Sermon 12/10/17
Luke 1:26-38
Love: Every Heart Prepare Him Room
I think I’ve told some of you that
my Greek professor in college had a stamper that he’d use when marking our
papers. The stamper said “Be Specific!” in big, red letters. It was his huge
pet peeve when students would write papers and not give clear examples to
support the claims they were making. I’m afraid I saw that stamper on my papers
more than once. Be specific, be specific, be specific! I hope I learned my lesson. Dr. Lateiner wanted to see supporting
evidence for our claims in our work. You couldn’t just make a claim in a
research paper unless you could show that you had good reason for your
position. You needed to demonstrate that your claims could be supported. Be
specific!
I was thinking about Dr. Lateiner
this week when I posted some questions to ponder on facebook. For the past few
weeks, I’ve been asking questions online about our weekly Advent theme. Last
week, I got to share with you a lot of the great responses about peace that
really shaped my thinking for my sermon. This week, I posted that today we
would be focusing on Love, and “thinking about how we prepare room in our
hearts, our lives, our world for Love Incarnate.” I asked, “What about you?
Being as specific as possible, how are you preparing room in your life this
Advent for Christ to dwell in your heart?”[1]
I had a few responses. One friend
talked about her upcoming journey to the Holy Land, anticipating the impact it
would have on her faith, and she talked about the joy she has in knowing
Christ’s love. Connie Waltz wrote about loving more, helping when someone needs
help, and being confident that Christ is already and always dwelling in her
heart. Nicole Fullerton, who is the youth leader at Richville United Church,
wrote: “I think when I started leading the youth group at my church it opened
my heart up more. Although I always believed and loved the Lord, his lessons
have more meaning now. When preparing my lessons I think about how my lessons
relate to my life and how it could relate to the youth.” And then Donna Peck
commented, “[This topic] is more difficult than the other two topics.” I agree
with Donna! It is difficult when we
start trying to get specific. We like to talk about love all year round, not
just on this Sunday, the Sunday we light our “love” candle, and it is easy to use the language of
“preparing” during Advent. But what are we actually
doing about preparing for Advent? Yes, we’re here together in worship, so
that’s a good start. But how else are we preparing for Christ? And what about
this “love” thing? We talk a lot about loving God and loving neighbor. But what
specific examples can we point to
that demonstrate we’re disciples of this one who is Love Incarnate in our
midst? I worry, sometimes, that we are really good at theoretical when it comes to practicing our faith, and not so good
at the actual practicing.
I’ve been reading a book called The Art of Neighboring by Dave Runyon
and Jay Pathak. I’m only a couple chapters in, but I’m already feeling
convicted. The authors start by talking about Jesus’ call to love our
neighbors. Runyon and Pathak say that we gospel readers immediately turn the
specific commandment into a metaphor. Jesus just doesn’t mean our literal
neighbors, he means for us to love everyone. And while this might be true, they
argue, the result is that as we embrace this metaphor of “general” love for
others, we are actually pretty bad at the specifics. They lay down a challenge:
think of the 8 neighbors closest to you. Your literal neighbors, the people who
live closest to you. And then write down everything you know about them. Not
things you can observe from your window, like what kind of car they drive, but things
that come from relationships you have with them. I know that I’ve only lived in
Gouverneur for a year and half, but my personal results from this
self-reflection were pretty depressing. I know the names of several of a few of my neighbors, but I can’t tell
you much else about most of them, and with some of them I’m kind of cheating
since I really know them from church, not from being neighbors. My mom, on the
other hand, is such a great example of truly loving her neighbor. My mom lives
in an apartment complex, and she knows the name of everyone in her building,
and probably the next couple of buildings near hers, and has probably given a
ride to, or made food for, or made a visit to most of them. Mom and I might
both talk about loving our neighbors – but which of us has the evidence to
support the claim?
Today, on this third Sunday of Advent, our
theme calls us to two tasks: Let every heart prepare room for Christ, and let
us prepare through showing love for God and neighbor. That’s what I’m asking us
to think about this week, this season. We know we’re supposed to prepare room
in our hearts for the Christ Child. And it is easy to assent with our lips:
“Yes, I’ll do that, I’ll prepare room in my heart for Jesus this Advent.” But
imagine that my Greek professor is standing by you – by me too – with that
stamper, saying, “Be specific!” What are you actually doing or actually going
to do to prepare your life for Jesus to take up space, or to take up more space in your heart and life? When
you commit to a life of loving God and neighbor, what do you mean by that?
Specifically?
Our song focus today is Joy to the
World. You might think the song makes more sense for next week, when our focus
is Joy, and truly, I got myself quite mixed up this week on which song and
theme were when. But there are two phrases in Joy to the World that point to
our themes for the day. Joy to the World was written by English hymnist Isaac
Watts and first published in 1719.[2]
The very first verse of the hymn brings us our theme for the day: “Joy to the
world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; let every heart prepare
him room, and heaven and nature sing.” Watts draws on Psalm 98 for his
inspiration, but this language of preparing our hearts comes from him, not
directly the text, and is perfect for Advent and the themes we heard echoed in
John the Baptist preparing a way for the ministry of Jesus that we talked about
two weeks ago. How are we preparing for Jesus – Jesus the Christ Child, Jesus the
Savior who we follow as disciples, Jesus who promises to come to us again, and
again. How are we preparing?
And there’s another phrase that goes with our theme of love, from
verse four of Joy to the World. We sing: “He rules the world with truth and
grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders
of his love.” Sometimes when we’re singing, the way that the phrases of hymns
get broken up means that we miss the meaning because we’re taking a big breath
right in the middle of a sentence. I’m not sure how often I’ve thought about
this whole sentence of a verse and what it means. Jesus rules the world with
truth and grace, and Jesus makes the nations – that is all people, - Jesus makes all people prove his righteousness – that is, his just and right relationships
with us – and the wonders of his love. In other words we are the proof of Jesus’s righteousness, the proof of the
wonderfulness of his love in the world. Wow! That just struck me. We are a demonstration, a proof of the
love of Christ in the world. If my Greek professor was saying to Jesus: Be
specific! How are you showing your
truth and grace in the world? How are
you righteous? How are you love
incarnate? Then Jesus would respond by pointing to us; we’re the proof, the specifics,
the supporting evidence of the love of Christ in the world.
Today, we heard in Luke’s gospel a young woman named Mary
finding out from God’s messenger, Gabriel, that she would give birth to Jesus,
God’s child. Mary quite literally prepares room in her own body for Jesus to
enter the world. Gabriel tells Mary that nothing is impossible with God, and
Mary believes it, and acts
accordingly. Mary will head from here to spend time with her cousin Elizabeth,
preparing by turning to a friend, a mentor, a family member who can help her in
her pregnancy, as Elizabeth, too, is pregnant. And Mary prepares her heart,
pondering and reflecting, and embracing God’s plan to come to earth and turn
the world upside down. Everything an expectant mother does has the potential to
influence the unborn child she carries. The way a mother prepares for a child’s
birth can have a big influence on the health and well-being of the child at
birth and beyond. The preparing makes a difference. We see its impact, with
often tangible results.
We’re preparing too, hurriedly or calmly, thoroughly or
half-heartedly, grudgingly or joyfully, earnestly, or reluctantly. Jesus is coming. We say we are preparing our
hearts, and I challenge us, I’m asking us to give an honest answer: How are we preparing our hearts for
Jesus? Be specific! We say that we love all people, that yes, the greatest
commandment is loving one another, and I challenge us, again, I’m asking us to
give an honest assessment: How are we
loving one another? Be specific!
Here’s a hint: we can do work on the one by making progress
on the other. The more we actively practice
loving God and loving one another in tangible ways, ways that can be felt, ways
that bear fruit, ways that can leave the other feeling loved, the more we will find that our hearts and lives have
more and more room for Jesus to dwell there. And the more we actively make room for Jesus in our
hearts, the more we truly make growing in faith a priority that we pursue with at least as much planning and intentionality
as we put into other meaningful things in our lives, the more we will find our
capacity to love increasing.
So, again: specifically, what will you do this season to prepare room for
Christ? It is already the Third Sunday of Advent, and in two short weeks, we
will celebrate Christ’s birth, but it isn’t too late. What will you do? What
will I do? Here’s my start. This Advent, I’ve been being faithful and diligent
in my devotional life. Just because I’m a pastor doesn’t mean I don’t sometime
neglect nurturing my spiritual life, but I’ve committed, this Advent, to daily
spiritual reflection and study of the scripture. This Advent, I’m committing to
knocking on the doors of my literal neighbors, introducing myself where needed,
and bringing them some Christmas cookies. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Ask
me, over the next couple of weeks if I’ve done it! For the past couple of
months, I’ve been giving myself weekly reminders about contacting my
representatives in Congress. I see this as an act of love, because I’m calling
to speak up for people who seem to get shoved to the sidelines. This Advent,
I’m being mindful of my schedule, and trying to make room for God instead of
cramming my schedule full of things that don’t really need to be a priority. This
season, I’ve been working on plans to start having some of my office hours in
the community instead of in the church building, so that I can be more
intentional about meeting people. This Advent, I’m trying to prepare for
Christmas Day and beyond for how I might spend more of my time on those days
doing something for others, and less time thinking about myself, so that I
might more meaningfully celebrate God-with-us in the world. I’m trying,
friends, to be specific. I’m preparing room for Christ, and I’m preparing to
love God and love neighbor more fully, and I plan to have some evidence, some
specifics, to show for it. Because as wild as it seems, we – you and me – we are
the proof, the wonder of God’s love in the world! Let’s go out there and show
it. Amen.
[1]
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[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_to_the_World
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