Our Glorious Bodies

"Our Glorious Bodies"
1 Corinthians 6:13, 15, 19, 20


Why are we so often at war with our bodies?  “I hate my body!” I have heard more and more people say.  We get to choose a lot of things in life, but we don’t get to choose, for the most part, our bodies.  They are givens at birth.  Our body’s potential in terms of beauty, strength, agility, resistance to disease, and so on, is pretty much decided by heredity.  Many people would like to trade their body in on a new model, if that were possible.

I recently read a survey in a women’s magazine that found almost eighty percent of women dislike their bodies.  If not their whole body, at least parts of it.  And that five minutes into looking at a fashion magazine or catalogue, women start getting depressed, because of body image issues.

How often we may look in the mirror and think, “I wish I had a different face,” or, “I wish my eyes were a different shape or color,” or, “I hate the shape of my legs,” or, “I’m too big...too thin..too fat..too short.”  I for one, would like to be able to look in a mirror and just see my face.  All I get to see is a decapitated body.

Some people exercise their bodies to the point of punishment and others not at all.  Some take diet pills, or go on every sort of fad diet to “get rid of those unwanted pounds.”  When our bodies get ill or tired we blame them for letting us down.  When our bodies are healthy, we take them for granted.

Many of us carry around unhealed inner hurts about our bodies.  Perhaps our families and school friends teased or rejected us because we were hyperactive, slow in sports, clumsy with our hands, too tall, too short, too plump, or too skinny.  In this way, our bodies became a source of emotional and spiritual anxiety and insecurity.

Anthony Ewar penned a clever limerick about bodies.  He wrote:

As a beauty I’m not a great star
Others are handsomer by far;
But my face I don’t mind it
Because I’m behind it;
It’s the folks out front that I jar.

We spend a lifetime centered around the necessities of feeding, clothing, cleaning, and sheltering our bodies.  Almost every advertising dollar spent is aimed at our bodies in some way.  We spend more resource on pampering, tanning, protecting, sun screening, lotioning, feeding, primping, exercising, dressing, and adorning our bodies than on most other things.  And yet in spite of all that, our bodies remain a source of great anxiety, guilt, and frustration.  At times of bodily transitions, or when faced with life threatening or life altering illnesses, our bodies are seen as puzzling, even scary, out of control machines.

As Christians, we have a double sense of guilt because we don’t talk about bodies in church very often.  Even just hearing the word “bodies” in church makes us flinch or squirm a bit, doesn’t it?  And when we do, we usually hear the terms “sin” and “flesh” together, making the erroneous assumption that our bodies are somehow evil.  All that talk about sin and flesh causes us to think that our bodies are hinderances to our spiritual lives.  It is still too often implied, if not actually taught, that the body is, by its very nature, lower and inferior to the interior soul and spirit of a person.  That somehow, just having a body separates us from God.  We might think that if we didn’t have these bodies to lug around, we would be very spiritual beings.

But that is about as far from the truth as one can get.  The truth, if we are to know it, can be found first in a baby in a manger in Bethlehem.  Then later in the growing body of that baby named Jesus.  What we believe about that particular happening is called the Incarnation:  the awesome mystery of God in the flesh--God in a body.

A little girl came home with an “F” on her report card in the subject of spelling.  When her mother demanded an explanation, the little girl said, “Mommy, words fail me.”  And that’s where we might be in trying to understand or explain the Incarnation.  Mere words fail us as we try to grasp God in a body.  Nonetheless, the understanding of God in the flesh is pivotal to understanding the place and importance of our own bodies.

The belief about the Incarnation is what stands behind Paul’s words to the troublesome Corinthian Christians:  “...glorify God in your body.”  What the Corinthians had done was what we are guilty of doing today.  They split the person into two halves: body and soul, or body and spirit.  They over-spiritualized the one side and down-played their bodily side.

They got caught up in a form of Christianity called gnosticism.  The gnostics were part Christianity and part Greek philosophy.  They believed the spirit of a person is the most important, over against the body.  So they did everything they could to develop their spirituality at the expense or dismissal of their bodies.

They reasoned that if their bodies weren’t important to spiritual life then they could do anything they wanted with those bodies.  Gluttony and sexual immorality were all justified in the Corinthian church because all that had to do with bodies.  As long as their spirits were not tainted, it was party time.  You could go to church on Sunday with a clear conscience.  All this developed out of the misguided idea that God doesn’t quite care as much about our bodies as He does about our souls.  After all, which goes to heaven and which gets buried and left behind?

“Glorify God in your body.”  It would have been a radical statement for the Christians at Corinth to hear.  It’s a radical statement for our society as well, especially as we get more and more over-spiritual about people’s souls and disregard their bodies.

The Christian teaching of Paul is that the two--body and soul--are inseparable.  The body and spirit of a person work in tandem, rather than in opposition to each other.  Both are integral to displaying the presence, work, and glory of God.

The main reason we can say that is because of the Incarnation.  Through the Incarnation, God chose to work his plan of salvation.  It is vital that we recognize that God did his reconciling, transforming, saving work in a body--the body of Jesus.  And that God continues that work through our bodies.

We might think, “Why didn’t God just send the angelic visitation; or in some loud, booming voice heard round the world, tell everyone they are now loved and saved.”  (“Hey; Yo; People; This is God.  I’m OK, You’re OK.  All’s good.  I love you.  That’s all you need to know.  Ta Ta.”)  Just think of it:  No Jesus.  Just Good News without a person.  That certainly would have been a more “heavenly” or “spiritual” way of making salvation known to the world.

Instead, God chose to come in a body.  There are many reasons why, but I think one of the most important, was to show that there is something inherently good--even spiritual-- and useful to God about our bodies.  If our bodies were so unspiritual, then God wouldn’t have chosen to come in one.  He would have found another way.

The Incarnation, the birth of Jesus, Christmas, is important for us and our bodies because that’s how God decided to do his work amongst us.  As Paul said, “...your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God…”  That’s what Jesus’ body was.  A sanctuary of God’s Holy Spirit.  Paul went on to say that, “...your bodies are members of Christ...Yet the body is..for the Lord; and the Lord is for the body.”  The Lord thinks our bodies are important.  Our bodies have to think the Lord is important.  Thus we have to realize that our bodies are important to God, because that is how God has decided to come at us--through a body.  “Therefore glorify God in your body.”

Think of this.  It is our bodies, even more than this sanctuary, or any other church building anywhere in the world, which is the place where God is best worshipped, where ministry starts and moves out from.  This is a theme that Paul develops throughout his letters.  To the Christians in Rome, he wrote, “I beg you my brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1)  Notice Paul didn’t write that we are to give God our souls as an act of worship, but our bodies.  Not some sanctuary, but our bodies.

To the Philippian Christians Paul wrote:

...it is my eager expectation and hope that I shall not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my BODY, whether by life or by death.  (Philippians 1:20)

Paul is echoing the story in Genesis where it says about Adam and Eve, “...they were naked and unashamed.”  Paul wants that same sense about his faith.  He wants to be able to stand before God, in his body, and “...not be at all ashamed.”  Paul wants to feel like he’s given his total self, body and soul, over to God so that “...Christ will be honored…”.

If it is our mission to reach out to God and others from our bodies, then maybe the first act from God towards us is to help us be reconciled to our own bodies.  Has that ever occurred to you--to be reconciled to your own body.  That is, we may need to be healed of our dislike and disgust of our bodies.  Is it possible that God finds his beginning place of reconciliation and transformation in the world is first within our own attitudes about our bodily selves?

This doesn’t mean that we are to begin idolizing our bodies or obey every physical impulse, or abandon attempts to improve the health of our bodies.  Nor does it mean that we may never have to compel--or even sacrifice--our bodies out of our love for others.  What it does mean is letting go of unloving, and therefore, un-Godly attitudes about our bodies.  God can’t work through self-hate.  And if the surveys I mentioned at the start are correct, there is a lot of self-hate out there related to our bodies.

But Paul will allow none of that.  He says an emphatic “NO!” to this sort of religious dualism of bodily self-hate and over-spiritualized soulism.  God’s coming in a body, Jesus, is a confirmation of our bodies, of our very humanity.  It is as if God were saying, through the Incarnation, “The way for you to become a whole person is not to reject or hate the body I have created and identified with, but to plunge deeper into it, and serve me with your whole body and soul.”  It means that God can and is working in and through every area of your bodily humanity.

The way we relate to our bodies profoundly influences the way we relate to God, to each other, to prayer, and to all of life.  That is why our bodies are important to God, and all of Biblical, Christian teaching.  That is why Paul said, “Glorify God in your bodies.”

The Crimson Thread

"The Crimson Thread"
Luke 2:21-35


Probably the quickest way to raise the hair on the back of a parent’s neck is to speak ill of their child.  If you hear someone disparaging your child, the mother bear syndrome is aroused, the teeth and claws come out and the maiming begins.

Or, to have your child mistreated, to see another person attempt to break your child’s spirit and rob them of their smile.  That would make all the blood boil up to the neck and face of a parent.  The hot blood of revenge floods to the surface of the skin.  You can come at me.  But you better not come at my children.

Enter Mary and Joseph.  They came to Jerusalem, to the temple, to dedicate their child Jesus to God.  This was to be done with all first-born children.  Mary held their week old baby son, Jesus.  There were other people at the temple taking care of their religious duties and rites.  One of those people was Simeon, some old guy who had been loitering around the temple forever, waiting.  He was waiting for God’s salvation to show its face.  So, into the temple walked Mary and Joseph with baby Jesus and old Simeon’s face lit up like the Rose Parade.

Before Mary knew what was happening, this Simeon took Jesus out of her arms and began dancing around the temple courtyard.  He sang a song to God, a song of disbelief and praise.  Simeon couldn’t believe it, but yet was so happy to believe that what he had waited for, for so long, was right there in his arms.

Simeon called the baby, Jesus, which means “God’s Salvation.”  He called Jesus a light who would reveal God’s will to all people, not just the Jews.  What a thing for a parent to hear.  How amazed Mary and Joseph must have been to see their child being worshipped, again.  First it was by the shepherds.  Now it was by old Simeon.  Parents like to have their child cooed over.  This must have been overwhelming for Joseph and Mary.

But Simeon wasn’t finished yet.  He blessed Mary and Joseph.  Then he turned to Mary and said some things she probably wished she didn’t have to listen to.  Simeon told her that God would use her baby for the destruction and salvation of many.  Her child would become someone who would speak out against, and be at odds with.  Her child will be rejected.  Her child will be attacked.  The pain her child will one day endure would make Mary feel like she had been stabbed through by a dagger.

I know what I would have been thinking if I was Joseph or Mary.  I would have been thinking, “This is just a baby!  How can you say such things about our little darling?  Just pinch his cheek; tell us he’s such a cute baby; and get out of our faces.  How dare this old coot say that our child is going to be rejected, made fun of, or a source of pain to anyone?  He’s just a baby, for crying out loud!”  I would guess the hair was beginning to rise a bit on their necks.  Their backbones were beginning to bristle.  Their blood pressure was elevating, and making their neck’s turn red.

Would they write Simeon off as some weird old codger, not paying any attention to what he said?  I know I would have, if I were Joseph or Mary.  (Except for the first part, when he said Jesus was going to be the salvation, the presence, and the revelation of God.  I would have paid attention to that.)  But, I would have gotten very defensive and protective of my child having heard the second part.  I would have grabbed Jesus back from this man as quickly and firmly as I could.  Who knows if he was thinking of harming the child himself?

What is sad is that Simeon’s prediction came true.  Because we are sitting on this side of the events Simeon foretold to Mary and Joseph, we know that it all happened as he said.  It’s like watching a play and the audience is in on a secret that the main characters on stage don’t realize.  We wish we could warn Joseph and Mary.  But we realize they have to live through it.  As they live through it, we will have to sit by and watch, a frozen audience, feeling just as helpless as they to do anything about the chain of events that will begin to link together towards their inevitable end.

I thought about the fairy tale, “Sleeping Beauty.”  In the story, the King and Queen have a child--a daughter.  They had a big celebration on the day they first show off their infant daughter.  The whole kingdom is invited.  Everyone brings the King and Queen gifts for their daughter.  Three good fairies came to bless the baby girl.  Two gave their blessings of beauty and happiness for the child.

Just before the third fairy was to give her blessing an evil sorceress appeared.  She made fun of the King and Queen.  She chided them for not inviting her to their party.  She said, “I too have a blessing for the child.”  Everyone went quiet.  The sorceress waved her magic wand and said, “On the day of her 16th birthday she will prick her finger on the needle of a spinning wheel and die!”  With a cackling laugh, the evil sorceress disappeared in a puff of foul smelling smoke.

Everyone at the celebration stood in stunned silence.  What was to be done?  A child with so much promise would be cut down in the early stages of life.  The situation seemed hopeless.  Each second ticked away on the clock was a second closer to the fulfillment of that dark spell.  The King and Queen asked the good fairies if there was anything they could do.  Could they undo the evil that the sorceress had spun?  Sadly, they shook their heads with a no.

But the third fairy still had her blessing to give.  She thought for a long, few minutes.  She then raised her wand.  “On her 16th birthday,” said the good fairy, “when she pricks her finger, the princess shall not die, but instead fall into a deep sleep, from which she can be awakened only the the kiss of true love.”  Everyone breathed a half-sigh of relief.  At least there was some hope.  But a dark thread would be woven in and out of her first 15 years of life.  She would never know why everyone, including her parents, the King and Queen, looked at with such sadness and fear.

I imagine that’s the way Mary and Joseph must have looked at their son, Jesus, after hearing Simeon’s predictions.  What a mixed blessing.  Jesus would become a great man.  More than a great man; he would become the Savior of the world.  But by becoming the Savior, he would suffer cruelties at the hands of a rejecting people.  Having to witness those cruelties, Mary’s heart would be broken with immense grief.  The Catholic symbol for Mary is a heart with seven swords coming out of it.

Through his prophecy and prediction, Simeon had woven a bloody thread into the life of Jesus.  Certainly there are other threads being woven through his life--threads of hope, salvation, and greatness, not only for himself but also the whole world.  Woven in with those golden fibers is also that one thread, that crimson thread of pain and rejection.

After each amazing visitation of angels and shepherds and magi, we are told that Mary “treasured” or “pondered” all these things in her heart.  But after Simeon’s visit, there was no mention of pondering.  I wonder if that omission is intentional.  When Mary and Joseph looked at infant Jesus, there was no mystery, no wondering about what his future held.



Parents are filled with trembling excitement about what their child will become.  None of us as parents know what the future holds for our children.  We can only deal with it when it happens.  But what if we knew, ahead of time, what your child would one day have to endure?  What if you were shown how the crimson thread of pain was started and how it would grow thicker and stronger and become the main thread of your child’s life.

Maybe some of you saw the story this past 10 days coming out of Indiana.   A babysitter and trusted neighbor confessed that he bludgeoned a 9-year-old neighbor girl to death with a brick then dismembered her, hiding her head, hands and feet at his home and dumping the rest of her remains nearby.  These kinds of stories just rip me apart.  I hate hearing about them.  I hate hearing about innocent children having their lives ended like this.  I don’t understand.  I wonder, even, if God understands why heinous stuff like that happens.  Why was that girl born, only to live 9 short years and then have her life insanely taken from her?

As a parent, I don’t think I’d want to know, ahead of time, that that was my child’s future.  But then, I might want to know, so that just maybe I could do something about it.  Because I would do every and any thing possible to minimize or eliminate that crimson thread from my child’s life.  Or I would find a way to take that pain into myself and save my child from it.

But the problem with a prophecy is that it becomes an inevitability.  Being a prophecy, it means God is behind it.  What became so hard for Mary and Joseph was knowing there were some things their child would endure that they could do nothing about.  There’s no good fairy there to soften the harsh realities of the future.  And yet, do Mary and Joseph fully realize, do you think, that the pain and rejection their child will one day endure will also bring about the salvation of all people?  At this point, I don’t think so.  And as a parent, I’m not sure even that would help.  Would it help those parents in Indiana who just found out their 9 year old daughter had been beaten to death and cut in pieces?  How could any parent see clearly after hearing such a thing?

It’s like hearing 10 great things about yourself, but then someone says one negative thing.  What do you concentrate on?  If you were Mary and Joseph, having just heard that Jesus would be the fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation; that through Jesus the light of God would be revealed to all people; and, also hearing that that would happen through an experience of intense pain and rejection, including death, what part would you concentrate on?

The crimson thread of the cross is sewn into Jesus’ life within the first weeks of his life.  Simeon happens to be the needle by which that thread finds it’s first prick.  We must follow along, watching Jesus, expressions of fear and sadness on our faces.

Welcome Back To The Real World

"Welcome Back To The Real World"
Luke 2:21-24


One of my intentions, in my Christmas preaching, has been to look at the hallowed Christmas story with different eyes. I have tried to examine the more human side of what has happened--to Mary in particular. By doing so, by trying to develop the human interest angle, I have hoped to discover the real depth of wonder and awe and meaning within the whole birth event.

To me, the real fun is in the storytelling, imagining what it was all like, trying to put myself in someone else’s shoes and do a little daydreaming. We can toss around all the theological words and ideas that surround the birth of the Savior. Words like Incarnation, Emmanuel, Revelation and Virgin Birth. I just think we quickly get lost trying to sound scholarly. There is more meaning found in the way real people handled life situations, after they happened.

Let us daydream together.

Imagine all that has happened to Mary and Joseph up to this point, especially the birth. It has been like fantasyland. We can easily get caught up in the idea that much of the detail of what was unfolding was not that much out of the ordinary. But the truth is, nothing they had experienced was ordinary. Angels just didn’t pop in and out of the sky on a daily basis. Never had anyone seen a star that rode the sky like a chariot, and then stopped it’s movement. Magi bringing gifts were only read about in books of fairy tales. Giving birth to a baby was a family affair, mostly just the women in the family. Seldom, if ever did a throng of people unknown to the family, pack themselves into the place of birth, let alone bow down and worship the newborn.

When you add it all up, it’s more spectacular than any Steven Spielberg movie could ever be. And it really happened! No special effects. No computer enhancements. No matte painted backgrounds. No miniature sets. It all really happened, to a real couple, in a real town, over a period of months, all culminating in that singular evening. It is just so awesome, it’s hard to take it all in.

But what happened after that? Matthew’s gospel tells us that after presenting their gifts, and maybe a day or two later, the Magi “...went back to their country…” Luke’s gospel tells us that, “...the shepherds returned…” to the hillside, hopefully to find that their flock had not been scattered, shepherd-less. Who was watching the sheep, after all? Just as it had so quickly swelled, so the population of Bethlehem diminished as the people completed their task of registering for the census.

The census! We almost forgot, didn’t we? Isn’t that the reason Joseph took his pregnant wife across the countryside in the first place? Imagine, the next day after the birth, or maybe a couple of days after, Joseph standing in a bureaucratic line of people waiting to register himself and his family with the census workers.

Was it back then as it is today? Joseph stood in a line, telling everyone he is the proud father of the Savior of the world. All other parents nod at him, remembering the claims they made when their sons were born, and how those dreams became tempered in reality. They all looked at Joseph with what they through would be wizened looks, trying to communicate to him that he should enjoy his dreams now, because there will come a day when those dreams will be amended by time and experience.

After an hour in that line, Joseph finally got his turn at the registration desk. “Do you have your papers?” the officer asked, as if he’d asked that question a thousand times--which he had.
“What papers?” Joseph replied.
“Registration papers. Documents to prove who you are. Do you have a chariot license, or a birth certificate, or anything like that?”

Having none, Joseph was directed to the records office, where he was to get copies of such papers. Another hour or so in that line. Finally, he got what he needed, but it costs for the scribe to copy his records, by hand of course.

Again, after getting his copy, Joseph waited in the cash register line to pay for the copy, then back to the original registration line in which he had begun his ordeal. I mean, could it have been any different? Let’s face it--such bureaucracies have never changed. While waiting, after spending a good part of his day in lines, a young wife and new baby probably wondering where he was; and Joseph was muttering to himself that surely the father of the Savior could get some kind of preferential treatment.

And what about Mary back in the stable with her new baby? Do most of you remember what it was like with your first baby? I remember taking Ryan home. Because he was born cesarian, we had a longer stay in the hospital, and Ryan got a lot of attention since he was so huge. All kinds of help from the nurses. Taking care of a baby was easy. Then we had to come to that time where we had to put him in the car and take him home. All by ourselves. We were so green as parents that it wasn’t until we had nearly gotten through that whole first day on our own that we suddenly realized we hadn’t changed his diaper yet. We forgot we were in charge of that now.

I don’t know how Mary handled diaper changes--certainly the baby Savior of the world pooped and peed. But now that all the shepherds and wise men had gone, she was on her own--for it all. Feedings. Spit ups. Crying. More feeding. More diaper changes. Some in the middle of the night. All of it by just the normal starlight. The only serenade comes not from the angels, but from Joseph snoring by her side.

Welcome back to the real world. Life goes on. Even after such magnificent displays from nature, from the heavenly host, from royalty, and even from the poor, life must go on for Joseph and Mary and their new baby. Even though the world seemed to have stopped for one magical night, and turned its whole attention to one lowly cattle stall, the next day the rotations start again, and on with life.

A few days later they were back on the donkey and bouncing their way back to Jerusalem, so that the newborn Jesus could be circumcised according to the law of Moses. Then back home to Nazareth. Then, 33 days later, back to Jerusalem so that Mary and the baby could be proclaimed ritually clean by the priests, again so the law of Moses would be upheld.

Back to normal schedules. Back to work for Joseph in his carpenter shop. It all came and went so soon it must have been like a dream. It could have even been a bit of a let-down. Likewise, for Moses, it was the coming down off the mountaintop experience with God, receiving the Ten Commandments, only to find the people dancing around a golden bull. Roll up your sleeves; it’s back to work. Likewise for Elijah, it was the dramatic calling down of fire from heaven upon his sacrifice, in front of a host of false prophets, only to find that Queen Jezebel wasn’t impressed and wanted him dead. Off to a cave, he ran to hide.

Oh, how we might wish that our mountaintop experiences might go on forever. But God quickly directs those who have been to the highest points of spiritual ecstasy to come down and live in the real world. Again. That’s the real test.

Lord Joseph Duveen was the American head of the great art firm that bore his name. Early in 1915, Duveen was planning to send one of his experts in this country over to England to examine some ancient pottery. Passage had been booked on the Lusitania.

Off this young man sailed. The Lusitania was torpedoed. The young man was picked up after nearly five hours in the chilly Atlantic. Amazingly he was still in excellent condition. Asked how that could be, the young man replied that he had been reading about what was happening in the Atlantic in the war, and knew that the possibility of attack was real. So, before the trip, he hardened himself by sitting in a tub of ice water for up to two hours at a time.

Not many of us are prepared for the fall into the icy waters of reality, after some kind of heady experience. Surely Joseph and Mary’s life returned to some kind of normalcy which was nothing like their night in Bethlehem. But, unprepared as they must have been for that night, were they similarly unprepared for normalcy? Would life, and reality, ever really be the same for them after that night?

The great and life changing experiences we have had in life are few and far between. We could probably count them on one hand. We talk about once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. We talk about, “The day that changed my life.” We remember something that “rocked our world.” But also, when we think about it, a lot of days have come and gone since the first Christmas, since those world changing days. And maybe since the big experiences you have had.

For me, some of those big experiences were getting married. Then, 10 years later having two children. Since having children, my life hasn’t been the same. Or moving. I’ve moved 10 times, all to different places, large cities, tiny towns. Each of those moves has impacted my life and changed me. The death of someone close. My mom’s death on December 8th has changed me. I know I’m going to be different. I just don’t know what that difference is going to be yet.

How can you tell how important an experience has been for you is by seeing the impact it has had on your normal, everyday life. Yes, we must go on with the real world after such an event. If the event has any weight, we will never be quite the same. Our real world will not carry the same kinds of meanings as before.

Probably the most significant experience is our encounter with Jesus Christ. This is the mountain top of Christmas. All those involved with the first Christmas encountered the child, then went back to their real lives different people.

At some point in our lives, we must put ourselves face-to-face with Jesus Christ. At Christmas, we must go into the stable and see for ourselves. During our modern day Christmastime we must cut through all the sham and huckstering and economic reports of how much money is being spent, and decide for ourselves, “Is this the Savior or not?” Is this MY Savior or not? What does all this mean for me and my life?

Such an encounter, like it was for those at Bethlehem, can be an awesome experience. Christ can take hold of your life in a wonderful way. The beginning of that relationship, between ourselves and Jesus Christ, can be thrilling and tremendously fulfilling.

And yet, there is the time when the high spiritual encounter and our real world must meet. That is where and when we discover if the real meanings of Christmas have found a home in us.

Clark Gable was reminiscing about his relationship with his glamorous and witty wife, Carole Lombard. “One day on the ranch,” he said, “we were just being lazy, strolling around and gabbing. It was one of those beautiful California days. I said, ‘Ma, we’re awfully lucky, you and I--all this and each other too. Anything you want that we haven’t got?’ You know what she said, standing there looking as lovely as a dream? She said, ‘Well, I could use another load of manure for the south forty.’”

The real miracle of Christmas, the real task of Christmas may not be all the beauty of the day, or the unbelievable happenings that flow into and out of it with all their mystery. Instead the real miracle is integrating back into the real world of manure on the back forty, of carrying on with life with your first baby, of doing all that is expected of you in all sorts of ways, yet holding in your heart the awareness that because of Christmas, all that stuff, and you along with it, will never be quite the same.

Mary and Joseph came down from their mountaintop, because the fact that the world keeps turning made them do so. But even in the unstoppable flow of their ongoing lives, each time they looked at their child, they remembered. How could they forget a night like that.

And that’s the key. After whatever kind of hallowed experience we have with Christ, life doesn’t automatically become easy street. We find ourselves slipping back into a similar kind of existence. But there’s a difference. No matter what kind of real world we find ourselves back in, we have the wonderful and joyful realization that life will never be quite the same again because of Jesus Christ.

God

"God"
Luke 1:46-55


When I used to teach Confirmation Class, there was one final assignment that I’d ask the class to do.  I would meet with the 8th graders from September to the following March.  We would cover all the basics of the faith:  Who is God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit?  What is the church?  What is a Christian?  What is the Bible?  They are huge questions.  Trying to get this kind of material across to 8th graders is like marching in where angels fear to tread.  My son, Ryan’s class, was a case in point.  It was one of the largest classes I’ve taught, and they were all clowns and goof-offs.  I don’t know if I got anything across to any of those kids.  It’s for that reason that many of my pastor friends think we should teach Confirmation class to students right after they graduate from college.  We might have better luck.

Anyway, the final assignment, after having spent months on all these heady theological topics, was for each eighth grader to write a statement of faith.  The kids worked on these statements for a couple of weeks.  After a special meal, with the parents in attendance, all would gather in the sanctuary.  Each confirmand, in turn would stand in the pulpit and read their Statement of Faith.  They would describe as 14 and 15 year olds what they’ve come to believe.  All of their years of Sunday School, all of the times they sat through worship, all the Youth Group meetings, all that “faith stuff” got distilled down into a statement of what they believed.

It’s probably one of the hardest tasks the class members had to do.  Each class struggled, wondered, fretted, sweat bullets.  Most felt inadequate to the task.  They asked, “Is this good enough?”  Or, “Is this what you want?”  All I said was, “It’s your statement.  Do you feel it’s good enough?  Is it what you want to say?”  It’s a much more difficult task than most realize.  When my son stood in the pulpit for his turn, he talked about what he didn’t believe rather than what he did. It was the most creative of his class, coming at his belief by talking about unbelief.

Maybe I should give each of you that assignment.  All of the adults in our congregation could be required to write out a statement of faith.  As an adult, what would you write?  What would you say in writing out what you believe?  How often do you really contemplate what it is, exactly, that you believe or don’t believe?  And how would you state it if you were forced to write it down to be read in front of the rest of the people in this congregation?

I think it would be a good Christmas tradition for all believers.  Sit down in a quiet place.  Take out your journal if you use one.  If you don’t, get one.  You can call it your Christmas Statement of Faith Journal.  Look back over this year of your life.  Based on the experiences of this past year, write a statement of what you believe.  How have the experiences of the year shaped your faith?  As you have come to worship or Sunday School, what has caught your attention?  How has your faith in God shined brighter in your life?  Or has it dimmed?  How have you noticed the hand of God in your life in this past year?  What is it that you believe?  Or what, about our Christian belief have you had a hard time believing?  Think about those kinds of questions and then write a statement of faith.

If you follow through on this suggestion, and you want to take the further risk of letting me read it over, I’d be happy to do that, and talk it over with you.  I won’t make you read it in front of the congregation.

Mary gave us her statement of faith to read.  She looked back over the recent events of her life and wrote a statement of what she believed specifically about God.  She realized the central character of her story is God.  We look at the story and sing about shepherds and wise men and angels and Joseph and Mary.  But in and through and around the whole story is God.

Mary wrote her statement of faith in the form of a song.  It’s a piece of compact poetry that is full of the images of what she has come to believe about God.  I think some of the meanings of the imagery is known only to her.  But I found a few points of her faith statement that were important for me that I’d like to lift out for our attention this Christmas morning.

First, the first word in each of the lines of Mary’s faith song is, “God:”
God is my Savior…
God cares for me…
God has blessed me…
God All-Powerful has done great things…
God always shows mercy…
God has used his powerful arm…
God drags strong rulers…
God gives the hungry good things…
God helps his servant…
God made this promise…

Even though each of our faith statements are our own, and come from our own hearts and experiences, they are not ultimately about us.  They are about God.  Who God is.  How we have come to understand God.  We can’t discover who we are until we first discover who God is.  Not the other way around.

The message of Christmas is that God revealed himself ultimately and fully in Jesus.  It is that revelation that we must grapple with most in our own statements of faith.  Only by understanding God in the revelation of himself in Jesus Christ will we then come to a clearer revelation of who we are in God’s eyes and purpose.

That’s what Mary concentrates on most in her song:  What God has done.  Not what she thinks God is like.  But what God has done.  God reveals his nature by what he does.  We can’t just sit around and think about what we think God might be like.  We must, as Mary does, concentrate on what God actually does.  God is constantly revealing himself in the world.  Only by keeping our eyes open do we see those acts of revelation and how God is behind what’s going on.  In all things, through all things, above all things, GOD.

Secondly, Mary believes that God is a God who is personally involved in the world and in her individual life.  Several times she used the personal pronoun as a direct object of God’s activity.  God is not only the Savior; God is MY Savior.

By claiming God as Savior, Mary is highlighting her belief that God is behind the saving, redeeming, forgiving acts in people’s lives and in world history.  God is the one who is involved in personal and historical salvation in all its forms.  Wherever there is some form of salvation, forgiveness, reconciliation, God is somehow intimately involved in that act.

In our American culture we know how to go after guilt and shame.  We know how to prosecute and judge, even before any trial happens.  We know how to run people through the legal ringer.  We dot all the “j’s” and cross all the “t’s” in judgement.  We know how to pronounce the moral verdict and hand down the sentence.

But we don’t know what to do afterwards.  Once we’ve run someone through the gauntlet of humiliation and judgement, then what?  Where and how are the equal, and maybe more powerful forces of forgiveness and salvation and ultimately, reconciliation brought to bear?  There is no due process for forgiveness and salvation, except by God.

That’s the message of Christmas, and the faith statement of Mary:

With all my heart I praise the Lord,
and I am glad because of God my Savior.

Praise God, Mary is saying in her statement of faith, that in God, I can finally find a place of salvation, rescue and forgiveness.  Because it can’t be found anywhere else.  There is no where else in the world that Mary found a Savior, except in God.  Neither will we.  Life doesn’t revolve around the judgements of rulers.  Nor does life revolve even around the real and unavoidable consequences of our actions.  Life revolves around God the Savior, God the forgiver, God the one who sees imperfections and reconciles us not only to God, but to each other, and to ourselves.

That’s Mary’s message to us about Christmas.  Christmas is a time to celebrate God’s Good News of how God is bringing ultimate reconciliation, love, and embrace into the world through Jesus Christ.

There are so many other important statements Mary makes in her faith statement about God.  Things like God uses surprising people to accomplish God’s work.  All through the stories about God in the Bible, God seems to delight in choosing people we wouldn’t choose if we were in charge.  The author of the book about Samson that Men’s Bible Study just finished up this week made that point about Samson.  In the Epilogue of the book, the author wrote:
I stand in awe of a God who is gracious enough to tolerate a guy like Samson, let alone use him.  If I had been calling the shots, I probably would have blown Samson off somewhere around his twenty-fifth birthday.  I would have grown completely frustrated and found another person to work through.  Someone who would take the Nazarite vow seriously.  Someone who would follow orders.  But God stuck by Samson…

Mary has come to believe that God values people and things differently than the world does.  We think power and personality and celebrity and athleticism and authority is what’s important.  God turns all that on its ear.  Makes it disappear in a poof.  At the same time, God elevates what in God’s eyes is really important.  The humble are given authority.  The hungry are fed.

Just look at the Christmas story.  Shepherds who are completely despised as human beings had angels singing to them.  Those smelly outcast shepherds, children and adolescents mostly, were the first to see the Savior.  Wise men--foreigners--were shown to be the ones who understood who Jesus was, traveling great distance just to see him.  Mary saw how God was, and how God acted.  Thus she came to make a statement of faith based on what she saw happening, and the way God worked be uplifting those we’d pass by.



For Mary, God is a stunning and awesome God.  But as powerful as her statement of faith is, she still doesn’t know the half of it.  God has some surprise revelations for her yet.  Little does she comprehend who the child is whom she carried and now has given birth to.  That revelation, and a fuller understanding of God, is yet to come.  For now, sitting in a cattle stall, holding a baby, listening to shepherds jabber about angels singing--this is enough.


So, are you ready to write your statement of faith, this Christmas Day?

Submission

"Submission"
Luke 1:38


It just so happened that a charismatic TV preacher, as a side job, ran a dog obedience school.  A lady brought her dog to him and told the preacher that her dog was totally wild and wanted the full obedience training.

After three weeks the lady called, and was told her dog was ready.  When she went to pick up her dog, the preacher demonstrated what the dog had learned.  First, he said, “Sit!” and the dog sat.
“Lay down,” he said, and the dog lay down.
“Roll over,” was the next command, and the dog obediently rolled over.
“That’s wonderful,” the woman exclaimed.

But then a sudden realization hit her and she asked, “But what if the dog just obeys your voice and not mine?”
“Give the dog a command,” the preacher said.
“Come,” the lady said, and the dog came to her side.  She started to walk away, and commanded, “Heel!”  The dog immediately knocked her over, placed its two front paws on her forehead and bent its head and prayed.

We’ve come to think of obedience as something that has to be force learned.  When you’re training a horse, you have to first “break” it; that is, force it to submit to your will and your command.

I remember one of the buzz phrases back in the 1980’s, pertaining to raising children was, “the strong-willed child.”  That term was used to describe a child who was stubborn or uncontrollable.  Books with titles like, Shaping the Will Without Breaking the Spirit were popular bestsellers in the parenting section of the book store.

Even on an international level, when Iran or North Korea start acting up, refusing to go along with inspections of their nuclear facilities, the United Nations forces them to submit through economic sanctions and embargoes.

Submission has become an action that only comes about when someone puts the heal of their boot heavily upon our lives.  We usually have to be forced to submit, involuntarily.  Take, for example, the various “occupy Wall Street” groups around the country, and in other nations.  Though one of our inherent rights as citizens is “peaceful assembly,” (and I’ll say more about that in a few minutes), these “occupy” groups are now being forced to submit to packing up and going home.  The disenfranchised 99%, speaking out against the franchised 1%, trying to get their voices heard, even though it’s not clear what they want, are being forced to submit to packing up the tents, and closing down their protest.

The worst example was in the middle of November at an “occupy” protest on the UC Davis campus.  The line of students at a peaceful demonstration, sitting on the ground, locking arms, were pepper sprayed by police because the students wouldn’t move.

That’s how submission usually happens.  People submit because they are out-manned or over-powered.  People are policed, legislated or pepper sprayed into waving the white flag, or throwing in the towel because they have been overcome by someone else’s superiority and they can’t take it any longer.

When I’m working with couples who are preparing to get married, we get to the point of planning the service.  We talk about the vows.  We talk about the sacredness of the vows and what it means to speak a vow to another.  But there is one phrase that used to be in the traditional vows that couples refuse to say:  “...to honor and obey…”  Obey has become an ugly word.

Obedience is a form of submission, of giving our will to another out of fear of consequences. It is almost essential to obedience that there be no specific rationale for the action demanded by the authority. “Do as I tell you” leaves no room for questions. We are not supposed to understand, only to carry out.

II
The Roman culture of New Testament times was similar to our modern western culture in that freedom was one of the greatest of all virtues.  We are the land of the free.  The Bill of Rights insures certain freedoms that each citizen has by virtue of living in this country:  freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to bear arms, freedom to assemble, and so on.  We work hard to make sure that none of those freedoms are trod upon.

The Roman culture during the time of the New Testament looked down their noses at slaves and servants.  There was clear contempt for slaves by those who were free.  Being free was such a value, anyone who was not free, like a slave, was deemed to be a class lower than human.  Likewise, we work hard to make sure we aren’t totally under someone else’s thumb.  We also don’t mind if we have at least a few people under our thumb, that we can order around so we can feel powerful and important.

We have to be careful, then, not to race over certain parts of the Christmas story because they make us twinge a bit.  Parts like when Mary submits to the plan of God to carry and give birth to the Savior.  Mary said to the angel messenger, “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

What she told the angel is that she will submit to God, as a slave would submit to her master.  J.B. Phillips, in his translation of the New Testament, catches the flavor of what Mary said:  “I belong to the Lord, body and soul.”

At another place in the Christmas story, Joseph refused to take Mary as his wife because she was carrying a child that wasn’t his.  He felt betrayed and humiliated.  The angel came to him in a dream and told him to forego his pride, submit to God’s plan, and take Mary as his bride.  He woke up and without hesitation obeys God’s word.  Two other times the angel visited Joseph with a plan from God, and Joseph submitted himself to that plan.

The wise men who searched for and eventually found the Christ child were told by God that they were not to return to Herod, but go home by a different route.  They were not to tell Herod if and where they found the Christ Child.  They obeyed, and went home a different way.

Obedience and submission are woven into the fabric of this birth story.  People were approached by God to submit to God’s plan.  Those people obeyed and followed God’s word.  God didn’t overpower the main characters of the story.  God didn’t force them to submit.  God didn’t back them into a corner so they had no other choice.

That’s what’s important to remember as we read these stories.  God allowed these people the right to say “no.”  Mary could have said no, refusing to have God’s child.  Joseph could have said no and allowed Mary to be stoned for adultery, or rejected her and marry someone else.  The wise men could have said no and gone and talked to Herod anyway.

But they didn’t.  It was more like they voluntarily and happily submitted to what God asked them to do.  Maybe it was the way God asked.  In his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard has a chapter about submission.  In that chapter he wrote,
Submission, though, is a call for help to those recognized as able to give it because of their depth of experience and Christlikeness.

That was a new thought for me--that submission is a reply to a call for help from another.  Is it possible that God’s message to Mary and Joseph and the wise men was not in the form of a demand or a proclamation as much as it was a call for help from God?  Did Mary hear the angel’s message not in the tone of “this is a done deal and you will obey,” as much as in the tone of, “God needs you.  You are the only one who can help.  Please participate with God in God’s plan to save the world.”

Mary becomes a willing spirit, submitting herself not to a command that has no choice, but a plea, a request of urgency.  By asking her, God recognizes that she has the depth of character and Godliness that is able to willingly submit to God’s plea.

Mary becomes a witness to all of us “no-sayers: who refuse to see how God needs us.  Are we so into ourselves and our own little self-made worlds, that any request from God is immediately seen as an arm twisting demand?  We fail to recognize that when God makes some request of us, that God has already decided we have the depth of character and faith to do what God is asking of us.  It is an honor to be told by God that he needs us to take some action.  Do we twist that honor into seeing it as a demand for our unwilling obedience?

This week I read an excerpt of a book that hasn’t been published yet.  The book is titled Reweaving the Human Fabric, by Miki Kashtan.  In this excerpt she tells about how she has always struggled with authority figures, and been rebellious to their demands, refusing to obey.  Then a light came on for her and she saw that it isn’t about obeying or rebelling.  It is about her own inner character.  She wrote:
Internally I was more preoccupied with not giving in than with knowing what I wanted and going for it.  I chose my actions reactively, not truly from within.  I didn’t see what is now so clear to me: that true choice, true freedom, emerges from inner clarity.

That, I think, is what’s behind Mary’s ready submission to God.  She wasn’t playing a game with God and resisting just for the sake of resisting.  Mary had an inner clarity, and inner sense of character that helped her realize what she wanted.  Having that inner clarity is what is so freeing.

Here’s another way to say this.  Jonathan Edwards was a great revival preacher in the early 1700’s.  He believed that submission is an exercise of the will in the direction of the affections of the soul.  (Let me say that again--listen closely.)  What I get out of that is that each of us have certain affections deep in our soul.  They could be affections for any one or any thing.  When we will ourselves to submit, we do so in the direction of those deep affections.  We willingly do what we deeply love.

So, if our affections are for God and the things of God, we will have no problem willing ourselves to submit to God and the pleas of God.  But if we have little or no affections of the soul for God, it will be hard for us to bend our will to submit in God’s direction.

Inner clarity, deep affections of the soul, no matter what you call it, that is what is at the basis for the times of our greatest and most willing obedience and submission.  Mary must have already had deep affections for God and the ways of God.  Because of her long held inner clarity, it was easy for her to submit to God and say, “Let it be to me as you have said.”

III
This inner clarity resulting in true submission does a couple of things.  First, it shows how much we value another person.  It demonstrates to others to whom we submit how important they are to us.  How important their dreams or plans are to us.  We don’t submit to people who don’t mean anything to us.  Mary’s submission to God and God’s plan was a demonstration of how much God meant to her.

Secondly, true submission, arising out of the deep affection of the soul, becomes an alignment of the inner person with outer actions.  It is possible to obey a master, or a boss, or a parent, or a spouse, without living in a spirit of submission.  We can do what others ask of us and at the same time harbor rebellion and resentment in our hearts.  We can be obedient to God, but grudgingly, as if we are being put upon.

We would rather let our submission be like paint which only covers the surface, without penetrating or sinking in.  But true submission is like stain, which penetrates deeply into the grain and fibre of the wood.  The inside matches the outside.

Frances de Sales, Bishop of Geneva back in the early 1600’s wrote this in describing the devout person:
They are people with angelic hearts.  They are full of vigor and spiritual agility.  They have wings to soar aloft in holy prayer and they also have feet to walk among people in a holy and loving way of life.  Their faces are beautiful and joyous because they accept all things meekly and mildly.  Their thoughts, affections, and deeds have no purpose or motive but that of pleasing God.  Such are devout persons.


IV
This Advent season, spend some time in prayer, using this quote from de Sales as a mirror.  Let it penetrate the fibre of who you are, and who you want to become.  How do you see yourself in comparison to its reflection.  Look at the descriptive words:  words like “vigor,” “spiritual agility,” “affections.”  How do they reflect, or not reflect with your life.  Let these words be like God’s plea to you, a plea to your deep affections, to your sense of inner clarity, that this is who God wants you to be for him, starting this Christmas.  God’s not demanding it.  It’s a plea.  Will you submit?

Cornelia Wing Memorial Service Message

Cornelia Wing Memorial Service Message



When mom was a little girl, church was front and center to everything her family was about.  Church was not a like a pond into which her family dabbled its toes from time to time.  It was a full body immersion. There was intentionality.  There was resolve.  And if you knew Grandpa Matson, her father, you also knew there was fun.

My mother's family, as she grew up, were members of First Presbyterian Church in downtown Seattle.  The Pastor was the Rev. Dr. Mark Matthews  Tall.  Stately.  Fearsome.  He was known to wear a top hat and tails into the pulpit every Sunday morning.  Taking up the offering was a particularly solemn occasion in the worship service.  One time mom's brother Emerson got away from his parents before the service started, stood up on the front step of the front of the sanctuary and said, in Rev. Dr. Mark Matthews tones, "Bring me your pennies."

One of the hallmark ministries that set First Presbyterian Church in Seattle apart was it's mission to the winnos and skid row derelicts on First Avenue and the water front.  In fact, the term Skid Row, was first coined in Seattle.  Built on several hills, everything slid down to the waterfront.  The closer you got to the water front, back in those days, the more ruined your life.  You skid down.  Any wholesomeness your life had skid down, the lower down the hill you went.

There were several missions and soup kitchens on First Avenue.  One of those was run by First Presbyterian Church.  Mom's growing up family had a large part to do with the program in that soup kitchen.  While the winnos and booze hounds slurped up their free soup and home made bread, music would be playing.  Old hymns banged out on an similarly old, out of tune upright grand.  The piano player was my mother's mother, Elizabeth.

After her father lead everyone in a number of hymns, with him ending up mostly singing solo's on each song, he would give a devotional.  Only he called them "chalk talks."  He had a large black board he would creak across the floor.  He would start in on his chalk talk, drawing a line here or there on the board.  A few souls would look up from their steamy soup.  My mom's dad, Nils Matson, would begin weaving a story in his characteristic Swedish accent.  My grandfather was an inventor, and many of his greatest inventions were the stories he told.

I never saw my grandfather do one of his chalk talks, but my mom told me about them.  With each line or curve or circle that he'd add to the blackboard, more and more of the derelicts would put down their spoons, beginning to wonder what the picture was going to become.  By the time he was done, my grandfather had everyone's attention.  His bright red Swedish cheeks were only matched by the sparkle in his eye, as he masterfully reeled in his audience.  By the time he was done, the lost souls were a little more found, a little more hopeful, and a little more fed.

Sitting down in front were three little children.  Singing along with their mother as she played that old piano with chipped ivory keys.  Watching as their father drew pictures on the large slate blackboard.  Those three children were Emerson, Dorcas, and my mom.  Sisters and brother growing up watching their parents be the church on Skid Row.  Week in and week out they were doing ministry together.  Although they may have never called it that.  To them it was just how they were as family.  Growing up in the working class neighborhood of the Roosevelt district of Seattle, my mom, the middle child of the three, had a life that revolved around a hard working mother, and an impish and child-like father whose love of fun often over-ruled the semi-sternness of her mother, and the church.  Always the church.

In her later teenaged years there was a boy who was told about my mom.  They were set up to meet through a mutual friend.  It was a blind date.  And it happened at church.  At the same First Presbyterian Church in Seattle.  My mother decided if this boy was going to meet her and show any kind of inkling toward her, it was going to be in church.  And so they met, in church.  During a worship service.  Dr, Mark Matthews still pompously presiding in the pulpit.  Soon they were dating.  And then married Douglas Wing, my father.

But my mother was never able to fully pull my father into the orbit of the church as she was used to.  Whereas my father only played at church, and later shunned it, my mother was immersed in it, and eventually became discouraged.  She had grown up with the best Sunday School teachers.  Men and women who were called home from the mission field as the second world war was getting ramped up.  Sitting at the knees of these great Bible teachers, with their wild mission field stories, instilled a deep and learned quality to my mom's faith.  She more than once expressed exasperation at the low quality of Sunday School teaching we were getting when she'd take us to church.

I was a reluctant attender of Sunday School.  I remember waking up early on Sunday mornings and praying to God that my mom would sleep in so we wouldn't have to go to Sunday School.  I'm not sure how God sorted out those prayers spoken by an impetuous little boy.  I guess God showed me by calling me into the ministry, and finding myself in charge of the educational programs in the congregations I'd serve.


As much as I despised coming to Sunday School and memorizing Bible verses, just as equally or more, I loved going to worship with my mom.  There was something about sitting next to my mother in that large, long A-frame sanctuary at First Presbyterian Church in Bellevue that filled me with awe.  It all started when I was a boy and I was sent to St. Thomas Episcopal Day School.  Dave and I went.  Dave was transferred over to Medina Elementary after one year, but I was kept at St. Thomas up through the 3rd grade.  I've never been sure why I was kept there by my parents.  Marching to chapel every day in my crisp white shirt and salt and pepper pants.  Banging down the prayer kneelers as loud as we could when Father Val Spinosa said, "Let us pray."  The round stained glass window in the back of the sanctuary beaming red and blue lights all over us.

That's what I carried forward with me as I sat in church with my mom, in junior high.  Rev. Frank Burgess looking down at us from that tall pulpit through those rose colored glasses of his.  I could never tell exactly where he was looking.  I always felt like he was looking straight at me and my mom.  It was sitting in church with my mom one Sunday, that I heard the still small voice saying, "Steve, this is what I want you to do."  I remember looking at my mom wondering if it was her who spoke.  I remember looking all around to see whose voice that might have been and finally decided it was God.  I remember telling mom on the way home, "I think I heard God telling me he wants me to be a minister."  She looked over at me, her 7th grade son, and simply said, "Oh, that's nice."  I think she really wanted someone to carry on the legacy of church that she had grown up with--but not take it so far as to become a minister.

My mom had a falling out with church at First Pres, as we called it.  I'm not sure what happened, but all of a sudden we stopped going.  I just happened to meet a girl in the youth group, so I kept going.  But mom ran into one of those hard spots that most of us run into with church.  Hard nosed people who don't understand grace.  Judgmental and unkind.  Treating church as more of an extension of the country club than what she had grown up with at her father and mother's knees.

I am so thankful to God that she found this church, Rose Hill.  Here she was able to refigure out her way, and gain a new enthusiasm for church.  Here she didn't sit back anymore, but got involved with several ministry oriented committees, then became a Deacon and an Elder.  As a Deacon she began to reclaim her roots of reaching out to hurting people.  She helped start something called the Tea Cup Ministry, extending caring, companionship and hospitality to those who were newly widowed.  It was a ministry that eventually served her when our father died in 1995.  And I think, if I remember right, the Tea Cup Ministry was taken up by other churches in the area, once they heard about the work my mom and her friends on the Deacons had got going.  It is the tea cup ministry that will serve us as we fellowship together after worship.

It was also here that I got to continue one of the things I loved to do best as a boy and youth, and that's attend church with my mom.  When ever I was in town, we'd sit right back here.  She'd proudly introduce me to all her friends sitting around her, and she always had to add, "He's a Presbyterian minister."  No chance of just coming and hiding out in church with mom.

But for me church has been that special bond between my mom and me.  I felt like I got caught up in her legacy, started so many years ago on Skid Row.  She helped me catch a love for Scripture, one that she nurtured through years of Bible Study Fellowship.  Her priority of service oriented ministry has been a laser light of direction for me.  Her  unwillingness to give up on the church, even when the church was being lead and populated by hurtful idiots, has been a rock for me when I have felt like giving up on the ministry.

And I think that's why I'm telling you all this.  My mom's life has had a common thread.  And that thread has been her relationship with Jesus Christ and his church.  She never gave up.  She never gave up on it even when my father was pressuring her not to go, or involve us kids in church.  She never gave up on it when she was hurt by it.  She sat here in the pew, and she loved it, and fought for what was best and right in it.  She made it her life.

I would be remiss if I didn't say this to you all, and I think she would reach down out of heaven and shake me if I didn't ask you to think about this.  To think about her and what her life meant.  I know some of you have had a hard time figuring the ins and outs of your faith.  Including some of her own children and grandchildren.  I know you're sitting there thinking, "Oh, boy, here it comes."  I can't tell you the number of conversations I had with her about how she wished you would all find your way in the church.  That somehow her life mattered because you would make what mattered to her most deeply, matter to you as well.  Our mother's greatest legacy, as great as we are, is not her children or grandchildren.  Even above us, is her faith, her love for the Savior, and how she expressed that faith and love in her work in the church.  That, above all things, is what she wanted passed on to us.

I'm not going to take advantage of your emotions, too much, here at mom's memorial service, and guilt you into the life of the church as she lived it.  I only ask, in her name, that you would consider it.  If you have strayed, if you've been hurt, even if it just doesn't make sense any more, would you, for mom, just think about the place of the church in your life, and your relationship with the Lord.  As I look back over her life, I believe it is her greatest legacy.  Is there some way you can get caught up in that legacy in some new way.

Jesus loves me, this I know,
For the Bible tells me so,
Little ones to him belong,
They are weak, but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me,
Yes, Jesus loves me,
Yes, Jesus loves me,
The Bible tells me so.

Pregnancy

"Pregnancy"
Luke 1:30-31, 36-37


In order to determine if he was running to the best of his ability, marathon racer and cardiologist, Dr. George Sheehan went to the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.  There, physiologists gave him a maximum human performance test.  Part of it consisted of running a mile on a treadmill at an eight minute pace.  Then he had to run a mile on the treadmill at a seven minute pace.  And finally a mile at 6 minutes, 40 seconds, with the treadmill at a steeper grade.

All the time, the physiologists kept urging Sheehan to try harder and do more.  When it was all done, Sheehan took out the mouthpiece, gasping, “O God!  O God!”  The physiologists poured over their figures, excited about his performance.  “He went over the hill,” one of them said.  Sheehan had reached his maximum peak performance and gone past it.

The pain eventually began to recede.  As he sprawled out on a chair, feeling content, he kept trying to think of an experience that similarly taxed the human body to its maximum.  Then it came to him.  He turned to the other doctors and asked, “How soon can I see my baby?”

That may be the closest a guy can get to understanding, or getting a taste of what pregnancy and child birth are like.  I confess, I don’t know what it feels like to give birth.  Equally, I don’t know what it feels like to be pregnant.  There have been movies about guys being pregnant.  But they are all comedies.  They are never dramas, like when the movie is about a woman being pregnant.  With a guy, pregnancy is funny.  With a woman, it’s drama.

Guys don’t have a clue as to what goes on in pregnancy.  And I think, if I may be so bold to speak for most guys here, we are happy with that.  We are happy that we don’t know.  It’s OK with us.  Do you agree, guys?  I mean, we get in on the good part of pregnancy, and then we get to sit back and watch.  There’s nothing else a guy can do.  You can’t get morning sickness for your pregnant wife.  She has to do that herself.  You can’t transfer the baby into the guy for a while to relieve your pregnant wife from carrying the child the whole nine months.

We can walk funny, like our pregnant wives, but then we get hit.  So, like I said, there isn’t a whole lot we can do that will ever help us guys understand what it feels like, and what you women have to go through when you’re pregnant.  And, as I said before, we are happy with that.  You women just go ahead and get together with your little coffee and chat groups.  Compare notes and birth stories.  And we will, well, we will continue being guys.

Even in childbirth--maybe especially childbirth--we guys feel mostly helpless.  We’re supposed to be good coaches, run to the store for your pickles and ice cream;  tell you when to breathe, and be generally encouraging and all that.  But when you’re in marathon runner level pain, pushing out our children, we feel mostly helpless and stupid.

Do you remember that Bill Cosby routine, when he tells about the birth of their first child.  He set the whole scene by telling about their expectations for how it would go.  That the birth of their child would be natural and enjoyable.  But then how quickly all that went out the window once the contractions started.  When he told his wife to breathe during one of her contractions Cosby described how she grabbed his lower lip and pulled it up over his head.

That’s when we guys realize that, as helpful as we think we are being, as helpful as we are supposed to be during our wives pregnancy and childbirth, the reality is, we’re pretty worthless to the whole process.  Except for the beginning.

So, with all the courage and stupidity I can muster, I’m going to stand up here and talk about pregnancy.  Even though I’ve already disqualified myself, and I have no idea what you women are thinking of me for even attempting what I’m about to attempt.  But I’m going to take the chance, because I’ve stood by during the pregnancy of my two kids and witnessed them both being born.  And I have extensive experience talking with pregnant women in the churches I’ve served.  So I’m hoping I come off sounding like I’m at least semi-knowledgable.  (You guys are all sitting there smugly smiling thinking to yourselves, “This ought to be good.  We’re going to just let Wing step on this land mine.”)

The reason I’m taking this risk, I hope, is clear.  You can’t get into the Christmas story very far before you are dealing with pregnancy.  Even before Mary’s pregnancy, we are told about Elizabeth.  She’s a woman whose age has taken her well beyond child-bearing.  She’s never had any children of her own.  She’s the wife of a priest named Zechariah.  An angel visited her and told her she will have a baby.  A baby who will eventually become John, the forerunner of the coming of the Savior.  Then the same angel visited Mary.  Mary was an unmarried girl.  She hasn’t had any children not because she’s too old, but because she’s so young.   The angel told her she will have a baby, and that he will be the Savior of the world.

So right off we are dealing with two pregnant ladies.  The early parts of the Christmas story have to do with 15 months of two overlapping pregnancies.  It just seemed to me, that if we are going to understand the Christmas story, we have to be able to understand something of what it means to be pregnant.

We have to put ourselves back in Mary’s time.  And for you older women, you might be able to relate to this better.  There were no drug stores back then you could run to and get a home pregnancy kit to find out if you really are pregnant.  Unless you get morning sickness, there are no signs for the first month or two.  Mary wouldn’t have known, for sure, if what the angel told her, really happened to her.

I remember the first few months of doing those early pregnancy tests.  All negative.  Months of tests turned into years.  Then medical procedures.  Then fertility drugs.  Still nothing.  After each procedure, the promise and possibility of being excited.  But nothing.  Just another negative; looking at each other; looking at the floor.  Finally giving up.  There was a certain release in giving up.  A relaxing.  Embracing childlessness.

Then, BAM!  Pregnancy happened.  First Ryan, then Kristin.  I remember the elation.  The surprise.  The disbelief.  The jumping up and down.  The excitement.  The anticipation.

But those first couple of months, for Mary, would have been filled with all kinds of apprehension and emotional anticipation.  When you get a message from God that you will be pregnant, you don’t have to worry about home pregnancy tests or infertility techniques.  It’s going to happen.

During this time Mary apparently didn’t tell Joseph what had happened with the angel’s visit.  The gospel tells us that while she and Joseph were betrothed, that she was “found to be with child.”  Once she starts looking pregnant, once everyone discovered her pregnancy, that’s also when Joseph found out.  For most women, part of the excitement that is generated is when you start to “show.”  But for Mary, that’s when the secret is out.  That’s when she can’t hide anymore.  There was no jumping up and down from the thrill of being pregnant.  She and Joseph probably didn’t hug each other in sheer love of each other at the news.

Mary took the angel’s message with so much grace and acceptance.  Without too much questioning, she said, “Yes.”  At some point there must have come the sudden fear of, “Oh my gosh; what have I done?”  Is it a question most women ask themselves, either privately or out loud?  Do the questions start taking over the initial elation?  Questions like, How is this going to change everything?”  Does early excitement begin to be mixed and mingled with those “reality check” kinds of questions?

Until then, Mary’s life went on normally.  “This is pretty easy,” she might have thought to herself.  But then when her pregnancy was clear to everyone, and the fact that she and Joseph had not married yet, and that Joseph wasn’t the father of her baby, the reality checks of pregnancy came hard and fast.  When did Mary sit down and say to herself, “Oh my gosh; what have I done?”  Questions that hadn’t even entered her mind up until that point.  When did she finally realize, as most women must, that being pregnant as she was, was going to absolutely and irreversibly change her life?

See, I may be wrong here, but I’m not sure guys think about those kinds of questions with their wife’s pregnancy.  We don’t start thinking about such things until well after the birth, when our children cry, and we don’t know what’s wrong, and we don’t know how to fix it.  I think guys think their lives will remain pretty much unchanged.  We’ll be good fathers and all that.  But for the most part, we don’t assume children are going to change or affect our life direction, vocation, and goals.  When that reality hits, we are totally unprepared for how to deal with it.  Women, because they think about these kinds of realities the whole pregnancy, have at least a nine month jump on us.


Women get a much more real glimpse of all this because something happens around the fifth month of pregnancy.  Many women talk about losing track of their bodies.  It feels like their body doesn’t become theirs anymore to control and do with what she wants.  The child, growing inside of her, controls what and how much she eats, how well she sleeps, how she walks, how she is able to function or not function in her daily life, and how close she has to be to a bathroom at any given time.  Even just sitting in what used to be a comfortable chair isn’t comfortable any more.  Let alone riding on a donkey for several days.

Everything in a pregnant woman’s body seems to change and there’s nothing she can do about it.  In pregnancy, a woman finds out she has been taken over by something much larger than herself.  She has given up all sense of control to do anything about it.  That’s why women may be more ready to understand the life changes that come with pregnancy--because so much has changed already for them.  We goofy men go off to work each day, kiss our pregnant wives, and tell them how much they are glowing.  We are clueless.

I think about Mary.  She’s having to deal with her ever enlarging body, and the fact she was losing control of her body.  But more than that, she was also dealing with the reality of losing control of her life.  Not only had pregnancy taken over her body, but God’s plan had taken over her life.  She simply bowed before it at the angel’s visit.  How happy was she with it all once it all started unfolding?

I’m kind of like that.  I get these grand ideas or make some big plan.  I assume that everything will just go grandly.  I work it all out in my head and assume that it will work the same way in reality.  Then real life takes over my grand plans.  They start spinning out of my control.  All my assumptions about smooth sailing go overboard when the first wave hits.  Especially when the plans have to do with the Lord and the work of his church.  I have the clear assumption that all has to go well since it has to do with God.  Why then do I all of a sudden find myself backpedaling, compromising, or just plain doing damage control?

Mary must have sat down and cried at several points as she lost more and more control over her situation.  I think that’s why she finally ran off to aunt Elizabeth’s house.  Elizabeth would understand.  Elderly Elizabeth finally got what she prayed for in her pregnancy, and quickly found herself in a similar out of control situation.  Mary probably wasn’t looking for any answers to her problems from Elizabeth.  She didn’t want Elizabeth to solve anything for her, or explain the odd ways of God.  She just wanted to be with someone who understood what it was like to have your body taken over by pregnancy, and your life taken over by God’s plans.  Now, Mary’s sledding down a hill, with all kinds of obstacles in the way, and it was God who gave her the primary shove.  And Elizabeth is on the back.


Then there comes the time in the last weeks of the pregnancy when women say, “Let’s get this over with!  Let’s just have this child!”  After nine months of planning, preparing, and “nesting,” there is a resoluteness that sets in to get it over with.  The nine months have run their course.  The waiting has turned into impatience.  The discomfort is at its greatest.  The time of birth, too, is out of a woman’s control, unless it will be a C-section.

I think of Mary, plodding along toward Bethlehem, sitting uncomfortably pregnant upon the donkey.  They finally arrived after what must have been an unbearably longer journey for Mary than for Joseph.

Then Luke tersely states, “While they were there, the time came for her to give birth.”  How much is hidden in that verse.  How much had come before and during the pregnancy for Mary to finally get to that verse in the story.  Nine months of an emotionally difficult pregnancy went into that statement.  We don’t even know, physically, how the pregnancy went for her.  Simply that the time finally came to give birth.  Finally.  Did she look at Joseph and say, or at least think, “Finally we get this thing over with”?

But then what?  Then comes life.  After pregnancy comes life.  When Mary, when any woman is pregnant, the child within her is self-contained in the womb.  But once the birth happens, once the pregnancy is over, that life is out.  Then there’s a whole new set of issues to face.  But that’s another sermon.

At this point in the story, Mary is still early in the pregnancy, and the majority of the nine months lay ahead of her.  The surprise is beginning to fade.  The reality is beginning to set in.  Harder days lay ahead.