Month: December 2021

Ways Into Sunday’s Scripture from OCC

Each week during Advent, on Fridays, I will offer some ways into Sunday’s Scripture to help us grow, mature, and be formed or shaped spiritually.

TEXT

The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they enjoyed their wedding night, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn’t know that.) Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.

While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God’s angel spoke in the dream: “Joseph, son of David, don’t hesitate to get married. Mary’s pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God’s Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus—‘God saves’—because he will save his people from their sins.” This would bring the prophet’s embryonic revelation to full term:

Watch for this—a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son;

They will name him Immanuel (Hebrew for “God is with us”).

Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what God’s angel commanded in the dream: He married Mary. But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus.

~Matthew 1:18-25 The Message

THEOLOGY

“Tell me the story of when I was born.” This is a common request of children.

And so we tell the story—the town and the house where we lived before he or she was born, the day or two leading up to that moment, and then the day of the birth. We tell of the drive to the hospital, the helpful and not-so-helpful hospital staff, the length of labour, the thoughts and while waiting for her or him to arrive.

All of these things, all of these trivial, important things, build toward the big moment—the moment our son/daughter appears in the flesh, the moment we parents behold and hold our child for the first time, the moment they are first called by name.

“Tell me the story of when I was born.” That request, of course, is not just to hear the facts surrounding birth. No, they want to hear again about relationships and identity, to hear how the beginning informs the present and the future. And for me, the storyteller, it’s yet another chance to tell him/her and anyone else who will listen about how I see the world and what’s important to me.

“Now the birth of Jesus took place in this way”—this is how Matthew begins the story of the Incarnation (Matt. 1:18, ESV). And Matthew’s phrasing of it makes us believe, perhaps, that we’re about to hear a detailed telling of Jesus’s birth in the way that Luke might tell it. But Matthew, we will discover, is a different kind of writer than Luke. Luke wants to tell us the story through the experiences of Mary, a young woman without status who carries the son of God within her, and the shepherds, those living in the fields who will be the first to hear of the birth. But Matthew wants to tell us about Joseph, a man whose goodness and righteousness take him far, but not all the way, as he prepares for the coming of something completely new: Emmanuel, “God with us.”

The composer of the Gospel of Matthew was probably a Jewish Christian, possibly a scribe. The historical evidence suggests that he wrote between 80 and 90 and addressed his work to a community in conflict: Jewish Christians who were being pushed out of larger Jewish communities. These larger Jewish communities were led by Pharisees, rabbis who assumed leadership of the Jewish people in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem.

And so Matthew wants to place his own religious community firmly within its Jewish heritage and portray a Jesus whose Jewish identity is beyond doubt. And so Matthew begins his gospel by tracing Jesus’s genealogy. He could have gotten away with tracing Jesus back to King David, but Matthew takes no chances and traces Jesus’s lineage all the way back to Abraham. For Matthew, Jesus is a Jew.

It’s within this context, then, that the focus on Joseph appears in Matthew’s story of Jesus’s birth. Joseph embodies the best parts of the Jewish tradition, a tradition that was all about keeping the law as a way to live with God. The law was a tried-and-true pattern of actions that expressed a Jew’s closeness to God and right relationship with others.

In Matthew 1:18–25 we read that during the time of his engagement to Mary, Joseph discovers that she is pregnant. Joseph knows the baby is not his, and he knows that Jewish law would find Mary guilty of adultery, an act that can be punished with death and that is always punishable by shame. The law mandated that Joseph divorce her. However, because Joseph is a righteous man, he also understands another part of his Jewish heritage: he understands that the law is to be tempered with mercy. And so instead of exposing Mary to a public divorce, as the reading says, he decides to dismiss her quietly, in a way that would reduce public inquiry into what has happened.

But as we see, even law tempered with mercy isn’t enough for Joseph to help usher in Emmanuel who is “God with us.” Something astonishing is needed, something that goes beyond the old patterns of action that Joseph knows so well, something that can only come from the shadowy, subterranean world of dreams. It is in the night, then, away from the daylight world of the law, past even the late-in-the-day tempering impulse of mercy, that an alternative explanation of what is happening comes. And it’s through this dream that God reaches out and grasps this good and righteous man, this one who is the best that the tried-and-true tradition can offer.

An angel appears to Joseph and speaks the same words that we will hear on Christmas in Luke’s gospel: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid to do something outrageous in order to bring to fruition something that the law and the prophets have yearned for, do not be afraid to do something that pitches you past any mercy you can imagine—do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife” (Matt. 1:19, paraphrase). This is a striking moment in Joseph’s life; all of what he knows—his life, his religion, his ethics—is being questioned by an angel in a dream, and that angel is inviting him to forsake all that knowledge and understanding to participate in a larger story.

I think we are all a little like Joseph;

• we limit ourselves by our tried-and-true ways of doing things;
• we each have our own ways of dealing with personal, spiritual, and professional matters;
• our own ways of moving through this demanding season of the year.
• Perhaps there is a voice we’re already dimly aware of from a dark, subterranean, and mysterious place.
• Perhaps it’s a voice we’re trying to avoid, a voice that is asking us to go beyond those tried-and-true ways in order to surrender more fully to God and to assist in the coming of Emmanuel “God with us” in our own lives and in the life of the world.

But what will going beyond those tried-and-true ways mean? What things that we wish we could dismiss quietly might we be asked to make our own? “Do not be afraid,” the angel is saying to you and to me about making these mysterious things our own. “Do not be afraid.”

It seems that throughout the Bible God is always to trying to tell us this—Do not be afraid:

• Abraham, when I ask you to leave your homeland and to travel to a new place that will be your own.
• Do not be afraid, Moses, for I will be with you when you, a slave, speak to Pharaoh, the king of the Egyptians.
• Do not be afraid of any evil, David, for the Lord will be your shepherd no matter where you are.
• Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found grace with God
• Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid to act.

And this brings us back to Joseph.

In Matthew’s account of Jesus’s birth, Joseph is asked to make a leap, to take an action that goes beyond how he would normally understand the law, and in listening to the angel and taking this leap of action, he is doing what some see as quintessentially Jewish.

About this, Rabbi Abraham Heschel once wrote, “A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought. He is asked to surpass his deeds, to do more than he understands in order to understand more than he does.”[Abraham Heschel, “God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism”, 1976).

In this last half of Advent, a season of the dark, the subterranean, and the mysterious, a season when we need to retrace the stories of new birth and the return of light, may you and I hear a word from that dark place, a word that banishes all fear and encourages us to take one tiny leap of action to draw nearer to something we do not fully understand. Emmanuel is God with us: do not be afraid.

MUSIC

Is it really Christmas without Boney M

POETRY

This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
there’d have been no room for the child.

~Madeline L’Engle

VIDEO

Patch Adams (Robin Williams) brings joy to the patients in the Children’s Ward

ART

The Dream of Saint Joseph is an oil on canvas painting created between 1628 and 1645 by the French Baroque painter Georges de La Tour

Ways Into Sunday’s Scripture from OCC

Each week during Advent, on Fridays, I will offer some ways into Sunday’s Scripture to help us grow, mature, and be formed or shaped spiritually.

TEXT

5-7 In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.

8-10 Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

11-17 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

18 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

19-20 The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

21-22 Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.

23-25 When his time of service was completed, he returned home. After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.” ~Luke 1:5-25

Some thoughts on this week’s scripture with some questions to reflect on

The situation of Zechariah and Elizabeth as old and childless is presented in historical context. There is the announcement to Zechariah in the Temple of a child who will be called John. We are told about his manner of life and of his mission to prepare people for the Lord. John is to be a voice, but Zechariah because of his lack of faith was struck dumb. In due course, his wife Elizabeth conceived. She spent months in retreat and thanked God for taking away her disgrace in being childless.

Zechariah and Elizabeth are an old couple, as were Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18), when they were promised a child.

• Am I comfortable with a God of surprises?
• Each one of us is a promised child of God with a mission to prepare the way.
• Do I fear this or, do I trust God to show me the way?
• Lord, help me appreciate that I am a promised child, a child of promise, so that I may carry out what you desire of me.

The ‘barren woman’ appears regularly in the Bible story; the mothers of Isaac, Jacob, Samson and Samuel, and Mary gave birth as a virgin. The point is that everything that happens is the plan of God.

Zechariah and Elizabeth were not expecting these amazing things to happen to them; they were simply ordinary pious Jews living according to the Law.

• The things that happen in our lives are normally undramatic but just as much a part of God’s plan.

“Zechariah, your prayer has been heard.” For how many years had Zechariah been making that prayer? For so many, that he had ceased to believe it would ever be answered. His doubt is so great that he askes for a sign. Is it a coincidence that the sign he is given is to be struck dumb? Unable to speak, all he can do now is listen. As God has listened to him over the years. As God listens to me. “…he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord”.

• Can I see myself contributing to this mission?

Elizabeth was barren and God intervened to show his care and his power.

• Where is my life barren, empty?
• Where do I want God to intervene for me?

Zechariah doubted the angel’s message and was punished for it.

• Do I ask God’s help with my own doubts and difficulties.

Zechariah and Elizabeth belonged among the Lord’s own ‘little ones’ of the earth, among the ‘God fearing’ masses. Each of them, judged by the depth of their belief, could be rated as being ‘one in a thousand’ – while, to the external view, each was unknown and just like a thousand others. And God seemed to be even withholding the reward that might have been expected in those days – they were childless.

The reward did finally arrive – but not without some further testing of faith, given the couple’s stage in life. And Zechariah learned also that the child foretold had already been made over to the designs of the Lord – the child was being sent to prepare the way, in a role akin similar to that always expected of the prophet Elijah – for God’s final intervention in the last days of this age. Even the name (‘God has shown favour’) being invoked for the child, spoke of God’s intention.

• Certainly, God’s ways are not our ways; and the very people who have always tried to remain fully loyal to the Lord, are sometimes going to find themselves called to even deeper faith – involving an ever more privileged closeness to God.

Despite all his prayer, and reassurance from the angel, Zechariah is unable to put his trust and faith in God’s way. The consequence was months of isolation, unable to communicate. Despite his obstinacy, God’s favour is seen in the birth of his son.

Elizabeth has no difficulty in acknowledging the source of new life. “This is what the Lord has done for me.”

• In this Advent season, can I reflect back on my life and say the same?

This was a red-letter day for Zechariah: he had been chosen by lot from the hundreds of available priests, to offer incense for the Jewish nation. His childlessness, the great grief of his life, would have been on his mind as he prayed. The revelation that he would be the father of a special child was such an answer to prayer as to strike him speechless.

• Lord, before I existed, my parents prayed that I would be born, would live, and would have a destiny with you. I thank you for the wonder of my being.

There are several stories of Old Testament women who become pregnant against all the odds: Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist; the unnamed mother of Samson; and Hannah, mother of Samuel. They remind us that God is in control of the human story, and intervenes graciously in favour of the helpless and despised.

Gabriel was sent to bring good news to Zechariah, who did not believe his words.

• Have I ears to hear the good news the Lord constantly speaks to me?

‘Both were getting on in years.’

• Perhaps this is true of me also! But the message is that God can do wonderful things in us when we feel we can do nothing.
• Do we ask the Lord to hear our prayer as he heard the prayer of Zechariah?

Zechariah became dumb because he did not believe the good news.

• If I do not believe the good news I too will have nothing worthwhile to say to others.
• I sit with Elizabeth and ask her for a share in her faith.

Zechariah served as a priest in the Jerusalem Temple. One of the duties of the priests was to keep the brazier burning that stood on the altar of incense in front of the Holy of Holies. They would fill the brazier with fresh incense before the morning sacrifice, and again at the evening sacrifice. It was during such an occasion that God’s messenger, Gabriel, appears and foretells the birth of John the Baptist. Later, when his wife Elizabeth, against all odds, finds herself pregnant, she proclaims, “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favourably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.” Barrenness was considered a humiliation and even God’s punishment

• As I contemplate this scene, am I ever awed by the great things God has done for me during my life?

VISUAL ART

The Archangel Gabriel Appears to Zacharias, Limbourg Brothers, before 1416

MUSIC

Here is a recording of Zechariah’s song… Luke 1:67-79

SOMETHING FUN / CREATIVE

There are some advertisers that come up with some creative advertising [I do not necessarily endorse any of these products / companies]. Enjoy.