How Can This Be?

Sermon from December 18, 2011
(Advent 4 – Year B)
Luke 1: 26-38
St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Waco, Texas

How can this be?
How can this be - that an NFL quarterback with average statistics can end up winning football games?
How can this be - that a quarterback can generate conversations on ESPN about the Christian faith?
How can this be - that Tim Tebow squeaks out last minute wins for the Denver Broncos?

These are the questions that are being asked whenever I hear Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow being discussed.
The conversation makes me want to tune in to see if Tebow will accomplish another Sunday afternoon miracle and to see if he will bow his knee to his Savior in the endzone.
When I hear the buzz about Tim Tebow, the question soon follows:
How can this be?

And when I hear the buzz about the Virgin Mary, the same question soon follows:
How can this be?

In Luke’s Gospel, the very first words out of Mary’s mouth are the question:
“How can this be, since I am a virgin?”
And the angel Gabriel responds to her:
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
And the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
Therefore the child to be born will be holy;
He will be called Son of God.”

This is the story of the Annunciation.
This is the story where the angel Gabriel is sent by God to a town called Nazareth to a virgin whose name was Mary.
We are not told if Mary is any different than any other Jewish teenaged girl.
All we are told is that an angel was sent by God with an incredible announcement.
The announcement is that she would become pregnant, pregnant without any intimate relations with a man.
And the very first words out of Mary’s mouth are:
“How can this be?”

This incredible story of the Annunciation is the opening story in our Christmas narrative.
This incredible story can be a stumbling block to some who recite the Nicene Creed on Sundays, to those who have difficulty believing the virgin birth of Jesus.
For others, the incredible story has become so commonplace that we don’t pay attention to the scandal of the gospel, the scandal that makes us ask:
How can this be?

In Auckland, New Zealand, an Anglican church has generated quite a scandal with their new billboard.
St. Matthew-in-the-City Anglican Church has put up a billboard that has the style and look of a very classical painting of the Virgin Mary, as if it was painted a hundred years ago.
In the painting, Mary is gently swathed in blue and green and red robes.
In the painting, Mary’s left hand is over her mouth, as if she is in shock.
And in Mary’s right hand is a stick, the stick of a home pregnancy test, indicating a positive result.

I am glad that an Anglican church, just like St. Alban’s, is focusing our attention on the incredible response of Mary to the good news of God.
Yet there has been some negative reaction to the billboard in New Zealand.
Some critics are saying that Mary shouldn’t look shocked because she assented to the will of God.
Some are saying that the depiction of Mary with a home pregnancy test stick is distasteful.

Yet the billboard of Mary with a look of shock on her face and the pregnancy test in her hand highlights that Mary’s very first response to God’s miracle was to ask:
“How can this be?”

Yet God’s miracles are not just for Christians.
Our Jewish sisters and brothers will be celebrating one of the many miracles of God beginning this Tuesday, celebrating the incredible story of Hanukkah.

About 165 years before the birth of Jesus, the Jews had recaptured their beloved Temple from Greek and Syrian forces.
In the process of cleaning up the Temple so they could worship the one true God again, the Jews re-lit the lights in the Temple.
However, the Jews only had enough oil to keep the candles lit for one day.
Yet night after night, for 8 nights, the candles stayed lit, until new oil arrived.
Night after night, the Jews witnessed a miracle of God.
Night after night, for 8 nights, the Jews responded:
How can this be?

The more I travel through this life, the more I see that there are two very different ways that we can approach life.
First, we can see our life as rational, ordered, predictable events, events that we can manage and control.
Yet the other way we can see our life is to be open to the irrational, the mysterious, the incredible, events that we can never manage or control.
We can approach life from a human point of view - only taking into consideration the possible.
Or we can approach life from God’s point of view - taking into consideration the impossible.
For we worship a God of mystery, a God of the incredible, a God of the impossible.

Last Wednesday, I received an email that Bishop Claude Payne had just had hip replacement surgery at Scott & White in Temple.
Now Claude Payne was the seventh Bishop of Texas, who retired in 2003.
At St. Alban’s, we were blessed to have Bishop Payne with us for confirmation last May.

Bishop Payne became the Bishop of Texas in 1995.
At that time, I was a busy CPA in Houston, with no reason to ever know a bishop.

Then, in 2000, my first face-to-face encounter with Bishop Payne was when Susan and I appeared in his office, seeking his approval to send me to seminary.
While waiting in the bishop’s office, I can remember feeling like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, with my knees shaking and my palms sweating.
Yet over the years, Claude Payne has become my friend.

And last Wednesday, I drove down to Temple to visit Bishop Payne in the hospital.
He was doing well after his surgery and I had a nice conversation with him and with Barbara.
Then I asked if I could pray for him.
I held his hand and he grabbed onto mine.
And I was humbled to say prayers of healing for the retired Bishop of Texas.

As I walked out of the bishop’s hospital room and reflected on my life, I asked myself the question:
How can this be?

How can this be that God has twisted and turned my life in such a way that I could have never asked for or imagined?
For when we view life as an impossible mystery, then the first words out of our mouth are:
How can this be?

No matter what religion people follow, life is incredible and mysterious.
Yet what is particular about Christianity is that we believe that God is with us in the flesh.
We believe that God is born in us.
We believe that the question “how can this be?” is fleshed out in the Son of God, born of a woman, a woman with one hand over her mouth in shock and with the other hand holding a home pregnancy test.
We believe in an impossible mystery.

How can this be - that Tim Tebow wins football games?
How can this be - that Hanukkah lights burn without any oil?
How can this be - that a virgin has a positive pregnancy test?
I don’t know.

Yet I do know that God is with us.
I do know that Jesus has been born in me.
I do know that the power of the Most High has overshadowed me.

And in response to God’s incredible mystery, the first words out of my mouth are:
How can this be?

AMEN.

Just When He Had Resolved

Sermon from December 19, 2010
(Advent 4 – Year A)
Matthew 1: 18-25
St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Waco, Texas

Joseph could not fall asleep that night.
He had spent the last few hours of the night staring at the ceiling, fighting back tears, then getting up out of bed to think.
Joseph was not used to these feeling of uncertainty.
Joseph was used to everything being black and white, according to the letter of the Law.

You see, Joseph was a righteous man.
Joseph was a good Jew, a man who had been raised to be a good boy, following all the religious rules.

In those days, details about the birds and the bees were not discussed readily.
Yet Joseph knew enough to know what happens between a man and a woman when, months after the engagement ritual, the wife is taken into the home of the husband.
And Joseph, being good man of the law, had never even gotten up the nerve to put the moves on Mary, because the Jewish law clearly stated that marital relations were not to occur before she had been properly brought into his home.
Yet now his beautiful Mary was pregnant, obviously by another man.
Every time he thought of each of the young men in Nazareth, and speculated about which one of them had gotten Mary pregnant, tears began to roll down his cheeks.
Yet Joseph was a religious man, a man of the Law, who knew that the Jewish penalty for adultery was death by stoning.

So Joseph concocted a plan.
Joseph made plans to dismiss her quietly, plans to send her away for a quickie Caribbean divorce.
And just when he had resolved to do this, Joseph fell fast asleep.

The next morning, before Joseph rolled out of bed, he woke up with this strange sense of calm and peace.
Was this sense of peace coming from the dream that he had the night before?
He couldn’t tell.
However, he did remember a voice.
A voice had spoken to him in his dream, instructing him by saying:

“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary [into your house] as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

For just when he had resolved to judge Mary based upon the Law,
Then Grace appeared, telling Joseph to lay aside the rules of religion and to not be afraid to be the father of the Son of God.

Sixty years after the birth of Jesus, the Apostle Paul wrote a very short letter to his friend, Titus.
The book of Titus now appears in the New Testament, yet we very rarely read from this small letter.
Yet in writing about the Christmas event, Paul writes this to Titus:
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.”[1]

For just when we had resolved to base everything on the Law, on the rules of religion,
Then Grace appears, bringing love and salvation to all.

Last Friday afternoon, I had resolved to preach a sermon about Joseph.
In the mind of Jeff Fisher, I had concocted an outline of a sermon, a sermon about Joseph and his best-laid plans.
But just when I had resolved to do this, I went to Gold’s Gym for a workout and some prayer time.

At the gym, a man about my same age, whom I have met there before, saw me walk into the area where the free weights are.
This man signaled to me and then walked right over in my direction.
A little out breath, he shook my hand and inquired:
“Hey, man.
You are the guy who comes in here who is a pastor, right?”
Obviously, even in gym shorts and tennis shoes, I was not fully incognito.

This man proceeded to say:
“I need your advice, man.
You see, my wife and I – we are getting a divorce.
Now I will fully admit that both of us were in the wrong.
I fully admit that I have been seeing someone else.
But what really has me bothered right now is this church we had been going to.
The senior pastor has kicked both of us out of the church.
He sends me text messages all the time telling me that I am going to hell.
The guys in the men’s group at my church tell me that I have been impure and can’t come back to their bible study breakfast.
My wife – my ex-wife that is – is being hounded by the senior pastor, as well.
I have confessed that what I have done is wrong.
But pastor, tell me this:
Am I going to hell for what I have done?”

I assured this man that if he has confessed his sins, and is truly sorry for what he and his wife have done, then God forgives.
I assured him that he needed to get away from his current church and to come to a church like St. Alban’s, where grace and love are preached.

At that moment, this guy’s cell phone rings.
He looks at the screen and says to me:
“It’s my ex-wife calling.
She lives in Dallas now.”

He then answers his phone and speaks to his ex-wife, saying:
“Hey, guess what?
I just ran into this guy at the gym who is a senior pastor of a different church in town.”
He then turns to me and asks.
“You are a Senior Pastor, right?”
Since I am rarely given an opportunity to pull rank on this guy {pointing to Jimmy}, I assured him that I am, in fact, a senior pastor.
The guy then goes back to his phone conversation with his ex-wife, and tells her:
“This guy here at the gym is the senior pastor of an Episcopal church, you know they are kinda like Catholics, except this dude is married.
Anyway, what this guy here says is that we need to just get away from the hateful stuff at our old church.
And that we need to find different churches.
This guy says that you and I need to find places where there is love and grace.
Because this pastor here at the gym tells me
That we have been forgiven.”

For just when we had resolved to base everything on the Law,
Grace appears.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.

I have discovered in my own life, that the older I get, the more attracted to grace I have become.
When I was a much younger man, I took great comfort in basing everything on the law, a set of religious rules and dogmas that made it very black and white on who was in and who was out.
Yet as I have grown older, and I hope a bit more spiritually mature, the more attracted I am to hearing and speaking words of grace and forgiveness and love.

Because just when we have resolved to point out the faults and shortcomings of the family members who will gather around our holiday tables,
Then grace appears, in the form of keeping our mouth shut.

Just when we had resolved to kick people out of our churches because they might be divorced or alcoholic or an unwed mother,
Then grace appears, in the form of a senior pastor at the gym who simply says:
“You are forgiven.”

And just when Joseph had resolved to base everything on the letter of the Jewish law and to send the seemingly adulterous Mary off to an undisclosed location,
Then grace appears, in the form of an infant, a baby whose name is Jesus, a name which literally means “God saves.”

For just when we had resolved to base everything on the rules,
Then the grace and forgiveness and love of God appears.

Just when we had resolved to base everything on the Law,
Then Grace is born.

AMEN.

[1] Titus 2:11

Joseph

I have always had a special place in my heart for Joseph. Joseph was the husband of Mary and the earthly father of Jesus. As we focus on the birth of Jesus, so much of our attention is usually on Mary, the mother of Jesus. Yet the Gospel of Matthew turns our eyes to the faith and obedience of Joseph, the man who must have thought that he had been “two-timed” by Mary, his fiancée.

In the calendar of the Episcopal Church, Joseph’s feast day is March 19. Yet in that “post-Spring Break” time of year, we don’t give Joseph much thought. This week, however, I do want to give thanks for Joseph. Therefore, I offer to all of us the Collect/Prayer appointed for March 19, St. Joseph’s Day:

O God, who from the family of your servant David raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the spouse of his virgin mother: Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Thank you, Joseph, for your obedience; thank you for being the father of our Lord.