Birthing God: Going Public
12/18/05
Buddy Summers,
Christ Church Uniting,
Introduction
For
the fourth and last time, this season at least---How can Mary, as we
encounter her in Luke, help us understand what it would mean for us to be
called to bear God’s love and grace into our world?
When I say “bearing God’s love into our world”, I’m not talking about random acts of kindness, generosity or self-sacrifice. Such events are important. They do convey God’s love, impact others positively, and reveal a great deal about who we really are, but it’s not the random acts that interest me here.
By a close reading of Mary’s story, we are trying to learn more about the long term or even open ended commitment which we are sometimes invited (we might even say “sometimes called”) to make. It’s a God-bearing commitment that expresses not so much who-we-are as who-we-may-yet-become.
Marriage, parenthood, choice of work do impact who we become. And yet such commitments may or may not have included a conscious “yes” to God. For many, they do.
Being ordained as a church officer, being baptized or confirmed, or simply being received as an adult member of the church, however, does involve saying “yes” to God. Many times, a human need so speaks to us that saying “yes” and getting involved more deeply is a yes to “Gabriel.”
Mary’s “yes” led
not only to pregnancy but to a relationship with God and a path that
transformed her well beyond ordinary maturity.
A “yes” to God, which most, if not all of us, have already given in one
form or another, has the same power to transform our lives and, through us, the
world in which we live. In this, the prayer
is being answered, “Thy kingdom come, thy
will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Transformation, the dawning of God’s reign in our world, is the deeper meaning and significance of “bearing God’s love and grace into our world.” Transformation is what faith (trusting in God) does.
By your grace O God, may we, having said
“yes” to You, persevere. May a lifetime
of trust in you (and the Body of Christ) make us pregnant many times over with
justice, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Going Public
Luke’s story of the
Presentation of the Baby Jesus in the
As you probably now
realize, the story has more complexity than we might have imagined upon first
reading. Parts of this story are
confused. Purification does not have to
take place in the
Today, however, I’m only interested in following the story as it’s written and where it leads, or more specifically, following Mary and asking what can we learn about the life journey of bearing God’s grace and love, particularly insofar as it requires Going Public.
To modern ears, “Going Public” sounds like something you do when you announce candidacy for public office (I will run. If elected, I will serve), bring to market a new product (you really need this one!), or make an IPO (initial public offering of shares in a successful business venture.) And while these are common events in the schemes of things and while God’s calling often leads onto political stages and into economic arenas, what I mean by “going public” is closer to what is meant by “public worship.”
The Greek word for public worship is “liturgy.” (Literally, “the people’s work” or simply “public service.”) Public worship is taking your love for God and your trust in the Body of Christ out into the open---coming out in the public arena. Coming out in word and deeds of love is what it means “to glorify God.”
Remember your Catechism? Question One:
Q.
What is the main thing?
A. The main thing is to glorify God and enjoy [God] forever.
OK, I substituted “main thing” for “chief end of man,” but you knew what I meant. The main thing in life is to glorify God.
Glorifying God, taking your love for God and your trust in the Body of Christ out into the open, is a public act. It can only be done in public, and obviously, not just in a formal worship service but, in words and deeds performed in the public arena.
God is glorified as the source of generous abundance when, for example, a church offers a no strings attached gift of a Great Hawaiian Snow Day to all the people in its surrounding neighborhood.
Going Public brings great challenges which, while they may seem overwhelming to some, threatening to others, invite us to a deeper level of commitment and understanding and portend great blessings for those in the world around us.
There have been times, I’m sad to say, when I’ve backed off from Going Public out of fear or fatigue. I’ve said, “It’s too much. I can’t go there.” God help us. We ministers (and as Protestants, we know we are all ministers) back away too often, I think, from the hot potato even when Gabriel drops it in our proverbial laps.
Getting Your Hands Dirty
Mary’s story teaches us that going public means that you will “get your hands dirty.” Giving birth to her firstborn made Mary ritually unclean (i.e. technically impure) in the eyes of God according to her religious community. The condition of being unclean meant being estranged (quarantined) from one’s community.
You might have thought that the myth of God’s having squeezed through a birth canal would have revalued childbirth. Rather than making a woman ritually unclean, childbirth would be seen to make a woman ritually superior. Rather than a new mother being cut off from her community on account of the messiness of childbirth, she would be elevated in status. Poor unfortunate men, to make up for their biological deficit, would then need some extra ritual juice in order to stand with the true community.
One would have thought. Actually, the Mother of God was considered dirty until rendered otherwise, by the intercession of a (male) priest. So, I say that “bearing God” involves “getting your hands dirty.”
Yesterday, CCU provided all comers with a wonderful experience of good clean fun in the snow. For families, it was a welcome no hassle break from the multiple distresses of what is supposed to be a season of good cheer. Fathers, mothers and children came---also grandmothers, aunties, uncles, teenagers and tourists from the mainland. By five PM, thirteen hundred persons had passed through the front lanai. Not only were people enormously grateful, they brought gifts and left monetary donations for children in shelters.
Going public with Snow Day meant getting our hands and the carpet dirty. We were way outside our collective comfort and control zone.
- Through Jeff we dealt with merchants all over town.
- We received and sold a sailboat to pay for the snow.
- So school principals could let Snow Day invitations go home with children, we moved away from last year’s theme “Jesus’ Birthday Party” to “Great Hawaiian Snow Day.”
- We put up a sign on the highway that might not have been in accordance with sign ordnances.
- We partnered again with the Pentecostals.
In line with our Vision, we were building community, birthing God. It was messy!
This morning we’re still reeling. The sheer delight of Snow Day was apropos of Jesus’ birthday and a people who worship a gracious and generous God. We were wasted. God was glorified.
There Will Be Pain
Simeon’s word to Mary must not be forgotten. It is a prophetic word to everyone who consents to be a God-bearer, to everyone who says “so may it be” to their angel Gabriel.
There will be
pain. A sword will pierce your heart.
Why does anybody have to get hurt?
Isn’t there a plan B. Sounds like
Jesus in the
In Mary’s case, her
child outgrew her. When Jesus seemed to
be out of control (sounds like Snow Day again), his mother went to rein him in,
get him to eat and rest. Even though we
now can see that he may well have been praising her at the level of her trust
in God (thinking back to her consent to bear him) rather than dismissing her
prerogative as his birth mother, it no doubt hurt Mary when Jesus said, “Who is my mother? Whoever does the will of God is my
mother.”
He had a work to do. It was not given to Mother Mary, his mom, to approve his work in advance or protect him from the consequences. And in the end, there was no protecting Mary either from the consequences of having borne Jesus into the world. The day would come when she would see her son reviled, arrested, brutalized, and executed.
Simeon has a word here for all of us who have given (or who might yet give) ourselves to God in the Body of Christ. A sword will pierce our hearts too. We are imperfect, incomplete in ourselves. We have this treasure, but we have it in earthen vessels. Our ministries, our good work, will outlast us. Hopefully our spiritual offspring will surpass us in depth of understanding and practice.
Someday we will crack and return to dust. And yet, as long as we live, and so far as possible, we can press on knowing that, by God’s grace we will have been carrying the sweet treasure of God’s grace and love into our world, giving birth to God’s world on earth.
And dying, we shall rest, continuing to trust in the God who called us.
Conclusion
Going public, as we learn from Mary, involves getting dirty and the promise of not a little pain. Why would anyone do it?
I can only answer for myself: Because it is life changing and because it is world changing, and because the angel appeared from God saying
“Blessings Beloved, Aloha Nui Loa, have I
got a life for you.”
Thank you again Mary for you place in our story, for all that we have learned from you, and for persisting in our imaginations and lives in Jesus’ name.
