Sermons at St. John's Presbyterian Church

Advent of freedom to love

 Transcribed from the sermon preached December 19, 2010

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

St. John’s Presbyterian Church
2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705
Telephone 510-845-6830    Fax 510-845-6837
http://www.stjohnsberkeley.org

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 35:1-10 Romans 1:1-7 Matthew 1:18-25

Emmanuel, God with us.  It is quite strange to me that from such humble beginnings Christianity becomes so big and glorious.  Mary is the most famous woman in the History of the world and she has the most famous son in the world.  Giant cathedrals have been erected in their name, hospitals and schools and science, orphanages and food banks, songs and prayers, wars and empires…all raising up the glory of Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph.  Think about architecture and music alone.  It is mind boggling to contemplate the impact of this poor Jewish peasant family on the future before them. I pray that the majesty, fanfare and two thousand years of History and the immediate business and preoccupations of the world and our lives do not make us blind and deaf to the approaching Divine truth in the story of the Christ child.

The Christmas story, even the entire Gospel and the claim that Jesus saves is so much a part of our culture that it has become so much ho hum.  It is sweet and charming, and tied to so much history and power that we are inclined to dismiss it like a rerun of a good old movie.  We have seen and heard it before.  We want something fresh, and the rebel in us wants to choose our truth claim.  We don’t want to be forced into belief by power, or heredity, or group think. The irony is that this is just what Christmas is about, the freedom to choose to love God and others. The intellectual in us would prefer the anthropologist’s contextual “Objectivity.”  We admire the music and architecture, the Sistine Chapel, Ave Maria, Hayden’s Mass, as art, the great accomplishments of a civilization, but we won’t be tricked by the glory into giving our heart, into letting go of our detached grasp of the world. 

Or maybe our hesitancy of faith comes from something more basic, from the simple fact that hope proclaimed is at best only partially realized, and God is at best, only felt through faith.  I mean, come on! Show yourself indisputably; give us something we can really believe in.  For some this is an intellectual desire, while deeper down, it is the longing for easy love.  For we have know the mishaps of human relationship, the hurt and pain and disappointment.  We sense and hope for more, but the evidence may seem to come up short.  How long, O Lord! How Long?

Why not, as Isaiah claims, come with a vengeance, scare us into belief or show us that you are the powerful one on our side.  Enough with the still small voice already.  William Sloan Coffin notes “God usually doesn’t hit us over the head so much as he tugs at the sleeve, or heart. He is Prince of Peace because he disarms us, coming to us as one of us, totally vulnerable, goodness unguarded, as fragile as a rose in the winter.” (Emmanuel. Dec 9, 1979. The Collected Sermons of William Sloan Coffin. P.265)

Soren Kirkegaard tells a story of a king and a maid.  “Once upon a time a king fell in love with a maid.  It is an old theme, how love overcomes all barriers of class and of race, and of nationality.  But for all its beauty, the king didn’t see the matter easily resolved.  Racking his mind and heart was the question: how to declare his love?  Unable to answer it, he summons to his palace all the wise people of his kingdom and put the question to them.  As one, they responded, “Sire, nothing could be easier.  Your majesty has but to appear in all your glory before the humble abode of the maid and instantly she will fall at your feet and be yours.”

“But it is precisely that thought that so troubled the king.  In return for his love, he wanted hers, not fears that would lead to her submission.  He wanted her glorification, not his.  What a dilemma when to declare your love means the end of your beloved, and when not to declare your love means the end of love.  Night after night the king paced the floor of his palace pondering, until at last he saw love’s truth: freedom for the beloved demands equality with the beloved.  So late one night, long after his courtiers and counselors had retired to their chambers, the kings stole out of a side door of the palace and appeared before the humble abode of the maid dressed in the garb of a servant.” (Ibid)

Behold, I stand at the door and knock, says Jesus in John.  Now if we were the maid we may think this is all-good for the king, but what will be our proof that this servant fellow is worth opening the door for?  We may prefer to know that he is the king.  The maid has freedom, but she is still cursed with having to take a leap of faith.  And so are we.

Emmanuel, God with us.  What is so maddening, writes Coffin, is that while we want God to be God, He wants to be human.  We want god to be strong, probably so that we can be weak.  But he wants to be weak so that we can be strong.  We want God to prove herself.  But she answers: “Do you want proof or freedom?” (Ibid)

Beyond all the architecture, art and music, beyond the accomplishments and empire, beyond the institutions and doctrine, Jesus still leaves all that and comes to us born under simple, even questionable circumstances, so that we have the freedom to choose, so that we have eyes to see and ears to hear how far God’s love will come to be with us. The Gospel tells us there is a God who wants us to love freely, and therefore, we are still left with a leap of faith. 

The Glory of the Church will not teach us this free choice.  Our intellect will not bring us closer to the God of Love.  We can talk about love, write about love, research love, but until we take the leap of faith to love in relationship, we do not know love.  The Gospel is not concerned with intellectual or empirical knowing.  The Gospel calls us to relationship and love.  Like Mary who takes the leap of faith with God; like Joseph, who takes the leap of faith with Mary; so we are called to join the story, to come to the birth, to witness the birth, to give birth to divine free love.

This is not an emperor’s trickle down love, the kind of devotion to someone because of their power and stuff…for why then would we want or need to love one another, we lowly, the marginalized, the gentile, the blind and deaf?  But if God’s love is revealed in the lowly, in the common, for the common, then common love is God’s love.  Then every time we relate to one another, with anyone, we get to choose, we must choose.   

So the Divine comes to us in human form, as Emmanuel, God with us, and is told to us through story of common peasants; the notion that a God and King must be glorious and obvious, showing power and majesty, playing the warrior, doling out gifts to the lucky and deserving blinds us to the notion that God is present, that we should open the door to this common servant. With all the hustle and bustle the season, the noise of advertising, traffic, music and parties, may we not be deaf to the simple beautiful message of Christmas: That a couple of unknown parents with faith, bring an ordinary baby into the world who carries extraordinary grace. By grace we are loved and we are made free.  May the difficulty of family life and relationship be illuminated with the hope that even here the Christ will come; even to me the grace of Christ is born.