Series: August 2022
Speaker: Rob McClellan
Today's Sermon
"I Can Believe in That"
Matthew 1:18-25
18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.21She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ 22All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,
which means, ‘God is with us.’ 24When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
I Can Believe in That
It is nice to see so many of you again. After some restorative time away I returned to this this clever gift from our “8:30 service family.” If you don’t know what this is, it’s a wrist band used by quarterbacks in football. The game has become so complicated that quarterbacks keep codes for plays printed on it that they can refer to during the game. The suggestion was this could be a “pastor’s assistant,” for Bethany and me, carrying key Scriptures, sermon notes, quotes, announcements, and more. Lord knows I could use it some Sundays.
It got me thinking, what would you put in your wristband? What is essential to you? We spoke some weeks ago about phylacteries, which Jews have used to fix a key passage of the Torah to their bodies as they pray. What quotes, reminders, truths, prompts would you put down—and maybe you should—in a place you could turn to in times of need?
Unfortunately, Christianity has sometimes been reduced to a series of supposed essentials that, in reality, may neither be that easy to accept or helpful. Today’s passage carries a perfect example – the virgin birth. Many think they are supposed to accept that in a certain way, but if they’re honest they would say they simply can’t. I should say from the beginning that I don’t feel it my job to tell you what to believe or what not to believe. I hope to teach what we are to be about, but ultimately you make up your mind about what you believe and we as a community we decide what to be about.
The virgin birth is unbelievable, isn’t it? Even though we know now that some animals can spontaneously reproduce without mates in a phenomenon called parthenogenesis, we don’t regularly witness virgins giving birth, and I don’t think the point is believability. Some background is in order because the virgin birth is a beautiful notion, and I’d hate for you to miss the meaning because you get lost searching for an explanation. You might be surprised to know that the virgin birth would have indeed been deemed miraculous, but not for the reason you might assume. It was not a novel concept in the ancient world. In fact, it was a common motif to claim famous spiritual figures were born of virgins. Here’s a list of figures said to be born of virgins compiled by the Rev. Ben Robinson: Zoroaster, the Persian messianic figure and center of what would be called Zoroastrianism; Pharaoh Amenhotep III; Marduk, the Babylonian god; Thesus, the founder of Athens; Alexander the Great; Pythagoras, whose theorem we all learned; and Caesar Augustus, whose month we are in.[1] What is novel, powerful, and miraculous about the Christian story is that it is claimed of Mary and Jesus. These are not powerful figures, not famous, not rulers at all. To tell Jesus’ birth story this way is to is to make a statement both about Jesus and about what real power and rulership means.
As you hear at Christmastime, Jesus is born of a virgin to fulfill Old Testament prophecy. Isaiah 7:14 reads, “the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” Did you notice the difference between Isaiah’s language there and Matthew’s? Our Old Testament is translated from the Hebrew, and in Hebrew Isaiah uses a word that can be translated either “virgin” or “young woman.” Matthew’s Old Testament was a Greek text and when the Greek translators read Isaiah, they chose a Greek word that means “virgin” definitively. Now, maybe you believe it happened that way just as prophesied. Or, maybe you believe Matthew constructed his narrative to be consistent with prophesies precisely to make a theological point about who he believed Jesus to be. It seems quite clear he did this with the Palm Sunday story, in which he curiously seems to have Jesus riding on two donkeys because he doesn’t understand how Hebrew poetry repeats lines and he has misread the Old Testament prophecy of Zechariah. A critical point, this doesn’t take away from his conviction about Jesus’ true identity nor need it yours. Remember ancient writers weren’t producing documentaries, they were writing narratives to convey meaning.
In either interpretation, in a very real way, the point is Jesus is born of God, of Spirit. That’s something in John’s gospel Jesus commands for us all—be born of Spirit, from above; be born again. Are we good at that? Are we practiced at discerning what is of Spirit, what’s best for us? Last week, you heard member Betty Hasler preach beautiful, sharing about wise spiritual figures in her life that had guided her well. Learning to discern is a real skill, one to be honed and nurtured. I was talking with a physician one time, an otolaryngologist, and I asked him how he landed on his specialty. His answer surprised me. It was not that he had a massive interest in ears, noses, and throats, or even that he had had a loved one succumb to an illness in one of those areas. He said quite simply and profoundly, as he looked around in medical school, he noticed which doctors seemed happiest, seemed to have the best lifestyle, for his disposition anyway, and that’s how he chose. That’s a little bit like learning how to recognize where the Spirit is leading. It’s a kind of paying attention, cutting through the noise, distraction, and temptation, to arrive at what information is most important. Our sacred stories can do that for us, but too often we get hung up on the wrong aspects of them that they instead become impediments.
What would it look like for you to develop a set of practices to help you discern better what is born of the Holy Spirit and what might be born of other spirits such as greed, envy, selfishness or bloated ego? Maybe it would be sitting with decisions in contemplative prayer. Maybe it would be forming a group of trusted spiritual confidants with whom you could work through decisions knowing you would get honest feedback and reflection. Maybe it’s just getting clear about your values, what you and your family really want to stand for and running every decision through that screen. Maybe it’s establishing family meetings where, in addition to celebrating life events, you talk about decisions in a way that you keep one another on the same page and moving in the same direction. How will you look for how God is trying to be born into the world?
God being born into the world is what we are to be on the look out for and, moreover, what we are supposed to participate in ourselves. The great Dominican mystic Meister Eckhart said, “We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.” In this sense, if all we do is revere the virgin Mary, we miss the point. We should adore and be inspired by her to likewise give birth God into the world. This is such a richer understanding. Don’t worry about believing the miracle, participate in the miracle. Father Richard Rohr, a Franciscan, reminds us, it’s all about participation in the divine mystery. Stop trying to squeeze yourself into belief and step into participation.
Rohr refocuses our attention away from propositional theology toward participation. A quote of his has really captivated people lately and I think it captures perfectly the shift that needs to happen in the faith if it is to be relevant. Rohr says this:
Christianity is a lifestyle—a way of being in the world that is simple, nonviolent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established religion (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. We could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain throughout most of Christian history and still believe that Jesus is our personal Lord and Savior or continue, in good standing, to receive the sacraments. The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on earth is too great.[2]
It is refreshing to hear someone lay it out so plainly. The world has no time for silliness, to be caught up in the wrong arguments. Christianity is not a multiple-choice test of speculative theology, it is a lifestyle based on Christ that is “simple, nonviolent, shared, and loving.” It is not “warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain” but claims Jesus as a personal Lord and savior. If one truly claims Jesus as Lord by definition that must stop being warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain. In other words Christianity is concerned with what you choose to be about more than what you can get yourself to believe.
When presented with a gospel that challenges people to be about powerful peace, simplicity, shared living and love, scores of people who would otherwise feel disqualified form the faith exclaim, “ThatI can believe!” “Thatmakes sense.” “That I can get behind.” That is what the virgin birth ultimately signals to us, that the way of Jesus, is the way of being godly in the world and the proper use of power. It’s not the so many misguided examples of worldly power and authority. This servant truth-teller, advocate of the weak, purveyor of radical mercy, one who accompanies those who others deem as wretched and irredeemable, this one shows us the way. Sadly, so much of what poses as Christianity today exemplifies the opposite and that is why it has born such rotten fruit.
Let’s return to the virgin birth narrative and see how many interpretations can bear good, powerfully good fruit. The Rev. Sarah Wiles pushes to the limits of our imagination to help us see how even the edgiest of beliefs about Mary’s pregnancy can lead us to gospel truths. She writes:
If you love the tradition interpretation that this is a wild miracle, an affirmation of God’s power and solidarity with the poor, then that’s beautiful. Hold on to that. If you think it’s more likely Mary got pregnant the usual way, then we’re reminded that every child born is from the Holy Spirit. It’s an elevation of the incarnation. Hold fast to that. If you imagine Joseph was the father and they just couldn’t wait, then we’re reminded God is with us in love that overtakes us, that isn’t convenient. If you imagine Mary stepped out on Joseph and got pregnant with someone she shouldn’t have, but Joseph still chose to love and raise this child as his own, then we’re reminded we’re all adopted, claimed by a God whose love breaks every taboo. If you imagine that Mary was raped, by Joseph or someone else, then we’re reminded that from his very conception Jesus was in solidarity with the broken and abused in our world. From womb to cross, God is with us in our suffering. Turn this story every which way, it’s still gospel.[3]
The question is not what can you convince yourself to believe. It’s what can you convince yourself to be about and what you will choose as your reminder to which you can turn at any moment to guide you in this life so you too can birth the God that is always waiting into the world.
Amen.
[1]Background materials here and throughout also provided by The Rev. Sarah Wiles.
[2]Richard Rohr, Yes, and…Daily Mediations.
[3]Sarah Wiles, “Do I Have to Believe That? Virgin Birth” unpublished.