Jeremiah 33: 14-16
Psalm 25
Luke 21: 25-36

“Living into Hope”

Happy New Year!

Welcome to the season of Advent.

We begin the season of Advent in hope, with these words from scripture, "the days are surely coming." We begin in our dark world with words of light. We begin in a conflicted world with words of peace. We begin in sadness, but Advent calls us to pause in in order to hear words of joy. The God whose voice rings out in the first verses of Genesis, speaks once again, and in contrast to what is, proclaims what can be. Let there be light.

Welcome to Advent. Once again we imagine the world, not as it is, but as it could be; the world as God intends it to be. In Advent we live into its promise. Advent is a hard time for many churches because it is so hard to wait. Most, if not all, students of mainline theological schools have long been taught that Advent and Christmas are two different seasons and Christmas Carols belong to the next season, not to Advent. In my three years in theological school, I don't think we ever sang Christmas Carols in community worship because, like most Canadian universities, we had no classes between Christmas and New Years and most of us were spending time with our families. BUT, we knew that this was not a reality in most United churches. The world in which we live seems to want to celebrate Christmas as soon as we turn over that last page of the calendar and we think the church should too - and then as soon as we wake up on boxing day, we are ALL done with it. The world is tired of carols. (Though, to be fair, the world seems to prefer "Jingle Bells" or "Frosty the Snowman" to, "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "Silent Night".) No one schedules a Christmas party for after December 25! Some folks have had their tree up for so long, they have to get it out of the house before it becomes a fire hazard - even if the "Christmas tree collection" is not till January.

In the church, the reality is that we don't get to spend much time IN Christmas. This year our worship committee has decided to cancel service on December 26 because so many people are away with family or doing other things.

Colleagues of mine had a baby a few weeks ago; several of you have welcomed grandchildren in the last few weeks and I hear of others who are expecting a new arrival soon. Each is, or will be "the sweetest, "bestest", "most special" baby ever born"! And, of course, all of those accolades are completely correct! But before the parents and grandparents blink the baby will be growing and walking and cutting teeth and saying, NO! and ME DO IT MYSELF!

At this time, we cannot help but think of sweet little baby Jesus, but really, that's not what Advent is about - not even what Christmas is about. It's certainly not really what having children is about. Years ago I was talking to a relative as she sorted some clothing in her child's closet. Many outfits, some with tags still attached, were taken off the hangers, set aside to be put in a box. Too small! Too small! These special outfits had been purchased or received as gifts but even before they could be worn they were already too small. It's what is supposed to happen. We all know the bitter-sweet reality of the folk songs, "Cats in the Cradle" or "Turn Around". Blink and you miss it! The lectionary readings march on and before we know it, Jesus is a grown up. To be fair childhood or young adult stories about Jesus just aren’t there; they were not recorded because they were not seen as important. The Gospel writers focused almost entirely on Jesus' ministry and how he was seen as the fulfilment of the promises of the ancient prophets.

So, let's be patient and sit with Advent and Advent hopes for a while. Advent hopes are cosmic and world shattering. The people of Israel seemed to go through a perpetual cycle - from faithfulness to complacency, to sin, to disaster. to restoration, to sin, to new promise, to faithfulness, to complacency, and around and around. Don't we all?!

The biblical story is about God's persistent action on the part of the people that God has called and how God seeks again and AGAIN to restore this relationship for the good of all creation. Some of the passages that, to us, are obviously about Jesus, are originally about another leader who sought to lead and guide the people.

The biblical story lays the sins of the people of Israel on the table for all to see but it also offers the hope of a restored relationship. In the words of hope given to them so long ago we can find words of hope that are relevant for us, thousands of years later.

We often think of prophets as people who tell the future but that's not entirely accurate. Prophets don’t say, "On December 2 you will win the lottery", or "On December 2 you will have a flat tire", or "on December 2 your dishwasher will explode with the good china inside". Prophets might say, "child-proof your house so that your child is safe". Of course, some children can defeat the child proof lids on pill bottles that defeat gramma's arthritic hands, but the advice to childproof is a kind of prophecy. "Study harder or your will fail your exams," is a word of prophecy. Another word of prophecy is, "things will get better, they will be different, but they will be better." When spoken to a wet and windblown people who are mourning the loss of houses, or communities, they are a prophecy of hope, especially if they are spoken BY people bringing a listening ear, a warm blanket, a bag of groceries or big machines, building materials and able workers. In these kinds of situations, the word of hope sometimes tells people they have to move somewhere else or the disasters will keep happening to them; "living on this flood plain is no longer wise". Even if the word is one of major change, it can still be a word of hope.

On the CBC radio program, the Current, on Wednesday morning, they interviewed people from High River, Alberta as a way of allowing the experience of one, once flooded an devastated community, now back on its feet, to speak to the people of BC who have just been devastated by flooding. Stories of survival and resilience can be prophetic and can speak to a people who are currently in despair.

Sometimes the hope does not come from, "you will survive this," but from words which assure: "you are not alone." When working in a palliative care context doctors, nurses, chaplains and family members offer a different kind of hope, but hope, nonetheless.

One of the names that is often spoken at this time of year is "Emmanuel". Emmanuel is a Hebrew word which means, "God with us". "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is a prayer for God's presence and God's never ending hope to be brought to bear in seeming the darkness of our present moment. Even if there is no darkness in our lives, metaphorically speaking, the world is getting darker and darker. In our northern hemisphere, each day brings us fewer and fewer minutes of daylight, until the winter solstice, or longest night, brings us the least amount. On December 24, the darkness lifts, so to speak, and the church proclaims the birth of the "light of the world."

Of course, since the milky way was formed and this planet began to spin on its axis, the seasons and the days have been coming and going in this manner - long before human civilization. Since we don’t REALLY know when Jesus was born it was a logical connection - the light of the world comes when the light is returning to the world - and even pagan cultures knew it and celebrated it. The fact that the early church kind of took it over, does not make it any less special.

For those suffering from a sleepless anxiety or depression, the first rays of dawn are a welcome sight. As they say, "its always darkest just before the dawn", so Jesus comes when we are downright fed-up, sick and tired, at the end of our rope, just about done in! That is hope!

There is hope.

Emmanuel will come.

The God of heaven and earth cares and acts to give hope to a people living in darkness! Psst, I'll let you in on a secret, "this hope can even come in mid- June!" We celebrate it at this time of wear by waiting for it with intention and our eyes wide open.

As far as Christmas goes, we have a lot of things attached to it that we don't really need. The stores are filled with high-priced goodies for our Christmas parties. There are lots of ads on TV and internet for the hottest and best Christmas toy for the kiddos. There are ads so you can buy for that special person in your life! The not so subtle message is, "you have to send money at our store to have a good Christmas". But, I'll remind you once again that we don't need to blow our budget for Christmas; or max out our credit cards, saddling ourselves with debt till next October, or fill our lives with so much activity that we are exhausted come January 26! We cannot buy Christmas - unless it is the gifts we truly give away - to the foodbank, or to others in need. It’s hard to teach Children that Christmas is about more than stuff, especially if you CAN afford the stuff and their friends and getting the gifts they want. It's hard to be the one who is different. It's hard to march to the beat of a different drummer! Like Kermit the frog sings, "it isn't easy being green".

We are all familiar with the first story of creation in the book of Genesis. The repeated refrain is "God saw that it was good". Creation's default state is "good." Environmental awareness of late has told us that human action has changed and altered this good start off to the point where creation is now hurting itself. Torrential rains on both coasts in the past week have caused much devastation - far worse in BC. Species are becoming extinct at a rapid rate. Many mornings in the summer we woke to smoke from far away forest fires. The list goes on.

But there is hope.

Mary and Joseph struck out on a different path; the biblical story tells us about some of those differences - yet hope persevered and Jesus grew to proclaim God's good news of hope, peace, love and joy to all people.

For this we can say, "thanks be to God".

Amen.

Malachi 3: 1-4
Luke 1 (Song of Zechariah)
Luke 3: 1-6

In the Fullness of Time!

When I was a child I learned this little rhyme: “in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” This rhyme helped me to remember when exactly Columbus set out on his voyage of discovery and, totally lost, supposedly “discovered” America.

If the western world had not fixed on a universal dating system that same “fact” might have had to be remembered something like this: In the 18th year of the reign of Queen Isabella 1st of Spain, the 28th year of the reign of King Edward 4th of England, the 23rd year of the reign of Manuel 1 or Portugal, and the 22nd year of the reign of Charles the 8th of France, and just before the first year of the papacy of Pope Alexander 6th, Columbus set sail to find a way to the “east”, by going west. It’s a good thing for elementary school history students in the western world that we still don’t record time that way.

The gospel of Luke begins by setting the story of Jesus in the context of the powerful people of that day: an emperor, a governor, three tetrarchs and two high priests. Most of the people for whom Luke was writing would have agreed that, “these men held ALL the worldly power!” Into this reality of political and military power, Jesus comes, in true peace.

Everywhere they went, average citizens were reminded of the power of the state and of the temple; powers which seemed to be concerned only with keeping the peace and funneling the wealth to the top!

Years after Jesus’ actual birth, Luke sat down to write his Gospel, proclaiming that the birth of this ordinary child and his eventual ministry would proclaim a completely different vision. In short; into the context of brutal and uncaring power came a child of peace. Nothing about this baby spoke of power. This baby was from a small group of people which had not been a world power, or even a local one, for many generations. Not only did they have no power, but they lived in a land occupied by the mighty and brutal power of Rome. Luke’s assertion, from the beginning of is that this child would make a difference; this baby would cause people to sit up and take notice. This baby could change the world.

However, today’s reading is not really about the birth of this child, but about the preaching of the one whose calling it was to “prepare the way” for the ministry of the grown up Jesus; his distant cousin John; the “wild man” of the wilderness who saw it as his mission and calling to “make straight the paths.”

Are there any Downton Abbey fans here? Do you remember when King George and Queen invited themselves for a visit to the estate? The palace sent people to Downton to make sure everything was prepared appropriately. In essence, where it came to the formal dinner, the plan was that the Downton staff and menu were to be shoved aside and replaced with something deemed to be more appropriate for the Royal couple. At the end of the day, after some subterfuge, and much hi jinx, the Downton staff proved they were up to the task and no one got fired! Only on TV as they say!

As a culture we are accustomed to preparing for Christ’s birth at this time of year. We decorate, buy gifts, and, if it were not for COVID, go to lots of Christmas parties and Christmas concerts and events. We drive around to see Christmas lights or other displays. It’s the season after all.

But today we are not talking about those kinds of preparations.

In my ministry I have worked with many couples who are planning their wedding. I try to emphasize that they need to focus on preparing for MARRIAGE which is for a lifetime, in its intention , rather than getting things organized for a WEDDING which is a day, or a weekend, at best.

So lets consider the other preparations we can do this season: other than the tree, the turkey and the tinsel. What are the basics? Lets get down to brass tacks!

The passage, quoted by John, is from the writings of the great prophet Isaiah and the images it uses are from road-building. In the aftermath of the bus crash, involving a busload of hockey players and a peat moss truck at Armley corner in 2018, there were calls to have that intersection fixed so that such an accident is less likely in the future. Eventually they made some improvements and the intersection should now be safer.

When I was in junior high there was extensive work done on the country road that ran by our house. Before they paved the road, they took a large amount of fill from my father’s fields to built the road up. They tore down a building that had been a blacksmith shop in a previous era and they replaced an older, narrow bridge to allow for a much wider road. They built a culvert underneath the existing bridge and then dynamited the old one off the top. Two things I remember about that is: ONE, how much each blast would startle my grandmother, and, TWO, how much fun it was to set off the dynamite. It was fun to “push the plunger” on the blasting machine the workers had connected to each charge. Im not sure kids would be allowed to be involved these days!

Road building in the days of picks and shovels and beasts of burden must have been extraordinarily difficult. Bringing up valleys and making the high places level would not have been easily done.

The question for us this day is: how we answer the call to participate in God’s preparation for the good news of this new world?

We are reading this passage as a community of faith, as a church. What can we do to make paths level? First I think we need to look at the very basics of being a welcoming church. Most churches have an “all welcome” sign out front, but do not necessarily live up to their sign.

Some churches have stairs everywhere and you have to be able to climb stairs to get in or to get around in the building. Our elevator helps a great deal with that. A good sound system helps people who are hard of hearing to hear the service. If a church has only screens there needs to be backup copies of the bulletin in large print for those who cant see the screens. Particularly during COVID, when you cant always sit where you want, there need to be options. “One size fits all” solutions are no good when you realize that the term is an oxymoron! It taint true! if you are the one they leave out!

A number of years ago a new family came to my church from Europe and wnglish was their third language. They did not make many requests of us, but one of them was to print out the Lord’s prayer in English so they could practice and then be able to follow along with those of us who had been saying it in church since we were 5! They were church people and could do it as well, just not in English. She tells me that she still has that piece of paper as a memento of their first years in Canada.

In one of my churches we had a welcome sign on our lawn that welcomed “campers” and encouraged, “come as you are”.

Our welcome of others reflects the good news we believe about God’s love for all people. How do we welcome others into the community and our country. One of the things that has been pointed out in the last few years is that a lot of advertising has long been is geared to young, good looking, Caucasian people. You may notice a lot more diversity in ads lately. If someone sees someone that looks like them in an ad, they are much more likely to think that the product could be for them. When we take pictures of our congregations to be used by our denomination as a whole, we are encouraged to include as much diversity as possible: adults, children, seniors, teens, people of colour, indigenous, differently abled and so on. Just about anyone should be able to look at such a picture and say, “I would feel welcome there”!

Preparing the way for the Christ to come to us is not an exercise in the “same old, same old”; it’s an adventure of change and adjustment.

As another example, years ago, our churches all used the King James Version and hymns full of thees and thous. As a teenager, my faith was expanded and sparked and grew when I learned new and upbeat songs and heard the bible in words I could understand. As I read the lyrics of the pieces in More Voices and the newer hymns in Voices United I see the biblical stories and images contained in them in new ways and their theology speaks to me as the older hymns do not. I also realize that I am now in the category of “older” as I can count my years in ministry in the low 30s. A few of the colleagues I interact with on my weekly Zoom calls, were not even born when I was ordained.

When I was in school we read a book “Will Our Children Have Faith?” John Westerhoff, and then, in response to that another book, “Will our faith have Children” Walter Brueggemann. The titles speak for themselves!

To state the obvious, road-building assumes change. Following Jesus assumes change. However it’s change with the assurance that we are not alone. God is with us. Always.

Amen.

Philippians 4: 4-7
Isaiah 12
Luke 3: 7-18

Searching for Joy?

You bunch of “low-lifes” - who told you to come here today? Do you think that it will earn you favor with God by dragging yourself out of bed to come to church in your best bib and tucker, looking all prim and proper? Do you think that you are really hiding your real self? Do you think that you are more special because your family has been going to this church since the foundation of our building was laid? Are you better than the folks who started coming last week? God will get all of you!

Are you sitting up and taking notice, now? I hope so. But please know I was just channelling John the Baptizer. His preaching leaps off the pages penned by Luke and startles us; at least it startles me. It was not very “nice”. If I preached that kind of sermon, the M&P Committee would be getting a lot of calls!!!!

But, John was a man on a mission and he didn’t have time to waste; his preaching was not designed to win friends and influence people but to prepare the way for the Messiah! As a colleague of mine said on Tuesday, “only John could get away with it.”

Yet, John was not preaching in a church; he was in the middle of nowhere, in the wilderness. His crowd was definitely a “mixed bag”. As may have been typical of desert preachers, he offered a baptism of repentance and his was in the waters of the dirty Jordan river.

I remember the day I forgot to ask someone to bring warm water from home for a baptism in one of my churches. Their pipes were, shall we say, less than stellar! I ran the tap but the water was about as clear as weak tea. Contrary to my usual method of using an abundant amount of water, that day I barely got the baby’s head wet. Baby was much too young to be out playing in the mud!

Baptism was not a new thing to the people of John’s day. I gather that being baptized was a sign that you were beginning a new life and that people could be, and sometimes were, baptized at more than one change in life or we like some people who respond to each and every “altar call”.

Going to the wilderness alone can be a time to focus on what is important; to decide what is important in the first place. In the wilderness the normal distractions of life are gone. As I understand it, many indigenous cultures had some kind of wilderness experience integrated into coming of age rituals. Some call such a time a “vision quest”. Hungry, bug bitten, sore from sleeping on the ground, you might say, you are more interested in whatever message God might have for you. Additionally, banishing someone to the wilderness, for a time, was a form of punishment for bad behaviour. When a person learned what he or she needed to, they came back, a new person. Preaching professor, Audrey West has said that it is in the wilderness where “human need meets God’s gracious provision”. I like that, “human need meets God’s gracious provision”.

We are getting closer and closer to Christmas; where is the time going? Remember though, Advent is not just about waiting for baby Jesus it is about awaiting the bringing in of God’s Realm, or some would still say God’s Kingdom.

On this third Sunday of Advent we are given the opportunity to contemplate, once again, what it would be like to live in a world as God has envisioned it. Our Christmas Carols sing of peace on earth and joy to the world and envision a world transformed.

Yet, we know that we do not live in that world.

Today, when we light the Advent Candle, we refer to it as the candle of joy. The Philippians passage and the Psalm are clearly passages of joy; Luke’s, joy is harder to hear!

Where is the joy in God’s promises, when they have not come to pass? Where is our joy when, in an uncertain COVID world, things could change with the discovery of the next variant, and our plans are scuttled because they are deemed to be “unsafe” by our government and thus forbidden. The news on Thursday morning advised people to keep Christmas celebrations small, and to open a window for better air circulation! Is it joy or smug satisfaction when our test comes back negative, after we have played with fire? What test is that, you ask. Does it matter, I answer!

When I think of Christmas joy, I think of the face of a child or an elder, not just at Christmas, but at any time he or she sees something that elicits wonder and awe or sees someone they did not expect to see.

There are hundreds, or even thousands of short videos on facebook of homecomings and probably the most common are of military dads coming home at unexpected times. When the child realizes that dad is inside the big box on the door step or has come on stage at the school concert, or something else has been cooked up as a surprise, the joy on the child’s face is unmistakable.

Yet, there are many others this Christmas who are either searching in vain for joy or who do not have the energy to even think about looking for it For those who are grieving a loss, joy is hard to find. For those who are seriously ill, joy is hard to find. For a lot of reasons, joy can be hard to find. Sometimes you are in the wilderness a long time before you hear the words of God’s joyful possibility.

There is a Wayfair.ca commercial on TV, and of course it’s trying to sell something, but it’s one of those commercials with a stronger message about joy in the midst of loneliness. An older man has refuses to change the family tradition of having Christmas sinner at his house and insists that HE IS up to it, and prepares the meal himself. Well, the preparation IS beyond him until he buys a new bright red stand mixer, to replace his old, hand mixer; a purchase which makes everything perfect! The family arrive and after the meal sit down to watch a home movie in which an older couple are seen dancing in their kitchen. If you look quickly you will see that an old yellow hand mixer leans on the bowl! He puts his grandchild on his knee and points out to her, “that’s your gramma and she was the best at the holidays”.

The joy comes after some almost overwhelming frustration, a few tears and then managing to get it all done and the family being together. Oh yes, the new mixer helped too!

In 2020, a pharmaceutical company in the Netherlands produced a commercial in which an older man decides he needs to get in shape; we don’t know why. He takes up walking and eventually running and weight lifting, using an old “kettle ball weight”. At the beginning he can barely move this weight off of the floor but eventually, after many weeks, is able to lift it up over his head and away from him. His nosy neighbour reports him to his daughter who is bewildered and concerned. As the ad ends, he puts on his best clothes and arrives at the family Christmas celebration. His granddaughter, about age 5, comes down the stairs. He gives her a gold box tied with a ribbon which she opens, revealing a star for the family Christmas tree. We see him experience the joy of being able to lift the child up, and away from him, so that she can put the star on the tree.

Not to be cynical, but most commercials are more obvious in their promotion of products that can be purchased, packaged, and presented and claim they will, in and of themselves, bring joy. These few seem to rise above it and speak of something deeper than ‘finding the right gift”.

When I think of many Christmas carols I am confronted with tremendous and supernatural images of stuff that never happens anywhere else but in this biblical story. 2000 years later, more or less, perhaps we have been fooled into thinking that joy only comes with angel choirs, stupefied shepherds and camel riding sages from afar. When we don’t see the spectacular, never-happening-again-moments-of-joy we are disappointed. What has happened though is that we miss what is right under our noses.

So what, if the story of a widower feeding his family Christmas dinner is not earthshattering, it is still one that contains joy.

So what, if lots of people go to great lengths to do the simplest things such as lifting a child to place a star, it is a moment of joy for those people.

I recall going to the hospital to visit someone, in a snowstorm, (the hospital was closer to the manse than the one in here in Nipawin, so the greatest effort was brushing the snow off of my car). When I arrived I saw a familiar blue K-car in the parking lot. A patient’s 80 something husband had braved the 25 km drive in a storm to visit his wife. I expressed surprise that he had come out on such a day and she responded, “I’m not surprised”. It wasn’t a “I take it for granted” kind of response but an expression of true gratitude and joy at seeing his face every day, no matter what the weather was like.

I might even say that these experiences are more important than angel choirs, bright stars and smelly shepherds showing up after supper. They are not someone else’s memories, they are very real and very possible for us, here in the cold of Saskatchewan.

The kind of joy I am talking about it the joy experienced when the bigger picture tells us there will be no joy. The man with the star to give his granddaughter would have had less joy if his son-in-law did the lifting. The joy would have been lessened had the widower accepted an invitation from his family instead of hosting them himself.

There would have been less joy if the elderly man phoned his wife and stayed home because of a “little snow”.

To experience the kind of joy that I am talking about is to risk sadness as we confront the reality of the human condition; the reality of our own condition.

When John berates the people for being a bunch of low-life snakes he does not leave them there. They respond with a “well, what DO you want from us?” and his response is tailored to their lives and vocations.

Tax collectors had a reputation for charging a higher fee than was a reasonable commission, becoming rich at the expense of their neighbours! Soldiers were known for extorting protection money from the locals or treating them harshly, because they could. There was a wide disparity between economic conditions with some having much more than they needed and some not even having the basic necessities.

There is joy in seeing these situations levelled out. There is joy in seeing the impossible, come to pass. There is joy in the midst of the most terrible tragedy.

Open my eyes that I may see.

Amen.

Micah 5: 2-5a
“Dreaming Mary”
Luke 1: 39-45

They Went With Haste!

“Call the Midwife” has become one of my favourite tv shows. Set in “Poplar”, an impoverished area of east London, a group of midwives working out of a mission sponsored by the Church of England, are often called to go with haste and assist a woman in labour. I believe the show is soon to begin its tenth season! In addition to the regular round of pre-natal work, labour and delivery, baby well-ness checks and community nursing, the show deals with things such as the upheaval caused by the discovery of an unexploded WWII bomb, what we now call PTSD, tuberculosis, polio, cystic fibrosis, botched back street abortions, still birth, chronic poverty, a Royal visit, dementia and a myriad of other difficulties, both professional and personal. Their work requires patience, compassion, courage and much wisdom.

At the end of a full term pregnancy, I am told that, many women reach a point where they say, “I just can’t do this for one more day,” but know that unless medical intervention is undertaken, the baby will only come in his or her own good time!

Advent is a time of waiting and we have been in Advent time for 4 Sundays; it’s time to have it over done with, isn’t it? However by the 9th month no one really wants it to be “over and done with”, but just to get on with the next phase. Things will never be the same again. Ah, yes! The NEXT phase. Of course, unless something tragic happens, the end of a pregnancy means a quick transition to a period of sleepless nights, 2 hour feedings, diapers, diapers and more diapers, and, for the first time parent, wondering if they are doing it right. Of course it also involves bonding, smiles, unending changes and great satisfaction. In due time the child moves on to a number of things which could include day care, play groups, school, hockey, dance lessons, and too soon, it always seems, are coming home with “babes of their own”. The cycle starts all over again! A family friend commented, “its not too long between your on going out the door with a hockey bag that he comes back in with a diaper bag.”

Right about now, many of us want baby Jesus to come and get it over with, or as they say on “Call the Midwife”, “done and dusted”. While we may want for Christmas to be over and done with - we’re all old enough to realize that it does not work that way. When one event comes, another follows in its wake; nothing in life, ever truly is a one of event, life just changes to a new phase.

In our scripture readings for today, our main characters are making haste for the arrival of the one who is to come. In some ways, Elizabeth’s response to Mary’s visit reminds me of sister Monica Joan, from “Call the Midwife” who is often forgetful and somewhat odd, but on occasion exceptionally wise and insightful.

It was her somewhat bizarre utterances that prompted Dr Turner to do the research needed to diagnose two children with Cystic Fibrosis and save their lives by getting them proper treatment for this little known condition..

On this Sunday, Elizabeth’s question is our question, “Who are we that the mother of our Lord should come to us?” We are told that somehow Elizabeth’s unborn child recognized that the baby Mary was carrying was going to be the fulfilment of God’s age old promises to the people of Israel. Of course, part of the “Hail Mary”, a prayer learned by Roman Catholic children, and their babysitters, comes from this passage!

I said, “and their babysitters” because when I was a teenager, I babysat on a regular basis for a Catholic family who took their church commitment very seriously. On the first night I was there, one of their requests was that the children, two boys, say bedtime prayers. I believe we agreed on the “Our Father” and “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep”. Bed time came, but “No way” was that plan going to work! The youngest boy wanted to say the “Hail Mary” at bed time. When I told him that I did not know it, he looked at me like I was a total ignoramus, but then, he ran and got an illustrated version for children and we learned it together.

At this time of year, we can be like Elizabeth, aware of our opportunities to meet the holy in our midst and how it often comes to us unawares. Elizabeth, and all people of her village and the villages around her, would have learned of these hopes when they were childen, and had been believing them, for generations! Yet, I suspect that some, perhaps many, had long doubted that they would ever come true! They were the pipe dreams of a forgotten era.

The Victorian poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, wrote,

 “Earth is crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees
Takes off his shoes –
The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.” 

We are called to be the people who take off their shoes, who sit up and take notice; the ones who see the holy. We are called to be the people who believe that the age old promises are being fulfilled as we speak, right now, right here, in the freezing cold of a Saskatchewan winter.

A few years ago the Salvation Army put out a few print ads with the caption, “we see what most don’t”. One ad features a very cold looking park bench and another a plain brick wall. On second look though, a man is sleeping on that bench and a family is huddled against the wall. Their reminder, in a world where everyone wants WiFi, is that everyone should have a home, enough to eat, and love. Others of their ads remind us of hidden poverty: the waitress or the hotel maid who work long hours but still cannot support their families. Of course the need is there year round, worse in the cold months, but it is in this season of waiting for baby Jesus that we seem to notice it more.

We are reminded by the nightly news of the needs of others, in other places. Of the entire communities floodewd and destroyed in BC and the havoc caused by the destruction of major highhways. And there was that series of tornadoes in the U.S. All of these disasters have a face, or manyu faces, which call us to respond in love and generosity.

One year at Berwick camp a child became ill. The grandmother took her temperature and then made a beeline, with much haste I might add, to a cottage on another part of the campground where a doctor she knew was staying. Thankfully the doctor suggested that only acetaminophen and fluids were needed and all was well. With a sick child, particularly a grandchild, the haste was fed by worry and the different sense of responsibility that exists when it’s not your own child.

This is often a season of haste; haste to get the right gift before they are all gone; haste to get everything done that is on our list, haste to get it done so one can relax and, eventually, haste to get it over with for another year.

Yet Mary’s was a haste to have confirmed for her the good news, that had kept her people going, and now was coming to pass. She wanted to see that the good news was true. She probably also wanted to be free of the wagging tongues who could all add to 9 and who would never believe a story about this baby being anything special. She went with haste to see the one who she knew would be supportive. She went to see the one who would truly understand. She went to see the other woman with the amazing, surprising and downright impossible pregnancy. Like Sarah, long ago, Elizabeth and her husband were no spring chickens and knew, that God’s hand was active in this pregnancy in a special way.

Mary wanted to she the one who would mirror her truth back to her. You are going to be the mother of the one who will save us all?

Have you ever gone to see something over which you could barely contain your curiosity and joy. You hear that a long awaited event is about to happen. Or you buy that must-have toy or item. How long does the lustre last? Hummmmm!

One of the things we need to be reminded of in this passage is that this salvation and changes promised by the birth of this baby is earth shattering, but in no way private and personal. These magnificent words are a promise to the whole world, the world as God intended it to be.

Christianity should be about the transformation of the whole world, abundant life for all of creation, not just a select few. These are not promises just about a personal relationship where all one is concerned with is the destiny of their immortal soul.

There is plenty of evidence, if we have the eyes to see, that people are hungry and need food.

There is plenty of evidence, if we have the ears to hear, that the needy are crying out for companionship, and shelter, and love.

The promises are being fulfilled in our hearing. But not by “magic”; God’s promises are fulfilled when they are lived into being by those who believe in them. When people of faith gather to share in the joy of these things coming to pass, the poor are fed and thirsty given drink. When people of faith gather they will find that the mountains and moats that have kept people apart, have been levelled out. The rich may be feeling left out because their entitlements to luxury have been trumped by the poor receiving good, nutritious food! Perhaps the rich don’t like that, but its been in the scriptures for thousands of years; the Gospel and the Hebrew Scriptures before that!

The Magnificat talks about the world coming full circle and God’s ways truly becoming ours.

In a few days we will read about the shepherds who heard and saw angel choirs and then went with haste to see this new thing that was happening. I believe those are the only two places where the phrase “went with haste” appear in the English Bible. But what a great phrase!

Late last week I heard that what I would call “normal visiting” at the Pineview Lodge was now allowed and so, on Wednesday I went with haste, to go and visit for the first time in about 21 months. It was a glorious feeling. The residents would love to see you all!

Trust me! But don’t all go at once!

In this era of COVID we can mourn the losses and sacrifices our restrictions expect of us, or we can enter this season with haste, so to speak, looking forward who what it does have to say to us. We can choose to be sad and cranky because “we” are here and “they” are stuck somewhere else, or we can look at God’s glorious acts we can see and touch and hear, all around us! We can do nothing, as we wait for COVID to finally pass, or we can make an effort to work within the guidelines and raise up the lowly and bring down the barriers that separate us - in safe and acceptable ways!

Where are God’s unsettling promises coming to pass? Go with haste and see for yourselves. Emmanuel will come to us! Thanks be to God.

Amen.