when I laid out the preaching series, this was one I was looking forward to preaching. it turned out quite differently than I had anticipated in the planning process, but it was a good week of sermon prep. Actually, the sermon kept changing until the final draft was finished about 9:00am. The MacFarland illustration and the Harpo Marx illustrations were Saturday additions. they both worked well. I had two other illustrations (a story and an Emerson quote) that were in the rough draft but were dropped along the way. they are both good illustrations, so they'll find their way into a sermon at some point. I really like the MacFarland illustration, but had never used it previously. Reading Cindy Rigby's chapter on incarnation in her book Holding Faith was really helpful. It reminded me that I should reference some of my theological sources more often in my sermon preparation.
“Giving Gifts: In the Particular” SAPC, Denton; February 20, 2022; Gift giving series
Philippians 2: 5-11 Let the same mind be in you that was[a] in Christ Jesus,
6
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
9
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Introduction: Final week on gifts. Next week is Youth Sunday and then we begin Lent.
As we reflect on frankincense, the questions arises - were the wise men concerned about Jesus getting arthritis? Why that question, you ask? Because according to the Biblical Archaeology Society, frankincense was often used as a treatment for ailments such as arthritis. (Why Did the Magi Bring Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh?: Medicinal uses of frankincense may help explain the gifts of the magi,” Biblical Archaeology Society Staff January 06, 2022https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/why-did-the-magi-bring-gold-frankincense-and-myrrh/)
If not arthritis, maybe the frankincense and myrrh were given to Jesus for his mother to use postpartum. In the time Jesus was born, “frankincense and myrrh were commonly used together to relieve post-partum pain and anxiety, lessen the probability of post-partum depression and reduce bleeding after delivery.” (Frankincense and Myrrh: Useful Spices for Women After Giving Birth: Plant extracts for the treatment of pain associated with giving birth. Psychology today, December 3, 2021, Gary Wenk, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-brain-food/202112/frankincense-and-myrrh-useful-spices-women-after-giving-birth)
We do not really know, but I like the idea that the wise men brought gifts that might have had specific uses for Jesus, or his mother, or his father.
Gift giving in the particularity, if you will.
move 1: that is what God did through the gift of Jesus.
a. Some refer to the passage we read in Galatians this morning as Paul’s birth narrative.
1. No getting lost in the images of birth or stars or mangers - just a description of what God chooses to do.
3. God choosing to join with us in the particularity of our humanity, as people under the law.
4. Jesus “pouring himself out” to be found in human form, as Paul describes it in the letter to the Philippians.
b. God joins with us in the particular to be with us and to move us to new places.
1. Vs 5 begins with one Greek word - three letters; that is translated as three small words: “in order to”
2. Three small, but powerful words that describe God’s intentions - to join with us to lead us to a new understanding of who we are and whose we are.
3. Paul describes this action of God using the image of adoption.
4. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children”
2. God choosing us.
3. Harpo Marx story about adoption: Harpo and his wife Susan adopted four kids, Billy, Alex, Jimmy, and Minnie.
from the time they were old enough to hear bedtime stories, their parents told them was they called “The Story,” an elaborate story about finding all four of the children in different places across the country. It became their favorite story, which they kept repeating through the years.
when Minnie was about twelve, she came home from school and told her father Harpo that she felt bad because she had hurt the feelings of a girl in her class.
“How did she do that?” her father asked.
Minnie explained: “Well, the other girl asked me what it felt like to be adopted, and I told her that I felt like the luckiest person in the world because my parents had chosen me out of lots of other kids. My parents didn’t just have me like any ole’ baby. They chose me.”
4. God chooses us in the particular through the gift of Jesus Christ so that we might move from slavery to being children of God and heirs of God’s glory.
Move 2: God’s gift of Jesus changes how we engage the world
a. Cindy Rigby, a friend of this congregation, and professor of theology suggests that if we begin our conversation about God with the incarnation of Jesus Christ, it shapes our understanding of God’s power and how we serve god in the world. (Holding Faith: A Practical Introduction to Christian Doctrine, Chapter 3, “Where Does God Meet Us: the Doctrine of Incarnation, 72, Cynthia L. Rigby)
1. The all-powerful God who we understand through the coming of Christ who lives among us, who pours himself out for us.
2. The coming of Christ will lead to his death on the cross.
2. If we understand God’s power through christ’s sacrifice, it sends us into the world to serve, rather than as people acting out of power.
3. Instead of seeing the world as the place where we need to show forth God’s power and demand others acknowledge God’s power, we pour ourselves out for those we meet.
4. We join people where they are and minister with them.
5. we do not engage everyone in the same way - when we meet them where they are we acknowledge who they are and their uniqueness.
b. then, in the particularity of where the people are, we may have opportunities to help them move to that new place God is calling them.
1. One of the challenges that Our Daily Bread faces when trying to move people out of homelessness or Habitat for Humanity faces when moving people from not owning homes to homeownership is the challenge of helping people discover the new possibilities they have for who they can become.
2. to no longer live as a homeless person, but to take on the identity of someone who rents an apartment and has those responsibilities;
or to go from being someone who identifies as not having property to being a homeowner and all the responsibilities that come with owning a home.
c. it is hard work to redefine a person’s self-understanding, but it begins by joining the person where they are and working with them to see new possibilities.
1. If you have never seen the movie “MacFarland, USA,” I commend it to you.
2. Based on the true story of Jim White, not our Jim White, a coach in MacFarland, CA, who take a cross country team of migrant workers and develops them into state champions and creates an ongoing legacy of cross-country that invites high schoolers to not only run, but to discover new possibilities for their lives.
3. in the movies, the migrant worker high schoolers resist their new coach.
4. They call him “Blanco,” which is not only a play on his last name, “White,” but points to the barrier that exits between the coach, who does not understand his runners, most of whom are sons of migrant workers who work the fields themselves.
5. One Saturday, Coach White gets yup early and goes out into the fields with his runners and picks the crop with them.
he is not very good at it, and discovers who hard it is to pick crops and what his runners do when not at practice.
After that day, his runner begin to call him “Coach.” When he chose to join with them in their lives, they saw him differently. not a coach who would command them to run, but someone who was connected to them, whose coaching was with them and for them.
Later, after they win the state championship, Coach White decides to stay at MacFarland instead of taking a better-paying job in a rich school district.
He stays, and then we discover at the end of the movie that many of his runners come back to be teachers, police officers, etc. in MacFarland.
As he joins with them, he is able to help them discover new possibilities.
c. that is what Christ modeled for us.
1. He joined us in our humanity and showed us the possibilities for who we could be.
2. He poured himself out for us so that we might discover our lives as children of God.
Conclusion: the wise arrived with treasure chests of gifts - gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
We do not know exactly why they brought those gifts, but we can imagine they brought them for particular reasons specific to the baby born, the Christ-child, and his parents Mary and Joseph.
Like the God who sent the Christ-child into the particularity of our humanity for the purpose of moving us to new life.
Like we are sent by God into the particularity of the lives of those to whom we are called to engage and lead to the new possibilities God has for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment