4th Sunday of Advent

“I dream of a world where we encourage Biblical literacy by doing a nativity pageant each year based exclusively on only one of the four Gospels, instead of a mishmash” writes the priest Shelly Fayette.   She then presents her ideas for what a nativity pageant each year based on only one of the four gospels might be: 

Mark: 15 minutes of complete silence in the dark. Everyone is given a tiny scroll that reads, "I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way—a voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.'" Suddenly, a very hairy man with bugs on his face jumps down from the rafters screaming, "REPENTTTTTTT!"

Matthew: full scale retellings of each person in the genealogy, including Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. (This is the longest one. Parents are upset by their children being assigned any of the women.) Mary is then "found" to be pregnant, Joseph tells the audience that he's going to divorce her, he falls asleep. An angel harangues him in his dreams. He doesn't divorce her, and takes her home kind of crankily. They have a baby. Some Magi come ask the despot ruler about a powerful baby just born. Herod freaks out and consults all his spies. The Magi head out again, find the baby, worship him, and avoid Herod on the way home. An angel comes back to harass Joseph while he sleeps, telling him to run for his life, because Herod is *pissed.* They make it to Egypt.

All boy children under 2 are graphically murdered (blood packets everywhere), lay all over the space, spattered with red.

Women scream for a long time.

An angel tells Joseph in a dream that it's safe again, and they go back - but only to Nazareth, because it still isn't safe everywhere. The end.

Luke: The living embodiment of the "Well, actually..." guy comes to the front to tell you that you may have heard about Jesus, but it was all pretty wrong, and HE is here to set you right, and aren't you grateful he's so good at it? Then an old priest starts presiding at the altar, as you do, with pots of incense burning. An angel - covered in wings and eyes - pops out beside him. The old priest freaks out. The angel drones, "Your...wife...will...become...pregnant...your...wife...willl.become...pregnant..." The priest looks blank and says, "Yeah, I don't think that can happen. We're old." The angel rolls their many eyes, places eight hands over the priest's mouth, and says, "You. You're not allowed to talk anymore." The priest walks out of the sanctuary and everyone is worried about him, but he can't tell them what happened.

His wife gets pregnant and hides in the church closet for the play-version of five months.

Following that, pretty much every Nativity play we already do, minus the Magi and the star. The old priest gets to talk again once his kid gets circumcised, and then he sings a long song about how it was good he was wrong.

John: The room is dark. Tiny children wear black capes. They whoosh around the room whispering, "in the beginning...in the beginning...in the beginning." One of them whirls around to display a glow in the dark WORD, and they dance over to another child, whose belly reads GOD, and then they link and become one unit, together, dancing, dancing. They keep pulling out glow in the dark scarves that say light light light, and they dance around lighting all the candles scattered throughout the room.

They chant, "the darkness did not overcome us! Ha!"

A haggard man enters the room and says, "I am a witness to all this light."

The children whisper, "the true light is coming, the true light is coming, the true light is coming."

[from the loudspeaker: "The true light is coming! To the world! Even though he came to the world, and made the world, the world didn't like him much! He came to his own people, who rejected him, probably like some of you! But those who did recognize him, and you sitting here, if you're ready, will become children of God yourselves! Not some halfway "actually children of people who feel slightly more divine because of church" nonsense! Actual! Children! Of! God!"]

The child bearing the word WORD tears off their cape and runs around in their underwear, in the flesh, like a wild thing.

________

Note: none of these sets contain stables.”

I love her creativity and her sense of humour.  And she makes some excellent points.  The four gospels each have distinct versions of the nativity.  In Mark, the emphasis is on John the Baptist.  In John, we have the grand pronouncements about the light coming into the world and the darkness not overcoming it, and the word made flesh, and God giving us power to become children of God.  In Luke, we have, as she puts it, pretty much every nativity play we already do.  That is true in this parish, where our nativity play comes verbatim from the gospel of Luke. 

Our gospel passage today is the nativity in the gospel of Matthew.  It’s easy to lose track of which material is in which of the four gospels, so we’ll provide a bit of background information before we look closely at today’s passage. This is the year we are reading through the gospel of Matthew, starting in Advent this December and continuing until Advent next December.  The gospel of Matthew begins with a genealogy of Jesus, following Joseph’s line, which is not read in our Sunday lectionary.  Next is the passage about Jesus’ birth, which you heard today.  After that is the section of Matthew about the magi, the star, and Herod, which we will read on the feast of the Epiphany, two Sundays from now.  Then is the passage about Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, which we will read next Sunday. Next is the passage about John the Baptist’s call for repentance, which we read two weeks ago on the second Sunday of Advent.  Then is the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, which we’ll read three Sundays from now. 

As you may remember me saying in previous sermons about the nativity passages, in Luke’s gospel the focus is on Mary and in Matthew’s gospel the focus is on Joseph.  In Luke’s gospel we hear about the angel talking to Mary, and in Matthew’s gospel we hear about the angel talking to Joseph.  After Joseph has decided to divorce Mary quietly, the angel appears to him in a dream and tells him not to, and tells him why.  What caught my attention in Rev. Fayette’s dramatic presentation of this passage is that she says, “He doesn't divorce her, and takes her home kind of crankily.”  The scriptures don’t record what mood he was in when he made that decision which had such enormous consequences.  The scriptures only record that he did it.  It is certainly possible that he was feeling pretty cranky under those circumstances.  Who wouldn’t be cranky on finding out that the woman you were getting ready to marry was pregnant and you knew you weren’t the father? A betrothal in that culture was a very serious commitment.  Parents often made arrangements for who their children would marry when the children were young, and if their children agreed when they came of age, the betrothal was the ratification of those arrangements.  The betrothal lasted one year.  During the year, the couple were known as husband and wife, even though they didn’t have the rights of husband and wife.  One reason for the year-long betrothal was that it ensured that the husband would not be raising a child sired by another man.  The betrothal could not be terminated in any way other than divorce.  There were two possible ways to do that in Jewish law.  One was to expose the woman as an adulteress by bringing her before the court.  The other was to hand her a writ of divorce in the presence of two witnesses.  Joseph, being a righteous man, has chosen the quieter option.  Still, it’s not a situation anyone wants to be in.  

The angel who appears to him in his dream tells him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit, and he should be named Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.  We don’t know how Joseph feels about that.  It might be that he is overwhelmed with awe and wonder.  It might be that he is filled with a calm certainty that this is the right thing to do.  It may be that he is aglow with faith, and he cherishes this opportunity to serve God.  It might be that he feels intimidated that this is way too big a responsibility for him to take on.  It may be that he has a lot of doubts about whether he is putting way too much stock in a dream that is saying something so bizarre.  It may be that he feels frustrated that there isn’t any explanation of what exactly it means that the child is from the Holy Spirit, or what saving his people from their sins means.  It may be that he’s feeling pretty cranky about the whole thing.  

The scriptures don’t record what mood he’s in, because his mood is not what matters.  What matters is that he decides to take the next faithful step.  And that decision affects everything that happens from then on.  

Sometimes when we make a decision to act in a way that’s faithful to God, to do the right thing, to love our neighbour, to serve God, we feel the pleasant emotions: hope, joy, trust, comfort, enthusiasm.  Those are all wonderful things, and we can be grateful for them.  Other times, the pleasant emotions aren’t there.  Sometimes, we just feel cranky.  

If you ever feel cranky, remember this: go ahead and take the next faithful step even if you feel cranky.  Go ahead and do the right thing even if you feel cranky.  Go ahead and serve God even if you feel cranky.  Go ahead and love your neighbour even if you feel cranky.  

The angel comes to Joseph to tell him God’s got a job for him to do.  What emotions he happens to feel in that moment are not the most important thing.  The important thing is he decides to do his job.  As Matthew puts it, “he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.”

If you can take the next faithful step with a smile on your face and a song in your heart, that’s wonderful.  But if you have a choice between taking the next faithful step while feeling cranky or not taking the step at all, take the next faithful step while feeling cranky.  Because if we can’t take the next faithful step until all our emotions are happy, all our doubts resolved, all our questions answered, all our fears allayed, then good deeds will never get done.  And God’s got good stuff for you to do.  Good decisions for you to make.  Good love for you to give.  

The show must go on, in the drama of humanity, and even when you feel cranky, God can do good through you.