From Generation to Generation: We See God in Each Other

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. --Luke 1:39-45, 56-58 (CEB)

Holy is God’s name, who shows mercy to everyone, from one generation to the next, for those who honor God. Amen.

Last week I mentioned my extended family on my dad’s side, who, when he died, wrapped their arms around my mother and our family - this extended family of mine. Which is huge!

Every three years we have a family reunion. Over time our numbers, big to begin with, have continued to grow. Generation after generation. Now numbering some 7 generations - maybe you have a family like this, too? These generations who come together every three years to celebrate our ancestors, our history, our sense of humor, our physical attribute (which for my family is a pretty extraordinary nose), and all of the things that make us a family. But, more than anything, we come together because we belong together. We are family. We have been through thick and thin together. Through incredibly hard times and incredibly wonderful times together. They are my family. They know me. They know pretty much everything about me. And I know about them, too. If I show up and something is wrong, they know it. Because we belong together.

Mary and Elizabeth are family like this. They’re blood relatives. Cousins. Just like all of my cousins. But, they’re more than that. They are even more connected because both of them are pregnant by the Holy Spirit. And, at the moment they meet, while our text is not clear that Elizabeth knows that Mary is also pregnant, their babies know. The next generation they are carrying knows that they are kin. That they all belong. Together. 

Certainly, Elizabeth must have sensed Mary’s complex emotions - the fear and the joy and who knows whatever else she must have been feeling. Certainly Mary must have sensed Elizabeth’s joy and awe at the fact that, at her age, she was not only carrying a child, but a prophet who would announce the long-awaited Christ. This is what belonging does. It helps us know one another. Deeply. So that in good times and in bad times, we carry one another’s burdens, celebrate one another’s joys, accompany one another along the way.

Mary and Elizabeth do this. My family and I do this. But here? In this place? Do we belong? Are we committed to this community of faith? 

You and I - all of us -belong to one other. We are made to be together in Christian community. It is a privilege to be in this community. The body of Christ is a reality created by God in Christ in which we are privileged to participate. This is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer speaks to in his essay, Life Together - the privilege that is the fellowship of faith. 

Bonhoeffer is under no illusion about the difficulty and challenge of living with others in the faith. Yet, he writes, that to share the “physical presence of other Christians” is a “gracious anticipation of the last things.” A foretaste of that community to come. Luther wrote that to be in community with other Christians was “grace upon grace” - the “roses and lilies” of the Christian life, so much of which is spent in the midst of a world that seeks to destroy us. 

If we would only recognize this.

You and I have been chosen to be a part of this community. Not by me. Not by any one else in this community. But by God and God alone. Might it be possible that you are here precisely because this is where God wants you to be?

When we choose to be apart from this community, when we go for a time without truly belonging, not being here, we begin to manufacture an identity from that alienation, from being apart. Perhaps we are busy with other priorities. Perhaps, we move away because we are hurt. Or betrayed. Or feel rejected in some way, unable to trust others. Only trusting ourselves. 

But, as theologian Cole Arthur Riley writes, “a life lived with trust only in the self is exhausting. It is not freedom. It is a yoke that falls helplessly and incessantly upon us.” 

We tell ourselves that no one can or will ever understand us or our complexities. We brag about the fact that we’re a “loner” or “independent.” It’s how we numb those wounds we feel. By elevating ourselves above the community, looking down upon it as frivolous. Or needy. Or less enlightened. Or unimportant. When, in truth, we are simply denying our own need - our need to belong.

Life together is messy. That is a fact. And Bonhoeffer cautions how we are respond when this life together gets messy. And difficult. 

It’s easy, when we’re frustrated by one another, to speak about another “covertly,” as he puts it. To scrutinize another, to judge another, to condemn another, to put another in their place, so that one gains a sense of superiority. This, he writes, “does violence to the other.” 

Instead, he says, we should pray for them. Because, no matter how much trouble they may cause, it becomes impossible to condemn or hate another sibling in Christ for whom we pray. 

‘If only,” he continues, “If only one lets go the exasperation that ‘God did not make this person as I would have made them’ and realizes that God gives us people not to dominate and control, but as a way to find divine love” - only if one lets go of this expectation, “can one find the other person an occasion of joy rather than a nuisance and affliction. The difficult part is to accept that God has not created every person in my image,” he writes. But rather, that “every person has been created in God’s image.” 

In this place. In this community we are known. Our names are known. People know us and know the ugly parts of us. And, yet, we are called to stay. Each one of us. To stay. To see God in one another. When we realize this, when we begin to see the divine in others, we are changed. We begin to see our siblings through the lens of the cross. And recognize that it is we who have failed to serve them.

In this place, our way of being together is a way of being with God. Every relationship, every interaction with one another is mediated by Christ. Bonhoeffer writes, “Human love constructs its own image of the other person, of what he is and what he should become. Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ; the image that Jesus Christ embodies and stamps upon all people.” 

This is how we meet God in community. Through each other.

This was Mary’s experience. As she came to Elizabeth, scared and confused as I’m sure she was. Fearful of what the future might bring, Elizabeth could have rejected her. Could have turned her away. And could have done so legitimately and under the law. 

Instead, Elizabeth saw in her the divine - as did her unborn child - leading her to affirm Mary’s blessedness. Which led to Mary’s song. Our first Advent hymn. The most passionate, the wildest, the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. A song about the revolutionary power of God, to break down the structures that divide us, the barriers that separate us, the walls in our hearts that keep us apart, so that we may belong to God. And to one another. From generation to generation.

May we seek to be like Elizabeth. May we see God in this place. May we see God in each other. Amen.

Preached December 18, 2022, at Grace & Glory, Prospect, with Third, Louisville.

Advent 4

Reading: Luke 1:39-45; 56-58; Luke 1:46-55

God's Kingdom Announced: Good News

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
    ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight,’”

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

--Mark 1:1-20 (NRSV)

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

We’re going to do something a bit different today. Over these past few weeks of Christmas and Epiphany, we taken a slight detour from our lectionary. Mostly, we’ve done this because this is the year of the gospel of Mark. And, because Mark has no nativity or epiphany story, we’ve had to bounce around a little bit between Luke and Matthew and, even, on Christmas Eve, a little bit of John. But, today we begin Mark. 

We do not know who wrote Mark. There is a lot of speculation among theologians, but the truth is that no one knows for sure. We believe it was written sometime around the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem, around 70 CE. It may have been slightly before or slightly after. This was a time of conflict - conflict within Judaism and conflict outside of Judaism, between the Jewish people and the Roman empire. 

Mark was the first of the gospels to be written. There is early historical evidence to suggest that the author of Mark wanted to make sure that all of what Jesus did and said was written down. Because, up to this point, all of these stories had been shared orally. By word of mouth. At this point, though, the eyewitnesses to Jesus and his ministry were dying, because they were being persecuted and martryed. 

In these opening verses of Mark, there are important words and themes that we will hear as we move through this gospel during these next months. So, today, the different thing we will do is to dig deeper into the text to better understand these words and themes, so that we might build a good foundation for our reading of Mark and for a deeper understanding of the message of this first gospel.

Mark opens with these words: the beginning. Does that sound familiar to you? Where have we heard those words before? 

If we go all the way back to the start of the Hebrew scriptures in Genesis, we hear similar words. “In the beginning.” This phrase is an important signal for us. It’s a sign that God is doing something new. In Genesis, that new thing that God was up to was forming an ordered and beautiful creation out of darkness and chaos.  Here, at the beginning of Mark, we do not yet know what this new thing is that God is doing. Yet, in the very next few words, we are about to get a hint.

The next important word (or words) is the phrase “good news.” Now, in the Greek, the word used for this phrase is euangeliou.  It’s a form of the word euangelion.  Have you seen this word before? Does it look a little familiar to you: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America? Perhaps this will jog your memory: Grace & Glory Evangelical Lutheran Church? 

The Greek word euangelion means "good news." Or "gospel." But this good news that we are about to hear is not a reference to a physical book, to the written “gospel” of Mark. Instead, it refers to the word of salvation as it is carried out in the acts of salvation. In Mark, the saving word is not separated from saving action.  Good news, or the gospel, in Mark is always in motion. 

We will see this good news acted out in the preaching and teaching, and in acts of mercy and healing by Jesus Christ. Jesus, the now roughly 30-year-old man, son of Mary and of Joseph. And the Christ, meaning the Anointed One. The Messiah. The One promised by God to come and save God’s people.  The first half of Mark’s gospel will focus on identifying Jesus as this promised Messiah. The second half will begin to unfold the stunning truth that, not only is this Jesus the Anointed One, the one who will both announce and initiate the good news of God’s reign. But, that this Jesus Christ is also the very Son of God. That he is both human and divine.

But, first, we must meet the one who will prepare the way for this Jesus, the Anointed One, the Son of God. 

This one who will prepare the way is none other than John the Baptist or John the Baptizer. Son of Elizabeth and Zechariah. Who we met just a few weeks ago, on the very last Sunday of Advent, before Christmas. It is John who fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah. The one promised who will “prepare the way of the Lord.” We're also reminded of Exodus 23, where the prophet has the very difficult, yet very necessary, job of making a course correction. And of bringing a wayward people back to the right path. To the right way. This is John’s job in Mark. To prepare the way for Jesus by returning people to the right path. 

In his camel’s hair clothing, with his leather belt and his diet of locusts and honey, John has claimed a life of poverty. One who lives off little. Who has chosen to be poor. But, the people coming to see John are not poor. They come to him from places that enjoyed comfortable living standards. They are people living in Jerusalem and the surrounding area, an island of wealth and power in the midst of Galilee, a rural place. A place of poverty. 

John invites them into this wilderness. To reflect on their history and their complicitness in the economic divide. He calls them to repent. To repent in Mark is to step out of one’s mindset and adopt a new and different mindset. It is to have one’s perception of the world and of oneself transformed. To adopt a radically different world view. To relate to the world in a new way. It also means to make a U-turn. To change course. To turn one’s back on the status quo. On one’s former life. To envision a new reality. And then to endeavor to bring this new thing to fruition. For those coming to see John, entering into the wilderness is a time of reflection and reckoning. A time intended to bring them back to God and to God’s ways. To ways that will lead them through the wilderness to Jesus Christ and to the in-breaking reign of God.

Jesus comes to John to be baptized. We read in the 10th verse that just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice from heaven saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

“Just” or “immediately. We will see this adverb 42 times in Mark! Because there is an urgency in Mark. There is no time to waste. Immediately, Jesus sees the heavens being torn asunder. This is not a gentle descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus. In Greek the word used is a form of the word schizo. It is a violent word. A word of division. This ripping apart of the heavens at Jesus’ baptism will be echoed in the ripping apart of the temple curtain at Jesus’ death. The public ministry of Jesus beginning here, with his baptism, will not only bring words and actions of healing and salvation, but they will bring violence and conflict and division. 

This baptism is an event between Father and Son. Jesus alone sees the heavens being torn asunder, his baptism by the Spirit, and hears the words of his Father. Words that express the relationship and love of this father and son. We will hear these words again at Jesus’ transfiguration as he prepares to face the conflict his ministry has created. And to be crucified by those who have rejected not only him, but the entire reign of God. 

It is this reign of God to which you and I, sisters and brothers have been called, just as the early disciples. You and I, beloved of God, who have been called to repent and be baptized. To step out of our comfort and our complacency. To turn around. To adopt a new mindset and a new way of life. To step onto the wilderness path. To believe in the good news - good news that is understood in both word and deed. 

In our baptisms, we have been given a new birth. We have been cleansed from sin. We have been raised to life forever. But, at the same time, we have promised individually and communally to live out the kingdom - the reign of God. We have promised to live among God’s faithful people. We have promised to hear the word of God and to share in the Lord’s supper. We have promised to proclaim this good news of God in Christ through what we say and what we do. We have promised to serve all people by following the example of Jesus. And, finally, we have promised to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.

So how far along are you in keeping your covenant with God?

Dear church, ours is not to be a life of comfort and complacency. Ours is to be a a wilderness life - a time of constant reflection and remembering and repentance. A time of faith lived out with urgency and action. It is a life that may bring us into conflict with the powers that be, with the status quo, with those who defy or deny God’s reign, as it should. Because we are not to be passive people of God. The reign of God is not some nebulous thing that we wait passively for in the distant future. It began with Jesus’ baptism and public ministry. And it continues with us at the present time. The reign of God - the kingdom of God - is now. Right. Now. And we are called to live it out.

This is the good news of the gospel of Mark. May it jolt us into motion. Amen.

Preached Sunday, January 12, 2020, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Baptism of Our Lord (Epiphany 1)
Readings: Ezekiel 36:25-27; Psalm 91:9-12; Mark 1:1-20