Sermons

“Love Has Consequences”

Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:39-56 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – December 23, 2018

 Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we might welcome the transformative power of your love and be made anew.  In the name of the One coming into the world we pray, Amen.

Some of you have been reading along this season with our Advent devotional “I Am Mary”, written by Presbyterian pastor and writer Carol Howard Merritt.  With a short piece every day, it’s a great way to get into the details of the few verses we have about Mary’s experience.  In her introduction, Carol tells us how she’s wanted to write this devotional since she was pregnant with her daughter Calla during Advent seventeen years ago.  She reflects on Mary’s part of the Christmas story from the unique perspective of the heightened senses of pregnancy.  I am friends with Carol on Facebook, so I’ve had the privilege of seeing posts she’s made about what she wrote and why over the past weeks.  One of the most interesting posts was about how she spent time imagining each character’s distinctive smells, which the hormones of pregnancy can make more noticeable.  Mary, she said, smelled of roots, earth, and sweat; the Angel Gabriel of smoke and blossoms.

But as we sit here on the precipice of Christmas, I’m realizing that the thing this devotional has reminded me of most is how strange it is for us to talk about the “long wait” through the four weeks of Advent for Christmas to come.  Starting as she does with the annunciation, Carol Howard Merritt’s scenes really begin back in March.  Can you imagine a nine-month season of Advent?  Waiting for a baby to be born is the longest many of us ever wait for anything.  Parents who adopt often wait even longer.  And here we are acting like it’s such a relief to finally light that fourth candle!

And yet, when we read Mary’s words about what God is doing in having her bear Jesus, we realize that we’ve been waiting forever, and in many ways, we’ll still be waiting after Tuesday.  There is a reason we have Christmas over and over again, every year.  Once wasn’t enough.  The powerful are still on their thrones; the rich haven’t been emptied out yet.  The hungry are hungry again, and mercy is in short supply.  We do this every year, and yet it never quite seems to stick.

And that’s just it.  That is the call of Christmas.  Mary is telling us what it’s all about, what God’s love looks like in the world, and we celebrate it like an event; but really it’s a process, a really long process.  Carol Howard Merritt has Mary witnessing Elizabeth’s delivery, surrounded by midwives and good care in her home, and finding encouragement in that.  But then, her own time comes, and she’s in a barn, with just her new husband, and in a bit of understatement, Mary thinks, “This was not what I had imagined.”  Can you imagine if we spent nine months preparing for Christmas, and then on December 26^th it turned out “Peace and Good Will” had not, in fact, taken over the earth?  Of course you can!  And yet, there’s always part of us that is a little surprised and disappointed when we see that, once again, Christmas hasn’t managed to take hold quite like we’d hoped.  We’re big fans of the idea of God just sending peace and good will to the earth, not so much of the invitation to be part of making that happen.  We prefer for Christmas to be an event, not a process.  We like Love, but as a sentiment, not a force in the world turning everything upside down.  “My orderly life had been upended,” says Howard Merritt’s Mary.  It’s one thing for God to pull the powerful down from their thrones; it’s another thing entirely to expect us to do that.

And yet, Christmas reminds us that there are many ways this upending happens.  I was reading verse 52 and I suddenly heard it in the context of the nativity scene.  What if the “powerful brought down from their thrones” were those Magi, kings and rulers from far away who were drawn to leave their palaces behind to pay homage to a homeless baby in a foreign land?  What if the lowly being lifted up is those stinky shepherds who were the ones privileged to hear the angels’ proclamation?  What if the rich were emptied because they heard God’s call to fill the hungry with good things?  This is the Christmas we hope for, when equality is achieved by the realization of Love, not by force or compulsion.  This is the conversion we long for each December, the one where the consequences of Love play out completely.

Katie McRoberts, writing for Churches for Middle East Peace, tells us that Mary “reminds us to take courage”.  Because the conversion is never complete; not in our own hearts and not in the world.  But if Mary can see through her part, surely we can see through ours.  Surely, we can do more than wait.  We know Love.  We’ve seen what Love can do.  We’ve seen the hungry get filled with good things, and we know how powerful that is.  We know what it is to have our proud thoughts scattered, to make room for the humble love of Jesus.  We might even have the courage to invite or push the powerful off their thrones once in a while, so they could kneel at the manger and imagine a new way of being in the world.

Like Mary, Christmas may not end up being what we imagined.  This year, or any year.  But to some degree, that’s because we think of it as an event, rather than a way of life.  What if we carried Emmanuel – God-with-us – around with us, with the weight of a baby, all year?  What if we lived with a deep expectation that God is using us to turn the world upside down?  What if we behaved as though we really believe Love has consequences?  That God’s claim on our lives means we must fill the hungry, and lift up the lowly, and help the rich empty themselves out?

Did Mary sing the Magnificat because she was caught up in the newness of her calling, unaware of just how uncomfortable it was going to get?  Or did she sing it because of what was coming?  Maybe a little bit of both.  Did having nine months to prepare make it easy or harder to deliver that baby into the world?  Are you ready for your “orderly life to be upended”?  When will our waiting for God to change the world become active participation in how God is already changing the world?  Love is coming into the world – a Love that has consequences.  God is calling us to help give birth to those consequences.  Let us say with joy, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  Alleluia and Amen.