This Advent season I will not use the lectionary readings for the year, instead I would like to focus on the story leading to Jesus’ birth. When following the lectionary, it isn’t until the 4th Sunday of Advent that we begin to move into the story of Mary and Joseph. On the 4th Sunday we typically hear that an angel appeared to Mary or to Joseph, and then a few days later we are celebrating the birth of the baby. This year we will begin the 1st Sunday of Advent with the story of Mary and the Angel. The 2nd Sunday of Advent we will delve into the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah. The 3rd Sunday of Advent we will look at how Joseph dealt with the news of Mary’s pregnancy. And on the 4th Sunday we will take the trip with Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.
My hope and prayer is that we will be able to hear a familiar story in new ways.
THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT
Luke 1:26-38 (NRSV)
26 In the sixth month (of Elizabeth’s pregnancy) the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." 34 Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" 35 The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God." 38 Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by Permission. All rights reserved
Luke 1:26-38 (The Message)
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to the Galilean village of Nazareth 27 to a virgin engaged to be married to a man descended from David. His name was Joseph, and the virgin's name, Mary. 28 Upon entering, Gabriel greeted her: Good morning! You're beautiful with God's beauty, Beautiful inside and out! God be with you. 29 She was thoroughly shaken, wondering what was behind a greeting like that. 30 But the angel assured her, "Mary, you have nothing to fear. God has a surprise for you: 31 You will become pregnant and give birth to a son and call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great, be called 'Son of the Highest.' The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David; 33 He will rule Jacob's house forever— no end, ever, to his kingdom." 34 Mary said to the angel, "But how? I've never slept with a man." 35 The angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the Highest hover over you; Therefore, the child you bring to birth will be called Holy, Son of God.
36 "And did you know that your cousin Elizabeth conceived a son, old as she is? Everyone called her barren, and here she is six months' pregnant! 37 Nothing, you see, is impossible with God." 38 And Mary said, Yes, I see it all now: I'm the Lord's maid, ready to serve. Let it be with me just as you say. Then the angel left her.
36 "And did you know that your cousin Elizabeth conceived a son, old as she is? Everyone called her barren, and here she is six months' pregnant! 37 Nothing, you see, is impossible with God." 38 And Mary said, Yes, I see it all now: I'm the Lord's maid, ready to serve. Let it be with me just as you say. Then the angel left her.
Scripture quotations from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
It may surprise some that I find it difficult to preach during the season of Advent/Christmas. While I find the stories engaging and full of contemporary issues, they are also full of difficulties. Two gospels, Mark and John, do not even offer a birth story and Luke and Matthew are quite different in their telling of the story. Are Mary and Joseph living in Nazareth or in Bethlehem…it depends on which story holds your attention? Genealogies are so important in the bible, so why is Jesus’ ancestry so different in Luke and Matthew? After Jesus’ birth is there a star and wise ones bringing the first Christmas presents or does the angel choir appear the shepherds, so that the shepherds bring milk and goat cheese to Mary.
It may be hard to believe, with all the Christmas shopping already happening, but for many centuries the birthday of Jesus was not a major celebration in the church. Holy Week and Easter are the founding festivals of the church. Christmas was a minor season in comparison.
There is also difficulty with the idea of a virgin birth and the biblical description of conception. We no longer see sex as impure or sinful. And, while we hear the story of Mary’s conception story through the warmth and peacefulness of Christmas, if that context is momentarily removed the story also has a frightening and terrifying side to it. David Ewart writes:
A young woman (as young as 12 or 13) is caught alone by a powerful male who says, "Don't be afraid, this won't hurt. You are going to be overpowered and become pregnant. I'll leave you. You'll have a baby out of wedlock. And no one will believe your story of how you got pregnant."
Preachers, especially powerful males, should be aware of the memory traces this story may stir up among their congregations.
What is also shocking about this story though, is that it is preserved and told as being the origins of the Holy One, our Jesus.
In Mary in the New Testament (Fortress, 1978) , in which collaborating Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars examine what the churches and the New Testament have said about Mary, the authors confess that neither Catholic nor Protestant tradition and practice have done Mary justice. The volume chases down a host of unbiblical doctrines, some all the way to the second century. Heresy-prone ascetics used the virgin birth to develop the illegitimate dogma that chastity is a higher calling than marriage. Yet the idea of Mary’s perpetual virginity became so popular that in the late fourth century the faithful greeted with horror two pro-marriage churchmen’s suggestion that it was biblically and historically justifiable to believe that, following Jesus’ birth, Mary had children by her husband just as any other wife would. An outraged Jerome, then the church’s leading biblical scholar, proposed that the brothers and sisters of Jesus mentioned in the Bible were really cousins. The simple, humble woman who gave birth in a barn would come to be hailed by one fifth-century writer as the one from whom came forth the divine power which created heaven and earth. "Mother of God," a title intended to stress Christ’s full humanity and divinity, came to be taken literally. Mary became a mother goddess.
Even with these difficulties I still find power in the story of Christmas. I like how Marcus Borg comes to the story:
I do not see the basis of the birth stories as history remembered. Yet I think these stories are true. To use familiar terminology, I see these stories as history metaphorized, that is, as metaphorical narratives. And the history that is being metaphorized is not the birth itself but the Jesus story as a whole. With beauty and power, these symbolic narratives express central early Christian convictions about the significance of Jesus…The truly important questions about the birth stories are not whether Jesus was born of a virgin, or whether there was an empire-wide census that took Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, or whether there was a special star leading wise men from the East. The important questions are, "Is Jesus the light of the world? Is he the true Lord? Is what happened in him 'of God'?" Answering these questions lays claim to our whole lives.
How do you come to the Christmas story?
I hope you will take the time to read the stories in Matthew and Luke and then send me your thoughts.
Like all good stories, this story speaks differently to each of us.
Like all good stories, this story speaks differently to each of us.
While studying for my sermon I came across this sermon by Meister Eckhart, a Christian mystic, theologian and preacher from the 13th century. In one of his Christmas sermons, Eckhart spoke of the virgin birth as something that happens within us. That is, the story of the virgin birth is the story of Christ being born within us through the union of the Spirit of God with our flesh. I think he is right; ultimately, the story of Jesus' birth is not just about the past, but about the internal birth in us in the present.
In disconnecting from the fundamentalist approaches to the Bible that hurt me so much, while trying to be fair to the text, I have come around to trying to see the "stories" and events in the Bible through a spiritual lens that is not dictated by dogma or doctrine. Of course, I don't always succeed.
ReplyDeleteThrough Matthew Fox, I have become a fan of Meister Eckhart. I like this interpretation of the virgin birth stories, and in that context, the "virgin" part is significant, because until Spirit awakens in us, we are metaphorically nothing but physical bodies walking around, imitating "morality and values" that are modeled for us from the outside. When the Spirit (Jesus) awakens within us, however, we begin to listen to the still, small voice within and internalize real values that are based on spiritual experience, not external programming. That's the theory, anyway. This fits with the idea of letting Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit live within you. When that happens, you have the "second birth" or "born-again" experience. When you become "born again," then, you symbolically become Mary giving birth to Spirit in the world.
This parallels the Judgment Day scenarios. Apart from dogma, people from many cultures report that during near-death experiences they go through a "life-review" process, in which their actions in life are judged. Most often, the report is that the experiencer judges him/herself from a spiritual perspective. The point is not to punish wrongdoings, but to give perspective and point out lessons that need to be learned. I don't believe in the typical Judgment Day scene, with everybody waiting to be judged by Jesus (can you imagine the lines?) on some far-off day after the end of the world. Instead, I believe we undergo something like the reported "life review" process; Jesus is, or can be, the symbolic Spirit within us all that does the judging.
This is reflected in ancient Egyptian religion, in which the deceased person (hopefully) identified so completely with Osiris that upon death they assumed his identity and went through the underworld journey and judgment by proxy with (or as) him. Thus, the deceased person was referred to as "the Osiris Bill," or whoever.
Ann
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your comment. No...not the easiest thing to do to separate ourselves from dogma or doctrine, especially when it has hurt us in the past. But keep trying!!!