Slings & Arrows

Brad Sullivan

4 Advent, Year C

December 20, 2015

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX

Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)

Slings & Arrows

My family and I saw Star Wars:  The Force Awakens on Friday night, and it was totally awesome, everything I’ve been waiting almost 30 years for.  Tickets were sold out for weeks before the movie even opened (we had our since October), and we’re seeing it again tomorrow night (with tickets we’ve also had since October).  Apparently there are some people in the world who don’t particularly care about Star Wars, but even they have heard about this near miraculous event.  It’s been this enormously huge deal for years in the making, international headlines, and when it really comes down to it, this movie doesn’t really matter, not even a little bit.  It’s a movie.  It’s great storytelling.  It’s a huge part of our culture, but it’s still just a movie.  By the way, I’ll deny having said that if anyone asks later.

On the other side of things, you’ve got the most important news ever in the birth of Jesus.  God became human and lived among us.  The light which casts out all darkness condescended to be one of us, and almost no one knew it.  On the scales of life, Jesus…is kind of a bigger deal than Star Wars, and yet there was almost no anticipation for his birth.  Mary and Joseph knew.  That’s it.  Mary was seen as a no good young woman, possibly cheating on her fiancé, and Joseph was seen as the chump who stuck with her.  Most people in their family probably weren’t even overly excited about the birth of this scandalously conceived child.

Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, didn’t even know, until Mary came to see her for the big reveal party.  As soon as Mary spoke, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy because he somehow recognizes that the God of the universe is dwelling a few feet away in Mary’s womb.  Elizabeth is then informed by the Holy Spirit that Mary is pregnant and that the baby in her womb is not some bastard, but God himself.  Kind of a big deal for a baby’s existence and sex to be given by divine revelation, and even still, we’re only up to three people and a baby-in-the-womb who know about Jesus and his divine nature.

Admittedly, there was an angel fanfare birth announcement to some shepherds on the night Jesus was born, but international fame and previews so widely viewed that they broke the internet didn’t exactly precede God’s arrival.  God chose to come humbly and quietly.

God did not choose to be a king or someone whom anyone had to serve or obey when he became human.  No one had to follow him.  No one had to obey him.  Folks flocked to him, however, not because of his lofty station, but simply because of who he was.  People loved Jesus.

Unless of course Jesus seemed to threaten someone’s station or power, then they weren’t overly enamored of him.  Even still, Jesus didn’t take their power by destroying anything.  He used words to call people out for their hypocrisy or misdeeds, sure, but he staged no coups.  Just like how Mary sang of God, Jesus scattered the proud, brought down the powerful, and lifted up the lowly.  Those in power before Jesus were largely in the same position of power after Jesus, but their power was diminished because those under them believed in Jesus instead of them.  Folks only have power if other folks are willing to do what they say, and Jesus exposed the powerful as charlatans:  denouncing the scribes and Pharisees, out arguing the lawyers, etc.

Jesus had power not by lording his power over others, but by loving others, by being who he was, and by lifting up those who had fallen down.  Jesus had power because he offered people grace.  He taught and guided people to love God and to love each other, and then he offered grace when people fell short.  This was no process to gain followers and influence people; it was not a habit of a highly effective messiah.  Jesus wasn’t trying to get power.  He was simply being who he was:  loving, teaching, and full of grace.

Jesus showed us, therefore, by his humble origins and divine grace-filled self that we don’t have to be powerful and perfect.  We don’t have to be our best self now.  We need to be who we are, strive to love, and give and receive grace.  In other words, we simply need to be God’s children, Jesus’ brothers and sisters.

Look at Mary and Elizabeth.  Mary was not a super human.  There was no immaculate conception.  The virgin birth refers to Jesus’ birth.  The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s conception.  Church theologians became obsessed with sin and sin management and had to come up with a way that during the nine months Jesus in Mary’s womb, he wasn’t stained by original sin passed on to him through her.  Kinda silly, right.  Theologians had invented the doctrine of original sin, the stain of which passes to all humans through the act of conception, and other theologians were actually worried that Jesus would be sinful, being born of a woman’s womb, the stain passed on to him.  So, they invented the doctrine of the immaculate conception, that Mary, through the grace of Jesus, was conceived without the stain of original sin:  a clean conception.  That way, no sin passed to Jesus through Mary’s womb.

How ridiculous!  They went well beyond scripture in order to manage sin, and missed the point of Jesus’ incarnation in the first place.  Mary was flawed, just like every other human ever.  Jesus was pleased to be born of a regular, normal woman, with a regular, normal womb.  Another woman, a regular normal woman, was the first person whom the Holy Spirit granted knowledge of Jesus.  As most stories or important events would have gone, it should have been the men-folk, the important members of society, who knew about Jesus through divine messenger, but God doesn’t look at importance the way we do.  Who needed to know about Jesus?  Important people?  No.  His mom, his dad, and his cousin needed to know about Jesus, his cousin who would, 30 years later, prepare for his ministry through baptism and leading people to repentance.

The important people in our world didn’t need to know that God had become human and was living among us, at least not until Jesus began his ministry.  God didn’t need that kind of fame and notoriety.  Just like every other baby born, the little boy Jesus didn’t need fame and notoriety.  He didn’t need to be recognized as great.  He needed to be known as beloved son by his parents.  That was the identity that truly mattered.

God has a way of constantly challenging our notions of what is important.  Riches, power, pride:  these things don’t matter.  In fact they can often be harmful, otherwise God would not send the rich away empty, bring down the powerful, and scatter the proud.  Far from being mean, however, God is reversing these fortunes because, we aren’t blessed by pride, riches, and power beyond our needs.

Consider the rich man who asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life.  He was super rich and he was empty.  He knew his wealth wasn’t supplying what we truly wanted.  He knew something was missing.  Unfortunately, his attachment to his wealth kept him bound to his possessions, so when he refused to give away what he had and give to the poor, Jesus sent him away empty…wealthy, but empty.

We’re not blessed through riches and power beyond our needs.  We’re blessed through having enough, through loving, and through being loved.  We’ll still find ourselves jealous of those who have more stuff than we do, who seem to have it easier than we do, such is our nature, always wanting more power over the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  But alas, the power to master our fortunes is often the path to the Dark Side, and not only in a galaxy far, far away.  Seeking the power to master our fortunes is not the way of Jesus.

Truth, love, grace, these were the powers of Jesus.  A constant giving away of power, giving away truth, giving love, giving grace, these were Jesus’ greatest powers.  Jesus, being God, did have the power truly to master his fortune.  He had power over slings, arrows, and even the cross, and yet he gave away that power and let his fortune rest squarely in the hands of humanity.

Even as a baby, God let his fortune rest in the womb and then the arms of a regular young woman named Mary.  God trusted his power and his life with her.  How beloved we are of God.  He still trusts us.  He trusts us each with the power he has given us, and he trusts us to give that power away, trusts us to seek his glory, not our own.  Rather than forcing us to do his will, God trusts us give away truth.  God trusts us to give love.  God trusts us to give grace.  It’s neither showy nor powerful as the world counts power, nor as the dark side counts power, but truth, love, and grace are the powers of Jesus, the powers with which he trusts us, his beloved.  Amen.