Plymouth Congregational Church of Fort Wayne, UCC
December 20, 2009
Fourth Sunday of Advent

Scripture Lesson:  Luke 1:39-45

 Listing Christmas Blessings

"... Blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb ..."
 (Luke 1:42)

Prelude

The refrigerator in the kitchen of my home

has a different look this year -

an Advent calendar is securely,

squarely, taped on the right side door.

An Advent calendar, as you may know,

is designed with cardboard cuts,

little doors that can be opened,

revealing special symbols of the season. 

(a bell; magi with camels; a box wrapped with bow;

sheep and a squirrel and a teddy bear;

a candle and a cardinal and a candy cane;

rather strange mixings, really).

The calendar is a full frontal reminder:

the days are dwindling

until Christmas comes.

And the fewer the days,

the more aware I am  

of the mounting things

that need to be addressed,

the many tasks

that need be completed.

To keep us on track of the many tasks

(so we don't wander),

we make up lists.

We have wish lists;

grocery lists;

guest lists;

gift lists;

and the ubiquitous "things-to-do list."

The tree is up and decorated -

that gets crossed off the list. 

The train is still boxed in the basement -

that's on the list - waiting for a volunteer

to put it in place.

Some lists develop a life of their own.

In the early ‘70's, then President Richard Nixon

is known to have had an "enemies list,"

which started with an original 20 names,

and then subsequently mushroomed

into the tens of thousands. 

Not so long ago there was movie entitled, "Bucket List" -

it's a story of two terminally ill men, an unlikely matched pair,

who take flight from the hospital for a road trip,

a final fling of adventure before they "kick the bucket."

Memorable line from that film:

the character played by Jack Nicolson speaks:

"I envy people who have faith,

I just can't get my head around it."

This elicits response from the character

played by Morgan Freeman:

"Maybe because your head is in the way."

There is yet another list suited to this time of year,

the "naughty-nice" list conjured up in Santa season.

"You better watch out, you better not cry.

Better not pout, I'm telling you why:

Santa Claus is coming to town.

He's making a list,

and checking it twice;

gonna' find out who's naughty and nice ..."

Santa seemingly is omnipotent, omniscient.

He sees you when you're sleeping, knows when you're awake,

knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.

Hard for me to get my head around all this,

as willing as my heart may be. 

The moral ledgers of life tend to be the most complicated -

and don't we struggle in finding balance on the bottom line. 

The listed faults of our private lives

can overshadow and eclipse

the longest list of public accomplishments.

Just ask Tiger.

As you can surmise,

I've had lists on my mind this week. 

I find that sometimes I need a list of my lists,

just to keep things reasonably straight and organized.

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LUKE AND A LIST OF WOMEN

The lesson from Luke this morning

invites the making of a list. 

The theme of grace elevating the lowly,

reversing the fortunes of the powerful,

equalizing the playing fields of life

that the weak and impoverished might arise

from an imposed and unwilled state,

is threaded throughout Luke.

Gospel functions as yeast,

turning the world upside down!

Luke plies this reversal of fortune,

this re-creation,

with more stories about women

than the other Gospels. 

The list includes Mary and Elizabeth;

sister Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42),

the daughter, only daughter, of Jairus,

leader of a synagogue (Luke 8:40-42),

and the woman afflicted for a dozen years

with a condition the doctors could not cure.

It includes the woman who lost a coin

and who was relentless in finding it (Luke 15:8-10);

the woman who made life miserable

for an unjust judge (Luke 18:1-3);

and the woman whose offering of a mite to temple coffers

earned her commendation and praise from Jesus (Luke 21:1-4).

Add in the woman at cross and tomb,

and you have a long list,

one that continues in the book of Acts

as we encounter Tabitha and Lydia and still more others. 

It is a list that is really quite remarkable, impressive in its weight.

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A LIST OF THE MISSING

From within the lesson, there is a list of the missing.

Mary has made haste to visit Elizabeth,

who is identified as a "relative" (Luke 1:36). 

Luke doesn't spell out the specifics;

we have no dots to make the connection. 

There are missing links. The genealogical charts

are incomplete.  http://www.ancestry.com/ doesn't make

available all the information to fill in the blanks. 

Yet clearly, Mary and Elizabeth know something we don't. 

And the genetic map of their lives is not

a critical factor for determining either the depth

or the legitimacy of their relationship.

As a child, a very clear message was sent that I didn't

really understand at the time: 

"Don't forget to treat your family as family." 

The message, I sense, was born in some

measure of upheaval that was distant from

the protection provided for me,

but memorable for elders. 

They knew something I didn't

about untimely death,

and unfortunate divorce,

and unusual adoptions,

and unexpected name changes.

I learned a playground nursery rhyme,

"First comes love, then comes marriage,

then comes (insert name) with the baby carriage,"

and learned also it didn't always work out that way.

I had a grandmother who was so hungry for a family-denied,

that she developed what some would see as an

obsession with genealogy, and she really did believe,

had no trouble at all getting her head around the idea,

that she was related to half the royalty of Europe,

and if she, then me/we.  It was unclear to me what

country Europe was in, but the message was quite

enough:  hold on to what you have as family.

So ... I'm curious this morning about the Luke lesson.

I'm curious about missing people,

significant players that are no shows

in Luke's scripture.

Where is Joseph, Mary's betrothed?

Where is Zechariah, Elizabeth's partner?

These two (Mary and Elizabeth) aren't just spending

an afternoon having tea at the Peony House on Wayne Street.

Luke places them together for three months,

with silence, no mention of their mates.

There are other names I note

on the list of the missing.

We know Elizabeth was old, "well stricken in years."

We can rightly assess Mary as young. 

Their meeting as "family" can be likened -

at least generationally - 

to a grandparent relating to a grandchild -

which raises for me the question,

where is the missing generation?

Mary's mother/father, where are they?

Mary's spending time with Elizabeth, and apparently

they got along just fine.  But I can't help but wonder:

is anybody at home missing Mary?

Does Mary even have a home where she would be missed?

We don't know, do we.  Yet I'm guessing this;

when Luke tells us Mary "went with haste to a

Judean town in the hill country," she wasn't

merrily skipping along; she was seeking possibly

what she didn't have, a house to serve as home;

she was "holding on" to whatever family she could

find that would welcome her.

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LIST OF THE PRESENT AND ACCOUNTED FOR

We have yet another list,

those who are very much alive and

present in this story:

Elizabeth, the older; Mary, the younger;

each holding life within their wombs,

each holding within the future.

And present, too, is the Holy Spirit,

which brings electricity to the scene,

causing John, being carried by Elizabeth, to

"leap for joy" (v. 45); in the womb,

John is turning cartwheels; he is skipping

and dancing, head over heels,

because of the Child carried by Mary.

Let us note: 

Jesus is in a different world than that of John;

yet here there is connection, this linking of

womb to womb to world.  And the connection is a blessing,

which also needs to be on the list of what is in this story. 

Elizabeth proclaims 4 blessings:

(1) Blessed are you among women, Mary;

(2) blessed is the fruit of your womb;

(3) blessed am I to be in this company;

(4) and blessed is she who believed there

would be a fulfillment of what was

spoken to her by the Lord.

I'm mindful here of something Kahlil Gibran said of children:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

 

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,    

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

This, I sense, is not an easy thing to understand,

yet it is important that we try to get our heads around it.

In the Christian revelation, there is sound teaching of a

divine dimension to every child; there is promise/potential

for them to advance far beyond our most vivid hopes and dreams.   

It may well be that even God, the Heavenly Parent,

the Father, the Mother of all, conceives of the Star Child,

that our hopes for tomorrow might become joy and love today.

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A final list, a challenge I pose this morning:

list your Christmas blessings. 

Do not be distracted by decorations. 

Beware the glitz and shine that too soon fades.

Ponder those whose labor, and sacrifice, has given you

thrilling adventure in life; ponder those who have

directed you to holy cradle and cross; ponder those

whose love has led you to experience life as gift,

free and filled with peace, wonder, and joy.

Look for these blessings in the flesh,

in the eyes of those you love, who bring your

deepest yearnings for tomorrow into today.

Amen.