The Proclaimed Word
Preached by the Reverend Canon Durrell Watkins at
Sunshine Cathedral MCC on Sunday, December 23, 2007.
We LOVE Christmas songs, don’t we? They make us feel good. They make us
feel loved. They make us want to love. I have two favorite songs that I
like to hear or sing at Christmas… one is Schubert’s Ave Maria. The
other goes a little something like this:
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas.
Only a hippopotamus will do.
Don’t want a doll, no dinky Tinker Toy.
I want a hippopotamus to play with and enjoy.
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas;
I don’t think Santa Claus will mind, do you?
He won’t have to use our dirty chimney flue, just bring him through the front
door, that’s the easy thing to do.
I can see me now on Christmas morning, creeping down the stairs.
Oh what joy and what surprise
when I open up my eyes to see a hippo hero standing there!
I want a hippopotamus for Christmas. Only a hippopotamus will do.
No crocodiles, no rhinoceroses,
I only like hippopotamuses;
and hippopotamuses like me too…[1]
A Yiddish proverb states, “Love is a fine thing, but love with noodles is
tastier.” The point is, love isn’t just a feeling; it’s a commitment. It’s
action. It’s more than how we feel; it’s what we do.
In the days of Judah ‘s
King Ahaz, there was a military conflict. The prophet Isaiah tells us that the
king’s heart and the heart of his people collectively trembled like trees in
the forest tremble in the wind.
But in response to the conflict that threatened Ahaz’s nation, the prophet
Isaiah gives a word of hope. Religion at its best doesn’t ignore the pain of
the world; religion at its best offers hope. To do that, it must name the
problems, and engage them.
Religion must be a healing balm to apply to the wounds of the world, or
else what good is it to the world?
Isaiah says to King Ahaz, “Remain calm and do not fear; let not your
courage fail before [your enemies]…”
Isaiah continues:
God will give you a sign, and the sign is this – a
young woman shall be with child and bear a son, and she shall call him
Immanuel
(which means ‘God is with us’). And this was meant to
encourage King Ahaz.
Later Isaiah will say that the child has been born (
unto us a child IS
born
) and upon the child’s shoulders rest dominion and authority and he
will be given royal titles such as Wonder-counselor, Prince of Peace,
God-hero, and he will have a reign of peace.
It just so happened that King Ahaz did have a son who would later be known
as King Hezekiah. As king, authority and dominion did rest on him. His mother
would have been a young woman at the time the prophecy was spoken to Ahaz, and
that Hezekiah lived to be king shows that the Ahaz’s regime got through the
trouble at hand.
Ahaz was able to pass the reigns of government on to an heir, a prince who
would work for peace in the kingdom. A prophetic word of encouragement was
needed; it often is. And Isaiah, by being faithful to his prophetic role, was
part of helping Ahaz get through a difficult time.
Now skip ahead some 700 years.
An anonymous writer is piecing together a story that we now call the gospel
of Matthew. He’s writing almost an entire century after the birth of Jesus.
The Roman Empire has dominated Matthew’s land for about a century, and the
person we are calling Matthew does for his community what the prophet Isaiah
did for his. He lovingly and courageously offers a word of hope.
If you were Jewish or gay or Jehovah’s Witness in Nazi Germany, you’d have
some sense of what Matthew’s community must be feeling.
If you were around in the 1980s and 90s when AIDS was terrorizing our
communities and Metropolitan Community Churches were offering hospital visits
and healing prayers and funerals for people other churches wanted to ignore or
blame, you’d have some sense of what Matthew’s community must be feeling.
If you were African-American, living in the Southern United States in the
middle of the 20th century when racial segregation was legal and
considered normative, you’d have some sense of what Matthew’s community must
be feeling.
If you were living a nightmarish existence in the south of Sudan , you’d
have some sense of what Matthew’s community must be feeling.
If you were a same-gender loving person in Jamaica , where just being who
you are could get you killed, you’d have some sense of what Matthew’s
community must be feeling.
It’s difficult to compare oppressions, but if we have ever had our human
dignity discounted or denied, we should be able to have some sense of
what others who have suffered dehumanizing assaults might be feeling. And if
we can have that sense, surely the spirit of human decency compels us to do
something to offer hope or comfort or encouragement. Put more simply, surely
Love, human or divine, compels us to do something to reduce suffering in our
world.
To have turmoil on your doorstep, and uncertainty and anxiety be your
constant companions…that was the reality of Matthew’s community. And the
writer we are calling Matthew apparently found a great deal of empowerment in
the words of Isaiah.
He looked at that passage that he had heard dozens of times in his life,
and he must have thought, “hey… that’s how God works. God speaks though human
courage to offer hope and healing in the moment of difficulty. God works
through people like Isaiah to say, ‘Don’t give up!’” We are the conduit of
divine love… what God does for us, God does through us.
And Matthew took that ancient prophetic text and he reinterpreted it and he
lovingly applied it to his situation and he found that it could still be used
to empower and encourage those who were at the end of their rope.
And so he writes his story about a man who lived his life helping others,
who died brutally and unjustly but with dignity and grace, and who somehow
continued to live in the hearts and minds of people… who somehow proved to be a
living presence even to people who had never met him in life.
And to make the point of how significant this person was, this Jesus of
Nazareth, Matthew suggests that from his birth he was marked as special. And
he says that an ancient prophecy can be applied to him as well, to give hope
and encouragement even still.
Was Matthew present for the birth of Jesus? Of course not. Is his every
detail of the event accurate? I for one have my doubts? Matthew is only one of
two New Testament writers who believe Jesus’ birth is worth imagining, or
mentioning.
But Matthew isn’t making the case for history… he is making the case for the
future! He is saying that it is not too late to summon hope! He is saying,
even when things seem bleak, it is still the affirmation of the faithful that
God is with us! And if that is true, then we need not give up; indeed, we
CANNOT give up. And if we won’t give up, we’re bound to experience a rich
blessing at some point, maybe even a miracle!
Our tenacity, our unyielding commitment to being the love of God in action
is our Christmas gift to the world.
If we read Matthew as a whole story, he takes us all the way to an
experience we call resurrection, and that experience is the proof for Matthew
and his community that our hope will not be in vain. A life of loving action
will not let our hope be in vain.
Some of us will think this story is factual. Others of us will not; and
yet, whether we believe it is factual or not, we can all believe that it is
true. Because it is true that God is with us, and that is the point, the
vehemently proclaimed truth of this story. If we can embrace that truth, we
will find the hope and the courage to do amazing things.
We will use the power of love to transform our lives. And when enough of us
do that… well, it’s certainly worth a try. This is the Good News. Amen.
[1]
written by John Coctoasten and performed by Gayla Peevey in 1953.