Pasadena Presbyterian Church Sermon Text
December 21, 2003

"The God Who Will Stoop to Anything"
Preached by The Rev. Dr. Mark Smutny

Scripture:  Luke 1: 39-55

(39) In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, (40) where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.  (41) When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit (42) and exclaimed with a loud cry, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. (43) And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? (44) For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. (45) And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.' (46) And Mary said, 'My soul magnifies the Lord, (47) and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, (48) for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; (49) for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.  (50) His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.  (51) He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.  (52) He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; (53) he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.  (54) He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, (55) according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.

- Luke 1: 39-55

We are preparing for that day when Immanuel, God is with us, the incarnation, is fully born into our world.  This season cultivates even more deeply than usual a longing within Christians that we will come to know peace.  As deep as this longing is among all Christians and people of good will, there is trouble and division in Christendom not only about great social issues but also our core beliefs, the essential tenants of our faith. 

The incarnation is a case in point.  For more than a hundred years, the meaning of the incarnation has divided Christians roughly into two camps.

On one side of the divide are moderate and liberal Christians, found mostly in mainline churches, who embrace science, psychology, and historical analysis of scriptures.  They may try to avoid thinking about it, but nonetheless are troubled by stories of angels appearing above shepherds' fields, flying in the sky without cables or jet packs, even though they enjoy the sentiment of it all.  These Christians have deeply spiritual longings but often feel intellectually conflicted in the encounter between religious tradition and modern understanding.

The earth is not flat.  Evolution is a plausible theory.  Freud and Jung have plenty to say.  Angels do not appear in the sky.  The Lucan picture of a stationary supernova appearing in the heavens above Bethlehem just at the right time 2000 years ago to signal that a young woman had given birth to a very special baby, a baby that was conceived without aide of a human male, stretches credibility. 

They have very deep spiritual longings, love Jesus, and seek to live Christian lives.   They know that the incarnation is important, but are a little fuzzy about what it means.  They fret about fantastical miracles that stretch modern sensibilities. 

On the other side of the divide are Christians who are self-described as "Bible-believing Christians," fundamentalists and many theological conservatives who insist that the virgin birth is an essential tenant of Christianity.  They insist on this because their understanding of the authority of the Bible is that it is historically and factually true.  "God said it.  I believe it.  That settles it."  For these deeply sincere Christians the Bible is not to be taken historically or metaphorically, the preference of liberals and moderates, but literally.  Faith, in this view, sometimes means believing in things that are hard to believe in, including the virgin birth. 

There is a kind of noble heroism in holding steadfast to faith in the face of cultural and intellectual hostility, although it is odd that in this view what God most wants us to believe are things that are factually problematic.  When such conservatives look at liberal and moderate Christians, we are viewed, at best, as deluded and, at worst, guilty of destroying the faith. 

Such is the great  theological chasm that divides Christendom.   Throw in hot button social topics such as abortion, gay and women's rights, war and peace, along with theological debates over the authority of Scripture, whether to engage in inter-faith dialogue or claim Christian exclusivity, and the divisions appear pervasive.  A "silent night where all is calm and all is bright" seems a long way off.

The conflict not only divides denominations and many congregations but also families.  Conservative Christian families see children drop out of church altogether or join a liberal congregation.  The reverse is also true; many liberal households have one or more members who become conservative Christians.  This can be a source of grief, acrimony, and a negotiated compact of avoiding talking about religion altogether, particularly at family gatherings during the holidays.

Today, in one 10-minute sermon (metaphorically speaking - 15 to 20 minutes, if you are a literalist) I want to resolve, once and for all, that great theological divide that has plagued Christendom since the dawn of modern science.  On second thought, I won't do that. 

Rather, I want to point out a biblical diversion as old as the Bible and as contemporary as the air we breathe.  I want to skirt the conflict by redirecting your attention away from the war between theological conservatives and modernists by troubling  you with something far more serious than whether angels, along with reindeer, really know how to fly, or whether Jesus had 24 chromosomes or the normal 48.  I want to redirect your attention to something that you will find far harder to swallow without choking.

And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness 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.  He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts 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." (Luke 1:46-53)

You see the virgin birth is really a trivial matter.  What's really far harder to believe is that, according to Mary, through Jesus the proud are humbled, the poor are royalty, and the rich are in one heck of a mess.  I don't know about you, but for me it's  harder to believe that the plates of the hungry are filled with prime rib roast and crème brulé while fat-cats are forced to eat rice and beans.  Or even more outrageous, try believing that George W. Bush doesn't run this world, nor Tony Blair or Vladimir Putin, nor any nation or government nor M-16s or F14s or laser-guided bombs or the market economy or Wall Street or the International Monetary Fund. 

Try believing that God rules the world and this Godly rule is like nothing the world ever sees when left to its own devices.  When God rules it doesn't matter what your address is, how much you make, what you do, or who you know.  This God doesn't care whether you're an American or an Iraqi, a dishwasher with a wet back or a CEO from Harvard Business School.

This Godly rule of the world comes to pass by none of the means we associate with power.  God comes to rule the world by dying.  Try believing that.  Now there's a stretch.  You may think the virgin birth is inconceivable, but this cross business is really ludicrous.  But to those who are perishing, lonely, hated, reviled, outsiders, grieving, abused, those who are torn with family conflict, addicted, those who desperately need to get right with God, it is salvation, the power of God.

God is with us, Immanuel, the embodied, incarnate, earthly, en-fleshed Holy One, beyond our conservative or liberal theological formulations who came to us as Jesus.  But the Jesus who came to you and me didn't come only as a sweet, little, smooth skin bundle of joy.  He came as an olive skinned, hooked-nosed Jewish peasant from Nazareth.  He was murdered by religious and political authorities not because he was born of a virgin, but because his life was revolutionary.  This boy Jesus, our Jesus, was violently tortured, not because he was conceived virginally out of wedlock and had a mom that was 12 or 13 (who the heck cares) but because he said and did all kinds of things that got him in a big kettle of trouble when he became a man.  He befriended prostitutes.  He ate with sinners. He welcomed into his fellowship people who had totally blown it in life.  He turned over the collection plate of the biggest cathedral in town and he threatened power to the very core until it became so scared its fear became white hot rage and they killed him.  

You think it's incredulous to have angels flying in the skies without a trapeze and wise guys from the East following a stationary supernova over the Palestinian sky around the fourth century BCE (according to liberal scholars)?  I say it's far more ludicrous to believe in a man who turns everything upside down, every expectation, every norm of those within our world who are safe and comfortable, secure and contented with all the arrangements as they are, which means all of us. 

What if he gets inside of us?   He was not killed for the way he was conceived or born, but by the way he got inside of our heads and threatened all our greed, hate, denial, arrogance, bravado, shame and our violence.  For these he was killed.  For you and me he was raised.

So his mom, God bless her, when she feels this churning and turning, revolutionary God reality inside her uterus and contemplates all that it means to bear this kind of burden and to bear this kind of  hope, sings her song, "My soul magnifies the Lord,  and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior ... for the Mighty One has done great things."

Mary, blessed Mother Mary Blue, sang her song of revolution because in the Year of Our Lord Number One, the best attempts of the tyrant Caesar Augustus had failed to bring peace at the point of a sword.  The Roman government was in shambles.  There was no order.  Power struggles were everywhere.  Hunger was rampant, corruption, too.  Political leadership didn't give a damn about the people on the bottom.  Distrust was everywhere.  Life was cheap.

Like now, when Israeli Jew kills Palestinian Arab and Palestinian Arab kills Israeli Jew.

Like now when Shiite and Sunni pray to the same God and hate each other in the name of same God.

Like now when Christian denominations tear themselves apart over trivia while the world passes by.

Like now when the deficit is so large that our grandchildren will drown in our excess.

Like now when body bags filled with our own sons and daughters are disgorged  from the bowels of C-130 cargo planes onto American soil, but the Department of Defense policy screens them from our view.

Like now.

Into such hopeless times as these, a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. Quirinius was Governor of Syria.  But Augustus was not in charge, nor was Quirinius.

A decree went out from the One who was in charge and a young woman - a remarkable young peasant woman - felt a growing baby in her tummy give the world that had beaten her people into submission, a swift kick.  And the world has felt the reverberation of that pre-natal kick ever since. 

When Mary, mother of Jesus, a poor peasant woman, who once had been crushed and without hope, came to know that every cell of her being was nourishing a new kind of life, a new kind of birthing that would burst forth into her world and into ours' she burst into song, "My soul magnifies the Lord and rejoices in God my Savior and holy is his name."

We are preparing for that day when Immanuel, God is with us, the incarnation, is fully born into our world.  So my friends, kneel at the manger.  Then when you are ready for a real birthing, kneel at the foot of his cross, and be born from above. 

Die with him.  Die inside yourself to anything that keeps you from being the loving and strong, gentle and courageous person you were created to be.  Die with him and as he stoops down so low even to the likes of you and me.  Allow him to lift you up into a new life of faith, love, and peace. 

Then join with Mary and the whole heavenly chorus in a triumphal song of hope:  "My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior and Holy is his name."  Believe this as incredible as it is and worship the Savior who is Christ our Lord.  Amen.

(c) Copyright 2003 by Mark K. Smutny.  All rights reserved.  Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution.