In the Midst of Despair: A Journey to Joy

Luke 1:26-55

A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

We begin with the bad news… A teenage girl, somewhere in the neighborhood of thirteen or fourteen years of age, becomes pregnant.  At first, she does not show, but after a few months, the neighbors begin to talk.  Her mother and father, hope that they are not seeing what they think they are seeing.  And, her fiancé tries to come to grips with the fact that his promised bride may not be as innocent as he has always believed. 

Unexpected pregnancies are almost never good news – especially when the mother is a teenage girl and the father is unknown.  Matters are even worse in traditional cultures where virginity in young women is less of an expectation than a strictly enforced law.  Our society has grown oddly complacent about such matters.  We may think about the rising rate of teenage pregnancies as an unfortunate social trend, and we may bemoan the impact such pregnancies have on the lives of promising young women, but we generally tend to leave it at that.  Traditional cultures, by contrast, generally resort to much more extreme measures.  Women shown to have had sex outside of marriage may be publicly ostracized, driven from the community, forced into prostitution, or even killed.  The risks are high – very high!

We do damage to the story of Mary when we make it pretty and nice.  There was nothing pleasant or happy about the predicament in which she found herself after her conversation with the angel.  Her life changed abruptly.  Mary was no longer the sweet and innocent girl next door.  She had become a woman with a reputation.  And, it could not have helped when she claimed that the child she bore was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit.  The people in ancient Galilee were no more ready to believe such stories than people in our own time.  No, her pregnancy would have been irrefutable proof to them that she had engaged in extra-marital sexual intercourse with a man – most likely a man other than her fiancé.  The gossip among her friends and neighbors would have been harsh and unforgiving.  Mary, the daughter of Anna and Theodore, was an adulteress.

Luke writes very little about Mary’s experiences as an unwed, pregnant teenager.  He tells us nothing about the stares, the pointing fingers and the whispers.  He does not describe what happens when she breaks the news to her parents.  There are no angry accusations – no loud voices – no tears.  He writes nothing at all about the reaction of her fiancé, Joseph – not a word about the man’s decision to divorce her quietly in order to avoid disgrace.  The only thing Luke tells us is that she packs her bags and journeys to the home of her cousin, Elizabeth.  The rest is left to our imagination.  But, how much imagination do we need?  People have not changed that much in two thousand years.  Once word gets out about her condition, Mary’s life will have quickly become hell.  That may explain why she rushes from her home in Nazareth of Galilee to her cousin’s home in the hill country of Judea.  She may simply be trying to escape the shame.  Luke does not give us the details because he does not have to.  He expects his readers to understand the cruelty and the danger to which Mary exposes herself when she responds to the angel: “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me as you have said.”

We have spent far too much time and energy exploring whether Mary is or is not a virgin.  Luke simply assumes that she is.  In more recent times, traditionalists who claim that Luke writes an accurate account of an authentic miraculous event do battle with revisionists who assert that Luke’s assumption of Mary’s virginity is founded on a mistranslation of Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy.  People of faith disagree – sometimes heatedly.  Whatever may or may not have actually happened, Luke tells the story because he is constrained by the sacred stories of the early Christian community to which he belongs.  Mary’s virginity is a beloved tradition that speaks to many about Jesus’ uniqueness.  It is a symbolic way of saying that God is planning something extraordinary for this life that is coming into existence in Mary’s womb.  When the angel Gabriel tells Mary: “The Holy Spirit is coming upon you, and the power of the Most High is overshadowing you,” he is informing Luke’s readers that the baby to be born is the Child of God who will bring God’s salvation to all God’s people. 

But, what is the nature of the salvation this child brings?  This, I suggest, is the most important question that needs to be answered. By comparison, the question of Mary’s virginity pales in significance.  Unfortunately, our obsession with arguing about whether she did or did not have sex keeps us from addressing this other more crucial issue.  Luke does not tell us that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit so that we might ooh and aah at the miracle.  He does not raise the issue of Mary’s virginity so that we might debate its scientific plausibility.  Luke tells us the story of Mary’s conversation with the angel Gabriel because he expects us to understand that however beautiful the concept of virgin birth might be in theory… in reality, virgin mothers are indistinguishable from adulteresses.  The last nail has been hammered into the coffin of her social respectability.  This event propels her beyond the outer margins of community life and turns her into a complete social outcast. 

Jesus will be born to a Jewish mother in the midst of an empire that paints Jews as backward savages.  He will be born to a Palestinian mother while Palestine is under military occupation by imperial troops.  He will be born to a Galilean mother in a world where Galileans are stereotyped as ignorant bumpkins.  He will be born to a poor mother in an era when poverty is interpreted as divine punishment.  He will be born to a teenage mother at a time when young people are expected to be seen rather than heard.  He will be born to an unmarried mother in a culture where women have no social standing apart from their husbands.  He will be born to a mother who looks very much like an adulteress in a world where adulteresses are ostracized and sometimes even killed.  How much closer to the bottom of the social heap can Jesus go?  We will only know the answer to that question on Good Friday when he dies the death of a violent criminal on a Roman cross. 

My friends, we have to move beyond our portrayals of the Christmas story as something sweet and nice.  The Christmas story is set into a context that is ugly, abusive and violent.  But, thank God that it is.  The salvation that Mary’s child brings is more than an interesting theological concept.  The birth of Mary’s child is an event that makes a difference because it offers hope to those who have no hope in the world.  When Mary says to the angel: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,” she does so knowing the danger it will bring to her child and to herself.  Her words are words of courage.  Her decision is an act of faith carried out in the strong conviction that God is indeed at work in the world to save the poor, the oppressed and the outcast.  Even more, she understands that salvation never comes in the form of a benevolent acts performed by those who hold wealth and power.  Salvation never makes itself known in the palaces of emperors and kings, in the field tents of generals, in the justice halls of judges, in the markets of the wealthy, or in the temples of priests.  God’s salvation always grows out of the hopes and dreams of communities that know they need to be saved.   

How could it be otherwise?    Only at the edges – among the outcasts – is it even remotely possible to build an economy based on abundance and generosity rather than selfishness and greed.  Only at the edges – among the outcasts – is it even remotely possible to establish neighborhoods where people treat each other with genuine compassion and honest hope.  Only at the edges – among the outcasts – is it even remotely possible to create an authentic peace that does not need to be enforced by threat of violence.  Only at the edges – among the outcasts – is it even remotely possible to dance with joy in the face of overwhelming challenges and dangers.  Salvation does not operate as a trickle-down economy.  Quite the contrary!  When the work of salvation starts among the elite, it almost always excludes those judged most undesirable.  When, by contrast, it begins with the lowest of the low, it has potential to expand into virtually every level of society.  If the mother of the Savior is a poor, unmarried teenager from the remotest corner of the empire, then anyone at all can be saved.  Salvation trickles up, not down.  The good news comes from the bottom, not the top.

That is why Elizabeth, the aged wife of an obscure country priest, and Joseph, the landless craftsman from Bethlehem, and the shepherds from the fields recognize the good news when they see it.  All of these people know what Mary knows… that God looks with favor on the lowliness – not the greatness – of God’s servants.  Thus, it is the proud who are scattered in the thoughts of their hearts.  It is the powerful who are toppled from their thrones.  And, it is the rich who are sent empty away.  But, the lowly are lifted up and the hungry are filled with good things.  For the people on the margins of society – the poor, the homeless, the emigrant, the prisoner, the unwed mother – this is very good news indeed.  It is reason to leap for joy.  It is reason to dance with the abandon of utter happiness. 

Of course, it is also counterintuitive.  Two millennia after the birth of Mary’s child, the world looks very much like it did.  There have, of course, been obvious changes in technology, culture, religion, economics, and politics.  But there have been relatively few significant changes in the disparity between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, oppressor and oppressed.  People still starve; they still die violent deaths; they still rot away in prisons; they still struggle to provide for their families; and they still suffer the stigmas of social rejection and ridicule.  The promise of the gospel remains just that – a promise and not a fact. 

This, then, is where faith enters the picture.  To have faith is not merely to believe.  It is to imitate Mary in saying: “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  It is to act in spite of the appearance of reality, with all of its evil, pain, heartbreak, and frustration.  It is to act as though the promises of God really are coming true in our lives and in the life of the community in which we dwell.  Can we make a choice to live in spite of death, to be just in spite of injustice, to work for peace in spite of war, and to rejoice in spite of despair?  Can we join Mary in affirming that the good news is worth all that we are and all that we have?  If we do, then we will realize what the true power of Christmas is.  It is not the power to save American businesses from bankruptcy, but the power to lift up the lowly and fill the hungry with good things.  It is the power to heal the sick, to cast out demonic powers, to tear down the walls of prejudice, and to love our neighbor as we have never loved before.  Salvation comes as one person after another believes enough to live as though salvation were real.  It is in the living that it will become real. 

Friends, this morning as we join here in worship, the genocide continues in Darfur, the president of the United States seeks power to expand the war in Iraq, the separation wall between Israel and Palestine grows taller and longer, the homeless are shuffled from place to place, the prisons are full beyond capacity, and the AIDS pandemic exacts an ever higher toll on of families and communities around the world.  Our task, on the eve of Christmas 2006, is not to solve all the earth’s problems.  It is to do what we can with the resources we have been given.  It is to look at the world with new eyes so that we can see and affirm those instances where God’s kin-dom is coming into existence.  And it is to announce to the world that we will live in the “as-though-ness” of faith – that we will chart our lives and make our decisions as though God is real, as though the Messiah has been born, as though salvation has come, and as though there really is a reason for joy.  We will rejoice in justice so that we can work for justice.  We will rejoice in truth so that we might speak the truth.  We will rejoice in peace so that we might live peacefully.  And, we will rejoice in knowing that the salvation of God is real.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

The Rev. Frank D. Wulf

United University Church

Los Angeles,California

December 24, 2006

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