Loading...Welcome to “LOVE:” the fourth Sunday in the season of Advent.
When we lit four candles in our Advent wreath today, we were reminded that sometimes, people are lost, wandering this world, wondering what makes their life meaningful, distracted while trying to find their way.
We cannot escape the reality that sometimes life is complicated and we do not always know how to help those whose life experiences have made them bitter.
But as people of faith, we know our LOVE comes through our faith, our trust, in God. And so, we began our service today, lighting the candle of HOPE, the candle of PEACE, then the candle of JOY, and finally the candle of LOVE –all lit to overwhelm the world, to remind us that God’s hope, peace, joy and love are not just coming, they are here. We pray that the light of these candles will spark in us a light that we share, bringing hope, peace, joy, and love to the world.
We hope that these candles will remind us that God continues to surprise us, teach us, and love us. And because we have been surprised, taught and loved by God throughout our lives, we have a foundation to show others LOVE in action.
One thing about love is that it is brave. To be willing to take a risk for the sake of another, to be willing to be in any type of relationship with another, is brave.
We witness that kind of bravery in relationships of caring: for those with aging parents, or a spouse or child of any age with chronic or acute illness, or family members and friends living with mental health issues, dementia, or other types of loss.
Here at St. James’, we express bravery every time the pet food pantry is open, or any of you participate in helping at Laundry Love, or when picking up food at local grocers to be sorted at Mission House and offered to our hungry neighbors.
In the coldest of months, some of you will go downtown to volunteer at Room in the Inn to provide a home-cooked meal, shelter, companionship, security, and continental breakfast with hot coffee for unhoused men, women and children.
Some of you are learning about civics by leaning into protecting democracy for the benefit of all people, citizens and immigrants, in this country.
Nurses, teachers, caregivers, pastoral visitors, first responders, students involved in clubs and sports, we have so many opportunities to express love through our interests, concerns, and sometimes outrage, fear, and desire to protect the most vulnerable.
Caring about the world, people, environment, animals, and the “planets in their courses” is brave. The desire to build a better society is brave. Being willing to step out of the familiar, the expected, the safe, is brave.
Joseph was brave.
At a time when an unwed girl, a young teenager, like Mary, was pregnant, her very life was at risk.
The law in Deuteronomy 22 was clear: 20 “If … evidence of the young woman’s virginity was not found, 21 then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house, and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.”
Mary could have been stoned to death, with the first stone thrown by her father, renouncing his relationship with her, eliminating the embarrassment, the burden, the shame of having a pregnant, unmarried daughter.
But that didn’t happen. Joseph, because of his own annunciation story, with his own visit from an angel, took an extreme risk and chose to show his love for God through his commitment to Mary.
It wasn’t love like we see in a Rom-Com movie, or the kind of mushy love with starry eyes that comes with a new relationship. It most likely was an arranged marriage, bringing two families together through some kind of exchange, or dowry, which paid for Mary. Romantic love may have never come at any time in their marriage.
Romantic love wasn’t the point. The business arrangement of marriage meant security for families. That Mary was pregnant without the arranged, legal marriage, meant that the deal was in jeopardy.
Joseph’s visit from the angel changed Mary’s destiny. By following the angel’s direction, Joseph chose not to follow the law in Deuteronomy 22. He did not cast her away. He did not have her stoned. He instead chose to follow God’s expectation as found in the oft quoted verse from Micah 6: “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.” Joseph was willing to look at the dignity of Mary, listening and doing what the angel expected, no matter the optics, no matter the reaction.
That was brave.
Following God, practicing our faith by following the ways of Jesus, takes bravery. So often the world challenges us in ways that leave us bitter, angry, or unrelenting in our pursuit of something that distracts us from focusing on our relationship with God.
When we choose, instead, to make choices to show our faith in ways that express our love for God, that can be extremely brave.
Both Joseph and Mary exhibited bravery when they chose to say “yes” to the angel that visits each of them.
Mary’s story is found in Luke’s Gospel. Her “yes,” her act of resistance, her recognition of God’s expectation for justice, her bravery, is recorded in this way:
And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant.
Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name;
indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
He has come to the aid of his child Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” Luke 1:46-55
Mary and Joseph, both separately and together, displayed the radical love that God wanted for the world. By sending Jesus, which means “God saves,” as Immanuel, which means “God with us,” God intentionally chose these two individuals to parent this child who would become a radical preacher and teacher of what it means to follow God’s law of love.
I think Mary and Joseph knew that their lives were going to become dangerous as they brought this child into the world. They knew that they were to raise this baby to manhood, a man who would have a target on his back for what some would identify as his defiant ways of comprehending the Torah and the Law. Ways that would cause members of the government to find him a threat to their authority. But even with that knowledge, Joseph and Mary did everything they could to keep him safe, to teach him, to take him to Jerusalem for religious festivals, to, ultimately, help him change the world.
This baby Jesus, this Immanuel, this God who saves is with us , would be always and forever, the embodiment of love.
Like I said earlier, love is risky. Love takes bravery to overcome those risks. And when love looks like what Mary proclaims in her Magnificat: that God would turn the world right-side up through turning religious and civil laws and rituals upside down; that kind of love would definitely be dangerous.
Joseph and Mary did not have to say “yes” to the angel in their respective stories. But they did. They knew that the world needed a Savior, that the people of Israel longed for someone to come to overthrow the tyrants and overturn the tyranny that made them subjects of slavery, poverty, illness, hunger; they hungered for someone who would teach the value and dignity of every human and provide freedoms they had been repeatedly denied.
And somehow, I think they knew that this baby was that Savior but that he would not be one to come with weapons or violence. I think they knew that this baby would be the bearer of love, teaching everyone who would listen—then and in centuries to come—that hope, peace, joy, and love are worth the risk. Amen.
