The Mayberry Preacher

A MARKED-DOWN JESUS

Luke 2: 1-20
Steve Lindsley
Christmas Eve 2011

A few years ago, as Christmas approached, one of America's biggest department stores tried marketing a baby Jesus doll. The advertisements described it as "washable, cuddly and unbreakable." It came neatly packaged in straw, satin and plastic, with select biblical texts plastered all over the box. To the department store execs, it looked like a sure-fire winner, a real moneymaker during the holiday season.
But they were wrong.  It barely sold – a total flop!  And so in a last-ditch effort to get rid of all their baby Jesuses, one of the store managers placed a huge sign in a prominent display window. It read:

JESUS CHRIST
MARKED DOWN 50%
GET HIM WHILE YOU CAN!

Now first, I got to say – I really wish I had one of those dolls!  If you’ve been in my office, you might have noticed that I’m a bit of a sucker for Jesus novelty items.  I’ve got the “Jesus Action Figure” with poseable arms and walking-on-water gliding action.  I’ve got “Answer Me Jesus,” which is kind of like a Magic-8 Answer ball – you ask Jesus a question and then turn him over to see the answer.  Believe it or not, it sometimes comes in handy with some of the decisions I make.

So I, for one, don’t easily get my feathers ruffled over things like that.  But back to that sign: JESUS CHRIST – MARKED DOWN 50% - GET HIM WHILE YOU CAN!  I’m not sure what’s more offensive here – the Jesus being “marked down” part, or “Get him while you can,” like he’s some sort of sale item.  Obviously that store manager was being silly or downright disrespectful, or both.

Perhaps.  But there was one other thing he was, whether he realized it or not: he was being biblical.  It’s true!  That store manager was relaying the story of the incarnation – of God made flesh – more effectively than any preacher’s best sermon, any church’s slicked-up Christmas production.

And it all begins with the manger scene, the one you have on your fireplace mantle at home or engrained in your head.  It’s a picturesque scenario, isn’t it?  Everything in its place; everyone right where they’re supposed to be.  We pull the various pieces out of the box in the attic and place them accordingly.  And that’s where they are, year after year; in this perfect little scene we re-create every December.  It’s what we expect.  It’s what’s supposed to happen.

Which, if you think about it, is really kind of funny.  Because the truth of the matter is that that first Christmas was anything but.  It was the perfect storm of the unexpected, the imperfect; of everything seemingly going wrong.

I mean, it started out great.  Mary and Joseph, two teenagers, engaged to be married.  Joseph earning a good living as a carpenter; Mary from a well-respected family.  They’d been courting one another for awhile; so it probably wasn’t a big surprise when Joseph made arrangements with Mary’s father.  The whole town was looking forward to the wedding.  Everything was going according to plan!

And then that plan got derailed like a bullet train spinning out of control.  That’s because young, engaged teenage girls were not supposed to suddenly get pregnant.  And to make matters worse, Mary dared to claim that the baby’s father was not Joseph, or even some other guy, but that it came from the Holy Spirit.  How would you have reacted if you heard that young Mary down the street was blaming God for her little predicament?

Mary’s reputation sunk overnight – and she took Joseph with her.  And even when he tried to do the right thing – keeping her instead of sending her packing per the custom of the day – even then, Joseph suffered ridicule and scorn, perhaps even more than Mary herself.

This is how our “perfect” Christmas story begins.  And it gets better!  Just when they seem to have weathered the storm, just when Mary and Joseph think they’ll be able to bring their child into the world in some sense of normalcy, they get word: the emperor – a man who has more control over their lives from afar than they had themselves – the emperor has decreed a census, and everyone has to go to their hometown to register.  That means Joseph has to travel to Bethlehem, and Mary with him – Mary, who is now eight-plus months pregnant.  It is a long journey, and it is agony on her body.

And when they finally get there, they don’t know a soul and have nowhere to stay.  Which, of course, is right when Mary goes into labor!  How terrifying that must have been!  With each door slammed in their face, the bar gets summarily lowered:

A suite would be nice.
Okay, a single room with a bath nearby would be fine.
Actually, just a room with a bed would be great.
Come to think of it, who needs a bed?
You say you have a barn with some animals and moldy hay?  We’ll take it!

And that, my friends, is where Jesus is born.  The son of God. The one we believe in and follow; the one who tells us to do crazy things like love our enemies and feed the hungry and turn our cheek and welcome the stranger.  The one who heals the blind and kicks death to the curb.

That Jesus is born in a rickety old shack that you and I would barely consider “shelter.”  He was born to two teenaged parents and placed in a small wooden structure, coated with the dried remains of the slop the animals ate out of it.  There were no doctors or nurses in this birthing room – instead there were sheep and goats and pigs and cows, and all the wonderful things that come with sheep and goats and pigs and cows!  There were no aunts or uncles or grandparents in the waiting room – instead, some nomad shepherds who didn’t smell any better than the animals, and some random fugitive royalty with exotic but impractical gifts (sure could’ve used a diaper genie over the frankincense, bro).

This is the way our Lord and Savior came to be with us. 

Never, ever be offended by a marked-down Jesus!  On the contrary, on this Christmas Eve, rejoice in it!  Give thanks to God for sending God’s son in a way that the absolute least among us can relate to.  Give thanks to God that Jesus was born in the worst of circumstances, when everything was going wrong and nothing was going right.  Give thanks to God that Jesus was born in the filth and dirt and muck of a scene that would make modern-day OBGYN staff’s skin crawl.   Because it is not his miracles or his teachings or even his death at the end that makes Jesus our savior.  What makes him our salvation, above all else, is the way he came to be with us at the beginning.

Jesus Christ, Marked down 50%.  Marked down to be with us, for us, among us.  Get him while you can.  Come, Immanuel, Come!  AMEN.

PREPARING THE WAY

Luke 3: 1-6, 10-14; Isaiah 40: 3-5
Steve Lindsley
December 18, 2011

Does this sound like anyone you know?  It’s mid-December, and he’s moving non-stop.  He’s trying to wrap up things at the office in time for the holidays – closing out the books at the end of the year is always a fun task.  Then there's the office party, and he’s in charge of snacks this year.  He’s hoping to take an afternoon off this week to scramble for much-needed Christmas shopping for the wife and kids.  He’d do it on a weekend, but this Saturday is the traditional “decorate the house” day, and he still hasn’t figured out how to make those darn Christmas tree lights work.  Plus his son’s basketball team has a big game, and that’s not even mentioning all the stuff at church.  It’s all special and wonderful, but there are only so many hours in a day.  He’s just hoping he can cram it in sometime in the next week! 

Does this sound like anyone you know?  She lives with her seven-year old son in a run-down apartment complex in town.  It's not much, but it's something, and she’s thankful for that.  What she’s not thankful for is the boyfriend who vanished from the scene without a trace last summer, taking every last bit of security with him.  Or the rent bill that comes every month that she pays by scraping pennies together from her part-time job as a waitress, along with some financial assistance from a few local church.  Or the neighbor next door who seems to delight in hurling racial insults at her and her son on a frequent basis.  Her greatest fear is that she is one month away from being banished to the streets, along with her son.  It is a very real fear.  Still, she tries to keep things as normal as possible – she's got her son’s name on one of the Angel Trees in town and is hoping someone will do for her son what she cannot.

You know, the Advent season that we are well into finds us in the middle of all kinds of preparations.  There are cakes to be baked; trees to be trimmed, gifts to be bought.  And for some, there are bills that can't be paid, trees with nothing under then, pantries that are empty.  All of us, in our own ways, with what we have or what we don’t have, preparing for the baby in the manger.  This is Advent.
Long ago a man named John did some preparing of his own.  He was like you and me – eager to serve, passionate about what he believed in.  And he was also unlike you and me – a nomad, living on the outskirts of society.  This man, like us and not like us, was called to announce the coming of Christ and, in the words of the prophet, to prepare the way.

Now John, as you might already know, was not one for mincing words.  So in the third chapter of the Gospel of Luke we read the bold declaration he makes to a crowd of people desperate to hear good news; words borrowed from the prophet Isaiah:

Prepare the way of the Lord!  Make his paths straight,
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill be made low,
And the crooked shall be made straight,
And the rough ways made smooth,
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

Prepare the way!  It was something those first century Palestinians understood.  They were used to Roman emperors and governors making grand entrances into their cities as a show of power and might.  Riding chariots, flanked by centurions and horses and the weaponry of war.  It was a production if there every was one; and practically speaking, it needed the dirt roads of the city to be made ready.  Divits had to be filled in and bumps smoothed out so that chariot wheels and horses' hooves could pass over them with no problem.  Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill made low. Prepare the way!

So here’s the question you and I need to ask ourselves on this fourth Sunday of Advent: if so much of our rich scriptural heritage is telling us to “prepare the way,” then why is it that you and I are so often ill-prepared for the coming of Christ?  Why is it that, even with all our best intentions, we often wind up further from the manger than where we started? 

Sometimes I wonder if the pageantry of the season has the effect of overwhelming us; where decorating trees, preparing goodies, and shopping for perfect gifts takes precedence over the baby in the manger, and the star in the sky, and the Savior in our midst.  It is all-too-easy to get consumed by the “things” and the “tasks” of this time of year, as enjoyable as those things and tasks might be. 

It reminds me of a little boy, exhausted from a long day of Christmas shopping with the family, fighting their way through malls and checkout lines.  And when it came time to say his prayers before crawling into bed that night, he spoke with the brutal honesty of a child and said, "God, forgive us our Christmases, as we forgive those who Christmas against us!”

I think the boy’s on to something!  But there's another reason, I think, that we’re not always as prepared as we need to be.  It’s one that gets lost in the shuffle of all the red and green, and the general feeling that everyone is supposed to be happy this time of year.  The reality is that, while there is a lot of joy, for some that joy can ring hollow; those who are reminded of what is not with them this Christmas season – a job, a full pantry, even a loved one.

Studies have shown that Christmas can be a significant time of depression and struggle for many.  Earlier this week I was reading about a different type of Christmas service some churches are doing these days.  Unlike the typical celebration, there's no Christmas tree in the sanctuary, no poinsettias or Christmas carols or any of the typical sights and sounds.  Instead it’s a much more somber occasion – the sanctuary is filled with the sound of melancholy piano and the stale scent of dead branches placed on a table up front.  Women and men hold each other and cry on their shoulders.  They call it a “Blue Christmas” service; and it’s meant for people who, for whatever reason, struggle this time of year.  And you know what?  More church are doing them, because more people are showing up.

Now that’s a whole a different kind of preparing, isn’t it?  But it’s probably one that deserves our attention.  Jesus didn’t come when all was right with the world.  He came to make it right!  He came in the midst of chaos, of uncertaintly, of hopelessness. And there’s still plenty of that to go around today!  Which is why preparing is so important.  Those rough places can be pretty rough, those bumps in the road a little bumpy.

Advent is not a tradition we observe.  It’s a journey of transition and transformation.  As Christians we hold fast to the belief that, with the birth of Jesus, something in the world changes – and not in some nostalgic sense, but in a way that cuts deep to the heart of each one of us.  And that transformation is what enables us to come before the baby in the manger as we are – with all our joys and hopes and dreams, along with all our fears and pains and scars.  Contrary to what we sometimes think, we don’t have to put on a façade for Jesus just because it’s his birthday.  We come before him exactly as we are, because that’s exactly the way he wants us to.

Christmas is really that simple!  And yet, it’s anything but simple.  Somehow a basic birthday celebration has morphed into something else entirely. Kind of reminds me of what English professor Lionel Basney wrote in a newspaper editorial years ago:

The real crime of Christmas is the way we heap pretensions on its simplicity. Christmas is a complex cultural possession….and the problem is how to keep clean in the welter of it all – how to distinguish the valuable cultural extension of Christmas from the pretense, the true branch from the tin. (http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=2510, visited on 12.15.2009)

Heaping pretensions on its simplicity.  As wonderful and as meaningful as this time of year can be, we teeter-totter on the brink – as weird as it may sound – of making Christmas into more than it actually is. 
A little girl and her older brother are riding in the back of the car one Christmas Eve, bundled in thick jackets, hot cocoa from dinner still warm in their bellies.  Dad and Mom are in the front seats; and they are all heading to church for the traditional Christmas candlelight service.  It’s Dad’s favorite service of the year; and he relishes in recounting over and over again the details of what will happen and why this service is so special to him.  And as they pull into the church parking lot, the girl cuts her father off in mid-sentence and says, “Daddy, are you gonna let us enjoy Christmas, or are you gonna try to explain it to everybody?

The honesty of a child!  But you know, she's got a point.  Christmas is not all that complicated!  The message is as clear as it could be: God with us.  And that’s it.  Of course, it does involve a teenaged girl getting pregnant by someone – or something – other than her fiancee.  And it involves a census decree that couldn’t have come at a worse time, and a journey that no pregnant woman should’ve ever had to take.  And yes, it does involve having no place to go when the labor pains kick in, and an old barn that suddenly looks like the Ritz Carlton.  And it involves wrapping a newborn child in some torn musty blankets and laying him in an animal’s feeding trough.  But other than that, Christmas isn’t complicated!

Here in a nutshell is what Christmas means: God’s uncomplicated and everlasting love, coming to us in the midst of our complicated and chaotic world.  That’s Christmas!  And that’s why we need to prepare the way for him.  Because whether life is good or life stinks, Jesus is still coming.  Whether we get all nostalgic this time of year, or whether we loathe the pageantry, Jesus is still coming.  And Jesus needs us to “make those mountains low” and “raise those valleys up.” 

And when we do, it’s beautiful – because our eyes are opened to see things we may not otherwise see.  Are there those in our community who are lacking and would gladly receive some of the plenty that we have?  Are there those in our midst who need to know that we love them and are there for them in their time of need?  And are there those who have forgotten how Jesus’ simple act of God-With-Us broke into and changed our broken world?

This, my friends, is our journey of Advent: to “prepare the way” for the coming of Christ into our lives, into the life of our church, and into our world.  So let us embrace the simplicity of the baby in the manger, and welcome into our midst the infinite possibilities that can take place when God comes to be with us.

It is that simple!  And it is anything but simple.  But it is Christmas, and we are called to prepare for it – this year, and all year long.  Come, Immanuel, Come.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

SHUT UP!

Luke 1: 5-25, 57-80
Steve Lindsley
December 4, 2011

I feel the need to begin the sermon this morning with a disclaimer of sorts: in no way, shape or form am I condoning, with today’s sermon title, the use of the phrase “shut up.”  I just want to go on record with that, okay?  Cause that’s not the way my Momma raised me.   Like many of you, I was brought up to believe that linking those two words together in that particular order was not the best of manners – or, as my grandmother might’ve called it – “uncouth.”  A simple “Be quiet” or the more general “Stop that” is the preferred verbiage. 

But as I was reading our scripture today and working this past week on the sermon, I couldn’t help myself!  It’s a marvelous little birth story that gets told in the opening chapters of Luke – not to be confused with that other birth story, by the way.  You know, it’s interesting how the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth so easily gets lost in the shuffle, don’t you think?  This time of year our attention is squarely focused on that other couple getting ready for an unexpected birth.  It’s a manger scene that rests on our fireplace mantles, not the Jerusalem temple where Zechariah served as priest.  It’s two teenaged kids getting ready to have a baby that’s front and center in our minds – not an elderly couple well beyond child-bearing years.

I mean, let’s just say it up-front, shall we?  Elizabeth had no business getting pregnant at her age.  None at all.  It didn’t matter that she and Zechariah had been praying for years – decades, even – for a child.  Just one child.  And for whatever reason, that child never came.  That was a bitter pill for the two to swallow, because the ancient world typically associated barrenness with being cursed by God.  And Zechariah and Elizabeth were too nice a couple for something like that – Zechariah, a faithful priest serving God and the people at the temple; Elizabeth, a loyal and supportive wife. You don’t punish people like that.

No, the truth of the matter is that Zechariah and Elizabeth were unwitting members of a small but well-known group in the Bible; joined with the likes of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel.  All of their waiting and fervent prayers for a child, long unanswered.  And you have to figure at some point their prayers because almost rote in nature, became the longer you pray for something you desperately want, the more painful that prayer becomes.

Which leads us to the story in our scripture today.  Zechariah had been selected for the honor of burning incense to God in the heart of the temple.  This is something the priest would typically do as a crowd of people waited outside, praying, anxious to hear any vision or word from the Lord relayed to the priest.  The people, waiting expectantly to hear a word from the Lord.  Zechariah, he and his wife waiting expectantly for the child they had prayed for all these years.  Expectant waiting and praying….

Does this not sound like Advent to you?

It was not common for angels to appear before priests as they burned incense at the altar.  It was common, when angels did appear, for the person they appeared to to be scared to death, because angels didn’t typically do that sort of thing.  And so it was common for the angel to then tell the visited that they shouldn’t be afraid, they shouldn’t worry, because there was some great news to share, which is why they were there in the first place.  And that great news for Zechariah was this: he and his wife were going to have their long-awaited, long-prayed-for child.  And not only that: this kid would be special.  Real special. 

I mean, imagine it’s your first visit to the OBGYN, first ultrasound, and after they smear that cold goo on your belly and check out the computer screen, the RN has this to say in their report.

It’s a boy!  But this is a very special boy.  He’ll be filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment he leaves your womb.  He’ll turn many sons and daughters of Israel back to their God.  He’ll herald God’s arrival in the style and strength of Elijah, soften the hearts of parents to children, and kindle devout understanding among hardened skeptics – he’ll get the people ready for God!
(based on Luke 1: 15b-17, The Message)

Now that’s a lot to put on a kid who hadn’t even been born yet, isn’t it?  Much less on an old priest who had long assumed his and his wife’s prayers had been forgotten.  And maybe that’s the reason we don’t see Zechariah jumping up and down or blurting out “Yippee!” or running to tell his neighbors and friends the news.  You can almost see him standing there, incense candle in hand, stunned still.  And all he can muster to say is a muted and incredulous, “Do you expect me to believe this??” 

So here’s where the sermon title today comes from.  Because when I think of Zechariah here, I can’t help but recall an old high school friend way back in the day; a guy I ran cross country with and sat next to in sophomore English.  He was a fun-loving guy; kind of reminded me of a surfer with the way he talked and his mannerisms.  He said “Dude” a lot.  But the thing I remember him for the most is what he’d say if you had some incredible news to share; something surprising and shocking.  Without fail, he’d always say, “Shut up!”  And he wasn’t telling you not to talk anymore; it was more like “No way!” or “You gotta be kidding me!”

I think that’s the way Zechariah felt after the angel told him what he did – don’t you?  Because it’s one thing to learn that the very thing you’ve dreamed of and prayed for all your life is going to happen.  It’s one thing to have to wrap your mind around that.  But it’s another thing entirely when you hear this son of yours will be the very one to prepare the world for the even-longer awaited Messiah.  Shut up! 

And just like those two words were not my mother’s favorite, apparently the angel wasn’t crazy about the sentiment of it, either.  Next thing we know, the angel makes Zechariah mute, unable to talk.  Shuts him up!  Unable to tell his wife about the unbelievable news that’s just been shared with him.  Unable to say anything to the throng of people gathered outside the temple, who’d been waiting all day for him to come out and relay a word from the Lord.  Talk about awkward!

Let me ask you something, because I think it’s the question this “other” birth story is pushing us to: why do you think the angel “shut Zechariah up?”  Was it punishment for not believing enough or being faithful enough – much in the same way we typically interpret why Moses wasn’t allowed to enter the Promised Land, or Peter started sinking in the waves?  Did Gabriel render Zechariah speechless simply because he didn’t believe the angel’s good news?

You know, I’m not buying that.  I’m not buying this as some kind of punishment for a “lack of faith.”  I don’t think that God works that way.  Because honestly, if that were the case, none of us would be doing a lot of talking.  Your minister would be standing up here, speechless!  We all have our moments of doubts, don’t we?  Time and time again, you and I come face to face with the miracle of God’s presence in our lives – in some form or fashion – and we don’t always believe it, either.  We don’t always see it for what it is.

No, I’m actually wondering if what’s going on here is much simpler than that – that perhaps the angel, and even God, wanted the old priest to have some “quiet time” – not as punishment, but as a gift.  An opportunity.  No words to clog up thoughts.  Just time to be still, be quiet and reflect on how their lives would change, how the world would change, when baby John arrived.  And not just time for Zechariah to reflect.  Time for all those outside the temple that day, the crowd gathered there, to do the same.  A crowd that includes people like you and like me.

Which brings us back to that whole waiting thing.  Because that’s what they had to do, and that’s what we have to do as well.  Waiting is inevitable, isn’t it?  I remember last week, Shasta telling us in her children’s sermon that the typical 70-year old person has spent an average of three whole years waiting.  That’s a lot of waiting, folks! 

And the thing is, some good can come out of waiting, if we let it, because we begin to see things we haven’t seen before.  A Sunday school teacher was helping her third-grade class build a manger scene in a corner of their classroom.  They set up everything – the barn structure, all the animals, an assortment of shepherds, the three wise men, and some fake hay to top it off.  Finally, Mary and Joseph were added, and then of course, the manger with baby Jesus.

The children loved their little manger scene – except for one boy, who had a quizzical look on his face as he stared down at their creation.  The teacher asked him what was wrong.  “Nothing’s wrong,” the boy replied.  “I was just wondering – where does God fit in there?”

You ever felt like that this time of year?  You ever wonder where God fits in?  Sometimes you and I make a mess of God’s goodness when we try to explain it, rationalize it, encapsulate it into something that can be easily consumed, like some sort of holiday treat.  But that’s not the way the Good News comes to us.  It comes unexpectedly, delivered by an angel who dares to tell us that our wildest dream is about to come true.

And that right there, my friends, is the essence of the journey of Advent – a journey of waiting clutter-free for the miracle to come.  Or, better yet, the miracles.  I mean, look at all the wonderful things that God packs into this “other” birth narrative.  There’s the miracle of the promise, and the miracle of waiting and praying for God to fulfill that promise.  There’s the miracle of meditation in silence, and then the miracle of being able to speak the Good News aloud.  And finally, of course, there’s the miracle of a long-awaited, promised, joyous birth.

That doesn’t mean, by the way, that miracles are easy.  It’s hard to wait!  It’s hard to be silenced when all you feel like doing is filling the world with words.  But that’s the journey that Zechariah and Elizabeth had to go on in the first chapter of Luke.  And when it comes to Advent, it’s a journey we have to go on as well.

It’s like the poem I came across this past week in my devotional time:

Let us begin Advent, waiting.
  Not the “going back to sleep” kind of waiting.
  Not the impatient pacing, or the wasted anxiety of waiting.
  Not even the passive-aggressive waiting that says, “Really? We’ll see.”

Let us begin Advent, waiting.
  Getting up and joining the adventure,
  Even when we don’t know where it will take us.
  Shifting the impatient waiting to expectant living.
  Boldly claiming the Good News that we know will come.
  Waiting with joy as we reach out with the grace of God
  That is so much more than amazing.

Let us begin Advent – shut up at first, then shouting the Good News out loud!  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.