MAY CHRIST BE BORN IN YOU!

(Preached on Sunday, December 24, 2006)

And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.                                      -Luke 1:45

 

Interesting item in the paper the other day. 

AAccording to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year ... Male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December.  Female reindeer, however, retain their antlers until after they give birth in the spring.  Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa=s reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen ... had to be a female.@  The comment was included, AWe should=ve known this when they were able to find their way.@

 

That has nothing to do with the sermon other than serving to introduce us to our lesson from the Gospel of Luke which, above all the books in the Christian scripture, highlights women in significant roles.

Here is the story of two pregnant women.

The first, Elizabeth, we have been told, is a righteous person who lives blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of God.  Previously barren and Agetting on in years@ she is now expecting a child.  Blessed herself, she delivers two blessings to her kinswoman, Mary.

Mary is said to be blessed because:

1. She will be the mother of Jesus, a great man of God, and      

2. She believes the word of God.

Both blessings are undoubtedly true and deserved, but Luke clearly believes the second to be the most important.  We know this because in another passage, Luke 11:27-28, he revisits these two blessings and prioritizes them.

 

In that story a woman in the crowd calls out to Jesus, ABlessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you,@ which is a rather colorful way of saying, AYour mother is blessed to have a great son like you.@  Jesus counters, ABlessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!@  He is not arguing that his mother is not blessed, only with the reason for the blessing C his mother is one who hears God=s word and obeys it.

 

This is the very reason the early followers of Jesus, and the Church through the centuries, revered Mary.  Not simply because she gave birth to a great son, but because when the difficult choice was placed before her of whether to follow the call of God in her life she said AYes!@  As such she has become an example for all who seek a closer life with God and who desire to please God with their lives.  We do not all have the opportunity to become earthly parents of the Messiah, but we do all have the opportunity to hear God=s word in our lives and keep it.

Actually, when we respond to God=s word in our lives the way in which Mary responded, with a willing heart and an openness to do whatever God asks us to do, then in a way we do give birth to the Christ in our own lives.

 

Sue Monk Kidd, in one of her books, recalls a time she was visiting a monastery.  It was a couple of weeks before Christmas.  As she passed a monk walking outside, she greeted him with AMerry Christmas.@ 

The monk=s response caught her off guard a bit. 

AMay Christ be born in you,@ he replied.

 

Medieval mystic and monk Meister Eckhart suggested the same insight when he wrote: AWhat good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself?  And what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace and if I am not also full of grace?@

 

For Mary, all this must have seemed strange indeed.  The idea that God would choose her, a nobody, a young peasant girl from a backwater hick town, who was betrothed but not yet married, not yet having known a man, still only dreaming about having children.  How can any of what the angel spoke to her be happening for none of the conditions one would normally expect were in place for it to take place?  Yet this is so often the way of God, for God rarely chooses to work through great powers in grandiose ways, but rather God chooses to work through the most insignificant of persons in often the quietest of ways.  Nevertheless, Mary steps out in faith and says AYes!@

 

That is the key.  Whenever people step out in faith and say AYes@ to God, then God does amazing things.  In fact, we don=t always have to be aware we are saying Ayes@, we just have to make sure we are not getting in the way and blocking what God is wanting to do.

 

In 1954, when Rosa Parks, on almost the spur of the moment, decided to take it no more and refused to yield her seat to a white man, whoever thought that was a defining moment in American history?  Who would ever have thought that the birthplace of a new America would be on a Montgomery city bus?  Who would ever have thought that the train platform where the young Gandhi had been tossed from a slow-moving train would be the birthplace of an independent India?

It is surprising what you can give birth to when you surrender, as Joseph does, what is yours by right and custom for the sake of justice and because you have decided to listen to angels.  It is surprising what you can give birth to if you choose not to accept the official government take on things and choose not to cooperate with clear evil as the wise men chose non-cooperation with evil.  It is very surprising what you can give birth to if you choose, like Mary, to let it be to you according to the Word of God.  It is surprising what you might give birth to if you choose to live not according to the cultural definitions of what is beautiful or what the role is for a woman.  It is surprising what you can give birth to if you believe that all God=s children are guests of the heavenly host and deserve front row seating.

 

Of course, we wonder how these things can be.  But this is the work of God, and God=s ways are often inscrutable and amazing.

We don=t have to understand it to join with Mary in saying AYes!@  We don=t have to understand it to rejoice with her in what God is bringing about in our lives.  And we don=t have to understand it to join with the movement and action of God=s Holy Spirit in our lives when we begin to sense what God is doing.

 

At the Annual Conference of the Methodist Church in Sierra Leone, West Africa, the meetings were held in the large sanctuary in the capital city, Freetown.  Each day as the delegates entered the large doors into the sanctuary there was a young girl, maybe about the age of 8, who begged at the door.  She looked ragged, dirty, her hair was matted and knotty, and she had on tattered clothes.  No one seemed to know her, and people brushed her aside upon entering.  Some of the pastors tried to tell her to go away.  They were busy doing the work of the church.  She was a bother.  This went on for several days.

 

Late in the Conference, a visiting American delegate, Sharon Rhodes-Wickett, siting in a pew observing, caught some motion outside the church with her peripheral vision.  She looked out the window, and there on the patio, outside the sanctuary, was a woman, a lay member of the conference.   She had found a bucket and some soap.  Although dressed in a beautiful traditional tie-dye gown, she pushed up her sleeves, and she was giving that 8-year-old girl a bath.  She soaped up her hair and was tenderly making her all clean and new.  She washed the clothes the child had been wearing, and they were spread out on the bushes in the sun drying.  The woman went out and got another dress for her to wear, too.