"Splitting Hairs and Drawing Lines" (Third Sunday after Epiphany)

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 12 What I mean is that each of you says, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apollos," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." 13 Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. 18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

            So here we are again, with the Corinthians and all of their conflicts. To be fair, Paul doesn’t really write any letters in the New Testament that simply say things like: “To the church at such and such a place: You’re fabulous! Keep up the good work!” Each of Paul’s epistles is written in response to some issue, some problem, some conflict within the congregation of the faithful. But with this letter to the Corinthians, it seems as if Paul’s whole purpose for writing was to address divisions within the body. The congregation at Corinth looked less like a single work of masterful art and more like a windshield that’s been cracked and shattered by a wild rock on the highway, and it isn’t just one or two points of conflict at Corinth. No, there seem to be several simultaneous sources of division among the sisters and brothers at Corinth. Ben Witherington III outlines them pretty well in his commentary on Paul’s epistles to the Corinthians.[1]

            We’ve actually read about one of the sources of conflict in the verses before us this morning: “..each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’” It’s a matter of “brand names.” Some of the folks in Corinth rallied around Paul—I can understand that. Maybe they were some of the original, charter members of the congregation at Corinth. They were there from the beginning, folks who helped Paul get the church going, the ones who gave the first hundred dollars, taught the first Sunday school classes. Why I bet they even had their names engraved on a dedication plaque on the wall of the building. They were the kind of folks who always stopped and lingered a little longer in front of “Brother Paul’s” picture hanging in the foyer. They loved their old pastor, and they stilled missed him, so they all sort of branded themselves with his name.

            Then there were the newcomers, those who had joined the congregation since the new guy had arrived, those who “belonged to Apollos.” Apollos was slick, an altogether eloquent preacher from Alexandria. As with every new minister, there were changes I’m sure, and some folks were on board and some folks weren’t. Why, I bet Apollos had heard his fair share of folks saying things like, “Now, Brother Apollos, I appreciate what you’re doing, but Brother Paul always did it this way.” Of course, those who claimed to belong to Apollos would have been the ones to be sure that Apollos had his picture hanging in the foyer and had his name placed on the door to the minister’s study.

            Then again, in such situations, there are those who try to sort of “rise above” such conflicts. They don’t choose sides, but instead, choose to move a step up. These are the folks who say things like, “Well, you might like Brother Paul and you might like Brother Apollos, but I’ve always thought it best to follow one who’s really been there, so I belong to Brother Peter (or Cephas).” It’d be like someone saying they belong to Billy Graham instead of their pastor—he’s a sort of universally recognized figure of religious authority. Those who claimed to belong to Peter were likely just trying to “one-up” those caught in the squabbles of picking a favorite pastor.

            There are, of course, those who try to one-up the one-uppers, those who take sides in such a way that it prevents others from arguing with them, a sort of false high ground. These were the ones at Corinth who would say “I belong to Christ.” How do you argue with that?! It’d be like a bunch of folks arguing over who the best preacher was and someone saying, “Well, I think Jesus is the best preacher there ever was.” It’s a sort of cop-out, but one you can’t get called on—at least not in church, right?

That was one source of conflict: the growing rivalries around favorite leaders. Then there were those divisions caused by social constructs of the day, specifically those that favored the wealthy. Corinth was a diverse city, a city that had once been destroyed by the Romans and then rebuilt as a relocation destination for the surplus population of Rome; it quickly became a busy trade center in the Roman Empire.[2] Naturally, in such a place, class divisions would arise and such divisions carried over into the life of the church. Such class divisions, however, went beyond just the type of car one might drive to church on a Sunday morning. Paul speaks in chapter eleven of this epistle of the ways such divisions were carried over into the observance of the Lord’s Supper, with the wealthy arriving early, taking the best seats, and eating and drinking the best stuff, while the poorer, working folks arrived later in the day to sit where they could find a place and eat the scraps.

These sorts of cultural and class division also led to lawsuits among Christians (see 6:1-8) and likely contributed to the conflicts surrounding sexual misconduct and the presence of one man who was even living and sleeping with his step-mother.

Despite all of these divisions, it’s interesting that not a single one of them is really about theology. In fact, the conflicts that might be considered theological are exposed as anything but when examined closely. For example, one may think that the divisions surrounding spiritual gifts hinted at by Paul in last week’s text and addressed more fully in chapter twelve of this letter are certainly theological in nature, but the truth is such arguments were about who had the best spiritual gift, whose gifting by the Holy Spirit was more important, more useful, more “spiritual” than the rest. Members of the church were ranking spiritual gifts, trying to find a way to place themselves above others in the congregation. That’s not about theology.

In chapter eight, Paul speaks about food offered to idols—a seemingly theological issue, but the reality is that many of the folks at Corinth who had any measurable wealth had received it through business relationships in the community, relationships often sustained around cultic practices in the pagan temples,[3] so the eating of food offered to idols was more about whether one was willing to partake in pagan practices in order to further one’s wealth—not specifically about the theology surrounding pagan rituals in relation to Christian understandings of idols.

Even in chapter fifteen, where Paul has to address the existence of some who “say there is no resurrection of the dead (verse 12b),” it is most likely a matter of personal security than theology. After all, if one operates under the notion that the hereafter doesn’t exist or that we all simply float off into the fabric of space, what use is it to live one’s life with others in mind? If there’s no resurrection, then this world, this body, this community is just worthless dirt in the way of death. Paul spends a few words unraveling the reality of the resurrection as he speaks of Christ’s resurrection, but he gets to the practical point of it all in verse 30 of chapter fifteen when he says, “why are we putting ourselves in danger every hour?” Paul places before those arguing against the resurrection of the dead that his very actions on behalf of Christ are partly motivated by his belief in such a resurrection. It’s about motivation, not necessarily theology.

Of course, conflicts and divisions within the church are rarely (if ever) about theology. Why, I have heard of more churches dividing over things like the color of the carpet, the location of the church sign, the inclusion of a guitar in worship, and whether or not the pastor wore a tie than I have ever heard of any church getting into it over orthodox Trinitarian views of God! I have heard of and experienced more conflict and division around things like the format of the bulletin (“Can you believe we changed to cream-colored cardstock? What was wrong with the ones with picture of flowers and bible verses on them?”), the time of the morning worship service (“What was wrong with 11:00? Why do we have to move it to 10:00?”), and the number of times the Lord’s Supper is observed (“Isn’t once a quarter enough? What are we, Catholics now?!”).  I can even remember once, in a church where I served, we had placed the offering at the end of the service, after the sermon and invitation, in order to highlight giving as an act of responsive worship during a season of stewardship emphasis. After the first of such services, I clearly remember a church member chewing me out, telling me that she didn’t like the offering at the end of the service and she wasn’t coming back until we fixed it! Church conflict and division is rarely (if ever) about theology.

It wasn’t about theology at Corinth. If it was, Paul would have written more in the language of his epistle to the Romans. He would have taken the opportunity in the verses before us to lay out his understanding of baptism as he does in Romans 6, but instead he chooses to highlight the ridiculousness of bragging about who baptized whom. He could have taken the time in chapter eleven to lay out a clear understanding of the Eucharist (the Lord’s Supper) in order to highlight its importance and its centrality to Christian worship, but instead he reprimands those who take advantage of their status in life and abuse their privilege of being first to the Lord’s Table. He could have outlined the history of the Judeo-Christian doctrine of the resurrection in chapter fifteen, calling those who had rejected such a doctrine as fools and unfit to call themselves Christians, but instead he calls attention to his work and the work of those who have placed their lives on the line for the cause of God’s kingdom because of their trust in the resurrection of Christ and the general resurrection of the dead. Paul doesn’t present an outlined, systematic theology complete with scriptural citations, charts, and annotated footnotes, because Paul knows what all of us in ministry and those who’ve been around congregations long enough know too well: conflict and division is rarely (if ever) about theology. Then (you may ask) what is it about?

Division—whether in a congregation, family, club, or country—always finds its root in that familiar foe. Conflict can always trace its origins back to that same fractured foundation that has set the whole world of balance. Division and conflict are grounded in that same, original sin that haunts every dark crevice of human experience—selfishness. As long as there is thought or concern for self above others, division and conflict cannot help but spring up! So long as I care more about myself than I do about you, there will always be an atmosphere ripe for division. As long as I think I am better than you, holier than you, more righteous than you, cleaner than you, more deserving than you, there will always be ground for conflict. As long as I think I am in any way above anyone, there is a crack wide enough to separate me from everyone—even God. Because, you see, conflict—church conflict—isn’t about theology. No, it’s about me, about me and my sinful belief that I am better than anyone.

I think that’s why Paul, more than anywhere else in all the letters written by him or in his name, speaks about the cross to these conflicted Corinthians. He writes, “For Christ did not send me to baptize [as if to say, “you can all work that out on your own”] but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

“It is the power of God…” The cross?! Power? You want to talk about power? What about the way he held the elders in the palm of his hand, teaching in the temple when he was only twelve? You want power? What about when thousands of people were hungry, and he fed every last one of them with more left over from a few fish and handful of bread? Talk about power…you want to talk about power? What about that day, standing by that tomb in Bethany when he called out to the three-day-dead Lazarus to come up out of the tomb?! Raising a man from the dead—now that’s power! “The power of God”—if there’s power to be witnessed, surely it is in that shell of a tomb, left empty by the raised Son of God on that first Easter morning! But the cross!? Death? Pain? Suffering? That’s the power of God?!

YES!! Because there, on that cross, the God of creation proved once and for all that the way of God is one of self-emptying love! Because there, on that cross, God showed the universe that strength, might, fierceness, supremacy, and whatever we may have thought power to be is NOT the way. There in the cross—in Christ on the cross—we see the power of God as we see the strength it takes to lay down the life of the One who spoke the very cosmos into creation. In the cross, we see the power of God as we see the unfailing, eternal, selfless love of the God who in his anguish and pain cried out, “Father forgive them…” And it’s there in that cross that we see the power of God to overcome whatever lines we have drawn, to mend whatever hairs we’ve split, to heal the wounds of discontent, to bring together those from every walk of life and from every corner of creation. There, in the cross, is the power of God to overcome division and cure conflict. There, in the cross, is the power of God to overcome the source of all of our failures, our heartaches, our disappointments, our hatred, our bigotry, our indifference, our selfishness. There, in the cross, is the power of God to overcome…me. Amen.

  

---

[1] Ben Witherington III, Conflict and community in Corinth: a socio-rhetorical commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1995): 74.

[2] Michael David. Coogan et al., The new Oxford annotated Bible: with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001): 267 (New Testament)

[3] Witherington, 186 (see footnote 2).

"Fulfill All Righteousness? What?!" (Baptism of the Lord)

Matthew 3:13-17

13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" 15 But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."

            He woke up that morning as he had done for some time now: he likely spent the night on some hard, flat surface, perhaps with nothing more than a rock to support his head. He got dressed in what had become his trademark camel’s hair shorts and leather belt, and walked out into the world picking bits of locust out of his teeth and crystalized bits of honey from his beard. He was going down to the river, down to the Jordan, to take his usual place there in the water, to preach his usual message of repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins, but it wasn’t a usual day. As he left for the river, he noticed on his calendar that that day his cousin was coming to the river. Things were about to get real.

            You see, he had grown up his entire life hearing about his cousin, how God was really his father, how an angel told his aunt Mary she was pregnant with the baby, how angels were there when he was born. Now, John himself had been born under some pretty spectacular circumstances, but his cousin Jesus was on another level. Of course, John understood that to some degree. Jesus had likely been a disciple of John’s, following his cousin in the desert, listening to his message of repentance and forgiveness. No doubt, John had come to see in his cousin all that he had been told about him, so on that day, as John headed for the river knowing Jesus was coming, perhaps John mulled over in his mind what he was going to do that day, how he would introduce Jesus to the crowd—for there was a crowd.

            Matthew tells us there was a crowd from all over in verse five just before our text this morning: “the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan.” A crowd would be good. After all, if John is going to introduce Jesus, he’s going to want a crowd, and this crowd would have been just right. They had gathered there at the Jordan because of John: maybe they wanted to hear his message; maybe they wanted to witness the spectacle; maybe they were desperate for any sign of spiritual fervor or political uprising. Whatever brought them to the river, they came in droves, and John was going to make the best of it. In fact, John looks out in the crowd and sees Pharisees and Sadducees (some of the real religious folks of the day) and decides to really turn up the brimstone: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance.  Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” You can almost feel the heat of their embarrassment and anger at being called out by this country preacher standing in a muddy creek. Perhaps John was in rare form that day, encouraged by the knowledge that Jesus was coming down to the river, that all these folks were about to witness firsthand all that he had come to know about his divine cousin. Why, he even works it into a sermon: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."  

“Yessir! Preach!” I can hear them now, can’t you? John was (as they say here in the South) really shelling the corn! I mean, he calls the religious folks snake, tells them to bear good fruit or else be burned up, and then he starts talking about someone coming after him, a headliner to his opening act, who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and FIRE! John’s water baptism would seem puny in the blaze of a fiery baptism. John practically says so himself when he says he isn’t even able to carry the shoes of this one who’s coming after him. He’s really hyped up Jesus’ arrival! I can imagine the folks there at the Jordan expecting some real showstopper to come strolling up on the banks of the Jordan, someone with an even more outlandish appearance than John, someone with an obvious power and authority in his cadence. Why, I can imagine them whispering to one another, “Where is this guy? I’d like to meet him. Is John going to go get him? Because if he is, I’d rather stick around for the main event than settle for the opening act!” I suppose it’d be like someone coming out on the stage at a concert, putting on a great show, and then saying to the audience, “If you liked that, then you’re going to love the next guy about to come on stage.”

“Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.” That’s it? Jesus just showed up? Well, not exactly. I mean, Jesus was intentional about being at the Jordan that day, and he was intentional about being baptized by John.[1] This wasn’t an accident; Jesus didn’t come with other intentions only to find himself moved by John’s sermon to be baptized by him. No, Jesus meant to be there, but come on: John had just spent six verses railing against the religious leaders and building up Jesus as one who would baptize with fire, who had a winnowing fork in his hand, as one who come to take names and judge sinners for their sins, and Jesus just shows up like it’s no big deal! Then, on top of such an underwhelming entrance, he does the last thing anyone would expect this guy John had just been preaching about to do—he came to John to be baptized! What in the world is going on?!

Jesus’ baptism has caused many a Christian down through the centuries to scratch their heads. Why does Jesus get baptized? What’s the point? Did he actually need to repent of something? That doesn’t line up with Christian orthodoxy. Was there some grand, mysterious reason behind this? Did Jesus want to model the proper way for baptism so we Baptists could spend centuries trying to correct our Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist and other baby-sprinkling brothers and sisters? We’ve come up with all sorts of ideas as to why Jesus went down for baptism when he had nothing of which to repent and no need for forgiveness. It’s been something we’ve struggled with from the beginning of the Church. It’s why Matthew tells us about John’s question to Jesus in verse 14: “John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’

I mean, isn’t that just like Jesus? Really, isn’t it? John thought he knew Jesus (he did grow up with him after all, knew about him from the time he was old enough to know anything), thought he knew what to expect when Jesus showed up, preached him up in a big way with dramatic imagery and fiery language, but then Jesus just shows up and wants to be baptized. It’s understandable that John would question Jesus’ actions, but again, in typical Jesus fashion, Jesus doesn’t really answer John’s question in a clear, direct, well-outlined way. All Jesus says is. “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” What does that even mean?! I suppose we might think that Jesus means baptism is some piece of righteousness, some deed necessary to accomplish in order to achieve righteousness, but that misses the original intent of the word. Jesus doesn’t come to John because he needs the effects of baptism, because he has some sin of which he needs to repent. No, John baptizes Jesus as an act of obedience, a part of God’s in-breaking kingdom coming through the incarnate Christ.[2] It’s not exactly a cut-and-dry sort of answer, but the point is that it doesn’t really matter why Jesus came to be baptized, he came to John to be baptized—Jesus came to John to be baptized—and to deny him baptism would be to do the very thing so many of us are guilty of doing—refusing to accept what Jesus calls us to do because of what we think about it. If John had refused to baptize Jesus, I doubt things would have turned out much different (in fact, there’s no mention of Jesus’ baptism at all in John’s gospel), but if he had refused it would have been because of John’s own expectation s of what Jesus was supposed to be, of who Jesus was supposed to be. John had preached an image of Jesus as a powerful judge and fiery preacher, yet Jesus came to be baptized by John himself; there’s more than a bit of dissonance there.

Again, though, isn’t that just like Jesus? So many of us believe we have Jesus all figured out. After all, we’ve heard about him our whole lives, read about him our whole lives, many of us have even been involved in churches where we’ve worshipped him most of our lives, so we’re pretty sure we’ve got him figured out. We know what he’ll do, what he expects of us, who he likes and doesn’t like. We’re pretty sure we’ve got Jesus all figured out, but then something comes along and jars us, causes us to question what we think we know about Jesus: we lose a job, receive a surprise, devastating diagnosis, go through a divorce, have a family member come out, hear a sermon that challenges us, meet someone who causes us to question what we know about ourselves, lose a loved one unexpectedly. Something shakes the comfortable ground beneath our feet and whatever certainty we had about Jesus is suddenly less certain. How we respond to Jesus in those times says everything about the kind of faith we have in Jesus.

You see, John could have refused to baptize Jesus. He could have insisted and said, “No, no, no. Jesus, I’m not fit to carry your shoes, let alone baptize you. You’ve got it wrong. There’s just no way I’m supposed to baptize you. It doesn’t make any sense.” John could have protested, claiming he believed that Jesus was too good, too righteous to need baptizing. He could have refused, but he would have been out of line with God’s will and purpose. In the same way, we can argue with Jesus when we’re confronted by him, when we’re made uncomfortable by the reality of Jesus’ power, grace, and love. We can argue, quote Bible verses, cite tradition, and even claim we know Jesus to be better than whatever it is with which he confronts us, but the more we push against Christ, the more we claim to know better, the more we simply refuse to acknowledge that maybe the things that shake us, that make us uncomfortable, the realities that cause us to question, may in fact be from Christ himself, the more out of line we may become with God’s kingdom purpose for our lives.

See, even though John may have imagined Jesus’ arrival at the Joran differently, even though he may have initially protested baptizing Jesus, John demonstrated his faith in Christ by following through with Jesus’ baptism, even with such a mysterious reason from Jesus himself. John demonstrates his faith in the One he had heard about from birth, the one he had grown up with, the one he was absolutely sure he knew as well as anyone, and he demonstrates that faith in the wake of shaken convictions and challenged assumptions.

Is your faith in Christ one that can withstand having your assumptions shattered? Is your faith in Christ one of obedience, even to those things which you might think are below you or below Christ? Or is your faith one that requires certainty, the type of faith that needs final answers and for your imagined images of God to be reality? When our faith is built upon required certainties and those certainties are shaken or shattered altogether, our faith can be shaken or shattered altogether, for it is a faith in a god made in our image. But when our faith is truly placed in Christ—a Christ who challenges everything, who calls us beyond ourselves, whose place is so often with those we deem to be “other”—when our certainties our tested, our absolutes shaken, our faith remains, for Jesus remains. Amen.

[1] Preaching Through the Christian Year: Year A (p.82).

[2] Feasting on the Word, (pg. 239 “Exegetical Perspective”)

"Good News of Great Joy!" (Christmas Day)

Luke 2:1-14 (15-20)

1 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

            Have you ever read a book, and then, after you’ve read it, someone makes a movie about it? You liked the book, so you decide to see the movie. You pay the unholy price for an evening ticket, forego the pricey popcorn and gallon bucket of soda, and find your way into the middle of the dark theatre. You sit through two hours of what you had hoped would be a cinematic masterpiece, only to say to yourself, “That wasn’t anything at all like what I thought it would be!” Don’t you just hate that?

            You know, I wonder if the biblical authors and their original audiences would feel the same way if they had a chance to witness some of our theatrical interpretations of Scripture. How would John feel about Mel Gibson’s portrayal of Jesus? How would Moses critique Charlton Hesston’s performance in The Ten Commandments? Or for that matter, how would any of those ancient New Testament writers feel about that peculiar musical Jesus Christ Superstar?! It is hard to say, but I do think that perhaps Luke would take some objection to the ways we dramatically interpret this portion of his nativity narrative.

            I can just see him now, seated somewhere about the middle of any given sanctuary about this time of year. Perhaps the children’s ministry is performing some sort of nativity play, complete with an angry innkeeper, a live goat, and Sister’s Sue’s grandbaby starring in the lead role of our Lord and Savior. Luke is trying hard to sit still in the pew, twitching with anxiety as he watches his intellectual property being bent to the breaking point. Just as he seems to be settling down, he loses it when the shepherds make their appearance (never mind his confusion at the appearance of the magi); you can almost hear him leaping from his seat and shouting “You’ve got it all wrong! Bathrobes and bed sheets do not a shepherd make!”

            You know, he just might be right. After all, he did write it! But even if our interpretation is a bit romanticized, what exactly might we be missing? I mean, these shepherds really don’t play that big of a role, do they? The answer is in what Luke tells us (and maybe even what he doesn’t tell us).

            Notice the way Luke describes these shepherds, or rather, the way he doesn’t describe them. He simply calls them shepherds. There is no narrative embellishment regarding the way they look, the way they act, their number or their ages. Luke simply says in verse 8, “In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.” While there are many good arguments regarding the symbolism attached to these shepherds (i.e., the Davidic link to Bethlehem shepherds, the importance of shepherds in the Israelite community, etc.), it is likely that they are simply a personification of those to whom Luke dedicates the focus of his entire gospel—the marginalized.

            Throughout Luke’s gospel we see an emphasis on Jesus’ teachings regarding the poor, women, Gentiles, and sinners. One could argue that Luke’s Jesus has a preferential option for the poor and downcast (one may even argue from the entire Bible that God has such a preferential option, and I happen to think God does). Therefore, it is likely these rather enigmatic shepherds are meant to stand as a sort of symbol for everyone who would have read or heard Luke’s gospel.

That is exactly the role of the shepherds; they act as a sort of placeholder in Luke’s gospel, setting up his audience from the very beginning. They are a symbol for all the people to whom the gospel is given. In fact, it is even reflected in the language of the angel in v. 10: "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for ALL the people.” This good news is not for only a select few, but for all people; it is not the sole property of the shepherds—it is for all people. With the inclusion of the shepherds, Luke has invited us all to take part in the birth of the King of kings. Therefore, we ought to invite all people to the manger, to the cradle which holds the light of the world and the hope for all humankind. Christmas, the birth of Christ, is for ALL the people.

            There is something further to learn from these shepherds. Luke includes them as a symbol for all people, yet he doesn’t just leave them in the fields, watching their flocks. No, the shepherds head towards Bethlehem, towards the feed box which holds the Bread of Life. In verse 15 they say, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” They are moved and motivated by curiosity to seek out the sign about which they have been told. We’re not told how far they had to go or how long it took them. Luke just simply tells us in verse 16 “So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.” They found Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, but what does that even mean?

            The angel told them in verses 11 and 12 “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." This family, this baby, was the Savior. What a powerful statement! And what emotions these shepherds must have had when they came upon this humble scene in Bethlehem! There, there in that feed box (such a strange place for an infant) lay the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior! Luke goes on to tell us that “When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.” Now don’t be mistaken by the translation of these verses. The shepherds did not run out to tell everyone about the birth of Jesus. No, they told everyone who was there what the angels had told them. I mean, they had to explain themselves; how many people do you know who go around at night looking for strange babies sleeping in barns?! They had to find him, and when they did, they told everyone there why they were there in the first place. Everyone was amazed: “Hey Joe, get a load of this: these shepherds were just sittin’ out in a field when an angel showed up with a choir and told them we’d be here! Isn’t that something?!”

            Weren’t you that way the first time you really heard who Jesus was—amazed? Weren’t you like these shepherds, who, after they heard this wonderful news, sought out Christ? And when you found him, did you not tell everyone around you how wonderful it was? It was like the feeling you had as a child on Christmas morning, seeing the wonderful gifts waiting for you under the tree: you tore through the paper, excited about what was inside, and once you unwrapped it, you ran around the living room to show everyone what you had just received, only to set it aside for the next gift, or to play with it for a while before losing it in the back of your closet.

            Finding Christ is like that to some folks, you know? But how I wish it wasn’t! You see, these shepherds were so caught up in the initial wonder of what they had found, so caught up in this Christmas morning feeling, yet Luke tells us in verse 20 that “The shepherds returned [home].” I can’t even begin to count the number of times I have seen a child receive a gift in excitement and anticipation, only to find it lying somewhere in a forgotten pile some minutes later. They are so thrilled that they have received a gift from someone and so happy that they have received something so special, yet it does not take long for the new to wear off and for complacency to find its way back to its place in the heart.

Surely these shepherds weren’t like this. Surely Luke meant to tell us that they ran throughout the town like an ancient Paul Revere shouting the arrival of Salvation: “The Messiah is coming! The Messiah is here! He’s here, and he’s in a manger in Bethlehem!” No. No, all we are told is that they returned home; they returned to the way things were. Could Luke not have simply mentioned at least one of them in the latter portions of the gospel, perhaps as a bystander during the Sermon on the Plane (Luke’s version of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount), or perhaps he could have given them a recurring role in his second volume Acts and had them brush shoulders with one of the apostles, have one of the make a dramatic appearance at Pentecost or something. Unfortunately, there’s not even a pseudo-tradition of these shepherds, not even a made up story tracing its roots back to an old shepherd story. They just simply disappeared. They’re never heard from again.

Are you like that? Have you received the good news, felt the overwhelming joy of salvation, yet, after the new wore off, did you return to the way things were? Let me challenge you, as you leave this place this Christmas morning, as you go out from here to dinners with friends and family, as you return to exchanging gifts, watching Christmas movies, drinking cider and hot chocolate, don’t let things simply return to the way things were before you heard the good news. Don’t let the feelings, the emotions, and the reality of the birth of Christ be stored away with the old Christmas ornaments. Embrace the fullness of what the birth of Christ means: hope, peace, joy, and love. Christmas is not a time to simply rekindle those seasonal feelings and convictions. Christmas is the jumping off point; it is literally the birth of good news. This Christmas, pick up where those shepherds left off; don’t simply return to the way things were before the season, but allow the love of God to change the very way you live your life. Let Christ be born in your heart in such a way that you will not want to simply “return,” but in such a way that you will seek daily to live those words from the angel, that you will seek to one whose very life says to everyone, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.” May you be one who gives the gift of God’s love to all people, every, single day, by your words and works of hope, peace, joy, and love. Amen.

"Dreaming Dreams and Naming Names" (Fourth Sunday of Advent)

Matthew 1:18-25

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

             My sixth grade teacher, Ms. Royals, had gotten the class’s attention and called out a list of names to come speak with her at the front of the class. Now, I don’t remember every name she called, but I remember two: a girl names Shawn Howell and my name. While the rest of the class went back to work writing sentences with spelling words or something, Ms. Royals proceeded to tell us that we were going to be a part of the Christmas program that year. We would be doing a nativity on the stage, and Shawn would be playing Mary and I would be Joseph. It wasn’t difficult; I just sat on a haybale in a flimsy, brown robe for about twenty minutes, but that may have been the beginning of what has grown into a sort of soft spot for Joseph.

            You see, we Protestant Christians tend to keep Mary at arm’s length (after all, we don’t want folks to confuse us with our Catholic brothers and sisters who we incorrectly claim worship Mary). We give her a nod, though, once a year about this time, singing songs like “Mary Did You know?” (which, by the way, of course she knew—she was the first one who knew!), and we put her out on the lawn or on an ornament on the Christmas tree. We pay a little more attention to Mary at Christmas time, but if we pay little attention to Mary, we pay no attention to Joseph.

            We tend to view Joseph as a superfluous addition to the nativity scene, as if he were our appendix—not really necessary for anything, but he came with the set. We don’t really sing songs about Joseph; when we put our nativity sets out he can often be easily lost among the shepherds (while Mary clearly stands out in her usual blue and white robes); you can even buy nativity sets where the Christ child is attached to Mary, so Joseph can be left out altogether! Why, Joseph is even ignored in most of New Testament, only appearing in the nativity stories and mentioned only a few other times in reference to Jesus’ local identity. He gets about as much “screen time” as the disciple Philip (some of you are wondering right now if Philip really is one of the twelve disciples—he is). For most Christians, it seems that Joseph is really a non-essential character, only worth mentioning once a year and only in order to explain who he is and why he’s next to the baby Jesus and not one of the three blinged-out wise men (who weren’t at Christ’s birth anyway, but that’s a sermon for another day…).

            Despite how we may feel about Joseph, the truth is he is one of the most important players in the nativity story—really he’s one of the most important figures in the whole of God’s story, because without Joseph, without his devotion to his betrothed Mary, the nativity story—Christ’s story—could have gone very differently. Joseph is so important to the story, that Matthew connects Jesus back to David and Abraham through Joseph in his genealogy of chapter one. Then, Matthew goes on to tell us the rest of the nativity story—short as it is for him—in the text before us this morning.

            We’re told in verse 18, “When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” Now, how do you think that went over with Joseph the first time he heard that? Who do you think he heard it from? He didn’t hear it from an angel as Mary did. Did Mary come over to the shop while Joseph was on his lunch break? “Sit down, Jo. I’ve got something to tell you and you’re not going to believe this…” Did Mary run to tell him after she found out, or was she so frightened of what might happen that she sent a friend, a relative to tell him? Did she hide it from him until she couldn’t anymore? I don’t know. After all, the text just says, “she was found to be with child;” it’s not very descript. It’s not very descript, but I can imagine it was a very troubling conversation, one filled with tension and overrun with emotion.

            I suppose some folks might think we’ve grown somewhat immune to the reality of unwed, teenage mothers, that we almost celebrate it with shows like 16 and Pregnant, but take a walk down the hall of any high school. It won’t take you long to find out which girl or girls are expecting—they’re usually at their lockers alone, at the lunch tables alone, in the back of the class alone. Even the teachers and parents tend to give them sideways glances as they walk down the halls, as they try to soak up as much education as they can before inevitably disappearing from school, perhaps eventually dropping out to take a minimum-wage job and endure a lifetime of criticism for their choices. If it’s that hard for such a mother now, you can imagine what it must have been like for Mary, so I wonder how she told Joseph.

            In the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter how she told him, because we have his response outlined for us in this morning’s text: “Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.” I suppose, if I were cynical about the whole thing, I’d say this is just another example of a man walking away from a life made difficult by an unexpected pregnancy while the woman is left to pick up the pieces, but really, for Joseph’s context, it’s not. You see, Matthew only uses one word to describe Joseph, the Greek word diakaios translated (in the NRSV) as “righteous.” Joseph is a righteous man, a man grounded in the Law, the teachings of the scriptures, a man who sought to live justly, to do the right thing. He had every right under the Law to cast Mary out, to reveal her condition to the community and shame her. It would have been the right thing for him; after all, he wouldn’t want word getting out that he had married a woman carrying another man’s baby. Can’t you just hear the fellas at the jobsite where Joseph would have worked: “There’s Joseph; you know he’s raising another man’s baby. Sure is. Wife got pregnant before they got married, said it’s ‘God’s baby.’ Can you believe that? Poor sap, probably believes the moon is made out of cheese. I bet she’s playing him for all he’s worth too.” It would have been the right thing for Joseph, to bring Mary’s apparent sins light in the midst of the community, to call her out for her apparent shortcomings and infidelity. It would have protected Joseph’s reputation as a righteous man, as a man who lived “by the book.”

Of course, if he had a been a literal fundamentalist, Joseph could have had Mary dragged out before the men of the community and stoned to death![1] I suppose there might be some folks who’d think that was alright. I can hear their reasoning: “You see, Joseph, the Bible says in Deuteronomy 22, ‘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.’ It’s in the Bible Joseph, so you gotta do it! You can’t have a woman getting off scot-free from an obvious adulterous encounter. If you don’t make a stand, before too long you’ll have women sleeping around all over and when they turn up pregnant, they’ll claim it’s God’s baby too! You gotta put an end to it now, Joseph. That’s what the Bible says.”  Of course, there are a lot of folks who like to read the Scriptures like that, cherry-picking this or that passage in order to justify their own comfort, their own selfishness, bigotry, and ignorance. It’s shameful really; it misses the whole point.

But Joseph, he apparently didn’t read the scriptures that way, because he doesn’t do any of that. No, Joseph decides to dismiss Mary quietly, to give her the option of packing her things, the chance to start life over somewhere else, the opportunity to lay low for a little while. Maybe Mary could pass the child off as her mother’s, as the child of a late sibling or cousin; maybe she’d get away with it if Joseph just let her slip away quietly and pretend none of this every happened. That was his plan…but then he went to sleep.

            Matthew tells us, “just when [Joseph] had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’ When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.” The angel tells Joseph to not be afraid to take the pregnant Mary as his wife, and then the angel says to Joseph “you are to name him Jesus.” Joseph has to name him Jesus; there won’t be some sky-splitting announcement from heaven, no angelic presence by the manger writing the child’s name down on the birth certificate, and it’s not up to Mary to give the child his name. Joseph is told to do it.

            Now, it’s easy to get caught up in the meaning of the name Jesus (from the Hebrew “Joshua” which mean “YHWH saves”) and lose sight of just what it means for Joseph to name the child. You see, if Joseph gives the child a name, that means Joseph claims responsibility for the child, that he claims the child as his own to raise, nurture, and look after. This may be the most radical things put forth by the angel Joseph’s dream! Really. Joseph is told to claim the child as his own, to give him the name Jesus, to step in where so many others would have bowed out. It’s radical not only because of the immense responsibility that comes with caring for a child, not only because of the nature of the child in Mary’s womb, but because it goes so strongly against what Joseph had been taught through the scriptures! He was supposed to expose an engaged woman pregnant with someone else’s child—not marry her! He was supposed to have such a woman stoned to death or at least have her and her unborn child removed from the community—not take her in, care for her, and name her child as if he was his very own! That’s not in the book! It’s not in the book…

            You know, sometimes we get so caught up in what we think is in the book, that we overlook what the whole book is really about. Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to find a text here or a verse there to get out of a difficult situation that we ignore the voice of God calling us deeper into it. Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to justify our positions and convictions with the words of scripture that we miss out on what the very Word of God is calling us to do.

            You see, I know some folks who, had they been in Joseph’s place, would have argued with the angel in his dream. Really. They’d have said, “Whoa now. Hang on a minute. You’re telling me to go on and marry her, to name the baby too?! You must not read your Bible like I do, because the Bible is clearly against such a thing.” You know, I bet there’s some folks, when heaven gets to them, are going to pull Jesus to the side in an attempt to set him straight on all this “love your neighbor” business! Why, I bet there are folks today (just as there were then) who, if Jesus walked through the front door of this sanctuary and stood in the pulpit to declare the arrival of God’s kingdom, would argue—with Jesus!—that the Bible says it wasn’t time for it! Would you believe that there are even folks who would deny food to a hungry man because they believe the Bible says if a person doesn’t work, they shouldn’t eat?![2] It’s true. There are people who call themselves “Bible-believing Christians” who use the Bible to justify all manner of things from a denial of proven medical procedures to ignorance surrounding issues of the environment and even their own discomfort and hatred of those different from themselves. And they’ll do it such things all the while saying “It’s in the book!”

Imagine if Joseph had done that. I’m certainly glad he didn’t. I for one am glad that Joseph—a righteous man—believed most in the love that is foundational to understanding the very nature of God, a love that does not cast a young woman and her unborn child into the spotlight of shame, a love that does not hold so tightly to the conveniently contrived proof-texts of the Bible that grace and redemption cannot find their way through, a love that shows the way to God more fully than any string of chapter and verse citations used in defense of one’s own discrimination and ignorance. It is that great love of God we celebrate this season, a love that says to all of us that in spite of our sins, in spite of our selfishness, in spite of our repeated rejection, in spite of everything we do that stands in direct opposition to what God calls us to be, God still longs to be with us. God is with us! That’s what the angel said, isn’t it? “They shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." God is with us, in spite of every well-meaning way we try to keep God from others and ourselves, God is still with us. Amen.

---

[1] Deuteronomy 22:23-27

[2] This is a poor understanding of 2 Thessalonians 3:10