Category: Minister

Watch the sermon video here:

Hespeler, 20 February 2022 © Scott McAndless
Genesis 45:3-11, 15, Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40, 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50, Luke 6:27-38 (click to read)

On Saturday, January 30^th, as we are all very aware at this point, a huge protest descended upon the city of Ottawa. As a nation’s capital, Ottawa is hardly a stranger to protest, and many citizens have gotten used to taking them in their stride. But this one was different. It quickly turned into a long-term occupation as tractor trailers were positioned to lock down the streets of the core, filling them with diesel fumes and the incessant blaring of truck horns.

Now, I am quite aware that those who went to Ottawa to protest had their reasons. There were policies that they opposed and that they felt were infringing upon their freedom. I don’t personally agree with their specific concerns nor, apparently, do a majority of Canadians, but I don’t intend to debate their concerns or their demands. I do believe that people, even people that I do not agree with, have the perfect right to air their grievances and seek to have them addressed. But I do have some concerns with how those grievances have been expressed and I also have concerns about the response and what it has been. I do not think that I am alone.

Who are the Enemies?

In our reading this morning from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus speaks about what it means to have enemies and how we are to deal with our enemies. And I think that that gives us a helpful way to approach these events. “Enemies” is a good way to describe many of the people who have engaged in the drama in our nation’s capital. I know that they are not all one monolithic group, but one thing the convoy people share is apparently their enemies. They would name as their enemies certain political leaders, certain public officials including public health officers. Many would name certain political parties and the policies of those parties. And they have certainly sought to target their enemies with their rhetoric and their actions.

Most would probably not name the citizens of Ottawa as their enemies, but these are the people, especially those that live near Parliament Hill, who have probably suffered the most as a result of their actions. They have seen their freedom of movement and their ability to work curtailed, they have been assailed with non-stop high decibel noise pollution, often so loud that it would be considered torture if prisoners of war were subjected to it. There have been many allegations of harassment and even of attempted arson. As a result of this, it is perhaps not surprising that many of the people of Ottawa have come to see these occupiers very clearly as their enemies, leading to a very strong desire to retaliate against them.

Jesus’ Teaching Looks Different Today

All of this means that we have been given a very clear illustration of the kind of situation that Jesus was apparently trying to address in his teaching this morning from the Gospel of Luke. The question, quite simply, is what do you do when you have an enemy?

And it is kind of interesting. I have been reading and preaching on this passage of scripture (and other parallel passages) for a very long time. I have preached on this passage when our country has been at war in places like Afghanistan and also when we have been engaged in some very dangerous peace-keeping missions. But I’ll tell you something. I don’t remember a time when I opened this passage and could be sure that everyone would have as clear an understanding of who was their enemy than at this particular moment in time.

And the enemies that we think of are not particularly people who live on other continents. They are a whole lot closer to home. Go up to just about anyone in Ottawa over the past couple of weeks and ask them, who are your enemies, and chances are that they can point one out to you.

We All Think We Know How to Deal with Enemies

So, in many ways, that question of how we deal with our enemies is much more urgent today than I can ever remember. But I would also notice one other thing. There really isn’t any discussion about how to deal with them. We’re all pretty sure that we know what needs to be done. You can see that, once again, on the streets of Ottawa. We have seen people directing a lot of anger against their perceived enemies, of course. But, beyond that, we also seem to see a whole lot of anger being directed against those who are dealing with enemies in what we see as the wrong ways.

And so, for example, people have been heavily criticizing the police for what is seen as appeasement or for failing to come down hard on the enemies. Others have expressed their anger at the media for failing to represent “our side” with sympathy or for failing to demonize the other side. These sorts of attitudes make it clear that everyone understands that the only way to deal with an enemy is basically to fight fire with fire, to defeat them with strength and power.

Objectionable Advice

That seems to be the context where we find ourselves today, not just in relation to this one occupation, of course, but in many of the events that have taken place in the last couple of years. So, it seems that the topic Jesus is dealing with in our gospel reading has never been more relevant to us than it is right now. And yet, at the same time, the actual advice that Jesus gives for dealing with our enemies has never been more objectionable.

Jesus says, “But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” And, really, can you imagine somebody getting up and making such a request to any group facing off against any other on the streets of Ottawa? They would be laughed out of the city. It just seems to be absolute foolishness, at least when the enemies we are talking about are not hypothetical but are actually standing right in front of us.

No Way Out of Hate

But I really do think that we need to give some consideration to what Jesus is saying here because here is the real problem. Once we get into that kind of battle where no one is willing to give even basic humanity to their enemies, we very quickly get into a situation where there simply is no way out. When all we can do is hate our enemies, we only end up constantly raising the stakes on each other.

At some point, it actually doesn’t matter who is right or who is wrong. It doesn’t matter who started it. At the end of the day, we actually need to be able to live with each other once this is all over because otherwise, it’s never going to be over, and no one wants to live in a world surrounded by enemies forever. So, even though what Jesus says seems like the wrong thing to do, we really ought to listen to him.

What Jesus isn’t Saying

And I would also note that, when he teaches us to love our enemies, he is not simply saying that we should let them have their way with us. For example, Jesus doesn’t just say that when someone strikes you on the cheek, you should just let them keep on striking you. No, what Jesus says is, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.” And I know that that might sound like the same thing, but it isn’t. What Jesus is saying is that you need to insist that, if someone’s going to strike you, you set the terms for what is happening to you.

The Other Cheek

In that world, the kind of people that Jesus was talking to were used to being struck in certain ways. Most of them were poor and many of them were slaves. And do you know how abusers struck people like that in the ancient world? They struck them with a backhanded blow of the right hand which meant that they were striking you on the right cheek. It was the kind of blow that told you that you were nobody in their sight. So that meant that poor folk and slaves were constantly being struck with backhanded blows on the right cheek. They all knew it. They had all felt it often enough. And, what’s more, if you look at some of the other variations of this saying of Jesus, Jesus actually specifies that the first blow is on the right cheek.

But it is very significant that Jesus does not say that you should just let your enemies continue to strike you as they have been. No, Jesus says, you are to invite them to strike you on the other cheek. And that is significantly different in that culture. For them to strike you on the left cheek would mean them striking you with the front of their right hand (because, for reasons I’m not going to go into, you do not touch somebody else with your left hand in that culture).

So essentially what you’re inviting them to do is to strike you, and perhaps to strike you harder, with the front of their hand or their fist, but you are insisting that they do so not as a social superior but as an equal. And, in that culture, that was actually something that did more dishonour to them than it did to you. You had essentially shamed them by forcing them to declare that you were their equal.

About the Clothing

Jesus’ other advice is very similar. He tells them that if someone takes away your coat, you should give them your tunic as well. Well, in that society people only wore two pieces of clothing, a coat and a tunic. So essentially you are stripping naked in front of your enemy and, once again, in that society that did more damage to their honour than it did to yours.

Now, of course, the specific advice that Jesus is giving here is very much dependent on that culture and how it worked. Obviously, to do the exact same actions today would not have the same results. So, we would accomplish absolutely nothing by going around today inviting our enemies to hit us on our left cheek or take away our tunics. That would have nothing like the impact that Jesus is looking for. It’s not the specifics that we should follow but the principles behind them.

The Principles

So, what are the principles, and how might they apply in the kind of situations we are seeing today? I think it does mean that we should not counter our enemies’ misbehaviour, abuse or even violence by returning the same back to them. If they force us to become like them by adopting their tactics, then they have won, and we have no victory. But, at the same time, that doesn’t mean that we must just let them have their way. If they are going to continue to be abusive or hateful, we are going to have to force them to do that in ways that demonstrate to everyone exactly how dishonourable they are being.

In some cases, that can be pretty straightforward. If someone is being abused in a domestic situation, for example, the course of action is pretty clear in my mind. The abused person first of all needs to get safe and to get anyone else at risk to safety. And secondly, they need to take the steps necessary that expose to the authorities what their abuser has been doing. To simply continue to be abused in the same way, is actually something very different from what Jesus was talking about when he said to turn the other cheek. And I certainly wouldn’t pretend taking such matters to the authorities is not a very difficult and painful thing for an abused person to do. But it is a painful thing that you do for a purpose, and it is so much better than just continuing to be abused.

Making it Apply in Ottawa’s Streets

Now, a complex situation like the occupation of your city is obviously going to be more complex than that. I realize how difficult it is to apply Jesus’ advice to that kind of situation. But we still shouldn’t forget the overall principle. You cannot defeat your enemies by becoming like them. You need to give them the space to show who they really are.

None of this is easy. In fact, I believe Jesus made it very clear that loving your enemies is about the hardest thing you will ever be asked to do. It is actually a whole lot easier just to enter into a never-ending cycle of retribution and returning violence for violence and hatred for hatred. But that is really not a way to move forward when we actually have to live in the same country and continue to be neighbours and find a way to build a better country for everyone.

So, I would like to end this morning by posing the question and even suggesting that you take some time to discuss it. My question is this, however you define the enemies you see in our society today, how would you apply Jesus’ teaching to situations like what we’re seeing in Ottawa?

https://youtu.be/5TQcOyUrDso

Hespeler, 13 February 2022 © Scott McAndless
Jeremiah 17:5-10, Psalm 1, 1 Corinthians 15:12-20, Luke 6:17-26

If you are like most Christian readers, something probably feels a little bit off when you get to the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Luke. Jesus turns towards his disciples, opens his mouth and he says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” And you say to yourself, “Hey, that’s not quite right.” Because you know those words, you’re pretty sure you’ve heard them before, but they weren’t exactly like that. Maybe you even grumble a bit about modern translations and how they seem to rob the words of their poetic power.

You’re Thinking of Another Passage

But actually, there is nothing wrong with the translation and yet you are still absolutely right. You have heard those words before and they weren’t quite like that. The words of Jesus that you are thinking of, that you are much more familiar with, are found in another gospel. In the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew Jesus turns to his disciples and he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted... Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” And those are the words of Jesus that people remember and memorize and repeat to comfort themselves.

And there is a good reason why people are so attached to the words that come from Matthew’s Gospel. They seem to be deeply spiritual as they challenge us to elevate our soul and to aspire for the deeper mysteries of the kingdom of God. We may not be entirely sure what it means to be “poor in spirit,” but it certainly sounds like something we should want to be. We may not be entirely sure that we actually hunger and thirst for righteousness’ sake, but we’d like to.

A Different Reaction

But when we turn over to those sayings in Luke’s gospel, we just don’t have the same emotional reaction to those words. I mean, yes, they are very nice sentiments. We would certainly like people who are poor to be blessed, for hungry people to get some food and for people who are weeping to be able to laugh. Everyone needs a good laugh from time to time. But those blessings seem so mundane and down to earth. They don’t stir our hearts in quite the same way.

As you can imagine, people have long wondered how it happened that we should, in these two gospels, have such different versions of what seem to be the same sayings of Jesus. It’s hard to imagine that this could just be a case of two people hearing the same words and mistakenly writing them down so differently. No, I think it’s pretty clear that the writers of these gospels have gone out of their way to present these words of Jesus in the way that they have.

Gospels aren’t Just Historical Accounts

Here is something you need to understand about the Gospels. They were never intended to be straightforward historical accounts. The job of the gospel writer is not simply to tell you the things that happened to and around Jesus exactly as those events took place. It is pretty clear, when you look closely at these books, that they had a much more important goal in mind. Their job was to communicate to you as best as they could their understanding of who Jesus was and what he stood for. They were each working, as the Holy Spirit inspired them, to present the unique understanding and angle that had been given to them. When you study these books closely, it’s pretty easy to see how they have done things like moved events around, reworded some of the sayings and done other similar things in order to accomplish that goal.

So, on the one hand, I would definitely argue that both Matthew and Luke were doing their very best to represent what it was that Jesus was teaching his disciples. But, on the other hand, they are far less concerned with getting the wording exactly correct than we may be expecting. But, even more than that, I believe that they are doing it all very transparently, that they are openly signaling their intentions.

Matthew’s Context and Setting

The famous, more familiar words of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel are presented in a very specific context. Matthew tells us at the end of chapter 4 that Jesus was traveling all over Galilee and that he was attracting huge crowds, especially crowds of those who were “sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics.”

So, Jesus has been constantly surrounded by people who are in deep need, and he’s been trying to do his best to respond to them where they are. But then, as chapter 5 begins, he climbs to the top of a high mountain and there he turns and begins to speak to his disciples. That is why, of course, the discourse that follows over the next three chapters is called the Sermon on the Mount.

A Symbolic Mountain Top

The symbolism of such a setting should not be underestimated. The entire point of it is to make sure that we understand that everything Jesus is saying is meant to elevate us to think on heaven and its realities. He is raising our eyes and our minds above the drudgery of everyday life to proclaim to us eternal and spiritual truths.

He wants us to strive towards spiritual health rather than being concerned with the health of the body. He wants us to lay aside the earthly hunger we suffer from when we have no food and to hunger and thirst instead for what is right. He promises, yes, that the meek will inherit the earth. But if they are that meek, it’s hard to imagine them ruthlessly exploiting what they have inherited like we often do today. And the peacemakers, they may be making their peace on earth, but they are apparently shining far above this present realm as children of God.

Different Perspectives

And all of this, I need to stress, is absolutely true to who Jesus was and what he stood for. And this aspect of Jesus’ character is both eloquently captured and presented in these beatitudes, the opening passage of the Sermon on the Mount. But, at the same time, we mustn’t forget that this captured a certain aspect of Jesus’ person and message.

It is true of any individual that they are more than what a certain person might experience of them. For example, I might have a good friend whom I have always experienced as a lighthearted and humorous sort of person, you know the kind of guy who’s always telling a joke or finding something to laugh at. But somebody else might know that same person in a very different context, perhaps in the workplace where they hold down a very demanding and difficult job. Their workplace associate might know them as a very different, much more serious type of person.

Both I and that work associate could give our own description of this person and they would be radically different descriptions. And yet, at the same time, we can both be absolutely correct because no one single person’s point of view of somebody can possibly encompass the whole of that person. And if that is true of just any person, how much more is it true when we are talking about somebody as extraordinary as Jesus?

Luke’s Different Setting

So, we really should not expect that Matthew would have entirely captured everything that Jesus taught even in this most extraordinary passage of the Sermon on the Mount. And that is why, by God’s grace, we also have the Gospel of Luke. I think there is no question that Luke is, in this passage, attempting to present to us the very same teaching of Jesus that we have received from the Gospel of Matthew. How exactly this teaching has been preserved and handed down is another question that we don’t necessarily have the time to dig into. But I have no doubt that this is indeed a teaching from Jesus.

But the writer of the Gospel of Luke also wanted to do his best to present his own understanding of what Jesus was trying to teach. And I believe that he also goes out of his way to signal to us what perspective he is taking on this teaching. Matthew told us that Jesus went up the mountain to teach his disciples, well Luke kind of says the opposite. “He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.”

So, where Matthew told us that Jesus went up the mountain to deliver this lesson, Luke tells us that he came down from the mountain and into the midst of the people. I would like to suggest, therefore, that what Luke is saying to us is that he’s going to tell us how the great and spiritual teachings of Jesus that might seem so far above the mundane concerns of this world take on new meaning when you bring them down to earth.

How the Setting Changes the Meaning

And, in that context, the words are greatly transformed. Instead of speaking in exalted terms about the poor in spirit, we are told that Jesus turned and spoke directly to the poorest and most destitute people in the crowd saying, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” And, yes, Jesus may have been very concerned to bless those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, but when he got down onto the flat place and he looked at the people who were nearly starving to death, of course he knew that that also meant saying to those people, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”

I realize, of course, that the words in Luke's gospel might come across as a little less poetic, a little less inclined to make one think of heavenly truths, but they are the truths that demand our attention when we actually pay attention to the misery that people are often living in in this world.

And, even more important, Luke is not afraid to do what I suspect Matthew might have been a little afraid of and look at the other side of the story. He understood that you cannot allow the poor and the meek to inherit the earth, not really, without it having a detrimental effect on the rich, the well-fed and those who laugh at the adversity of others. So, yes, Luke was not afraid to explain that this teaching also brought woe and even curses to those very people. For the kingdom could never come into its power without the first becoming last so that the last could become first.

Why So Many Gospels?

People often wonder why it is that we have four different gospels when they all tell the story of one life and death and resurrection. They especially wonder that when they realize just how similar the first three, Matthew, Mark and Luke, are. In several passages, those three gospels repeat the sayings of Jesus or tell the stories about him using exactly the same words verbatim. Wouldn’t it make more sense, people wonder, to just have one gospel to tell the whole story? But I am extremely grateful for what we have been given. You can’t think that one writer’s take on the teachings of Jesus could possibly capture everything that he stood for. We need Matthew to take us up to the mountaintop with his beatitudes and we need Luke to bring us back down to earth.

And perhaps we need to take a key lesson from the specific passage in Luke today. Any spiritual teaching that we may embrace may indeed lift our thoughts up to the heavenly places, but do not fail to bring those teachings back down from the mountain and onto the plain because any faith that does not also demand that we take thought for what we are doing to practically help the poor, the hungry and those whose lives are nothing but tears is not a faith that is seeking to live according to the whole teaching of Jesus.

Here is the devotional reading on Psalm 138 that was prepared for this morning's worship service. Please let us know if you find this to be a helpful way to approach the psalm.

https://youtu.be/WN44SvmLb3s

Watch the sermon video here:

https://youtu.be/Js0BtTa4UgU

Hespeler, 30 January 2022 © Scott McAndless
Jeremiah 1:4-10, Psalm 71:1-6, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 4:21-30

Do you remember the good old days? You know, those days that were almost two years ago? I’m talking about the very early days of the pandemic and the crisis. Ah, those were the days, weren’t they? I remember walking around back then. Everything was all shut down. No one was going anywhere. And, yes, I know that people were worried, and they were scared but there was still something uplifting about the moment. You would see the messages everywhere you went. “We’re all in this together,” they would proclaim. “Let’s all do everything that we can to help each other.”

And I know that sometimes you still do see messages like that. But I’m not so sure when I see them today that people still believe them. Back then they really seemed to. There was this strong sense that we would be there for each other and that everyone would pitch in. People were forgiving of errors and lapses among others. They even pulled together behind political leaders if you could imagine that!

A Change in Attitude

And the reason that feels so nostalgic is because I don’t often get that sense these days. Today, it often feels as if we have never been so divided. We are seeing sharper and sharper partisan political divides as right wingers identify left wingers as examples of pure evil and the rhetoric on the other side is pretty much the same. We see the enmity between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated and a general breakdown of civility. And I cannot help but wonder how we went so quickly from “We’re all in this together,” to “Hey, get them. It’s all their fault.”

Why this Change?

And, yes, I do understand that a big part of this is just pure exhaustion. We are so tired of this whole thing and so it is not really surprising that people have gotten cranky. But I am not sure that that is the whole story. So, I would like to explore the bigger question of how that kind of thing can happen. How, all of a sudden and seemingly out of nowhere, can you get people to turn on each other? And it seems to me that we have a terrific opportunity to study that phenomenon in our gospel reading this morning.

We actually started reading this story last week from the Gospel of Luke where Jesus returned to his hometown at the beginning of his ministry. There, in the meeting of the synagogue, he read some scripture from the prophet Isaiah and declared that it had been fulfilled. That’s where the reading ended last week, but we pick it up this week in order to focus on the reaction to what Jesus had done. And the reaction, I’ve got to say, is kind of bananas. It ends in a cliff-hanger.

Initial Positive Reaction turns Negative

Now, first of all, what Jesus has just said is the kind of statement that you might expect to inspire an extreme reaction. He has said that the ancient scripture had been fulfilled. He has strongly implied that it is his own presence at this moment that has brought about such fulfillment. And we have long been told that this is the very kind of thing that people got upset with Jesus about, for claiming too much about himself. So, you might well expect people to get upset at him for saying that this scripture is actually about him. But we are told quite the opposite. We are assured that “all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”

And yet we are also told that, minutes later, they were ready to throw Jesus off of a cliff. So, if it wasn’t the fulfillment of scripture, what was it that got them to turn so very quickly. Well, let’s take a look at what Jesus says next. “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’” he says. “And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” And then, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”

And you can sort of understand why this might have riled them up. Here he is the famous boy from Nazareth and yet he is performing all of his wonders someplace else. That is a blow to hometown pride and might have even stirred up some jealousy in them. But it is hard to see why him saying this could have gotten them into a homicidal rage.

No, it seems pretty clear that what he said next was what pushed them over the edge – which is to say that it made them want to push him over the edge. But all he did was give them two examples from their own history. He told them about how the Prophet Elijah was sent to help a widow at Zarephath and about how the prophet Elisha healed Naaman the Syrian. It is only when they hear him say that that they are suddenly ready to kill him.

A Key Story for the Gospel

I think it is probably important for me to point out that this is not just an ordinary story in the Gospel of Luke. This is a very important story. The story of Jesus’ return to his hometown of Nazareth and the poor reception he received there is told in the other gospels. But Luke tells it very differently. He moves it, for one thing, to the very beginning of his story of Jesus’ ministry while the others tell it much later. And it is actually quite clear that the story is out of sequence inside Luke’s Gospel because Jesus refers to his having performed wonders in Capernaum already. But Luke has reported no such wonders yet. Luke is also the only one who adds this fuller story of what it was that Jesus did to make the people in Nazareth get upset with him.

So, it seems pretty clear here that Luke is doing more than just telling a straightforward story of what happened when Jesus went to Nazareth. This story is his big dramatic introduction of the entire work of Jesus. The reading that Jesus does in the synagogue is the perfect summary of what his ministry will look like. And this part of the story that we read this morning is a perfect explanation for why it is that there was so much opposition to everything that Jesus did and everything that he stood for.

The Basis of Opposition to Jesus

So, with that in mind, the issue cannot be that Jesus just said the wrong thing at the wrong time and that that was what set them off. Luke is trying to demonstrate to us in this passage what it was in general that caused so much opposition to what Jesus was doing. He’s giving us examples of the kind of thing that created that opposition.

And that is why these two Old Testament stories that Jesus mentions are so important. Basically, Jesus brings up for these people two stories, that come from their own history and from their own scriptures, of times when God sent prophets to help people who weren’t Jews. The only thing that the widow at Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian have in common is that they aren’t Jews. So, Jesus told these people about how God had sent his prophets out of their way to help Gentiles and that is what enraged them.

Think about that. The thing that made them turn on a dime from admiring Jesus and what he was saying to wanting to throw him off of a cliff was simply that he reminded them that God had wanted to help and save people who were not like them. The very idea that God would make good things happen to the wrong sorts of people, that was enough to turn them into a murderous mob.

The Problem with Grace

Jesus, you see, is the perfect demonstration and the personification of the grace of God. And what we often fail to realize is how offensive the very notion of grace really is. Oh yes, it is all very wonderful to consider how we might receive grace. But when we think of the idea of the “wrong kinds of people” being the recipients of grace and love, we often experience that very negatively.

I mean, think of how we talk and think during this present pandemic crisis. What are the things we really argue about? We argue about who is worthy to have good things happen to them. The vast majority of the people who have tried to do everything right by social distancing and wearing masks and getting their vaccinations are getting outraged at the people who are not doing the right things. They are enraged when they see them getting away with this. And they kind of want to see bad things happen to them. I’m not saying that anyone wants to see anyone getting horribly sick or dying, surely no one would wish that on anyone else, but there is a bit of an attitude that maybe it is fitting when it does happen.

At the same time, those who have refused to follow pandemic restrictions have gotten extremely upset as they see the privileges given to those who have. In many cases, this is just a matter of not wanting to see the people who aren’t like us getting good things. Nothing can enrage people as quickly as that. That’s what we see happening in this story of Jesus in Nazareth.

Facing up to who we are

And the reason why this story is given such prominence in the Gospel of Luke is because Luke is telling us that this is the very thing that created such opposition to Jesus. It was not just that he was the demonstration of the grace of God, it was also that he showed people who they really were and how unwilling they were to see God’s grace being made available to those who were considered unacceptable. It is kind of disturbing to us when we learn these things about ourselves.

I was kind of struck this morning by one of the verses in our reading from First Corinthians. The thirteenth chapter of that letter is a justly famous passage about love – an encouragement for us to have the same kind of love for one another that God has for us. But there’s one verse that seems to underline how hard this is for us. “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.” Paul writes. “Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

That image of a person staring at themselves in a mirror and yet only being able to see their reflection dimly stands out for me. The Greek word that is used in that verse for dimly is actually the word enigma. So, you could also translate that, as I stare into the mirror, all I really see is a puzzle or an enigma instead of myself. It is this sense that we don’t truly know who we are. And the idea is that God is the only one who truly knows our proper nature.

Jesus Removed the Enigma

And, you see, that was precisely the reason why Jesus caused such a strong reaction. Jesus removed the enigma. By so clearly showing and demonstrating the love and grace of God, he showed up that lack of love and grace in everyone else. He showed them that they were unwilling to see good things happen to people who were not like them. And they didn’t like what they saw. And they tried to throw him off a cliff, though he just passed through the crowd and went on his way.

So, what is it that, more than anything else, makes us inclined to turn against one another, to be consumed with rage? What is it that prevents us from being all in this together? It is what happens when we get a glimpse of who we really are, when we look in the mirror for a moment and we don’t just see dimly; the problem is that we don’t like what we see. We don’t like it when our failure to be loving and gracious towards those who are not like us is shown up.

And I suspect that that is what has happened to us as we’ve gone through this difficult time for the last couple of years. We have become strained and fatigued by an ongoing crisis and our defenses are broken down. We’ve been shown who we really are, and we don’t necessarily like what we see. So, yes, we have become much more likely to turn to rage against each other.

Grace is the Beginning of Hope

But it is my hope and prayer that this is not the end of the story. Yes, it is true that this time of crisis has revealed to us a little bit more about who we are. And, yes, our initial reaction to that revelation has not necessarily been good. But here is the truth: it is only once we begin to come to terms with who we are that we can start to be different. Jesus came to reveal to us who we are, but he did not just do it in order that we should feel bad about ourselves. He did it in order that we might have the opportunity to experience redemption, new hope and new beginnings.

That is what the grace is for, not to make us feel bad because we don’t have it, but to renew us with its possibilities. And this is a message we have as the Christian church, one that we can share in ways that no one else can. That is why I believe that the church can have a unique role in healing some of the division that has been created in our society over the last couple of years. We have a message that gives people the strength to see themselves for who they truly are, even with all their faults, and still have hope for change. There are few messages that our society needs more than that at this particular moment in time.

Watch sermon video here:

https://youtu.be/6C1pIOMfRwo

Hespeler, 23 January 2022 © Scott McAndless
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10, Psalm 19, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a, Luke 4:14-21

The passage we read this morning from the Gospel of Luke is an important story that I often return to. But every time I come back to it, there is one part of it that really strikes me because I’m not entirely sure what it means.

We are told that, when Jesus went to a synagogue meeting in his hometown of Nazareth, he read out a short portion of scripture. The passage he read is taken from the Book of Isaiah chapter 61. What strikes me, however, is how Jesus ends his reading. “And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”

What I want to know is what on earth does that mean? Jesus seems to be saying that this particular piece of scripture that had been written maybe five hundred years previously, had just been accomplished right there while these people were listening. How do we make sense of that? In particular, I would like to know what the people who were listening to Jesus say such things were thinking because they appear to understand him. “All spoke well of him,” Luke tells us, “and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” So it all seemed to make sense to them and they had no problem with it. But what did they think that Jesus was saying?

The Jubilee Law

It is hugely significant that Jesus should have said this about this particular passage of scripture because there is a whole lot of meaning packed into those three verses. You cannot understand that passage without understanding some of the older passages of scripture that stood behind it. In the Book of Leviticus, there is an ancient law which is called the Law of Jubilee. It was a law that was designed to basically reset the ancient Israelite society and economy every fifty years.

Apparently, it was God’s intention that ancient Israel should be a society where everybody had the same chance to prosper. God didn’t want there to be huge differences between the rich and the poor. But, of course, what happened in that society was the same thing that naturally happens in most societies. Over time, some people fell into debt and hardship and lost the land that had been in their families down through the generations. Some even ended up in such dire straits that they were sold into slavery in order to pay their debts.

Meanwhile, there were others who profited from the misfortune that happened to their neighbours. They collected their debts, took their lands when they defaulted and even ended up owning their neighbours as slaves. This is just the kind of thing that has always happened in this world. There have always been and always will be those who enrich themselves because of the misfortune that befalls others.

A Reset Every Fifty Years

But in ancient Israel, the idea was that this sort of situation would not be tolerated forever and so, every fifty years, the year of Jubilee was proclaimed. During this year, all debts were to be forgiven, all slaves were to be released and all property had to be returned to its original owners. Basically, society was to be reset so that everyone could start again on a level playing field.

Now, I know what you’re all thinking. It might sound like a nice idea to redistribute all the wealth and set things back as they were so that everyone could be even in theory, but your minds are reeling with the thought of all of the chaos and disaster such a law would cause in our modern society. Can you imagine if we tried to do something like that? Why, it would likely lead to the collapse of our entire economy. This might sound nice but it does not seem like a very practical law.

It May Not be Practical Today

And I certainly agree with that. It is possible that these kinds of measures might have worked in an ancient Israelite agricultural society, but they would almost certainly bring ruin to our modern capitalistic society. But even if it is not practical today, I don’t think that means that we should just dismiss the intentions behind it.

I believe that this ancient law does say a lot about God’s intentions for society. As far as God is concerned, a situation where you have wild differences in terms of wealth and poverty is not something that should simply be maintained. It is something that you need to do something about. And if that is what is on God’s heart, then that should be a very serious consideration in our modern practice of the Christian faith.

Wealth Disparity

Because, guess what, we are living at a moment in North American history where disparity in terms of wealth is hitting a new extreme every year. The number of people who are extremely wealthy and who own a huge majority of the wealth of this nation get smaller every year. And everybody else ends up trying to get by with less. This disparity has been very much on display in the last couple of years as we have billionaires who have so much money that they have literally entered into a space race with each other because, I guess, they can’t figure out what else to do with all their wealth.

A Prophet Calls for a Jubilee

Okay, but I do hear you asking, what does this ancient Israelite law have to do with what Jesus said to the synagogue in Nazareth? Well, it has to do with that passage of scripture that he read out because he would have understood, and everyone present would have understood, what that passage was about. It was an announcement made by a prophet about the need for a Jubilee. That is what is meant by bringing good news to the poor, release to the captives or slaves and letting the oppressed go free. The year of the Lord’s favour is the year of Jubilee.

The prophet who spoke this oracle was living in a time when his society was teetering on the brink of collapse because of extreme inequality. Basically, a few people were getting very rich and a whole bunch of people were being pushed into extreme poverty and slavery and the whole thing was a mess. So the prophet saw the need for a reset, a Jubilee. But here was the problem, there was nobody who had the kind of authority needed, no king or priest or other leader, who was willing to declare that reset. And so, basically, the prophet said, “Hey, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me, so I am going to go ahead and proclaim a year of God’s favour myself.

How did Jesus Fulfill it?

So, my question is this. What did Jesus mean when he said that that ancient scripture, spoken by that prophet, was fulfilled right there in synagogue in Nazareth? He pulled out the words of an ancient prophet who was calling for a reset of his society based on an even more ancient law that laid out how you were supposed to reset the society when things got out of balance. And then he said that all of that had just come true because, I guess, Jesus was there.

I think there’s no question that that is what he means. He was announcing (and this is something that becomes a theme for the entire Gospel of Luke) that because Jesus was there, the Jubilee year had come.

Now, Luke obviously doesn’t mean that literally. He is not saying that, because of Jesus, all debts were forgiven, all slaves were released and all land returned to people who had lost it. Pretty clearly that didn’t happen. And yet, at the same time, everywhere that Jesus goes he is talking about “forgiving our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Jesus doesn’t free any slaves, but he certainly preaches to them a message of freedom and release. What’s more we are told again and again throughout this gospel that Jesus brought good news specifically to poor people. He may not have brought about a literal year of Jubilee, but he certainly did what he could to make Jubilee as real as possible in the lives of people that he met.

How Can we do that too?

And all of that leads me to a question today. I know that Jesus is not just an ordinary person. He is the Son of God. Jesus has done so much for us especially in and through his death and his resurrection. Yes, Jesus uniquely offers us forgiveness and hope and new life. But when I see Jesus in this passage declaring that the scripture from the Book of Isaiah has just been fulfilled, I don’t get the impression that he’s referring to any of that. No, he is referring mostly to the message that he was proclaiming throughout his life – especially his message of hope to those who were indebted, enslaved in some way and dispossessed. I think that Jesus is saying that this is a kind of fulfillment that needs to be in reach for any of us when it is called for.

And that makes the answer to the question of how Isaiah’s prophecy can be fulfilled a really urgent question for me right now. It seems to me that we are living at a particular moment in time when we are in need of a bit of a reset. No, I’m not suggesting that we need to cancel all debts or undo all sales of property or anything like that. I am not naïve about the kind of havoc that would cause. But, at the same time, I’m really not sure that we can just keep on going as we have been.

The Need for a Change

We have seen the wealth of this nation and many other nations become heavily concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer extremely wealthy people. There are people alive today who have so much wealth that they could literally never spend it all. Meanwhile, more and more people have been falling further into poverty. And, yes, I know that there will always be rich and poor, there is no escaping that, but the balance between those two extremes has been thrown way off.

I was kind of hopeful, a year and a half ago, that we would actually see some movement on that front. Remember when we used to talk about how much we depended on low wage frontline workers? How they were the true heroes that would save us? I really thought that maybe we were going to start treating them that way, but apparently that hasn’t happened and it has actually been those who were already wealthy who have been the only ones to see their wealth increase during this crisis. It seems to me that we need some kind of reset when it comes to those matters.

I am also concerned to see that we’re getting into a situation where a younger generation that is coming up is simply being priced out of housing. If current trends on housing prices continue, the great majority of people just starting out right now will simply never be able to afford to buy a house. They may not even be able to make rent in any sustainable way? How can a society persist when that many people simply can’t afford a place to live? I think we need a reset.

We Need a Reset

I just don’t see how we can simply carry on with how things have been going in terms of wealth disparity, wages, debt and housing. Some kind of reset is needed. I also don’t think that we can just carry on with our relationship with the natural environment where we have been taking and taking without thinking about what the long-term cost might be. We need a reset.

And, in case I haven’t said it enough, I do understand that the reset envisioned by the ancient Jubilee law in Israel would not work for us. It may have worked once in a very different society, but the specific measures became deeply problematical over time.

But that did not mean that Jesus couldn’t get up centuries after the original law was written and declare for all to hear that this ancient law and a prophecy about it had been fulfilled right there. He did not mean that all of the specific Jubilee measures were being taken. But what he was declaring was that God, through his ministry, was bringing about the fulfillment of the intention of the original Law.

And I honestly believe that if Jesus could do that, then we could too. A reset is possible. And it can begin with even only a few people believing that things can be different. It can begin with us praying for that reset – a rethinking of the priorities of our society. It can begin with us demanding change from our leaders. This is the powerful fulfillment that we need and, as Jesus showed us, it can just begin with somebody saying that it is being fulfilled.

Watch the sermon here:

https://youtu.be/_EgorU6QoSA

Hespeler, 16 January 2022 © Scott McAndless
Malachi 3:1-5, Psalm 36:5-10, James 5:1-6, John 2:1-11

The servants had known for some time that this wedding was going to be a disaster. They knew better than anybody how much wine your average Galilean crowd could consume at a wedding feast. And they knew that the people who planned this affair had simply not bought enough. And they wanted the wedding to be a success just as much as anybody else. So, they had gone to the chief steward and explained the whole problem to him.

A Condescending Steward

But he just patted their hands and said, “Oh, you poor ignorant servants wouldn’t understand all the intricacies of planning a wedding. Just leave all the planning to professional stewards like me. Don’t you worry, I have it all in hand and I’m certainly not going to let anything go wrong at this wedding. If you all just work hard and do what you’re told and don’t bother me with any details like where the wine is going to come from, I am sure everything will be fine.”

But still, they couldn’t help but worry. They knew very well who would get blamed and yelled at and maybe even struck when the wine did inevitably run out. So, a couple of the servants, in desperation, even went to the bridegroom to raise the issue with him. But he just told them that, if they had any issues, they should raise them with the chief steward and not trouble him with little things like this.

When the bridegroom and the chief steward met up to discuss it a bit later, you can bet that they griped and complained to each other about how hard it is to get good and competent help. “You know,” the steward intoned, “these unskilled labourers just seem to think that they know everything when they really just should be deferring to the smart people like us. They’re really lucky that we even give them work to do and actually feed them.”

The Servants do their Best

When the party finally started, the servants worked so hard to make it a success in whatever ways were in their power. They made sure that the guests were as contented as they could be without necessarily constantly filling up their wine cups. They tried to distract them with sweet figs and dates. They directed their attention towards the various entertainments that had been arranged. And, yes, they watered down the wine as much as they dared. They did this not only to stretch it out as far as possible, but also in order to be sure that no one was too drunk when the inevitable eventually happened and people learned that there was no more wine. These were the kinds of tricks that servants had been using for generations just to survive a somewhat cruel way of life.

Then the moment came. One of them would have to go and tell the steward there was no more wine. They knew from long experience what would ensue – how the steward would blame the servants for stealing the wine or perhaps drinking it behind his back. He would demand to know why no one had warned him about this problem. What’s more, he would be sure to ask the question loudly and in front of all the guests so that they would know exactly who to blame for this debacle.

A New Plan

But just as the servant was steeling himself to go, one of the others tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to a woman on the other side of the room.

“I know her,” she said, “she comes from the next town over – a little place called Nazareth. She is known as a kind person. I think she must be related to the bride in some way, because she’s not really the kind of prestigious guest who would normally be invited to an affair like this. I think she was married to a carpenter or a builder or something and that he died a few years ago. But maybe, as a lowly carpenter’s wife, she might have a little more understanding for our situation. Let me go talk to her and see if she has any ideas.”

Many have heard the next part of the story – how the servant went to the woman to explain the problem and she called over her son. The son seemed to be a little bit annoyed with his mother then, perhaps displeased because she was pushing him to act before his time. But, after that hesitation, he seemed to be all in. He pulled the servants into a little conspiratorial huddle and explained what they were going to do.

A Little Respect Shown

The servants were honestly kind of thrilled at the way that the man spoke to them. He seemed to understand better than anyone else they’d met all day how hard they had been working and how they felt as if the success or failure of this whole affair was squarely upon their shoulders, despite how little support they’d been given. Most of all, he acknowledged that they knew what was needed better than anyone else. But they were still kind of shocked (though in an amused way) at the plan he came up with.

He directed them towards the six huge stone water jars that had been left in the servants’ kitchen and told them to fill them with water. They were certainly puzzled by this. These jars were generally used by the big important guests who liked to make a show of observing the rites of purification. Imagine their amusement therefore when he told them to fill the wine bottles from them and take them to the chief steward to taste.

And you can bet that they laughed and laughed as they peeked around the door and watched the look on that man’s face as some of the best wine that had ever tasted hit his educated palate and he had no clue where it had all come from. But they knew!

Andy’s Assignment

Today’s sermon is different. It is the result of what happened when I put the right to order a sermon on a specific topic into the auction last fall. The winning bid was made by Andy Cann and so he told me what I needed to preach about today. And Andy seems to have a special gift for putting his finger on some of the hottest topics of the day. Andy told me to write a sermon based on a picture of a help wanted sign. He thought that I should preach about what is perhaps the most visible symbol of the employment crisis we are dealing with at this very moment in our society.

The Great Resignation

You have probably heard the alarming reports. Many employers in many sectors are having a very hard time getting workers. The fast-food industry seems to be particularly hard hit and many establishments are running short shifts for shortened hours. Employers are complaining that nobody wants to work anymore.

At the same time, we seem to have a huge groundswell of workers who are beginning to express how tired they are of working full-time and yet are not being able to afford to live in the cities where they work. They are complaining about mistreatment by management, and many seem to be deciding but they’re just not going to put up with it anymore.

So, we are living through what is being called the Great Resignation which may be a good thing for some workers who are leaving for better jobs and better-balanced lives, but at the same time it seems like it might lead to a general collapse of industries that rely on low wage workers. And, yes, there is certain threat of inflation bound up in all of that.

And, in many ways all of that is perfectly symbolized in our days by the help wanted sign. So, thank you, Andy, for giving me an opportunity to preach about one of the hottest and most controversial social topics of our time. I’m sure it’ll all go fine, and I won’t get into any trouble.

Is there a Biblical Perspective?

So, I guess the question is, what does the Bible say about these thorny employment issues of our time. Now, I know what some people would say about the Bible’s position on these things. There are lots of people who just take it for granted that the Bible comes down hard on the side of extreme unbridled capitalism. You may be able to find a few specific verses that, when you pull them out of context, seem to imply that, but I do believe that the overall concern of the Bible points to another perspective.

What the Wedding Story Suggests

That is why I wanted to try and retell for you the story of the wedding in Cana from the point of view of the servants. The odd thing about that story in the Gospel of John is that you are actually able to read it from the point of view of the servers.

The gospel writer specifically underlines that perspective at one point when he says, “But, of course, the servants who had drawn out the water knew.” He goes out of his way to highlight the fact that they, and they alone, were the ones who were in on what it was that Jesus was doing. And once you realize that the gospel writer is interested in their perspective, you see that they are actually the key to the whole story. They must have been the ones who went to Jesus’ mother in the first place because she sent Jesus to them. They are the ones who are ultimately behind the divine solution to everything that went wrong at that wedding feast.

The Bible’s Concern for Workers

But this is not a perspective that you find only in this gospel story. Again and again, as you go through the Bible, you see a very real concern for the welfare and care of the people who actually do the work that keeps the economy and the society going because they matter. There is a Biblical concern that they be paid fair wages. The prophet Malachi, for example, says this about God’s concern: “I will be swift to bear witness against… those who oppress the hired workers in their wage.”

The message that is consistently presented in the Bible is that, if you mistreat workers and if they cannot afford to live on what you pay them, there will be dire consequences and judgment. I would argue that this is exactly the kind of thing we are seeing happen in our society with various sectors of the economy actually teetering on the brink of collapse because there are not enough people doing the work.

We Need to be Concerned

This is particularly ominous, of course, in the healthcare sector where the front-line workers, who we called heroes not so long ago, have been struggling to maintain staffing levels because of years of poor treatment, underpayment and lack of support for the people who do that work. That is actually pretty good representation of what the Bible would call judgment for poor treatment. And we are all dealing with those consequences right now. So, yes, the Bible does care about the workers and how they are treated, and we would do well to pay attention to that concern.

At the same time, some might ask, what about the needs of the job creators and those whose investments also make society and the economy go. It is true that these people also have a role. I do not think that the Bible misses the value that such people bring to society. And yet, at the same time, when these people become so enamored with their wealth that they forget the needs of the people, the Bible certainly doesn’t hesitate to criticize them.

Criticizing the Wealthy

I often think of a passage from the Letter of James these days. I honestly feel that if I were to post these words and direct them at people like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos on Twitter, I would find myself the target of their abuse and might even end up being banned from Twitter altogether.

But this is what is what James writes: “Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts on a day of slaughter.”

Finding a Better Balance

Now, again I do not feel as if the point of that passage is to abuse the rich or to suggest that they have nothing to bring to our society. Of course they do. But it certainly is saying that when things get severely out of balance, when we get ourselves in a situation where, as a result of a major crisis such as a pandemic, the richest people in the world somehow managed to see their wealth grow at an enormous pace while the people who are actually working on the front lines of the crisis see themselves falling further and further behind, that is something that needs to be called out. That is what I see James doing.

There is a crisis in employment today. Balances are shifting and I do hope and pray that, even if there is a difficult time of adjustment, this will lead us all to a place in society where we can find a better balance between taking care of the investors and owners and giving real respect for those who do the work.

I believe Jesus had that respect and he showed it at that wedding in Cana. I do hope and pray that we lead the way in showing that same kind of respect for all the workers that we meet. You probably have no idea how much good you can do just by being kind and appreciative and respectful to the workers that you encounter. They deserve it. We can be a part of the change that needs to happen.

Epilogue

The wedding party turned out to be very memorable indeed. The servants had been run off of their feet for the rest of the time, but there was such a spirit of fun and wonder that they didn’t really mind. They were glad to be part of it. There was so much wine to go around that everyone got as much as they desired and more. And it was so good (and so potent) that everyone was in the best of moods.

But the best part, as far as the servants were concerned, was that they were the only ones that knew where the wine was coming from. Only they could go back again and again to those massive

stone jars to continue to serve the people.

So, anyways, the people had a great time and the servants had fun too. But at the end of the night the servants gathered back into the kitchen and took stock of things. Now there had been six stone jars each one able to contain up to 120 litres or, if you prefer, 30 gallons. And they had filled them all to the brim.

Three Pots Left

The people at the party had certainly done their very best, but even they could not drain over 720 litres of the best quality wine. So, at the end of the night, the servants still had three full pots of the best wine anyone had ever tasted. The question was, what would they do with it? What would they do with this finest quality wine that only they knew where it was?

They debated telling the chief steward about it, for, like, ten whole seconds. Then they turned to a debate on how much they could get on the open market. After all, they said to one another, the steward did instruct them not to bother him with little details like where the wine came from.

https://youtu.be/0beG27B-DLg

Hespeler, 9 January 2021 © Scott McAndless
Isaiah 43:1-7, Psalm 29, Acts 8:14-17, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 (Click to Read)

The church is facing an unprecedented crisis, one that absolutely threatens its very existence. And the leaders have all come together to figure out how they are going to deal with it. You see, there was a time not all that long ago when the church and its message was considered to be socially acceptable. I mean, maybe not everybody agreed with everything that the church was doing but, at least they saw the people in a good light.

But now, all of a sudden, that seems to be changing. Why, just recently there was a church leader that a bunch of people tried to cancel because they found his views to be offensive. And, as a result, a lot of the believers have been spooked. They are not so sure anymore that they can really trust the institution of the church and they have set out to try and establish and live out their Christian faith on their own terms.

Deconstructing Faith

They are, to use a word that has become popular lately, deconstructing their faith. They are kind of tearing it apart and examining every part of it to try and decide what they can do without and what, if anything, is worth keeping. They are then reassembling their faith in a new way and in a new place. Some of them have figured out how to live out that faith in innovative ways, without all of the structures that had traditionally been there. Some are calling this an emergent way of being the church

But the really odd thing is that this strange, jury-rigged faith actually seems to be connecting to the people that they have encountered. Somehow, despite the lack of traditional structures and different ways of doing things, the message about Christ and his love and amazing grace is still getting through to people. So, this emergent church has been seeing some growth

The Leaders are Concerned

But the traditional leaders of the church are concerned. They have remained where they have been and so all of this innovation and growth has taken place without their leadership and sanction. They are justifiably concerned that it will lead to the faith going way off track. So, they have gotten together to talk about what they should do. For a while, they do give a lot of consideration to how they might be able to shut all of this down. Maybe they should be putting out statements that deconstruction is going to get people condemned to hell or that these emergent type churches aren’t real churches. Maybe one of them, one who commands true respect, should go out and rebuke these people for their free thinking and innovation.

There is so much at stake that the arguments rage late into the afternoon. But then, tired of arguing, they decide to take a different approach. They pause for prayer and open their hearts to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And that is how they ultimately come up with a very different kind of plan. They decide that two of the most important leaders in the entire church, Peter and John, will go out and they will lay their hands on the believers in Samaria so that the Holy Spirit may clearly be seen as part of the work that they are doing out there.

Acts and the Growth of the Church

At the very beginning of the Book of Acts, the author who, by the way, is the same person who wrote the Gospel of Luke, tells us exactly how the story he’s going to tell is going to unfold. He puts his summary of the plot of the book on the lips of Jesus just before he ascends into heaven. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;” Jesus says, “and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

So, in the writer’s mind, these steps in the growth of the church and the expansion of its impact from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and beyond were inevitable. It was bound to be a story of continual triumph and success. But it is kind of easy to look on such events in hindsight and see them that way. It was likely a little different to actually live through them. In fact, if you read between the lines, it is pretty clear that the early church actually experienced these transitions as crises and problems to solve.

We certainly see that clearly when the church makes the jump to “the ends of the earth,” especially through the ministry and preaching of the Apostle Paul. In fact, the church nearly tore itself apart as it dealt with the very difficult questions that Paul’s ministry raised – questions about the keeping of the law, circumcision and the eating of blood and animals sacrificed to other gods.

The Samaritan Problem

And there is no doubt that the early church saw the transition into Samaria as similarly problematic. You can understand why. Jews and Samaritans generally did not agree about anything, especially when it came to religious matters. They had different scriptures and different ways of worshiping even if the Jews grudgingly admitted that they actually worshipped the same God.

So, there is no question that the leadership in Jerusalem, who, according to Luke, was left behind in Jerusalem following the “cancellation” of Stephen the martyr, was very concerned about what the Samaritans might do if they were allowed to co-opt the Christian faith. It is certainly very likely that the apostles in Jerusalem debated excluding the Samaritans from the young church or putting some severe restrictions on them. They certainly would have hesitated to allow them to just live out the faith in the way that suited them most.

Receiving the Holy Spirit

That is why what the apostles actually did is so important. We are told that they sent Peter and John, two of the most important leaders in the church, to Samaria so that the Samaritans might receive the Holy Spirit. Now, the giving of the Holy Spirit is a very important matter in the Book of Acts. The author of this book makes a great deal about the various manifestations of the Holy Spirit throughout his story.

The gift of the Holy Spirit, often accompanied by signs and marvels such as speaking in strange tongues, always accompanies any important transition in the life of the church. It is there on the day of Pentecost when the apostles are given their leadership and authority. It is there when Peter first takes the gospel to a Gentile family.

The gift of the Holy Spirit obviously means many things.  It is about power and ecstasy and about bringing the entire community of the church together. It is a sign of the power of the gospel to change people’s lives. But above all, it is what gives the believers the power and authority to work out the faith in their context. Because they have the Spirit, Christians can confidently interpret the scriptures and the sayings of Jesus and they have the power to determine for themselves how they are going to live out these truths.

Troublesome Transitions

So, in many ways, the Samaritan problem was one of the first really big challenges that the apostolic leadership of the church had to face. The question was whether they were going to hold onto that power to define and control the way the faith was lived out or if they were going to allow others to share in that power. They had all kinds of reasons not to do what they did. I’m sure it would have seemed much safer to them at the time. But, because they did the right thing and decided that the gift of the Holy Spirit could be shared even with Samaritans, the church was able to enter into a brand-new phase of growth that was beginning of truly changing the world.

Now, as I say, because the writer of the Book of Acts sees all of this with hindsight, he just assumes that it was all inevitable. Of course, that was what the church was going to do. But my experience with the church is that we rarely have that much ease in dealing with these kinds of transitions as we live through them. Oh no, we gripe and we complain and we blame people when they start approaching the life of faith in new or innovative ways. We try to do whatever we can to shut it down. Above all, we do not want to give it our blessing.

Examples from our History

Even a light summary of the history of the church will show you that. How many Christian groups down through the centuries have been persecuted and criminalized just for wanting to live out their faith in different ways? The Lutherans were rejected and persecuted by the Catholics for insisting on salvation by faith alone. The Mennonites believed that their faith would not allow them to fight in wars and they were killed or sent into exile because of it. The Anabaptists wanted to celebrate baptisms a little bit differently from other Christians, and so the Presbyterians decided that they should be punished by being drowned. The list goes on and on. But it is really significant that, in the Book of Acts when faced with the Samaritan problem, we are told that the apostles did otherwise.

The Present Crisis

All of this is extremely relevant to the church at this moment in time. I think that the church may be facing yet another Samaritan problem. There are all kinds of reasons why people are no longer approaching the Christian faith as they once did. I’m sure you are aware of many of these trends.

For one thing, we find ourselves living in an age where people are just not very trustful of institutions in general. And so respect for the church as an institution in society has definitely been on the decline. Of course, many have simply abandoned the church entirely, while others have sought to develop their own non-institutional or even anti-institutional Christian practice. The church certainly often experiences this as a threat.

Abuse and Intolerance

There is also no question that the church has been fundamentally damaged by endless stories of abuse. We have come to understand that incidences of abuse of power and authority, of sexual and physical assault are all too common in the church. People have suffered as a result and experienced a great deal of trauma. All of this has certainly made them call into question the very organization of a church, and the theology and teaching that supports it, that seem to allow these kinds of things to continue to happen.

Others have come to the place where the traditional answers the churches have given to the tough questions of life no longer work for them. They are tired of the rejection by some Christians of scientific truths, of the mistreatment of people who do not fit into strict gender or sexuality roles. They have grown tired of the thinly veiled racism that they have encountered. These kinds of things are behind what might be called the deconstruction movement which ends with some rejecting the faith entirely, while others attempt to hold onto certain parts of it as they reconstruct a faith that works for them.

Accelerated by the Pandemic

These are forces that have been at work for some time now. But many of the effects have been accelerated by the strange situation we have been living through for the past two years. The world has just changed too much too quickly. It has changed politically, socially and economically and so people cannot just be content with how we’ve always done things. It is not that people have given up on faith in general. Yes, some have, but that is not the biggest issue. It is that they have learned to work out their faith in new ways and without needing to rely on institutional supports (like buildings and authority systems and schedules) that were once considered so essential.

What will be our Response?

And so, it seems, the church today is dealing with yet another Samaritan problem. Are we going to fight against this, rail against innovation and different ways of being Christians in the world? Are we going to insist that, in order to be considered good Christians, that they conform to our ideas of how it has to be done? If so, it is quite possible that the church might get left behind in Jerusalem while the real growth is taking place out there in Samaria.

But what if we were to do what those early Apostles did and acknowledge that the Christian faith that is emerging actually does have the Holy Spirit working within it? What if we were to lay our hands upon what God has frankly already been doing out there in Samaria and actually seek to support it, even at the risk of it costing in terms of what we once considered to be our essential institutional supports for the church? I believe that this might be the most important question the church is facing in our time, and I pray that we are open to the leadership of the Holy Spirit as we seek to answer it.

Watch the sermon video here:

https://youtu.be/0V126_Iuxgs

Hespeler, 2 January 2022 © Scott McAndless
Jeremiah 31:7-14, Psalm 147:12-20, Ephesians 1:3-14, John 1:1-18 (click to read)

If you are familiar with the passage that begins the Bible, you know that it tells the story of the creation of the world as we know it. God starts out, “in the beginning” with something referred to as the heavens and the earth. And here’s the first thing you need to know about that phrase. The ancient Hebrews did not have a word for what we call the universe. The only way they had a speaking of everything that existed was by referring to everything that they could see, the heavens (which were always plural, by the way) and the earth. That was how they spoke about the whole universe

So, in Genesis, God basically begins with everything that exists. But that everything that exists seems to be in a bit of disarray. We are told that “the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” And I don’t know if you have ever encountered “a formless void,” but it doesn’t sound to me like something that you would want to run into in a dark alley.

The Elemental Formless Void

Have you ever been in that place in your life when you’ve lost something or someone that means absolutely everything to you? Do you remember how it felt, how utterly empty everything felt in that moment? You felt as if there was a hole inside you that was so big that all the tears in the world would never fill it. Well, that is maybe a helpful way to think about what is meant by a formless void. Except, I imagine, the very worst emotions you felt in that moment did get a little bit easier to manage as time went by, even if you still carry them with you. But this formless void that existed at the beginning of all things, there is something enduring about it for it is in the very structure of the universe itself. And the churning waters that it contains within it, they seem dangerous and full of chaos.

And there is a profound truth in that. It is saying that there is an inclination that is built into the very structure of the universe towards emptiness, towards darkness, chaos and loss. And I know that sounds a little bit bleak, but I really don’t think there’s any denying it. Left to itself, that is where the universe goes. In fact, this is even a truth that has been recognized by science. There is a law in the science of thermodynamics, the study of relationship between various kinds of energy, that states that in any closed system will eventually tend towards entropy. Entropy is basically a fancy word for a formless void. And the universe is the ultimate closed system. So, even science agrees that the universe tends towards a formless void.

Other Similar Creation Stories

So, that is where we start at the beginning of the Bible. But let me encourage you not to despair because the story that follows is the story about what God has done about that. Up until this point in the Bible’s creation story, there is actually very little that is different between the story of creation in Genesis and the creation myths you would have found in other ancient Near Eastern cultures. They all begin with an opening picture of a formless void and chaotic waters. Some of the ancient myths even go so far as to picture the pre-existing chaos as a great monster that threatens the very idea of existence itself. That is certainly a very memorable image, but it is still saying basically the same thing as Genesis.

But it is at this point where you start to see the Bible story diverge from the mythologies of other people. In most of these other stories, what happens next is that some hero god comes along and attacks the chaos monster in order to destroy it in a great primeval battle. In other words, we get even more chaos and entropy unleashed to defeat the original chaos and entropy.

The Spoken Word Brings Order

But the really different and interesting thing about the Bible story is that God takes a very different approach. What happens in Genesis? God speaks. “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” It is the divine spoken word that has the power to bring light into the oppressive darkness. Even more important, the divine word is able to bring order to the primeval chaos as God sorts the light from the darkness and goes on to put everything – the water, the land, the various species of animals and so on each in their proper place.

That is a powerful idea, isn’t it? The notion that by speaking and naming what we see in the world, we banish the chaos and the formless void that is always threatening. And the ancient Hebrews were not the only ones to understand this important truth. The ancient Greeks also understood it and expressed it in their own way.

An Idea from Greek Philosophy

They also understood that the universe was ordered and brought into being by a word. They called it, using their own language, the logos. And logos is a Greek word that can be translated as word, but it always meant more than what we mean by word. It meant speech, but it also meant discourse and reason. In the fifth century BC, the philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus declared that the logos was the foundational principle of the universe, the ultimate source of all knowledge and order. So, in a way, the ancient Greeks and ancient Hebrews agreed that the universe as we know it was called into being by a word.

The Gospel of John Brings it all Together

And you need to understand that all of that was in the background when the writer of the Gospel of John took his pen in hand to begin to write, in the Greek language, his account of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. He began with the words, “In the beginning,” because he knew that that would make all of his readers think of the beginning of the creation story in Genesis and everything that went with the story, including the aching emptiness at the heart of the primeval formless void.

But then he goes on from there to say what was in the beginning – the logos. Yes, I know that it is translated in our Bibles as the Word. But it matters a great deal that the Greek word that he used was logos. With that one word, he managed to do something truly extraordinary. He evoked approximately 400 years of Greek thinking and philosophy on the nature of the universe, existence and being.

So, with the first six words of his gospel, this writer manages to bring together the entire Hebrew and the entire Greek understanding of the universe and the place of humanity within it and put it all together. And he expects all of his readers to make all of those connections. He wants you to think of that great formless void at the beginning of all things and at the centre of the universe.

Not Just Cosmology

But he doesn’t only want you to think of it in the sense of a theoretical tendency towards entropy as defined by the science of thermodynamics. I mean, sure, it is that. But where that formless void touches us most deeply is on a personal level. It is found in that deep-seated fear of the chaos and the darkness that I think we all recognize lurks somewhere out there in the universe for all of us. It lurks in the emptiness that we feel deep inside over the trauma or loss we have experienced. We want to know what will save us from that.

And the gospel writer’s answer to that question is the same answer that the Greek philosophers gave: the logos. It is the power of reason and discourse and the spoken word that gives order to that chaos. He even speaks of how it responds to the darkness we sometimes feel within in very specific terms. “In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

He Speaks to our Elemental Struggles

And so it is that, in these few words, we have a response to some of the most basic needs and fears that we struggle with. In the face of our fear of the formless void, the gospel writer calls us to consider how God brought order and meaning out of the primordial emptiness by speaking but a few words. In response to our dread of the chaos that seems to want to overtake this world and everything in it, he shows us the organizing principle of Greek philosophy, this idea that the logos allows us to organize the world and make sense of it.

And I think that these are very helpful answers and yet, at the same time, I think there is something missing. Because here is the problem, when you are really struggling with the existential dread that sometimes seizes us in this world, it is all well and good for someone to come to you and speak of a creator who intended that this world would be good and that you would do well in it. And it is all very well and good for someone to come and speak to you of noble philosophical concepts that give theoretical answers to the questions that sometimes overwhelm your life.

But are these things really enough when you are truly struggling? Not necessarily. They might be helpful concepts. They might be intellectually stimulating and have a logic that brings you to soothing conclusions, but that may not be enough.

We Need More than an Intellectual Answer

That may not be enough, because feelings like dread and fear and despair strike us at a level that goes much deeper than our intellect or our logical mind. These are things that affect us at some of the deepest levels of our being. That is why you cannot just reason somebody out of a depression. That is why, if you tell someone who is irrationally afraid of the dark that they have no logical reason to be afraid, it doesn’t actually help them. We need more than an intellectual understanding of the work of the creator and an explanation of philosophical principles if we are going to navigate some of the hardest things about life in this world.

And so it is that the gospel writer gives us more than just ideas and logic. He goes on to say some truly remarkable things about the logos. The first truly remarkable thing he says comes in verse one: “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” So here we discover that the logos is not merely the spoken word or the principle that aids God in the creation but is actually indistinguishable from the Creator. This is comforting because it means that God’s does not battle the darkness and chaos of this world as a kind of hobby, but rather because it is absolutely essential to God’s nature. For God to abandon us in the face of the formless void would actually be for God to abandon God’s self.

An Unexpected Twist

But the really surprising twist that comes in this passage arrives in verse 14: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” This verse changes the course of the entire passage and takes it in a direction that is very different from the course of both Hebrew theology and Greek philosophy. We are no longer just speaking about a spoken word or a philosophical principle. We are speaking about how all of this becomes flesh, becomes one of us. And that is, of course, what the early Christians experienced in Jesus of Nazareth. And it did not necessarily make sense in terms of previous teachings or philosophies. But they knew that they had experienced something truly unique in Jesus.

Christ is the Answer

For here is the wonderful truth that is given to the people of God in Jesus. Yes, we do live our lives in the fear of the formless void. We live in the shadow of the chaos that threatens to overtake us at any moment because that is the nature of the universe. But Christ has shown us something else. Christ has shown us not only that God overcomes the darkness and the chaos, but that he is that victorious God and allows us to experience that victory in him.

It is Christ who comes alongside us to personally comfort us when we are struggling with the darkness and fear. It is Christ who, in his person, offers us meaning and purpose when the universe attempts to take those things away from us. Because he comes in the flesh, Jesus can struggle with all of those things – the fear, the darkness and that howling sense of emptiness – and can actually understand and sympathize with what it is that we feel. That is the power of the logos made flesh.

This opening prologue of the Gospel of John is a passage that pushes theology and philosophy into new territory. But don’t just think that this is about intellectual concepts of the nature of God and the universe. This is about God connecting with you exactly where you are and in the midst of the struggles of what seems to be a dark and threatening universe. It is about Jesus lightening the darkness that sometimes threatens to overwhelm you. That is what the Evangelist does for us with only six words.

https://youtu.be/3Yy9HvtePds

Hespeler, 26 December 2021 © Scott McAndless
1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26, Psalm 148, Colossians 3:12-17, Luke 2:41-52 (click to read)

Now, every year the parents would participate in the annual Boxing Day sales. They would pack the whole family into the van and head out together with all of the aunts and uncles to the big box stores. And, in the year when the boy was about twelve years old, they did so as usual. Their anticipation of the big day had been growing for weeks as they watched for the various ads that had been appearing on the internet and on television. It looked as if there were going to be some truly memorable savings this year.

Joseph had had an eye on a brand-new flat screen TV that he knew would fit just perfectly in the den. If he could just manage to get there for the door crasher special at one store, he might be able to get a Samsung at a price so unbelievable that it was like he was losing money if he didn’t buy it. Mary was looking to update her wardrobe and also wanted some new appliances for the kitchen. But, in order to hit all of the right sales at the right time, their actions would have to be very carefully coordinated.

The Day Begins

It was still dark when they arrived in the parking lot, but they could already see the long lines of customers waiting for the doors to open. The anticipation was palpable and there was so much tension that it seemed like a fistfight might just break out at any moment. The extended family pulled together in a huddle. “Okay,” Joseph said, “you all know what sales and bargains you are looking for, so just go and get in the right lines and get your elbows up and grab that merchandise! We’ll meet up back here in about seven hours and tally up all our loot. Everyone got their credit cards? Alright, let’s go!

Everyone raced off so quickly that they didn’t even notice that the twelve-year-old was left standing there alone. I guess that they all just assumed that he had gone with somebody else. The young boy stood there for a few moments shaking his head before wandering off.

The Spoils

When the family had all gathered later (and it was more like eight hours later by the time they had all arrived) they were all talking excitedly about all the bargains that they had found. Some were also having a few second thoughts as they considered what the credit card bill was going to look like in January. Joseph, for his part, was staring dubiously at the huge cardboard box that stood at the back end of his van. Somehow it might not be quite as easy to fit in as he had thought.

Eventually all of the excited talk died down and the family decided that they should leave the parking lot and meet up for a late, late breakfast at Denny’s. Mary and Joseph weren’t particularly worried when they noticed that they didn’t quite have the full complement of kids in the back of the van. They just figured that one of the kids must have caught a ride with Uncle Jake or Grandpa. So it was only once everyone had arrived at the restaurant and they paused to do a proper headcount that they realized that the twelve-year-old was not with them.

A Frantic Search

As you can imagine, things got pretty frantic after that. Mary and Joseph hopped in the van and raced back to all of the stores that they had visited, and they searched in every nook and cranny. They went to the toy departments, to the electronics and even the boys clothing department. They described the boy to everyone that they met, but it seemed as if no one had seen him. They were getting really scared.

Eventually they realized that they just needed to calm down a bit so that they could think. So, they pulled off the road and into a church parking lot. They sat there for a moment trying to do some deep breathing, and then they looked up at a little display that the church had put up on its lawn.

The Nativity Scene

It was just your typical nativity scene, nothing special. The church had obviously been using the same figures for years now and they were looking worn and aged. The whole thing looked a bit shabby when compared to the bright and shining displays that they had been dealing with all day. And, of course, now that Christmas was over, the church had turned off the flood lights that had once made the scene much more visible. That’s probably why it took a while for Mary and Joseph to realize that there was one extra figure in the scene that didn’t quite belong. Yes, quietly staring at the centre of the display was their young son.

“When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’”

A Twelve-Year-Old’s Wisdom

But their son just looked up at them and said, “Wasn’t it just a couple of days ago when you told me that this person…” (He gestured towards the child in the manger) “…this person was the greatest who had ever lived? But somehow, I noticed that there aren’t any flat screen TVs or Food Ninjas in that stable. In fact, it seems pretty clear that they didn’t have any of the so-called good things in life that you’ve been running after all day.

I mean, on one level I get it. I do enjoy my toys and my games and I love the new phone that I got for Christmas. But it was only a couple of days ago when you told me that this child, the one in the manger, that he and everything that he stood for was worth more than all the possessions in the world. I was just a little amazed at how quickly everybody seemed to forget that today. I was just here sitting and thinking that it might be nice if we could remember it a little bit longer.

A Jarring Transition

There is a rather jarring transition between verse 40 and verse 41 of the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke. From the beginning of the chapter up until verse 40, we have the story of the birth and infancy of Jesus. And, of course, you are all pretty familiar with that story. It is full of signs and wonders. There is an angel appearing to shepherds and then being joined by heavenly choirs. And when the shepherds come to see the child who is lying in the manger, they tell the story of what they have experienced and everyone is filled with wonder and amazement.

And one point in particular is underlined. Mary, Jesus’ mother, gets it. After the shepherds leave, we are told that “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” And one of the things that she must have pondered would have been God’s odd choice to reveal such important information to a lowly band of shepherds.

Encounters in the Temple

We have also been told about what happened when Mary and Joseph took the child to the temple when he was only about a week old and how they met two prophets there who said some pretty amazing things about their baby. One of them, Simeon, in particular spoke directly to Mary and said, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

So, just in case, you know, the whole story told by the shepherds didn’t quite get through to her, you’re really can’t get more explicit when it comes to promise and warning than that. So, very clearly, Mary has had a whole lot to hold onto and ponder, and that’s without even getting into her own personal experience with an angel visitor in chapter one.

So, when we get to the end of verse 40, Jesus’ parents really have this whole thing figured out. Or at least Mary does. The Gospel of Luke actually doesn’t say anything about Joseph hearing or understanding any of it, so, maybe he did or maybe he didn’t. But at the very least, you would think that all that they have just been through should leave an impression.

All is Forgotten

But then we get to verse 41 and all of a sudden all of that seems to have been forgotten. And I realize, of course, that it is twelve years later. But it is just odd that, when we next see the holy family, they are behaving just like any other Jewish family. They go down, together with a large group of extended family and neighbours, to Jerusalem for the most important festival of the year.

The Passover is a celebration of the time when God saved the people of Israel from horrible slavery in Egypt. So, it is obviously an important spiritual occasion that they want to be part of. There is also some serious foreshadowing going on as far as the Gospel is concerned because we all know what happens when Jesus goes to Jerusalem for Passover at the end of this book.

Not Just a Religious Occasion

But don’t think for a moment that the family only had religion on their mind when they went. Nazareth was a nowhere town – a place where nothing happened and that trade goods rarely reached. So, they probably were overwhelmed by the big city and all of its allures – the markets, the entertainment and music and spectacle. People came to Passover from all over the known world, so just seeing the people from everywhere would have been overwhelming.

So, yes, the hicks from Galilee were having a big time down in Jerusalem and while their attention was diverted by the big city lights, their son went missing. Of course, this is a nightmare for any parents. And maybe it is not too surprising in their case.

They were clearly living in a small town where everybody looked out for everyone else’s kids. They lived in the community where they could just assume that their neighbours or relatives would look after their son if they weren’t around. You can hardly blame them if they don’t know how to deal with the very different kinds of dangers in a big city. No, we cannot fault Mary and Joseph for going down to Jerusalem or for losing track of their son.

What Jesus Blames them for

But Jesus does blame them for one thing. He blames them for searching. “He said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me?” I know that seems weird because, of course, that is what a parent is going to do when a child is lost. But what Jesus seems to be saying is that they shouldn’t have needed to search. They already had all the information they needed to know where Jesus would be.

But here is the really damning thing we are told about Jesus’ parents: “But they did not understand what he said to them.” They didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. And isn’t that kind of amazing? I mean, after everything that they had seen twelve years ago, everything they had been through, they should have known something. Jesus says to them, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Or that phrase could also be translated as “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s work?”

What Have we Forgotten?

Yes, the damning thing was that, in twelve short years, they seem to have forgotten what Jesus was supposed to be here for, what he meant and what he stood for. It seems unbelievable that they could, but they did.

But maybe it is not so unbelievable. I mean, we forget it so much quicker than that. We sing “Good Christians all rejoice,” but in days we are giving into despair and hopelessness. It is like we never really believed it. We sing “Let every heart prepare him room,” yet do we neglect to prepare room for him to truly change our own heart? Most of all, we sing, “Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, in excelsis Gloria,” and yet we do not allow him to rule over our own lives, much less than the world.

If what we have just celebrated is true, it really does change how we look at everything. It gives us a different perspective on what is valuable and what matters. It may have taken Mary and Joseph twelve years to forget, but are we going to let it go in a matter of days? I pray that we don’t.

https://youtu.be/P-PxGiTBKiE

Hespeler, 19 December 2021 © Scott McAndless
Micah 5:2-5, Psalm 80:1-7, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-55 (click to read)

Zechariah had always been a good husband. He had been devoted and loving. And he had stuck by her in the good times and in the bad. Even when she endured the disgrace… (And, yes, that is how she thought of it, disgrace. That is what some of the other women said of her as well.) – she had endured the disgrace of being childless, he and he alone did not blame her or treat her as any less than a valued wife.

An Uncommunicative Husband

But Zechariah had one flaw. He had never been one for talking, and certainly not for sharing his feelings. Nor had he been the kind of person that she could share her feelings with. You know, men. They just don't know how to communicate. They can often be quite useless in that way.

And that had been before the incident in the temple, the incident that still had not yet been adequately explained to Elizabeth. All she knew was that, after he had completed his temple service, he came home and she greeted him with all her usual affection, but he didn’t say a single word. Nothing! She hadn’t a clue what was going on. She had thought that he was uncommunicative before, but this was kind of crazy.

The Only Explanation

It was only after several days that he seemed to have had an idea. He found a wax tablet and a sharp stylus, scribbled a few lines and gave it to her. Even with the written word, Zechariah was still very taciturn. Elizabeth couldn’t read it, of course. Few women could read. So, she took it to one of his brother priests and he read it for her. It said, “You shall have a son. We will name him John. Drink no wine or strong drink.” That was it.

It wasn’t much in the way of explanation. But it seemed as if that was all that Elizabeth was going to get. She accepted that it was true, as unbelievable as it was, because she knew that her husband would not joke about a matter like that. But it still didn’t seem real. She might believe it with her head, but how could she believe it in her heart? She said it aloud, trying to convince herself as much as anyone else “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.” But she was still not sure she believed it.

Elizabeth’s Doubt

When her body began to change, she recognized that something was going on, but how could she truly believe that she was expecting after having been disappointed so many times before? That is the real problem that people have when they struggle with infertility. They’ve gone through that monthly cycle of hoping against hope only to have that hope crushed so many times that it becomes so much easier just not to hope anymore. And maybe these changes in her body were actually a bad sign. She was getting very old after all. Could these not just be the signs she was finally getting too old for it even to be a possibility?

Hoping for the Quickening

There was one thing that she had always heard from other mothers, though. They had always told her that there had been one thing that had made it all real for them. It was something called the quickening. They had promised her that when she finally felt her child moving within her, it would be a wondrous event and she would finally know for sure that a baby lived within her. So, with great trepidation and fear, Elizabeth waited to feel something. Every day she didn’t feel it was a day of agony. And then, when she actually did begin to feel something, something like little flutters or bubbles, they were so small and fleeting that they just weren’t enough to convince her that anything was real.

And so, even if she was well into her fifth month on the day when her cousin Mary from Nazareth in Galilee came by to visit, Elizabeth was not really in a very good place. She was getting no support from her husband. I mean, I know it wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t communicative this time. But still, she couldn’t help but feel abandoned. And she was filled with doubt and fears. She was having a hard time hoping.

An Unannounced Visit

And here’s the other thing you need to understand about her visit from Mary: this was not an age of lightning communication. Mary had not been able to call or text to say that she was coming. The Roman Empire did not have a civilian postal service. The only way for someone like Mary to visit a relative who lived in another town was to drop in unannounced.

So, Elizabeth had absolutely no idea who was about to walk through her door. Nor is there any indication that she had been given any information about what had been going on with Mary who had just received her own message from an angel that she was going to have her own very remarkable child. Apparently, Mary just set out to see her cousin right away when she heard, from the angel (and, no, it had not been posted on Facebook) that Elizabeth was also expecting.

Everything Changes in a Moment

Elizabeth had no clue what was going on when, in the middle of the day, she heard the door to the house open followed by the voice of her well-loved cousin Mary calling out to her. And in that moment, as she heard that familiar voice, many things happened. First, and most important of all, the child moved within her. And this was no flutter. This was no indistinct movement that her doubting mind could just dismiss. No, her son leapt within her and immediately banished from her mind all doubt, all fear and all anxiety about whether she was really expecting. The flood of joy and relief was overwhelming.

At the same moment, she was also filled with an assurance that there was something about Mary. It wasn’t just that her beloved cousin was there, it was that something was happening in her. She had only heard one word of greeting. But in that word, Elizabeth had recognized the same joy that she was feeling about the life that was growing within her.

How she knew that her son within her was telling her that there would be something truly extraordinary about Mary’s child, is a little bit harder to explain. But, given all of the knowledge, relief and joy that were flooding through her in that moment of time, maybe it’s not all that surprising that she was also completely certain that her child had made a revelation to her. And that was when she cried out, “And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?”

What Christmas is for

And, for me, that is what Christmas is all about. It is not about shopping or gifts. It is not about eating huge amounts of food. It is about what happens to Elizabeth there. It is about people finding a reason to hope. It is about people being surprised by relief and by joy, especially when those things meet them in the very thing that they are struggling with.

But here is the thing that particularly strikes me about this story of Mary and Elizabeth this year. I suppose you might say that it is God who gifts Elizabeth with all of these wonderful things, but it is surely no coincidence that this happens at the very moment when she is visited by her relative who has come from a distance to visit her.

That seems important, maybe especially this year as many people look forward to gathering over the holidays with their extended families – gathering with people who they may not have seen for a very long time, not even last Christmas, because of this blasted pandemic. Wouldn’t you love to see all of our family gatherings filled with such feelings of hope, joy and comfort? I certainly would.

Families are Complicated

And yet I am also keenly aware that it might not be quite so simple as that. I know that there are many for whom family gatherings are anything but edifying. They dread going back to those people because they know all of the old arguments will be dredged up. They know that Mom or Aunt Sally or Uncle Fred just has this way of getting under their skin and making them feel bad about the life choices that they have made, the ones that they’re actually normally pretty good with. They know that Cousin George is going to say something racist or that is some wild political conspiracy theory that is going to make everybody cringe, but that nobody’s going to call him on it.

I mean, I know that every family is different, and these are just examples of the kinds of things that go on, but I would wager that there are a lot of families out there that have these dynamics that do make people feel more dread than joy at the prospect of family gatherings.

And that’s just in an ordinary year. I am afraid, with all of the stress that we’ve been going through, that the potential for that kind of stuff is really going to be ramped up this year. There are some people who might be on a hair trigger when it comes to interactions with families. A lot of people might feel as if they are walking on eggshells. And that’s even before you get into those very fraught discussions about inviting or disinviting people who are unvaccinated or who you cannot rely on to wear masks. Yes, as I look forward to family gatherings this season, there could just be an emotional minefield out there. And we’re all heading towards it.

An Advent Challenge

But here is a challenge for you this Advent. I know that you do not have any control over the stress of this season or the stress that you might be carrying because of all that’s been going on. You certainly don’t have any control over the stress that other people are feeling. You also have no control over what other people do as a result of the burdens they carry. But I’ll tell you what you do have control over. You have control over what you do and how you respond. And you can commit yourself right now to going into any encounters with those important people in your life, your family, during this holiday season with a spirit of grace and kindness.

I’m not accusing anyone of anything but, is it possible that sometimes, when your family gathers, you are the one who reminds people of old arguments and disagreements? Can you sometimes be the person who just has to put down somebody else’s accomplishments in order to feel good about your own? Or maybe you’re just that person who has a way of getting under somebody else’s skin, of being judgmental or even mean. Do you sometimes share opinions that you know no one else wants to hear?

None of us are perfect and I would suggest that each one of us, maybe even in just a small way, contributes to the dysfunction that sometimes happens when families gather. Well, first of all, you could just decide not to do that this year – not to be part of the dysfunction.

Be Like Mary

But even more than that, what if you went into all of those encounters this year with a determination to be what Mary was to Elizabeth, the bearer of a blessing. You could do your best to respond to someone who seems determined to take you down a peg by honouring them and lifting them up because, guess what, they’ve had a pretty lousy year too. What if you were to respond to what feels like judgment with a little bit of unconditional love?

The more I look at this story of Mary and Elizabeth, what I see is Mary, her heart full of joy and love and promise, walking in on her cousin and being completely unaware of all of the agony and doubt and questions that Elizabeth has been struggling with. And with a word, she transforms the entire situation into an encounter with pure joy. I honestly believe that that can be you this Christmas, if, with God’s power and the help of the Holy Spirit, you take on the challenge that Mary offers to us.