Foolish Expectations

Text: Luke 2:22-40

Does God encourage Simeon’s foolish expectations?

The story in the Gospel passage takes place when Jesus is just 40 days old. Brought to the Temple in Jerusalem with his parents, he is seen by Simeon. Simeon took his own faith and its teachings seriously. You would call him religious. He had been told that in his life he would see the coming of the Messiah, a man who would restore Israel to its glorious position as a great and powerful nation. Not one under the thumb of Rome and ruled by petty and corrupt tyrants. When he sees Jesus, Simeon declares that his life’s wait is over. His wait is over. Jesus is the one he expected.

Yet it never happened the way Simeon hoped. In the story, these events happened at the beginning of the life of Jesus. But the story itself was written much later, nearly 100 years later. And by then Jerusalem had been conquered and sacked. The Temple in which the story takes place was destroyed seventy years after Jesus’ birth and before Luke wrote his Gospel. Simeon’s expectations were met only in the story, never in history.

Expectations are difficult and sometimes cruel masters. They start innocently, with a vision of what might be. Wouldn’t it be great if such and such happened? A fine job or a life’s good companion or a house in the country. In the case of Israel at the time of Jesus and Simeon, perhaps a vision of a free and restored Israel. Then to this vision is added a sense that what we hope for is what should be. That is, what we imagine is what we deserve, is natural and logical. Or predicted, by our parents, say, or our friends, or perhaps by a prophet. And finally vision and destiny merge into a kind of confident inevitability. Which becomes a focus and guide for our lives, part of the central story, a part which seems already written but as yet unrealized.

For this reason, unfulfilled expectations can shatter us. Expectations not fulfilled change us. Expectations seem as real as history. They can be as much a part of us as our past. Expectations are not the same as goals. Goals can be met more or less well. A partially realized goal is an accomplishment. But an expectation can only be met or not. And usually not, for no reality can equal the power of our visionary imaginations and hopes.

The destruction of the Temple in the year 70 shattered Israel’s view of itself and of its future. Israel’s expectations, personified in Simeon, were never met.

So how did this sad story ever make it into Luke? Why not leave it out, or remove it?

The expectation of Simeon was an expectation of power. The title Messiah, or Christ, means anointed one. The anointed one was king. The king was the national and religious ruler. The Messiah was a savior in the sense that he would save Israel from being conquered and oppressed, and would restore Israel’s greatness.

Yet the vision that was the foundation of Israel’s expectations was not one of power. It was a vision of light. The goal God set for Israel was not to rule other people and other lands. It was to be a good example to those people and lands. As Simeon sings when he picks up Jesus, Israel’s hope and destiny were to be a light to the nations. Israel was to be light like a beacon, a guide to what is good and godly. And to be light like a spot light, revealing God in all things. The Messiah was not to be a swinger of swords but a swinger of lanterns.

Evangelism, which means spreading the good news, is an activity of action, not of talk. It is a do what I do kind of thing. Not a do what I say kind of thing. Our friend Martin Luther spoke a lot of about the Word of God, but the words of God speak with us in what we do. Our salvation is not dependent on works, Luther reminded us. But it is expressed in works. The word of God goes out from us in works. It is what people see in us and our lives that makes us evangelical bearers of good news. Makes us lights to others.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Stephen. We know about Stephen from the book of Acts. You can read about him mostly in chapters six and seven. Stephen was a leader of the church and was also its first martyr, and much of the readings have to do with his execution by stoning. But he is known mostly for forgiving his executioners. His last words were “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

Saint Stephen’s Day is always the day after Christmas, so this year it was this past Friday. St Stephen’s Day has traditionally been a day for the redistribution of wealth. In a minor way. That is, rich ladies and gentlemen would give gifts to the poor. The Feast of Stephen is a day for being grateful for all the abundance most of us have and realizing that we are called to share some of that with those who have little or nothing.

The closing hymn for today is Good King Wenceslas, who in the song brings food, wine, and firewood to a hungry and freezing peasant. He does this at peril to himself and his companion, but his goodness prevails, and they are kept warm on their mission. The closing words are: Therefore, Christians, be sure, you who have wealth or status, when you bless the poor, you yourselves will find blessing. Or to put it another way, when you provide light, you will find light.

To be a light to others requires humility, trust, and courage. It requires a sense that we are not greater than one another and that we do not therefore deserve more than they. It requires trusting that God will watch over us and provide for us as Jesus tells us God does, even when we make ourselves vulnerable. As caring for others always makes us. And it requires that, since being humble and trusting is scary and can lead to uncertain adventures, we are able to act in the face of fear.

In that, we expect to have God’s help. When Simeon is expecting God, the word that Luke uses means “receptive” or “open to God.” This story in Luke, written long after it should have been proven false by the events of history, is not mostly a story of history. It does not suggest that God encourages Simeon in his foolishness.

The story tells us more about God than it does about us. It does suggest, it seems to me, that God is a creature of expectations, too. That even though we, like Simeon, have been disappointed, we find that God continues to be with us in vision, destiny, and confidence. That God’s expectations, at least part of them and in some way we can partially understand, endure.

Expectations can be cruel and hurtful. But they also can support us in hope. We are made in the image of God, we are children of God, and we in our faith expect that the world will someday be as God intended it to be. And in the meantime, we continue to expect that, even though it sometimes takes more humility, trust, and courage than we can find in ourselves, we will with God’s help be a light to others.

Parents Pondering

Text: Luke 1:26-38
Other texts: Luke 1:47-55

Advent is a season of reflection. At the beginning, we are encouraged to look at our past and our present. What have we been doing? What are we doing now? But gradually over the weeks our view changes. And by today, we find ourselves looking at our present and our future. That’s how scripture leads us. Today we see Christmas just ahead. Once we start talking about Mary and Joseph and angels making announcements, we know that Christmas, and the celebration of the birth of Jesus is the point. And that the reflections that are important are less ours and more Mary’s, who ponders her role as mother of God.

And we ponder with her.

I’d like to talk a little theology before we go too much further. A central joy—or a central difficulty, depending on your point of view—a central thing about Christianity is that it claims that Jesus was a person and Jesus was divine. Jesus was more than a good and wise teacher. And also: Jesus was more than God come down from heaven in a human being outfit. Different faiths usually end up emphasizing one or the other aspects of Jesus. More human, or more divine. Early Christian thinkers and writers (meaning third and fourth century ones) spent a lot of time trying to figure out how the two aspects of Jesus could coexist. There were lots of theories. The ones we don’t follow now were condemned as heresies. Jesus wasn’t really divine but only really good, said some. Jesus wasn’t really human, but only pretended, said others. Jesus multitasked, being divine sometimes and human other times, said still others.

In the end, what the church said was that none of these explanations was right. In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther spoke adamantly and forcefully, as he usually did, saying that Jesus was 100% human and 100% divine. How that all worked out in detail was not for him to say. Typically Lutheran, it seems an improbable position to hold. But we cannot say that sometimes Jesus does God things and other times does human things. Jesus is always both.

Nonetheless, the church has a tendency to lean a bit to one side of the issue. Usually we talk about the divinity of Jesus, especially when we talk about salvation and power and kingdoms and intercession and such things, as we often do in worship.

But Christmas is a gigantic celebration of the humanity of Jesus. There is a lot of divinity at Christmas, but the person of Jesus himself, the central character, is still just a baby boy. And the stories are stories of moms and dads and births, which are pretty common human stories. As we know here from experience. So today, still in Advent, we get to think about Jesus and things that are human. And especially his mother, Mary.

Mary was an ordinary girl, as far as we know. Not ordinary for long, of course, but there is nothing in the Bible story that says she was particularly good, or beautiful, or pure. Nothing special. She was probably poor. She was probably young, maybe thirteen years old or so. She was related by marriage to some folks who were priests.

Mary is distressed when the angel Gabriel comes to visit. As you can imagine. Our Bible says she was much perplexed and pondered Gabriel’s greeting. But a truer translation would be to say that Mary was freaked out. And also she was discombobulated. The word Luke uses here means she was trying to find words to make sense of a bunch of ideas that did not easily fit together. How could she, poor young ordinary Mary, have a baby who was going to be a king and called Son of the Most High?

It does not take Mary long, though, to see what this all implies. The world will change. In a good way. So Mary sings a song about it (which we call the Magnificat, based on the first word of the song in Latin).

Being thirteen, Mary first wants to know: what about me? How is this going to affect me? But the “Magnificat” is a song of gradually widening implications, as Mary the singer realizes that more and more of the world will be changed through her child. First, she will be: “all generations will call me blessed” and “the Almighty has done great things for me.” Then people like her: He has lifted up the lowly and fed the hungry. Then all of Israel: He has come to the help of Israel. And finally, all the children of Abraham forever.

Mary’s hopes seem grandiose. But they are not much different from the hopes of mothers and fathers generally. Children make us think in the same widening circles: me, my family, the world. When you think about having a child, you cannot help spinning out imaginary futures. Will my child be good, successful, happy, imaginative, respected, kind? Will we be good parents, can we handle this, what if it turns out to be hard, will we make the same mistakes our own parents made? Did Mary wonder about these things? What could the angel’s proclamation possibly mean to a new, young, mother to be? How could she imagine the future of her son?

When parents think about their children, their minds are full of conflicting ideas, just as Mary’s was. The future for all children is a mix of opportunities and problems, of sorrow and glory. No one knows how things are going to turn out in detail, even when an angel delivers the message.

Children are part of their parents, but they are part of the world too, and increasingly so. Jesus at one point denies his family, a moment which I’m sure was hard on his parents. But children do that. They sometimes have to. They become people who change the world, for good or for ill. And the world will have expectations of them. If Mary really could have foreseen the future life of her son-to-be, how would she have felt on the day he was born?

Mary and Jesus are human-sized human-feeling humans, which makes them like everybody. It is important for our theology and our faith to remember that. It is easy to imagine what Mary was going through, in spite of her since then being encrusted and distorted with centuries of church teachings. Mary was young, poor, frightened and confused, excited and worried and giddily hopeful, and I suspect Joseph was, too. As we would be or have been.

These days are not days for theologizing. Christmas, though it is the event of the incarnation, is not about theology. It is about human, creaturely events and thoughts. Christianity is an earthy faith. Especially for Lutherans, who at their best, like Martin Luther admire things that are physical and messy.

The good news on Christmas is simply divine. A child will be born. His parents will be amazed. They will wonder: what will happen next?

Is Christmas OK?

Gospel: Mark 14:3-7, 9

Is Christmas o.k.?

Do we do it wrong? Have we missed the boat on Christmas? Have we got our priorities wrong? Have we forgotten the true meaning of Christmas? Is Christmas o.k.? Or does it need repair?

To hear some people, you might think it does. Some people say—and ministers say it loudest—that we don’t do it right.

Some people say we are too materialistic at Christmas. Every store has a sale. The merchants are frantic. We worry about what we can buy. We worry if it is OK to buy. Some of us worry we won’t get what we want. Some of us worry we’ll get too much. The part of our minds that likes to think about Things goes into high gear.

Some people say we are too hectic at Christmas. We feel sometimes like we are stuck on an endless journey. Work, pack, ship, repeat. So many parties to go to. So many parties to plan. So many decorations to hang. So many cards to send. So little time, so much to do. Sometimes we feel like the White Rabbit in Alice and Wonderland, running around late, late, late. Late.

Some people say we are too extravagant at Christmas.

Some people say we miss the true meaning of Christmas. We are celebrating, after all, the birth of Jesus. This is Christ’s birthday. Where is Christ among the Christmas trees, where is Christ among the Santas, where is Christ among the crowds of shoppers? Where is Christ among the presents and the parties?

That’s what some people say. Some people say we do it wrong.

It is hard to disagree with what some people say, especially when sometimes those “some people” are us.

But it is hard to agree, too. Christmas can be a confusing time. We are confused about how we feel. Especially in these days. When we listen to our hearts, we hear two voices. One voice speaks about anxiety. The other voice speaks about joy. When you listen to your heart, which voice calls you the loudest?

Do you hear the voice of Christmas anxiety? That voice tells us that we are harassed, apprehensive, and manipulated. That voice agrees with what “people say.” That voice makes us feel guilty, poor, and overwhelmed all at once. That voice says we do Christmas wrong. That voice tells us about things, and money, and time. That voice is dismayed at the extravagance of Christmas.

Or do you hear the voice of Christmas joy? That voice reminds us of the pleasure of thinking hard about the people we are buying gifts for. That voice reminds us of the friends and neighbors who come to all those parties. That voice reminds us of the pleasures in making food for others, and for eating food made for us. It tells us of generosity and the gratitude behind all that shopping and shipping. That voice says we do Christmas right. That voice tells us about people we love. It tells us about things that we are blessed to do. That voice delights in the extravagance of Christmas.

Which voice do you trust? They both speak loudly at Christmas. We get confused. We begin to doubt our own feelings. How can we take such pleasure in all this materialism? Particularly in these hard and perilous and sometimes sorrowful times. How can we be so excited at all this running around? It’s a horrible state, for it makes us feel bad about feeling good. It makes us feel bad about feeling joyful.

Why have we become afraid to delight in extravagance?

We are afraid to be extravagant because people scold us. They scold us as they scolded the woman in today’s Gospel reading.

That nameless woman approached Jesus. She broke open a jar of very costly ointment. She anointed Jesus. How extravagant was this? A denarius was the pay for a day’s worth of labor. The jar, valued at 300 denarii, was worth a year’s wages. She gave a gift that cost a year’s wages, a year’s salary. Imagine that. Imagine giving a gift that cost your whole year’s salary. Imagine spending that much on perfume. What a waste!

What a waste, said the men who were there. What a waste, they scolded the woman. How unreasonable! Whatever made her do it?

People scolded the woman for spending unwisely. Think of the poor, said the men who were there. This jar could have been sold and the money given away.

But the men were hypocrites. There have been and will be many hungry mouths to feed, said Jesus. Did the men feed the poor yesterday, will they feed the poor tomorrow? Were they concerned or were they crabby? Did they love the poor or did they resent the woman? Good question. Could it be that their hearts were filled not with generosity? But with jealousy?

Sometimes the voice we hear sounds a lot like the scolding men. Were they right to scold the woman? Do you agree that her extravagant gift was both wasteful and misguided?

No one knows anything about the woman in this story. We don’t know her name, her wealth, or her status. We don’t know how she knew Jesus. All we know about her is the way she gave her gift to Jesus. We know three things.

One, she gave from love. It doesn’t say so in the text, but how else can we explain that she came to a house uninvited, to give a gift worth a year’s salary, in the face of being scolded and rebuked?

Two, she gave intimately. This was a special gift from her alone to him alone. It was a gift made thoughtfully, carefully, with Jesus in mind. By her gift she and Jesus shared something no others had. She anointed Jesus; she touched him and honored him with her gift. She blessed him by her gift. And she was blessed in turn by his acceptance of it. The gift joined the two in generosity. The gift joined the two in gratitude.

Three, she gave extravagantly. She was not cautious or careful. She was not reasonable. She listened to the voice of joy.

And what did Jesus do? Jesus welcomed her. Jesus brushed aside the anxious voices. Jesus welcomed her and approved her love, her intimacy, and her extravagance.

This Christmas we are celebrating the birth of Jesus. Jesus is God’s very costly gift to us. To all people. Unreasonable and unexplainable. God gives Jesus to us as the woman gave to Jesus, in love for us, and in intimacy that binds each of us to God, and in extravagance.

Let’s put Santa Claus back into Christmas. Toys and homemade gifts, cider and cookies, lots of laughter and stuffed tummies are in the spirit of Christmas.

They spring from our love for other people. They come from our intimate and special affection for friends and family. They come from our sense of God’s good extravagance.

Christmas is o.k. This is time for celebration. This is the time for presents, parties, and, if you like, expensive perfume.

Quiet that anxious voice.

Welcome that joyful voice.

Leave care and caution for other days. Trust the voice that moves your heart toward people you love.

In the coming days, think extravagantly, give lovingly, and go with joy.

Praise be to God. And amen.

Great Beginnings

Text: Mark 1:1-8

Lots of people were expecting Christ. No one was expecting Jesus.

Lots of people were hoping for a charismatic, powerful man descended from great king David to save the people of Israel. Lots of people were hoping for a wise and powerful prophet to free the people from their oppressors. Lots of people were hoping for a christ, which just means anointed one, a chosen ruler, to restore Israel’s greatness.

No one was expecting a couple of motley, lower class wanderers to be the tools of God’s hands. John and Jesus were nobodies. Almost below the lowest social rung, lower than subsistence farmers. Yet, especially in Mark’s Gospel, these two men appear out of nowhere and start shaking things up. I don’t know whether God works in mysterious ways, but I’m certain that God works in surprising ways. Jesus was a surprise to everybody, except evidently not to John.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Typical Mark, who is always rushing into things without much ceremony. The sentence doesn’t even have a verb. He gets the facts out quick. This is a story about a man named Jesus, who was prophetic and messianic figure, and more, who has a special relationship with God. Though it is hard for us to think about these titles without putting them in upper case, for Mark and his first readers, they are names to distinguish this man, this particular Jesus, this particular figure.

Mark was an enthusiast. He invented a whole new way of writing. He invented the gospel, which is just an English way to translate the Greek word for “good news.” And the Greek word itself comes directly to us in the words evangelical (as in the Evangelical Lutheran Church) and evangelism. Mark was the first evangelist. The first gospel writer. The first to write this kind of story about someone. Mark invented this form so that he could say to the world: I have to tell you about this amazing guy who was full of surprises. I have to tell you this story. And so he does.

The beginning of the good news, Mark says. Unlike the other three Gospels, Mark tells us nothing at the start about Jesus. No birth story as in Matthew and Luke. No theological hymn, as in John. The beginning of the good news is not the beginning of Jesus himself but the beginning of his work, his ministry. What he does.

In the beginning you never know what’s going to happen. All you know about the beginning of things is that something is going to happen, but you don’t know what it is. Beginnings are the most uncertain times, since they are all about an unknown future. The beginning of something is the end of predictability, pattern, and comfort. No wonder beginnings make people nervous.

But it is worse than that. Because you don’t even know when something is a beginning until you see it having already begun. Beginnings are recognized by the disturbances they cause in our lives. We don’t realize that something new has begun until we are in the middle of those disturbances. You don’t realize you’re falling in love until you are in love. You don’t realize you’ve begun a new vocation until you are in the middle of it. We say: when I first met you, I didn’t realize you were going to be my life’s partner. Life is usually full of events that end up making no difference. People whom we meet who are maybe interesting but not captivating to us. Those events are not beginnings because nothing happens afterward. They are just events, common, frequent, and forgettable. Beginnings are places, seen in retrospect, where our lives are changed. Where they turn. The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ. A story in which, it turns out, something changed.

John was in the desert preaching repentance. The word repentance means to change direction. To turn or return. Repentance and beginnings are related in that way. Repentance is a good word for Advent, when we are supposed to be thinking about the direction in which we are going and whether it would be good to continue in that direction or whether we might rather change direction. That is hard to think about.

It is appropriate that John was in the desert. The desert is a good place to think about things like this. About change. Even the symbolic desert of our lives. First, the desert is deserted. It has fewer distractions that might seduce us away from our hard thoughts. And second, the desert is a rough place. A tough spot. The prospect of changing things is unattractive when things are going well. Long ago I worked for a large computer company that went under because things looked so good for so long. Maybe something similar is happening with the car companies today. Certainly, it happens in our own lives.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, our lives are full of times of change. When these seem to be good but maybe confusing times, we politely call them times of transition. When they seem to be distressing and uncomfortable, we say things are messed up. Two different views of the same thing, mostly. Something was once one way and will soon be another way, but we never know for sure what that other way will be. There is a lot of trust involved here, like it or not.

John the baptizer, Mark calls him. We usually call him John the baptist, but baptizer is better. It tells us what he was doing, rather than his title. John was preaching a baptism of repentance, it says. One way to interpret this was that John was telling us to change direction, so that God might be more inclined to come be with us. Another way to interpret this was that John was telling us to be receptive to God who was already trying to turn us. Or to put it another way: are we trying to get a message to God or trying to be quiet long enough so God can get a word in edgewise?

What John seems to be doing is preparing his listeners—and by extension, the world—to be open to Jesus who follows John. John is the opening act. John is softening the audience up for the main show. Getting them in a good frame of mind to hear, listen, enjoy, partake. And then Jesus walks onto the stage.

In this way, all baptisms are rites of repentance. We teach that they do not provide spell-like protection or detergent-like permanent cleansing. Instead, baptism is a beginning.

Today some of you will become members of this church by a celebration called the Affirmation of Baptism. That is the prescribed rite for new members. It is fitting that we use this rite because it is about beginnings and also about change. You will hear the promises made for you in baptism. And you will be asked if you intend to continue them. And after hearing them read, you will respond: I will, by God’s help and guidance. You will be saying by this that you are open to God in your lives.

Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirt, says John the baptizer. The Holy Spirit is, it seems to me, God’s agent of surprise. It is the Spirit who guides us when we reach out our hands for help and step timidly forward into the unknown future. It is the Spirit who meets us when we begin to change direction and sometimes bumps us encouragingly when we stubbornly or fearfully don’t.

Thank God that the Spirit is with us in a life full of beginnings. That is good news.