Wadhams United Church of Christ
2569 County Route 10, Wadhams, NY 12993
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Sermon by Steve Smith
November 30, 2008 Order of Service
The leading character in today’s message is a woman who is revered or honored by at least a third of the world’s population as the mother of one of history’s most influential people. Some refer to her as the mother of God, others as the queen of the universe, while Muslims claim that her very name (Maryam) literally means “maidservant of Allah.” That particular claim made me a little nervous, because I didn’t know if that meant that I needed to become a Muslim, and I didn’t know how that was going to play just after being formally recognized as a pastor of the United Church of Christ. I know the UCC is fairly easygoing about their creeds, but so far I haven’t heard of any Muslim UCC pastors.
Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox and Greek Orthodox churches, and the ancient Coptic Christians elevate Mary to a unique status for her role in the salvation story. There are some within their ranks who go so far as to assert that Mary herself remained pure and without sin for her entire life, since nothing less than the purest of vessels could serve God’s greatest plan for saving humanity from themselves. There is some internal consistency in their logic, so if you choose to portray Mary in this light, you would need to build a case that Mary’s birth was unique and miraculous in its own right.
The Infancy Gospel of James, which can be reliably tracked to the second century after the birth of Jesus, claims that Mary was born to an elderly couple who had remained barren until this late date in their lives. Because they were so thrilled and delighted with this unexpected gift of a child, they dedicated her to lifelong service as a consecrated virgin in the great Temple of Jerusalem. According to this tradition, her father was a temple priest, and at the tender age of three, the young Mary began her life of service to the God of Israel. As she neared puberty, she was extended the great honor of being invited to help sew and embroider a new curtain to separate the holy of holies from the rest of the congregation.
This pure and pristine setting for Mary’s early life doesn’t suit everyone, however. One current author has Mary’s father being tricked into making slanderous remarks about King Herod, who immediately has Mary’s father imprisoned, tortured, and then nailed to a cross to be crucified. Fortunately, Mary has close connections with a bunch of rebellious rabble-rousers, chiefly the infamous Barabbas. You remember Barabbas: he looked a lot like Anthony Quinn, he had been arrested for conspiring against the Roman Empire, and he went through a terrible ordeal after he was released instead of Jesus, who the crowd wanted crucified. In this dramatic story, Mary conspires with Barabbas and a host of zealous rebels to rescue her father from death by taking him off the cross before he dies and nursing him back to health.
So in one view of Mary, she was born miraculously and would remain pure and chaste her entire life, living a sin-free life that would be a model to her son, the Savior of the world. In this other view, Mary was the ancient picture of a radical feminist, already skilled in the wily ways of the anti-Roman insurgents before she even reached puberty. I’m sure there are other adaptations and permutations of the story, too; I just haven’t found them yet. But I have to admit to being thoroughly Protestant about all of this, and I find myself feeling skeptical about both extremes. To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time connecting with the Mary of either extreme.
What if Mary was just another ordinary person living her ordinary life when God asked her to do something extraordinary? What if she was just going about the ordinary business of being a child in her rural part of the world when the extraordinary events of God’s salvation story overtook her? What would that have looked like? Maybe this Mary isn’t as inspiring as the story of the Jewish princess who would one day be queen of the universe, but it feels more real to me. And maybe this Mary isn’t as thrilling as a Charlie’s Angel wannabe who helps to save the universe through her daring attitude, but at least I can connect with this young woman who lived a normal life in the rural Galilee of ancient Palestine.
Archaeologists have given us a pretty good picture of what life would have been like for a Jewish girl growing up in that era. She probably lived as everyone else did, in a small family house painstakingly constructed of mud-brick and stone. She worked like any young girl, grinding wheat and barley into flour; learning how to cook dishes of beans, vegetables, eggs, fruits, nuts, and an occasional chunk of mutton. She learned how to prepare the lentil porridge that often served as the mainstay of their daily meals. She had to learn how to comb the sheared lambs’ wool over and over again, then train her fingers to spin its scratchy fibers into the coarse thread to be woven into fabric and shaped into clothing.
Yeast had to be added to the flour and shaped into the flat loaves that would be baked every single day in the communal oven her family likely shared with her extended family living in that compound. A few chickens and a donkey had to be fed, eggs had to be gathered. They had no indoor plumbing, so nearly every day, all the water her family used had to be hauled from the only well in town. In fact, the vast majority of her days and hours were filled with the work of survival, which largely meant the cultivation and preparation of food. The hill climate she lived in was dry and healthy, but the dryness meant the land would often lack water, and no one knew from one year to the next if enough rain would fall.
Like those of you who grew up on farms know from experience, there was never an end to the work that needed to be done, and the uncertainties of life could mean the difference between plenty and poverty. Invading locusts could strip a field of its crop with astonishing and sickening speed. Field mice and other burrowing rodents could consume amazing amounts of food and foul the rest. Thieves could ride down out of the lawless hills and carry away your entire harvest, along with the livestock that served as your livelihood. And as if that weren’t enough, there was always talk of some uprising or another as one of her frustrated countrymen attempted to throw off the yolk of Roman occupation of their ancestral lands.
For centuries before the Roman occupation, conquering armies of Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks had fought over Palestine. Buffeted back and forth by the superpowers of their day, caught up always in the grinding gears of political ploys, taxed beyond measure or relief without anything resembling representation, the people of the long-vanquished nation of Israel longed to be their own nation. They yearned for a leader strong enough to banish these dominating, arrogant foreigners and lead their people back into a golden age to compete with the likes of Kings David and Solomon.
More than that, they wanted an end to the unfair treatment they constantly received: they wanted an end to soldiers coming through their towns and villages, or even their sacred city of Jerusalem, and simply taking whatever they wanted; they were weary of the bloodshed that inevitably followed another failed coup; they wanted to be able to make their pilgrimages to the Temple without seeing the crucified bodies of the rebels lining the road. Let me give you an illustration of what they had to endure under the enlightened leadership of the Pax Romana, or the much-celebrated Roman Peace.
During the Jewish uprisings in Galilee in 6 A.D., when Jesus was a child, Roman legions captured the nearby city of Sepphoris, sold all of its inhabitants into slavery, and methodically burned the city to the ground. Needless to say, the Roman concept of peace on earth was a tad different from the horrified neighbors and kinsmen of the Jews who used to dwell in Sepphoris. But that wasn’t all. On another occasion, pilgrims gathering in Jerusalem to present their sacrifices at the Temple had been caught up in another ill-fated attempt to defy the Roman forces. The leaders of the rebellion had retreated behind the walls of the Temple, defiantly believing that the Roman legions would never defile their sacred sanctuary.
They were wrong: dead wrong. Instead, soldiers mounted on horses charged into the crowded courts and began slaughtering anyone who got in their way. Innocent pilgrims who had nothing to do with the subterfuge around them were trampled, speared, and gored by the Romans. Their blood was mingled with that of the sacrifices being offered in their behalf, and the episode was so seared into the hearts of the Jewish people that Jesus would make reference to it decades later as a sermon illustration. We’ve just elected a new president based on a politician’s promise to bring change. As bad as things might be for us, we have little or no idea how badly the Jews of Mary’s day were longing for a different world, one where a God of justice, mercy and compassion could shape the living of their days.
Some people might find comfort in the sheltered Mary who grew up within the hallowed walls of the glorious Temple. Others can’t conceive of a Mary who would sit idly back while her kinfolk were tortured and killed. Personally, I have a hard time imagining a Mary who was distant and removed from the troubles and hardships of the world. Likewise, the wily Mary who defended and conspired with the rebels is hard to reconcile with the Mary who assumedly composed this wonderful ode to peace on earth. So which version of Mary are we to believe in? Version one, the queen of the universe in training? Version two, the insurgent terrorist in training? Or Version three, the perfectly ordinary Mary, who by the grace of God accomplished extraordinary things in her everyday life?
You can see my bias in the way I framed the question, of course. Give me the Mary who had to learn to find her way through this world of toil and trouble. Give me the Mary who got up every day to work herself to the point of exhaustion just in order to survive. Give me the Mary who had a knot in the pit of her stomach every time she went with her family to the Temple, hoping there wouldn’t be any dying or dead rebels posted along the way. Give me the Mary whose heart was breaking for her family and for her people, and who felt so small and helpless to do anything to change the course of history.
That’s the Mary I can connect with. That’s the Mary who inspires me with her thrilling words: My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me – Holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He had performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
I like the third version of Mary, the one whose faith in God had shaped the living of her days and swept the dirt floor to make room for God in her life. I like the Mary who was willing to endure the scorn and shame of her neighbors for the privilege of seeing God at work in her life and in the lives of people around her. I like the Mary whose gaze swings almost immediately to the forgotten and overlooked people of the world, who intuitively senses that this new thing that God is doing is not designed for the rich and powerful of the world, but for those whom life had abused, and terrorized, and humiliated.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his bonded servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to us. May this same God come to us and to our leaders this year. And may we, like Mary of old, be willing to sweep the corners of our days to make room for God’s coming to us.
Order of Service Sermon
30 Nov 2008
Welcome, Announcements, Joys & Concerns
A Prayer for Peace Family #197 (Verse 1)
Opening Prayer
Leader: Today begins the season of Advent, a season in which we watch, with hope and longing, for the Lord to enter into our world.
People: We hear again the prophet’s cry, “Prepare the way of the Lord; prepare a highway for our God.”
Leader: We thank you, O God, for the prophets of old who reminded us of your ways and showed us your love and mercy.
People: Open the eyes and ears of our hearts, Lord, that the prophecies of old may speak to us anew.
Leader: In your spirit of healing and wholeness, redeem and transform our world.
People: Come to your children, whose cries echo through the darkness for you.
Leader: Come to shake us awake and to nudge us toward the dawn, so we may shine as reflections of your light.
People: Let your light shine upon us, giving us hope and banishing our despair.
Hymn Family #169 O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
Responsive Prayer
Leader: The season of your advent, Good Shepherd, comes once again. Come once again, and feed your hungry flock.
People: Come once again, and gather up the orphaned, the oppressed, the sick, the lonely, the humble, and the rejected of the earth.
Leader: Give to us all, dear God, a sense of your presence and peace.
People: In the dark night of the world’s anguish, we pray to you out of our need.
Leader: Hear us as we come, intensely alone, yet holding hands in the darkness, making one another’s cares our own.
People: Guide our way, dear God, for we live in troubled times, where wars and conflicts never seem to cease.
Leader: We pray for the unrest in India. We pray for all those whose loved ones were killed or held hostage in Mumbai this week.
People: We pray with concern for the financial crisis in our country and throughout the world.
Leader: Guide our nation’s leaders. Give them wisdom and insight into the handling of this and other crises and conflicts in the world.
Pastoral Prayer, Lord’s Prayer
Hymn Family #168 Come, Thou Long Expected
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19, Isaiah 64:1-9, Luke 1:26-45
Sermon Mary (Version 8.3)
Offering, Doxology, Dedication
Hymn Family #239 Lift Up Your Heads
Benediction
Leader: Holy God, by sending Jesus into the world, you have sent light into our long night of darkness.
People: May your light always shine upon us: to nourish us, to guide us, to teach us the ways we should go.
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