped it would be.  

Nothing seemed to work out as he probably hoped or dreamed it would.  The whole birth was not how he imagined it . . . God the father of his son.  No room in the inn . . . the birth of his child in a stable with livestock milling about . . . a bunch of strangers showing up--rough shepherds and a whole bunch of wise men from foreign countries.  Things weren’t supposed to be like this.  It was pretty messy.

And, yet, this is the way that God chooses to do business.

Out of this mess comes salvation.

Out of the ordinary comes the extraordinary.

Through it all, in the corner of our Christmas story, the plot is exposed.  The Holy is revealed . . . and it is not in the big time production, but in the simple everyday mess of life through normal people . . . through common people.  Common people like you and me.  Because we are not much different than Mary and Joseph . . . everyday people just trying to make it to another day.  

Through the ordinary, God creates and expects the extraordinary.  Therein lies the scandal of faith.  It is there in the story, the whole Christmas story . . . not the romanticized story of Christmas, but in the real story.  The story of two ordinary people who are chosen to carry the salvation of the world in the relationship they have together . . . in the birth of a child . . . in the marriage they share . . . in the lives that they live . . . in the ups and downs of daily life . . . in the frustration, disappointments, and sinfulness of living life.  It is messy . . . and it does not fit into any of the romantic, Disney-like ideas we celebrate on Christmas Day.

So, let us find hope in the whole story.  Let us embrace its message.  Let us receive this gift . . . this gift of grace.  It is a gift that none of us deserve, but is given to us freely.  And, let us live it each and every day of our lives in such a way that we, too, embody Jesus . . . Immanuel--God with us.  That is the scandal of faith . . . that God would choose us . . . common, everyday people to be in a relationship with the Holy . . . to be one of the children . . . to live within the Kingdom.

Out of the scandal the story of Christmas is lived.  Out of the scandal we are desired . . . we are wanted . . . and, we are God’s.  As we enter into the last few days of the season of Advent, may we discover this gift and receive it into our lives.  It is amazing how God works.  Amen

"Waffling" (Matthew 11:2-11)

John the Baptist, while in prison, sent one of his disciples to Jesus to pose the question: “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Are you the one?

That seems to be a pretty ironic question coming from the guy who baptized Jesus . . . who stated that he was unworthy of baptizing Jesus, that it was Jesus who should be baptizing him.  John had a pretty good inkling of who Jesus was . . . he was the one!  So, why is he now asking this question about whether or not Jesus is the one?  If anyone should know, it is John.

John is waffling.

Waffling, according to the dictionary, is a failure to make up one’s mind.  It is a kind of back and forth with a decision . . . one moment it is yes, the next it is a no, then maybe . . . back and forth.  John’s question is waffling.

Jesus’ time is not that much different than our times.  It would be silly to think that all the Jews of Jesus’ time thought alike . . . that they believed the same way . . . that they were all out of the same religious mold.  They weren’t; no, they had different teachers or rabbis, they have different theological outlooks, they had other religions to choose from . . . there was more than one way of faithfully looking at what was taking place in the world.  There were lots of choices.

One of my favorite children’s sermons had to do with ice cream and Baskin Robbins.  Ice cream is ice cream . . . but the reality is that there are lots of different flavors of ice cream.  Baskin Robbins proclaims that they have a minimum of 31 flavors, but that they are all still ice cream.  People have a choice of what they like in the flavor of ice cream.  Isn’t it frustrating to go to an ice cream parlor and get behind someone who cannot make up his or her mind as to which flavor of ice cream they want?  They can’t make up their minds . . . they waffle back and forth.

Well, God is a lot like Baskin Robbins . . . there is one God, but there are a whole bunch of flavors.  For example, let’s just take our community and the Christian bodies of faith that are represented within our town’s limit.  We have a Lutheran flavor . . . a Catholic flavor . . . a Baptist flavor--in fact, two Baptist flavors . . . a Wesleyan flavor . . . remnants of a Episcopalian flavor . . . and, of course, our own flavor--the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).  If there were only one flavor, there would be only one church in the Joliet Community.  Beyond Joliet there are even more flavors . . . Presbyterian, Methodist, Mennonite, Greek Orthodox, a ton of Baptist--just to name a few in the Christian flavors.  There are also other flavors that are not Christian . . . Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist.  Each offers a flavor of God to those who would like to experience that flavor.  There are lots of choices . . . now and in the time of Jesus.

Waffling is not uncommon when it comes to faith . . . it is how we grow in our faith.  This “back and forth” . . . this internal debate . . . the questioning . . . the wondering.  John was taught one way to believe, but was also exposed to other ways of believing . . . including the theology of the Messiah.  They all sounded good.  One day it was this belief, the next day it was another belief . . . which flavor was the right flavor . . . the right choice?  “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Inquiring minds want to know.

In this little story Jesus does several things:  First, he confirms that he is the one . . . Jesus tells John’s disciples to go and tell John what he has seen . . . blind see, lame walk, people are cured, deaf hear, and the dead are raised . . . how much more evidence does one need?  Second, he squashes the rumor or belief that John the Baptist is the one everyone is looking for as the Messianic figure . . . John is the prophet . . . the one who brought the good news of the Messiah . . . the one who blazed the trail.  John is not the Messiah.  He is not the one.  Third, and last, he paints a picture that is the opposite of what the world views as a kingdom . . . it is not like the people were experiencing in King Herod or the Romans; no, it was not based on force, but on love . . . the power was in love, not violence, fear, and intimidation.

Jesus is the way.

But, guess what?  Just like there are many flavors of ice cream . . . many flavors of God, there are many ways of understanding Jesus and his way.  Not everyone agrees with exactly what are the ways of Jesus or even what the will of God is.  There are a lot of interpretations and beliefs out there . . . which one is the right one?  The correct one?  Not everyone likes the same flavor . . . think about it . . . we are a community of a little over 600 people and we have at least seven flavors of God to choose from.  

Wouldn’t it be nice if someone . . . maybe even God . . . would just tell us exactly what we are to believe, how we are to be faithful, and how we are to live a faithful life?  To give us something solid that we could hang on to so that we can quit all our waffling?  Especially when it comes to our faith?

You bet it would . . . but, it isn’t going to happen.

We are going to waffle.  We are going to waffle because the bottom line comes down to us understanding our personal relationship with God . . . not what someone else tells us to belief, but what we believe.  And, we all know that what we believe is constantly changing as we continue to grow . . . as we continue to be older.  What we believed when we were children is long gone and replaced with the lessons and faith we learned through years of making the journey towards a closer and more intimate relationship with God.  Our waffling is what has made us the people we are today.

Are you the one?  This is not a question of disbelief or unbelief, but is an honest question of inquiry in hopes of growing closer to the Holy . . . of growing closer to Jesus . . . to God.

The season of Advent . . . the journey of Advent . . . is a journey towards and into the Holy.  It is a season in which we are hit with a proposal . . . a choice . . . thrown a promise, and asked to explore it.  To explore it in order to grow closer to the Holy and to begin bringing forth the Kingdom of God.  It is an opportunity to grow.  It is not something that we have to wait around for . . . it is something we can experience right now.  We do not need to wait.  Jesus has shown us the way.

Asking questions is how we learn . . . how we grow . . . how we move from one place to another.  Advent seemingly gives us permission . . . expects us to ask questions in order to grow closer to God and bring forth the Kingdom of God.  In asking questions we are given opportunities and choices . . . and, if we take our faith seriously, there will always be questions . . . always be waffling.

Thus it is that we journey through the season of Advent . . . that we move towards the “promise” and the “gift” . . . and the struggle to understand.  We waffle.  We ask questions.  We flip flop back and forth.  But, in the end, the choice is up to us as individual . . . confirmed by the faithful . . . and lived in our lives. Yeah, it would be nice if someone just gave us the answers, but it isn’t going to happen . . . they are our questions, and the answers are up to us . . . the choice is always ours.  Amen.