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2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Canticle 15
Romans 16:25-27
Luke 1:26-38
The Collect of the Day
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.(Luke 1:26-38)
One Who Saves Is Among Us
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop, Rector
The Limpsons were about the meanest, baddest, worst kids in the world. They had greasy hair, smelled bad, and had crooked teeth. They wore out-of-style, hand-me-down clothes.[1] They fought dirty and cussed, they didn’t do well in school, and they even smoked cigarettes – and that was in grade school. Parents used to whisper something about welfare – but most of the kids didn’t know what that meant.
They lived in the white washed house at the end of the narrow gravel road at the very edge of the town. They were very poor; the only real money they had came from Mrs. Limpson who worked as a maid at a little motel that was next to the state highway. She worked two shifts cleaning up after customers who didn’t stay more than a few hours.
Because most of the families in the neighborhood went to church while the Limpsons stayed at home on Sundays, most of the kids figured the Limpsons were going straight to hell via the state prison. But one day, Mrs. Limpson decided the family would attend the local non-denominational church. A few months later, it was time for the church’s annual Christmas pageant. Nearly everybody went to this spectacle, regardless of denominational affiliation, and all the kids got to participate. For years, the preacher’s son had played Joseph, and pretty Jane Buehler, who was the most pious and sweet girl in the world, had played Mary. The rest of the kids who didn’t get parts but who could sort of carry a tune formed the choir.
On the evening of the first rehearsal for the pageant that year, the kids and parents milled around sampling the cookies and cakes prepared by the Moms. Suddenly, the double doors at the end of the gym opened. In the doorway stood the Limpsons looking like the Clanton gang before the gunfight at the OK corral. They came in and headed right for the food tables, grabbing cake and cookies with their greasy, dirty hands. The preacher came out and talked quietly with Mr. and Mrs. Limpson for a moment, and the kids were expecting him to toss the Limpsons out. Instead, he turned and announced to everybody that the rehearsal for the pageant was about to begin. With chocolate crumbs falling from her widely spaced and crooked teeth, JoLynn Limpson asked, “What’s a pageant?” “It’s a play,” someone offered. “What’s the play about?” JoLynn asked. “It’s about Jesus” someone said.
With last year’s props in place, one of the Moms, who was school teacher, began organizing the kids. As she described the pageant, JoLynn interrupted, “What’s an Inn?” “It’s like the motel where mama works, stupid” one of her older brothers sniped.
The teacher Mom continued. “Now we’ll need some of you bigger children to be Mary and Joseph, the three wise men, and the Angel of the Lord. These aren’t hard parts. Let’s start with Mary. We all know who Mary was. She was kind, and gentle, and she was willing to do what the angel told her. The girl who plays her ought to be that kind of person.” Everyone looked at pious, sweet Jane Buehler, but she was looking at the floor. To everyone’s utter surprise and horror, JoLynn Limpson asked for the part. The teacher knew this would be a problem, because none of the other kids would want to be in the play with the Limpsons. She looking pleadingly at the preacher. But he remained silent. JoLynn, not realizing the other kids fear and loathing of her and her brothers, and sensing that the part was hers, went for the gold. “Ralph my brother wants to be Joseph, and Larry, Fred, and Joe want to be the wise men.” Within an instant the whole crowd of Limpson kids had gone from obscure, nameless, mean kids to the stars in the pageant.
As it turns out, the Limpsons didn’t know much about the Christmas story. Oh, they knew about Jesus and that Christmas was his birthday, but they didn’t know about the Gospel of Luke or the story of Mary’s obedience that we just heard in today’s Gospel. So, the teacher began to explain it, telling the Gospel from her heart. She began by explaining that Mary was expecting a baby. “Not married and pregnant!?” yelled Ralph Limpson. The older kids giggled, the parents looked at embarrassingly at each other, and the little kids wanted to know what the fuss was about. But the teacher didn’t yield. She just kept telling the story – Jesus’ story. Even the Limpsons who never paid any attention to anyone – especially teachers – sat there and listened.
Joanne, one of JoLynn’s younger sisters was shocked that no one at the Inn would give up their room for baby Jesus. Ralph and John didn’t know what a manger was. To explain that Mary and Joseph just had to make do with what was in the barn, the teacher asked, “Well, where would you put a baby if you didn’t have a bed.” “Oh, that’s easy,” said John, who was about 13. “I’d put him in a dresser drawer, like Ma and Pa did with my little brother Ernie.”
The Limpsons really got into the story. They wanted a bloody end to Herod; they worried about Mary having her baby in the barn; they were mystified by the angel Gabriel; and they ended up calling the wise men a bunch of dirty spies. Finally, after the pageant rehearsal was over, the preacher and his wife went into a side room, and rolled out a huge cart full of Christmas baskets for the people in their church. The Limpson’s basket was huge.
Finally the night of the pageant came. The music was only marginally rehearsed, and chaos reigned supreme. Kids were roaming around looking for props, and parents were pinning up ill-fitting costumes made from bed sheets and trying to keep the halos from slipping off their children’s heads. The pageant began with the singing of “Away in a Manger.” Next came “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” The choir was supposed continue humming the song while Mary and Joseph came in from stage left. As the the humming began, the spot light moved to the door, but Mary and Joseph didn’t appear. The choir kept humming while nervous parents looked around. Brimming with smugness and self-righteousness, everyone knew that the Limpsons had chickened out.
When the choir began sounding like an old refrigerator humming along, Ralph and JoLynn as Joseph and Mary appeared in the spot light looking like refugees from Afghanistan. They just stood there for a minute as if they weren’t sure they were in the right place. They were dirty as usual, and JoLynn’s veil was as crooked as her teeth, and Ralph’s long, greasy hair stuck out from under his hat. In truth, this was probably a lot like it was for the Holy family who had traveled for days, and found themselves stuck away in a barn by people who didn’t care whether they lived or died that night. That’s the way it was in Jesus’ world – nearly everyone was poor.
When JoLynn sat down, she hoisted up the doll she was carrying and burped baby Jesus. That wasn’t in the script, and no where in the New Testament does it say anything about Jesus needing to be burped. But, Jesus was a human being after all, and JoLynn somehow knew that. She knew that Baby Jesus did not come down on a cloud from heaven like a comic book character. She knew that Jesus was born and lived. Jesus was a real human being, and as a baby, he needed to be burped.
John, Ralph’s younger brother, burst through the angel choir to speak his line. “Hey! Unto you a child is born!” He hollered this like it was the most important and best news in the world. Imagine that….
When the three wise men came up the aisle, everybody shifted to watch the three Limpson brothers. Oddly, the three of them were carrying only one gift under a blanket. It was large and heavy whatever it was. Someone muttered, “I’ll bet it’s a burnt offering, you know the Limpsons!”
When they got to the manger, the boy’s packaged gift slipped from beneath the blanket, and hit the floor with a loud plop. It was a ham! It wasn’t just any ham, though, it was the Christmas ham from their Christmas basket. The wise men were supposed to leave after they delivered their gift, but the brothers either forgot or chose not to. Instead, they sat down next to the manger, to be with Baby Jesus. Someone muttered that they were ruining the whole show.
But I think they got it just right. They did what came naturally – like burping the baby, or thinking a ham would make a better present than some tree sap and burial spices. There in the spot light, sat three wise men, and Joseph and Mary with the baby Jesus. And while the angel choir began to sing “Silent Night,” JoLynn Limpson began to cry. Big, wet tears flowed down her cheeks. They glistened in the candlelight, making her whole face shiny. She didn’t even bother to wipe them away. She just sat there crying. Except for the choir singing softly, there was no other sound in the auditorium. And JoLynn began to look pretty – almost angelic.
JoLynn got it. For her, Christmas came all at once, just like it did to Mary when the angel Gabriel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” JoLynn was overshadowed by the incarnational majesty of the moment. She relived Mary’s astonishment, and it moved her to tears. JoLynn not only heard the Christmas story, she was transformed by it. Her tears were a sign of the Holy Spirit reaching into her soul and quietly rearranging it. She was no longer JoLynn Limpson, homely girl from the poor side of town, but a beautiful child of God. And like the Samaritan woman and the woman healed of her hemorrhaging both of whom Jesus called “Daughter,” JoLynn felt loved by God, and accepted by her community.
And those watching also got it too. Not only did they get it – they became part of it. They were transformed in that incarnational moment; they saw JoLynn and her brothers as truly part of their community; as beautiful Children of God, deserving of dignity and respect and love.
Everyone said that this was the best pageant ever. They couldn’t say why, exactly, it was just something they felt. But that’s the thing about the Spirit and the incarnational presence of Jesus. God leads through the Spirit, but it is entirely up to us whether we will follow in Jesus’ footsteps. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “Just because God sends an angel to invite one girl onto the dance floor is no guarantee that she will say ‘yes.’ Just because God sends a prophet to tell us how life on earth can be more like life in heaven does not mean that any of us will quit our day jobs to make it so. God acts, [but] then it is our turn.”[2] Mary heard the angel, and was willing to believe that the God who had chosen her to be a part of this cosmic plan of salvation would always be beside her and see this thing through. She said yes to the miracle; she said yes to the labor; she said yes to the pain; she said yes to the birth.
And what do we say and do in response? Each year we celebrate the nativity of Jesus, remembering the miracle of God coming into this world as a human being. Every Sunday we gather to remember Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection in the sharing of bread and wine. When we come together, do we assemble as a passive audience, or do we gather as a community of active participants in the Kingdom of God, willing to say “yes” to the movement of the Spirit? Do come together to celebrate our contentment with the way things are, or are we willing to take the same kinds of risks that Mary and Joseph took and become the kind of inviting, transforming, and reconciling community that Jesus and the disciples lived and died for?
God acted. God continues to act. And now it is our turn.
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Now when the king was settled in his house, and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the LORD is with you.” But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the LORD: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the LORD of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.
Canticle 15, The Song of Mary(The Magnificat); Luke 1:46-55
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; *
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed: *
the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him *
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm, *
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers, *
to Abraham and his children for ever.
Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith-- to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
[1] I am indebted to the work of Barbara Robinson for this adaptation. See Barbara Robinson. “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.” A Treasury of Great Christian Stories. Stephen Fortosis, Ed. ( Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2001), 28-41.
[2] Barbara Brown Taylor. “Singing Ahead of Time.” Home By Another Way. (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1999), 18.
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Copyright © 2008, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
17 December 2008
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