Scott AndersonIsaiah 60:1-6 † Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14 † Ephesians 3:1-12 † Matthew 2:1-12
A video version of this sermon can be found here. It’s not one of our readings for this morning, but recall, if you will, the story in the first chapter of Luke in which the angel Gabriel visits Mary. The angel greets her, calls her favored and says she will bear a son. There’s actually quite a bit of talk—typical of Luke to be sure, but it is striking how much explaining the angel needs to do about this child and his significance, about what he will do and what will be done to him, about the miracle of her relative Elizabeth also pregnant in her old age. And Mary seems to ask, well, a few questions of clarification—how can this be? Wait a minute, what?—before she affirms, “Here I am” and “let it be so.” There’s an interesting question that’s asked of this story: was Mary the chosen one, or was she just the first to say “yes”?
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Scott AndersonIsaiah 60:1-6 • Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14 • Ephesians 3:1-12 • Matthew 2:1-12
I’m currently reading two books side-by-side. I don’t say that to impress you. In fact, I wouldn’t say that I planned it. Mostly, I fell into it. If I were more honest, I’d tell you that I can’t bear to read the one alone, so it is, as much as anything, a matter of survival. The one—the hard one, the devastating one—is a book by Chris Hedges called America: The Farewell Tour. Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, formerly a foreign correspondent for the New York Times. I’ve talked about him before and about at least two of his numerous previous books. One is called War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning. The self-evident title reflected on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another, Losing Moses on the Freeway, was an examination of the ten commandments as they relate to American culture. I recommend them both. In addition to his years in the Balkans, the Americas and the Middle East, Hedges’ writing is informed by his religious education as a seminarian at Harvard Divinity School—thus the reflection he did on the commandments. Hedges is a devastating writer. He writes in excruciating detail about the state of things, creating a provocative and difficult-to-deny indictment on where we are currently—the decay of American democracy, and perhaps even civilization itself as the common good has been sacrificed at the altar of greed. “We cannot battle racism, bigotry, and hate crimes, often stoked by the ruling elites,” he contends, “without first battling for economic justice.”[I] Scott AndersonIsaiah 9:2-6 † Hebrews 1:1-3a, 5-12 † Luke 2:1-20 It is not a secret, this story. It’s no mystery either under these stars, in this realm, in this moment. The simple truth of this night is that steadfast love is what holds us. Steadfast love is what promises a future in even the most uncertain times. Steadfast love is what turns any crisis, any unstable and dangerous instant into possibility and promise and salvation.  This is not to say that suffering and death suddenly cease. It is not to say that tyrants have not and do not control more than they should. If anything, it anticipates that instability, suffering, and danger ramp up. This too, is surely obvious to any who care to pay attention to what happens to those who receive the shorthand designation “the least of these” in any given time.  |
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