The Preparation

sermon by Carrie Eikler
with solos by Jacob Lewellen
Luke 1:47-662 Samuel 7:1-11

People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.

In 1928, Eleanor Farjeorn wrote the text and tune to one of my favorite Advent hymns, People Look East. Bringing together the festive preparations of one's home with the faithful preparation of one's heart for Christ, the guest, she somehow ties up all the tricky feelings I have around Christmas. Like-- love the decorations, the smells, the bells, the parties, what many would call "the trappings" of the season.

And as I think about preparing my home for Christmastime, it leads me to wonder, how am I preparing myself to again receive the meaning of the Christ-child into my life? At our Simplicity Circle last Saturday night, we were discussing rituals handed down to us, or ones we have created in order to reclaim some of the perspective during the Christmas season. Sue Overman shared a story: when her children will little, they found an old manger--or something to work as a manger--and a bale of straw from the Yoder’s. All throughout Advent, when the children did something kind, or helpful, or good they were able to take some straw from the straw bale and lay it in the manger. By the kind and generous acts of the children, they were in a way, helping prepare a place for the baby Jesus, not just in the manger, but in their hearts and lives as well.

But preparation is a complicated thing. As much as we may talk about Advent being a time of preparing, we know that Christmas comes anyway whether or not we are prepared. But what if we took it seriously? What if we thought of Jesus as in the hymn, as Love, a guest who is coming to dwell with us? There are things we would want to do to make ourselves ready, not because our guest won't come if the cobwebs of our soul aren't swept away, or the dust of our spirits brushed aside. But, because we know that when we've prepared, we enjoy the grace of the company of our guest, and we are more comfortable dwelling with one another. People look east and sing today; Love the guest is on the way.

Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower may flourish.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the rose, is on the way.

In talking about houses we are presented with a minor conflict in our reading from 2nd Samuel today, a conflict of interest between King David and God. At this point in Israel’s history, David has secured his kingdom as well as a palace for himself. Up to this point, the Israelites have been carrying the Ark of the Covenant wherever they went on their nomadic journeys. This ark was believed to house the spirit of the Lord. When they were stable for a while, the ark resided not in a permanent temple, but in a tent, or tabernacle, that could be raised and lowered as the need presented itself.

But now that David feels secure in his kingship, he would like to build a temple for the Lord, which was not an unwise political move. Ancient Near Eastern kings would often engage in temple building to legitimize their rule and ensure favor from their gods. But it would be David’s son, Solomon, who would build this grand temple in Jerusalem, not David. In fact, God lovingly chastised David, through the prophet Nathan, essentially saying, “I haven’t had a house up till now, what makes you think I need one?”

In fact, the LORD seems to prefer the movable system, saying it allowed him to be among the people. This divine freedom appears threatened by the idea of a permanent residence, and as commentator Bruce Birch explores the idea of building a temple is treated as an “attempt to domesticate and control the presence of God.” (NIB, 1257). So to David’s lofty ambitions, God responds with a proposal of a different house.

It is through David that God proposes to build not a house of worship, but a house of descendents. It is through David’s line that God will multiply and build a people who will worship and house God in their very beings, almost as if it is in their blood. God’s desire to be among the people may just in fact translate into God being within the people. And for the early Christians, who look at the life of Jesus, this promise becomes clear in a new way. The seed that will be nourished with God’s presence will flourish not in the bricks and mortar building, but the flesh and blood people, and most intimately, and most clearly in the life and love of one person. People look east and sing today, love the rose is on the way.

Stars keep the watch. When night is dim,
one more light the bowl shall brim,
shining beyond the frosty weather,
bright as sun and moon together.
People look east and sing today;
Love, the Star, is on the way.

So I wonder what Mary thinks about all this. What does it mean to her that her betrothed, Joseph, is in David’s line, that an angel has just told her she would bear a child without regard that she is a virgin, and that she is in all senses housing the messiah in her womb? Her people have been occupied for generations, the glory days of David’s kingdom is in the distant past! Who is she to give birth to the one who would save her people?

The author of Luke acknowledges the social humiliation of what it would mean for Mary to be an unwed mother. He purposefully transforms the shameful situation into a story of exaltation, in the words we heard today…Mary’s Magnificat. In accepting the bitterness of her situation, she realizes that even lines of kings and wealthy men have nothing on the God who loves the poor and sets the captives free, who looks on the lowly with thanksgiving. And if we needed more proof, just take a look at Jesus’ genealogy as recorded in Matthew.

Now if you have ever read the first chapter of Matthew you will know it begins as a rambling account of fathers begetting sons, 14 verses of generally meaningless names to many of us. There are names of men who we read found favor with God, and men who were less than idyllic forebears to the chosen one. But interestingly, in what is generally a male-dominated account of proving Jesus’ ties to the royal David dynasty, there are four women mentioned, aside from Mary. I don’t blame you if you missed it, because generally we like to skip over the boring genealogy to get to the good stuff.

But in the genealogy there is Tamar, a woman whose used sexual power against her father-in-law in order to assure the rights coming to her as a widow; Rahab, who is a prostitute; Ruth, who is an foreigner and is devoted to her mother-in-law even in the face of new marriage; and the wife of Uriah who is known to us as Bathsheba, another sexually promiscuous woman whose illicit affair with King David bore a son.

This is the house that God has chosen to dwell in. These are men and women that were not embarrassing enough to sweep under the rug, but human enough to nail down in writing!

We are the house that God has chosen to dwell in! So even if we think we’re not where we should be, or where we want to be, or the perfect vessels to do ministry, or to do justice, or to do mercy, we are reminded that preparation and perfection are not the same thing.

So maybe it’s not a matter of being 100% prepared to be a house for God, but the act of preparing that is the real transformative work. Mary prepares: in the midst of social stigma and without seeing her child, she prophetically proclaims her love for God and willingness to be used by God…she prepares. Tamar, and Rahab, and Bathsheba and Ruth prepare: when they accept God working through them to teach us something in spite of desperate decisions or by simply being an outsider…they prepare. Even King David prepares: when he steps back from plans that may only serve his desire to show political strength…he prepares to begin the message that God dwells brightly with the people. People look east and sing today, Love, the Star, is on the way

Angels announce with shouts of mirth
him who brings new life to earth.
Set ev’ry peak and valley humming
with the word, the Lord is coming.
People look east and sing today;
Love, the Lord, is on the way.

And we? It’s not a question about if we are prepared to receive Christ, but how we are preparing to receive him. How do we make room for Christ in our daily living? How do we acknowledge our bodies as vessels of the Christ? How do we treat our world as the home where God dwells, on earth as it is in heaven? It’s one thing to think about receiving a tiny baby Jesus, with the warm feelings of Christmas cards and lyrics that paint a silent night. But it’s another to think, how we are preparing to be houses for the man who will challenge us, startle us, move us towards discipleship, and live and die with us as all human beings live and die. How do we prepare ourselves for receiving that Jesus?

It’s all in the preparation, and the assurance that in spite of our flaws, our cobwebs and dust bunnies, our skeletons in the closet, God already made the decision to come to us and dwell within us.

As we prepare to move into a time of waiting worship, hear these words from poet Ann Weems—(Kneeling in Bethlehem, 13)

Our God is the One who comes to us
in a burning bush,
in an angel's song,
in a newborn child.
Our God is the One who comes cannot be found
locked in the church,
not even in the sanctuary.
Our God will be where God will be
with no constraints,
no predictability.
Our God lives where our God lives,
and destruction has no power
and even death cannot stop
the living.
Our God will be born where God will be born,
but there is no place to look for the One who comes to us.
When God is ready
God will come
even to a godforsaken place
like a stable in Bethlehem.
Watch...
for you know not when God comes.
Watch, that you might be found
whenever
wherever
God comes.