A Faith to Celebrate: Trusting in What is Not Yet

Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-23

A Sermon Preached by Donald Mackenzie

December 19, 2004

University Congregational United Church of Christ

Seattle, Washington

“And they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, ‘God is with us’.” Matthew 1:23b

Here we are again at that wonderful moment, the Sunday before Christmas, filled with hopes and with fears. Much of what we have experienced getting here, we have in common: each other, this community of faith, for most of us the blessing and privilege of having enough of life’s necessities and, most of all, God is with us. In these positives there is an incomparable joy! But, we have other things in common too: a troubled world, a desperate need for community, a decline in available light at a time of year making all the more real our need for light and guidance, and an uncertainty about the future of this world. These are negatives underlined by anxiety and by fear.

Given these pluses and minuses, these blessings and curses, what is the question that each of us brings to this moment, this Sunday before Christmas? While each of us may ask it in a slightly different way, I think the big question before us today is suggested by the story of the Magnificat of Mary in the anthem and offertory today, and it is underlined by the readings from scripture: what is it that my life and our common life is about to give birth to? And how is this question asked and answered in the context of faith, faith suggested by the power of the word, Emmanuel, which means God is with us?”

Thinking of how our lives give birth is a way of describing what our lives are about. We speak of this as vocation, of calling. These words suggest that whatever it is that gives meaning to our lives, it is not accidental; it comes from God our creator and redeemer. This is important whether we are nine, sixteen, thirty-nine, sixty, or ninety.

Will we need, as Isaiah suggests, to ask for a sign from God; through prayer will we need to ask for guidance for that star to follow, for that sense of Emmanuel? Will we need help with our character through faith as with Joseph (remember that Joseph was asked to ignore the mores of his time by not divorcing Mary because of her pregnancy) in Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus, so that in finding our way, our lives can truly give birth to things that help God’s dreams for us come true? Or will we, as Mary, receive some sort of sign or signal about where to go, what to do, how to think, what to believe, how to grow?

We ask these questions at this deep time of year in the context of our blessings and curses. As we consider the potentials for our lives and our common life, we pray that our blessings will be equal to what we need to confront the difficulties before us.

Keeping in mind the need for guidance, the need for the growth of our characters and the need to be able to say yes to God's call, and keeping in mind that the star over our manger illuminates the birth of the Prince of Peace, I think it would be useful to ponder war and peace. For as the star illuminates our manger, it also illuminates our world and all is not well. Our country is at war. Chris Hedges, a war correspondent for the New York Times has written, "We are losing the war in Iraq. There has been a steady increase in the assaults carried out by the insurgents against coalition forces. The attacks over the past year have risen from twenty a day to 120. We are an isolated and reviled nation. We are tyrants to others weaker than ourselves. We have lost sight of our democratic ideals. Thucydides wrote of Athens' expanding empire and how this empire led it to become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. The tyranny Athens imposed on others it finally imposed on itself." He continues, "If we do not confront our hubris and the lies told to justify the killing and mask the destruction carried out in our name in Iraq, if we do not grasp the moral corrosiveness of empire and occupation, if we continue to allow force and violence to be our primary form of communication, we will not so much defeat dictators like Saddam Hussein as become them."

These devastating truths are the things we would rather not hear and see, especially at this time of year. When, I ask you, was the last time you felt the need of God's presence with such energy and passion? But as we live into this and other difficult realities, let us remember that Christmas is not about fear; Christmas is about joy! If we were to ask for a sign, if we were to request help with the development of our character as a community of faith, if we were to ask for the resources to say yes to God, What would that mean for us?

It would mean we would be doing what those who have gone before us have done. Moses said yes to God's call to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt. Ruth said yes to God's call to stay with Naomi, her mother-in-law after the death of her husband. Jesus said yes in the wilderness and consistently throughout his life and Paul said yes on the road to Damascus. What these things have in common is not just the positive response to God; each person did so by going way beyond the familiar. Each person did so by faith trusting that God would provide, trusting in what was not yet. Each person did so by looking at his or her life in a way that ran directly counter to conventional wisdom.

And it would mean that we, being filled with the Holy Spirit, would hold the conviction that God is with us, Emmanuel.

The war in Iraq is the sign. It is symptomatic of the way things are going in this culture and the way things in this culture are affecting the rest of the world. It is the sign. And it helps us to see that the star illuminates an event that does not belong in the comfort and privilege of the inn. For Christian people, Mary's yes to God and the birth of Jesus is as counter cultural an event as the world has ever known. The reality that the war in Iraq points to, illuminated by the star, does not mean that everything is wrong. But it does mean that enough is wrong that we should be alarmed and we should be seeking ways to proclaim the relationship between our faith and what is going on in this world. As we move forward through the renovation of our building and the activities to support our priorities, may God give us the wisdom and compassion to discuss the problems of our world in the context of the gospel and the voice and the authority to speak.

But in this moment now that we share, let us take a deep breath, breathing in the love that God is, and let us use that to give birth to what is coming, for as Howard Thurman has written so eloquently, we have a desert to travel, a star to follow, and a being within ourselves to bring to life. Thanks be to God! Amen!