Greetings, Favoured One! The Lord is with You!

by Chris Heath  

Luke 1.28

As I thought about what I might say about these words, it seemed to  
me that it is odd that often those who make much of Mary, also  
marginalize women.   From my own part of the Church, high-church  
Anglicans make much of their devotion to her, yet vehemently oppose  
any movement to ordain women.   I suppose I was brought up in a   
'middle of the road' Anglican parish, and I still remember how the  
place of Mary was one of those things that defined one's spirituality  
in the theological college where I trained.   It seemed that there  
was a constant tussle between high church, low church and charismatic  
trying to gain the allegiance of the few uncommitted, like me.   Of  
course, the issue of the ordination of women is still with us as the  
consecration of women as bishops still divides congregations and  
dioceses.   One diocese to the east of where I live would not ordain  
women at all but wants to allow lay people to celebrate the  
Eucharist.  Ah, the permutations and combinations of ways to express  
one's 'christianity' :-)!

But I see a real parallel between using our 'orthodoxy' to put down  
other people on so many levels – and in the end it really is a form  
of terrorism.

Last week I spoke about the old dictum that: 'children were to be  
seen and not heard' and then an elderly person spoke to me about how  
young people don't seem to respect their elders these days.   Well, I  
am sorry, but it takes two to tango!   If young people were  
encouraged, heard and respected by the elderly, then the elderly will  
have earned the respect they look for.   Again, someone else was  
saying to me that they lived by the dictum: 'do unto others as you  
would have them do unto you' and I said how much I agreed with that -  
then they said that they thought that corporal punishment should be  
brought back – presumably for the young.   Sadly the person didn't  
see that there was a logical disconnect here.    I mean I'm no rocket  
scientist and I can see that there's a logical disconnect!   And they  
say wisdom comes with age!

When it comes to the 'sharp end' – it is others who have to measure  
up to 'my' expectations – for 'my' expectations are really the Lord's  
expectations – not me.

Here was the angel of the Lord coming to a young person and a female  
at that!   Mary was probably no more than 16, and she was being asked  
to do something with which all her hormones would have agreed!

More and more I am beginning to question some of the things that I  
have taken for granted, for the world that I see is blighted by these  
put-downs.   I see and hear people whose lives have been blighted by  
religion.   Probably their lives would have been blighted anyway, but  
religion has been there in the mix, contributing to the things that  
have meant that they have never achieved even a modicum of  
happiness.   And I guess I'm beginning to see that I have not been  
immune – for it has taken me the best part of 56 years to find my  
voice and say these things.   I have been happy to toe the line and  
play my part, seeking the restitution of the church in all its past  
glory, and failing to see that God has got far greater things for the  
church and for each of us as well.

God was doing a new thing in Mary, and we can worship the person yet  
fail to see the message.   However it is so easy to criticise, yet we  
are all called to do our bit.

In the past week or two the (Anglican) Archbishop of York, John  
Sentamu has called for the President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, to  
be tried in the international court for crimes against humanity, and  
I am sure that many would agree with this.   But along with doing  
this we need to examine our own statements and see if they are not  
also putting others down, blighting their lives.   As I began, parts  
of 'my' church marginalize women.   Is not this a crime against  
humanity – or are women not human?   Parts of my church consider  
children as there for their own entertainment – to be brought out to  
do a christmass pantomime to relieve them of having to listen to a  
sermon one Sunday a year!  But they wouldn't consider having a drum  
set or guitars in church!   Is not this an abuse of others that could  
be described as an acceptable form of paedophilia, rather more  
prevalent than actual molestation?

God sent the angel Gabriel to say to this young lady that she was  
specially favoured and one can only conjecture what this greeting  
meant to a poor peasant girl in a highly patriarchal society.   Just  
think about it - she could hardly have said anything to anyone.   It  
was just as well that the angel also spoke to her betrothed – Joseph  
– otherwise the Bible would have directed him to have had her stoned  
to death at the entrance of her father's house (Deuteronomy 22.21).    
Of course 'honour killings' are not unknown even today, though  
fortunately not often in Australia.   But how many young girls have  
been thoroughly ostracised here because they have fallen pregnant?    
What a strange expression, it is as if it is something that happens  
to them as if it doesn't involve anyone else.

When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well, he well knew her  
reputation, yet it was swept aside so that she could be an instrument  
for God's message of love.   (John 4)   I thoroughly enjoy living in  
a rural regional centre, for everyone here wants people to stay and  
contribute to the community.   In the city one can be just another  
face in the crowd.   Yet it is also big enough that everyone doesn't  
know everyone else's business that can be so destructive.   This  
woman knew her reputation in the village and knew its destructive  
effect in her life.   Yet was the Messiah just talking with her as an  
equal!

God comes to lift people to their feet.   Each and every time someone  
meets the Almighty, they fall on their faces.   And each and every  
time they are lifted to their feet.

The classic passage is the vision of Isaiah, who says: "Woe is me! I  
am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of  
unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"    
And his sin is taken away and he is sent back to preach to the  
people.   This is a polite and theological way of kicking Isaiah in  
the backside :-)!   I, and we, have spent our lives lamenting how  
sinful we are, as if this is what God really wants.   God forgives us  
our sins and sends us back into the real world with the command to  
lift other people up too.   But we make a religious occupation of  
lamenting our sins and decrying others who don't follow our  
example.   They have better, more interesting things to do and we  
don't even recognize it.   By not lifting others up, the world is not  
helped and we condemn ourselves to more of the same! Why was Mary so  
favoured?   Despite some dubious devotional theology about her own  
conception, I suspect she is favoured simply because she is called.    
Her blessedness was not to remain with her, it was something that was  
to be shared with others, all others.   Indeed the special  
blessedness was precisely because in her, God was calling all people  
to know God in their own lives and to recognize God in the lives of  
all others as well. In Mary, in the incarnation, God was 'willingly  
entering into the degrading slavery of life as it really is' to bless  
us as we really are.  Because Mary was and is no more special than  
any of us are, we can find God's presence in the degrading slavery of  
the life we lead.   And the wonderful, life-giving thing is that this  
is for everyone, no matter what their gender, race, colour, culture,  
faith or sexual preference.

===================================================

s005g08  Christmass Molong

‘his own people did not accept him'  John 1.11

Jesus was not born an Anglican, a Catholic, an Evangelical, a  
Charismatic, or indeed even a Christian.   Jesus was born a Jew but  
like most of us this was an ‘accident’ of birth, not a conscious  
decision he made.   Our gospel for today tells us that the thing that  
is of most importance was that Jesus was born a person, a person like  
you or I, with all the joys and frustrations that ensues from this.    
He had to learn to live amongst others, he went through the same  
agonies of puberty that afflict us all.   He knew what hormones were,  
though not by that name.   He knew what insecurity, poverty and  
political oppression were all about.

Over the years, individuals, denominations and faith groups have  
sought to claim a special relationship to this Jesus, to claim him  
for their own.   The most well-known of the Psalms begins: ‘The Lord  
is MY shepherd’.   But first and foremost Jesus became a person like  
each and every person who has ever lived and like each and every  
person who ever will live.   Jesus is not more mine than he is  
everyone else’s.   Jesus is not the Anglicans’ any more than he is  
every other denomination’s.   And Jesus is not the Christians’ any  
more than he is every other faiths’.   And Jesus does not belong to  
those who have some sort of faith.  He just as much belongs to those  
who have no faith.   ‘Blessed are the poor in Spirit’, Jesus once said.

Jesus being born a person means that his primary call is for us to be  
people too.   Jesus doesn’t call us to be religious, Jesus calls us  
to be accepting.

Recently I have been thinking about how we as the Anglican Church is  
organised.   Historically in England, the parish church was the  
centre of village life and the minister the one literate person to  
whom everyone had to go to enable any transaction of any importance  
to take place.   When I was the priest in the parish of Kapunda in  
South Australia I noted that there were old marriage certificates  
where people put an ‘x’ because they couldn’t sign their name.   The  
church was the centre of social and sporting life.   Churches in  
England are ancient and the living endowed, so that the ordinary  
members of the congregation were not burdened with building or paying  
the priest.   However transporting this to the colonies meant that  
this romantic ideal has in fact been unattainable.   Buildings had to  
be built, ministers had to be paid.   With more general literacy, the  
centrality of the priest has been lost.   Indeed with increased  
education lay people not only read the Bible, but come to their own  
conclusions about its interpretation.   Social and sporting  
activities are better done in the secular sphere and our efforts look  
like we are in competition with others.   In South Australia there  
was the Church netball association and the School Association.

So while in the past the Church was the centre of society, now we are  
on the periphery.   The burden on ordinary people is way beyond what  
Anglicans in England ever have had to bear.   Church people have  
become isolated from the community and sometimes resentful that more  
people do not share the load.

But it is precisely this isolation, this being on the periphery, that  
Christmass came to demolish.   It is often thought that Jesus was  
killed because he claimed to be Son of God, but this is the excuse of  
those who had him killed.  In fact he was killed because he became a  
person amongst all, and didn’t just associate with the devout.   And  
the history of the Church is littered with disputes about how Jesus  
became a person, and there were not a few who wanted to say that  
Jesus only seemed to be human.   This is just another way of keeping  
Jesus to themselves.   The creeds of the Church are an attempt to  
make it a statement of faith that he became a real person, because  
then he came for all and not just for an exclusive coterie of initiates.

Even our coming to Church at Christmass can be mistakenly assumed  
that it is in Church that we will find Jesus.   We are as likely to  
find Jesus in a hospital, a prison, a school, in the down and out,  
and in ourselves as well.

'His own people did not accept him' is not a historical fact – that  
the Jewish authorities did not accept his message and had him killed  
– it is an eternal truth – that all who consider Jesus as their own  
and not others – in fact do not receive Jesus.   Jesus, the real  
Jesus, not our lovely theological idol, came for all people.

When I look at the gospel stories I find those who had worshipped  
with Jesus in the synagogue where he attended all his life trying to  
kill him because he suggested God cared for others besides them.   I  
find his own family being disowned as Jesus describes those listening  
to him as his brothers and sisters and mother rather than those who  
had family ties to him.   I find the disciples wanting Jesus to send  
the children away, they didn't deserve his attention – Jesus' was  
'theirs'.   They hadn't got the message – even though they were  
disciples.   And the disciples were not to be a exclusive coterie of  
initiates surrounding Jesus, they themselves were sent out to others.

A while back I was listening to Radio National and half way through  
the night the 'New Dimensions' segment came on.   The story went  
something like this:   A person decided to do something for the poor  
and needy, so she started cutting sandwiches and delivering them to  
the needy.   In the course of time the local media got wind of what  
she was doing and they featured an article on her work.   As a result  
of this media attention, some people started sending her money.    
Each of those who sent money were surprised when they got a letter  
back from the lady, thanking them for their interest but enclosing  
their money with the words: 'Cut your own damn sandwiches!'    Program #3267

God doesn't need our money, God needs us to get on with other  
people!   Not marginalizing women, not alienating gay persons, not  
condemning those who do not worship with us, live like us or speak  
our own theological lingo to eternal damnation, like so many so- 
called 'christian' people do.   God dwells within each of us and we  
are given time to find out our gift and to use it.   It may not be  
cutting sandwiches!

Over the years I have many times wondered after the christmass  
services were all over – what was all the fuss about?   After mass  
and endless carols and turkey and pudding and presents - life seems  
to return to its ordinary boring normality.   And, of course, while  
we keep Jesus to ourselves (or pretend to do so) then there is  
nothing else to do but to return to ordinary boring normality, with  
all its frustrations and anxieties.   But just consider what the  
world might be like if we let Jesus into the lives of others – if we  
saw God at work in people other than 'christians', people of faith?   
Ordinary boring normality might become christmass every day of the year!

I have spoken recently about people's lives blighted by religion, and  
it might be assumed I'm talking about some of those in the  
psychiatric hospital where I minister.   But no, it is not at all  
restricted to this.  I reflect how good and faithful Anglican's lives  
have been blighted by that romantic ideal of the self-sufficient  
parish I described earlier.   Stipends go up, the dwindling few are  
pressed to give more, and there seems no way to extricate our selves  
from this endless treadmill.    Most parishioners I have known are  
frankly tired out.   Their faithfulness is commendable, but where is  
a modicum of happiness?   Instead there is a natural resentment that  
others haven't got onto the treadmill too.   It doesn't sounds like  
'good news' to me.

Somehow we have to open ourselves up to other people, and the  
incarnation of Jesus tells us that for all we might find sanctity in  
our expression of 'christianity', God is not confined to this, but is  
found all around us in the ordinariness of human existence.   Our  
task is not to convert others to see things in our way, but for us to  
accept that God is everyone's as well as ours.   The endless  
treadmill is not God's will for anyone, least of all for us who try  
so hard to be faithful.

If we think Jesus is our own in a way denied to others, then there is  
no escaping the treadmill, the resentment and the disappointment.    
But thanks be to God, Jesus was born a human being so that divinity  
might be seen in all people.   The message of christmass is true and  
vital - the promise of peace and justice there for us and for all to  
accept.

(Comments to Chris at frsparky@bigpond.net.au.)