A
Sermon preached in
Christ Church, Grosse Pointe, Michigan
by The Reverend Vicki Hesse, Associate
by The Reverend Vicki Hesse, Associate
The
4th Sunday of Advent, Year A
18 December 2016
18 December 2016
Restore
us, O Lord God of Hosts *
show
us the light of your countenance and we shall be saved. Amen
A few summers ago, my partner and I went to
Santa Fe, New Mexico. Being church geeks, we went to visit the Loretto Chapel,[1] at the
end of the Santa Fe Trail. We toured the
beautiful little church, which was patterned after Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. It
claims to be the first Gothic structure west of the Mississippi. We learned
that in completing the Chapel, the architect did not offer any access to the
choir loft, some 22 feet above the sanctuary.
For the sisters running the convent, all the options were undesirable: a
conventional staircase would interfere with the already small space, a re-built
balcony would be too expensive, and a ladder would be too dangerous for the
nuns to climb up and down. So the
Sisters of the Chapel did what you and I would do: they prayed.
This dilemma reminded me of Joseph’s
situation: difficult to get out of – bad options all around. It seems that Joseph’s options were
undesirable: to divorce her publicly would disgrace her or to divorce her
quietly and disgrace himself.
Either way, he would have to divorce
her. No possible way to redeem the
situation. Only pain.
It did not cross his mind that Mary’s
unbelievable story might be God’s truth.
He could not imagine that. Only the truth,
embraced, would transform the situation.
What do we do when our situation seems
difficult to get out of? When it seems there are only undesirable options? We over
function: We torture ourselves. Overeat.
Complain. Take it out on people we love.
Or we under function: Isolate. Sleep. Have someone else decide so
that we can blame it on them. We know this feeling when there are only bad
options all around.
Don’t you just feel for Joseph? His human mind was only capable of knowing
negative options. Biblical Scholar Alyce McKenzie suggests
Joseph’s self-talk:
I cannot believe that she has
done this to me…For one fleeting moment, I even considered the possibility that
she was telling the truth, but it is more than I can swallow…I believe I will
divorce her and save her the public humiliation of accusing her of adultery… I
confess I feel somewhat betrayed by God as well as by Mary…now the sun is setting, and I am filled with
pain. I will go to bed with my pain, and hope for sleep. Tomorrow I will send a
message to Mary
letting her know of my decision.[2]
Well, we all know how *that* dismissal
went. We see Joseph in every crèche
scene. Joseph is portrayed in many
artist’s work, at Mary’s side on the night of the birth, hair tousled, face
lined with concern, protective stance over mother and babe. Something dramatic *must* have happened in
that sleeping conversation with the Angel.
The story reveals what happened: it was “…a night of birthing just as
real as Christmas eve: this was the birth of a father for the Son of God.”[3]
In his sleep, with his mind out of the way,
Joseph opened his soul to God. And in that opening, in the whispering of the
Truth, God offered a resolution to Joseph’s dilemma: one that human reason
could not detect.
On that night, prefiguring Christmas Eve, the
angel invited Joseph to imagine a different future: one of an intimate birth in
a manger, a rambunctious boy with many gifts, a young man with a prophetic
purpose, and himself as a proud parent.
The possibilities made him giddy with excitement.
The angel revealed to Joseph a key to his
dilemma: belief. Belief in an impossible story.
Belief in himself as the father of God’s child, belief in himself as one
who can nurture the boy and honor him with a name: Immanuel – God-with-us.
The angel explained that to save the people
from their sins, “you know that the boy will need examples. He’ll need you to teach him to take risks like
the one you are taking now, to teach him how to withstand severe disapproval
like the kind you will experience, and to believe in the unbelievable good news
when it seems all hope seems lost & only pain remains – like they way you
feel now.
You know that the boy will need you to walk
to Bethlehem so that he can walk to Calvary.”
In that moment, the angel mid-wifed the birth
of a father for the Son of God.
Waking from his sleep, perhaps he thought,
“not my will but your will be done.”
Jesus is not the only one who needs examples
like Joseph. We all struggle with dilemmas and situations that seemly only have
bad outcomes. We need people to assure
us when we take risks. We need people beside us when we get disapproval. We
long for assurance from someone who knows from
experience that God’s unbelievable good news is true!
Maybe you are that light-bearer being
birthed this advent. Maybe you are the one who is to offer assurance in God’s
unbelievable good news of God’s love and reconciliation for all humanity is
possible, despite what appears to be an irredeemably broken world.
This is why Joseph whispers to you today: to know
that God will work in us
as God worked in him. God is with us –
Immanuel.
Which brings me back to Loretto Chapel. How did the sisters resolve the choir loft
access? Well, one night while the sisters were praying, a man appeared at the
door of the convent with a donkey and a toolbox, asking for work. When the nuns
told the man about the predicament, he offered to build a spiral staircase. That staircase was, and is to this day, an
engineering feat: thirty-three steps and two complete 360-degree turns, made of
only wooden pegs and no nails. Once the
miraculous staircase was completed, the carpenter disappeared. Many believed it
to be St. Joseph himself, having come in answer to the sisters' prayers.
Maybe it’s just a legend, but I like to think
that St. Joseph is out there this Advent, with his donkey and toolbox at hand,
hoping to re-craft imaginative resolutions to hopeless dilemmas. And, whispering
God’s love to you with unceasing hope, imaginative dreams and unbelievable
possibilities.
This advent, may our hopes and fears of all
the years be met by the hope of the birth of an infant savior, Immanuel.
Amen.
[2] Cited at http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Fear-of-Betrayal on December 13, 2016
[3] Ibid., McKenzie
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