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Sermon - December 24th, 2006
Common Holiness
Rev. Gwen Drake
Scripture: Luke 3: 1-17
Fourth Sunday in Advent
A girl in the village of Nazareth had received from an angel of God a most extraordinary message. That she would bring forth a child, THE child, born under very unique and unusual circumstances. It was great and overwhelming news, to say the least--terrifying news. Yet when Mary received the word, she replied, “I belong to God, body and soul--let it happen as you say.” Mary’s response was a classic statement of faith and devotion. But if you read between the lines, which isn’t hard to do, obviously Mary felt very apprehensive.
And what do most women do with such a time as that? When you are caught between unimaginable glory and inexpressible fear? What would you do? I know what I would do. I would find someone I could trust to talk to. Someone who would listen and reassure me that I wasn’t crazy. Someone compassionate and wise. And that is what Mary did. She “went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country” to the house where Zechariah and Elizabeth lived. Mary knew Elizabeth would listen and understand and reassure her.
Nothing is more precious than having someone who truly understands. They don’t need to say much. Sometimes words do not even come close to being adequate. A nod, a look, a touch a hug, a tear, that is enough. And if, by God’s grace, some understanding words come, that’s a gift, but certainly not necessary.
Christmas had been a long time in the making. But that day, in the hill country, Christmas came to Auntie Liz and Uncle Zach’s back porch, months before the baby was due. Christmas came to the kitchen table where two women could talk freely about the meaning of what was happening in both their lives. If men had been the key figures, it might have been happening at the market place, or where men talk while they are trading an ox for a donkey. But for women, it was at the cooking place, or the community well, or some other place where women gathered and exchanged confidences as they went about their daily work. In our time, we might meet at a coffee shop or over lunch. But it was to such a setting that the glory of God came, in full Christmas splendor--the day the holy met the ordinary at so many levels.
It is no accident that women are so central to this story. Because of Mary, every woman can walk with a sense of dignity. Because of Elizabeth,who was on the edge of the story as the mother of John the Baptist, every woman is honored who walks with another as a friend and confidante. All this happening in a time when women were generally downgraded. It was a brutal world, especially for women. Yet Christmas, the story of God coming uniquely to our human race, includes early in its unfolding, women, two women who meet to talk at the kitchen table.
Mary had done no more than call out a greeting to Elizabeth when something altogether remarkable happened. The Gospel of Luke says, “when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child (that is the one who would be known as John the Baptist) leaped in her womb” as if the baby in her womb responded with the excitement of holy recognition. Not only does the baby leap in Elizabeth’s womb; Elizabeth herself is “filled with the holy spirit.” This is the writer of both the Gospel of Luke and Acts, first report of someone being filled with the holy spirit. And it happened in a common domestic scene, where two women were soon to compare notes on the miracle of being with child. The setting was extraordinary and it reminds us that we should expect God’s spirit to be made know in the most common places--in the places we spend our lives.
After Elizabeth had poured forth her praise to God, Mary spoke, “My soul magnifies the Lord; and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” It’s Mary’s song, the Magnificat. A speech that has inspired music, poems, and paintings. And where did it happen? Where two women greeted each other on the porch of a country home.
You see, Christmas makes any room of life a hallowed place. Christmas brings flames to a common bush. Christmas transforms a coffeepot into a sacrament. Because Christmas came into the world of the common place, the world of back fences, and kitchen tables. We preacher-types can sometimes be guilty of isolating Christ to a world of theology and complicated language. Musician types bring Christ to the world through magnificent cantatas and choral arrangements. Christmas reminds us that God is present in everyday places, where people talk and cook and relax and put up their feet.
God came through what society calls the common folk. Dr. Ernest Fremont Tittle once pointed out that people like Mary and Elizabeth were in that group known as “the quiet in the land.” They were far from pretentious in their style of life and religion. They were devout, quietly devout. They did not have the learning of scribes and pharisees. The did not have the power of rulers and royalty. Dr. Tittle says, “These Œquiet ones’ were, after all the real strength of Israel. It was they who provided devout homes such as those of John the Baptist and Jesus, and who kept alive moral and spiritual insight and inspiring hopes of the prophets of Judaism.
Such people are the salt of the earth and the strength of a nation. They are also the strength of a church and community. Don’t mistake quietness for detachment or indifference. Maybe they have no voice or even desire no voice in the halls of human power--but they have a powerful voice in the purposes of God.
As these women talked the holy spirit came upon them. They were women in a world where women were invisible, even expendable. They were powerless in a world that loved power. They were the kind of people who wouldn’t ordinarily stand out in a crowd, except if you look closely, you would see profound signs of strength and character in their faces. They had met at an ordinary place--a kitchen, to do an ordinary thing--talk. And there at the kitchen table, the glory of Christmas revealed itself.
After all, isn’t that what God is all about. If Christmas had come only to places of prominence, it would be the province of the powerful. If Christmas had happened in a designated place of worship, Christmas might seem to be the property of the clergy.
Instead Christmas is about the incredibly holy and the utterly common meeting each other face to face. God provides the holy. We humans provide the common. And just in case we humans are tempted (which we usually are) to improve upon the common, God chose, it seems, to make the scene so unmistakably common that the point cannot help but be clear. God is not confined to the “out there,” but chose to be among us as one of us. Christmas is an event for a crude manger near a not very impressive first century hotel, with preliminary scenes in a hillside town, at the kitchen table. Because God is not to be and will not be shut off in a corner of life--not even an ornately sacred corner. God chose and chooses to be present in any and every scene, with no reluctance to enter the most common and most ordinary places of all.
So, are you wondering where Christmas will happen this year? The answer to that question is another question: Where are you going to be tonight and tomorrow? Because Christmas is meant to happen wherever we are. God enters our ordinary days, our routine patterns, in the place of shared confidences, in the kitchen of a modest home, at a dinner prepared for the homeless, at a table of lovingly prepared food, at the hospital bed, in the care and foster homes, wherever YOU are.
And let me give you a warning. The very first Christmas was full of surprises. There is no reason at all to think that those surprises have come to an end. It just might be that the holy spirit will break in on your life and LOVE will be made real. In fact, expect it! Because Christmas comes at the intersection of the sublimely holy and the utterly common. Where will that be for you?
Amen.