Sunday, December 22, 2013

Preaching Thoughts on a Different Sort of Preaching Sunday

Our choirs and orchestra treated us to a magnificent performance from Christmas portions of Handel's Messiah this morning so I did not preach, at least not in that service. However, we recently began an early, informal service. It features a sermon like reflection that is a bit more interactive and less formal. It's something of an off-the-cuff version of the sermon prepared for the traditional service, but today I had the opportunity to be genuinely off-the-cuff.

Today's gospel reading is the familiar tale of Joseph learning of Mary's pregnancy and planning to divorce her quietly. (In Jesus' day, engagements were legally binding and pretty much a marriage in the law's eyes. And so Mary would seem to be guilty of adultery and could have been stoned to death for her "crime.") Not only is Joseph a righteous man, seeking to live according to God's law, but he is also a compassionate man. Whether we are to understand this compassion as part of his righteousness or as something more is not clear to me. Regardless, Joseph is all set to do quietly what the law requires and what society expects. That is, until he has a dream.

If I were to begin acting contrary to the law and contrary to what was expected of me as a pastor, defying all custom and convention, I'm sure I would get called on it. People would want to know what I thought I was doing. And if I responded to them that I had had a dream where an angel from God told me to do these things, their next call might be to a mental health professional.

I grew up in Spartanburg, SC and Charlotte, NC in the 1960s and 70s. In those days society's Christian veneer was still quite well preserved. As a child, I assumed that most people were Christian and the society I lived in was Christian. And so to me the phrase, "good, Christian person" meant more or less the same thing as a good citizen. Such a person would obey the law, have a job, keep their yard in decent shape, etc. In fact, I frequently heard the term "good, Christian feller" applied to folks who weren't necessarily church people, but nonetheless were reasonably upstanding members of the community.

My understanding of what being a good Christian entailed was quite minimal. And one thing that understanding definitely did not include was doing crazy things because God - or God's representative - said so. Good Christians didn't rock the boat, upset their neighbors, or call time honored ways of doing things into question. No wonder a great many white Christians of my childhood thought Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to be decidedly unchristian. In my childhood world, nearly everyone was a good Christian, and most of them would not react kindly to the mention of Dr. King. It did not happen in the churches where I grew up, but Dr. King was condemned in no uncertain terms from many pulpits as lots of good, Christian folks nodded in agreement.

Most good Christians love the Christmas story, even if we miss the fact that it requires people to act contrary to what was expected, contrary to the law and to time honored practice and convention. Mary must say yes to an angel, and Joseph must do as he is told in a dream, even though it is not what a "good Christian" is supposed to do. God's dream of something new is dependent on people who listen to angels and dreams rather than abide by how things are done, time honored traditions, or what is expected of them. And it doesn't stop with Jesus' birth. The people who most easily embrace Jesus are on the margins of society, while the good Christians of his day see him as a troublemaker, a rabble-rouser who doesn't understand what it means to be "a good, Christian feller."

"When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him..." We are about to celebrate the birth of God's dream, the birth Joseph embraces because a dream told him to do so. God's dream is still being born, and it still depends on those who will pause to listen for angels, attend to crazy dreams, and get caught up in the dream of God. Never mind what the neighbors or the "good Christians" say.

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