this is what I preached today

I was offered an opportunity to give a reflection in church this morning along with two other non-clergy types. We each got a passage of scripture and 4-5 minutes to speak. First, what I learned: pastors have an incredible job - both exciting and terrifying. If I were one, I wouldn't know whether to be in awe that I could share my insights with a congregation or vomit each week over the very thought of it. I also learned that I wouldn't make a very good pastor because I could never make it through a sermon without crying. Now for what I said...


The true light that shines on all people
was coming into the world.
The light was in the world,
and the world came into being through the light,
but the world didn’t recognize the light.
The light came to his own people,
and his own people didn’t welcome him.
But those who did welcome him,
those who believed in his name,
he authorized to become God’s children,
born not from blood
nor from human desire or passion,
but born from God.
The Word became flesh
and made his home among us.
We have seen his glory,
glory like that of a father’s only son,
full of grace and truth. —John 1:9-14 (CEB)

This Advent I read a lot of reflections. One that poet and author Kathleen Norris wrote on the annunciation has stuck with me.

In it, Norris notes how an angel not only appears to Mary and but also to Zechariah, heralding the birth of John the Baptist. And how Zechariah’s response to the angel’s news, although seemingly similar to Mary’s, is so radically different.

“How will I know that this is so?” asks Zechariah.

While Mary asks, “How can this be?”

Zechariah demands knowledge and information. Mary, however, ponders a state of being and, in the words that follow, professes a holy state of fear and wonder.

“Mary proceeds,” Norris writes, “as we must do in life—making her commitment without knowing much about what it will entail or where it will lead.”

I grew up the eldest of 20 cousins who regularly convened at my grandparent’s home for holidays and other special occasions. We spent most of our time in the basement in various configurations playing bumper pool and marbles. My favorite, however, was playing house. I usually orchestrated this activity and family lore has it that I would stand in the middle of the room with my hands on hips saying quite loudly, “If we’re going to play house, someone has to be the mother!”

Not surprisingly, as the oldest, this role usually fell to me. Although there were times I longed to be the baby or the sassy little sister, I relished my role as mother. I was well practiced. I was going to have five kids of my own someday. They would all be smart and healthy and very obedient. And we would live Little House on the Prairie style.

Although similar on the surface – I am a mother, afterall, and I live in the Prairie state – my storybook life didn’t go exactly as planned. I have two beautiful boys, not five (which I’m sure is probably a mercy). But the second I made my commitment, I knew all control I thought I had was gone. I had none. And when one son began to show signs of developmental delay, I, like Zechariah, wanted knowledge and information. I wanted illumination. Through various tests and exams we’ve gotten some, but it hasn’t helped. It hasn’t given us any understanding into the mystery of my son’s brain, and compounded by some depressing Googling, any hope for his future.

In pondering this passage from John 1, it has occurred to me that we all live in darkness. None of our lives have gone as our childhood dreams dictated. We are all fighting great battles, some of gargantuan proportions, most in complete darkness. Because as much as we long for the knowledge and information we think will shed light, we are not fulfilled by the illumination we find.

How can it be that our children have disabilities? Our financial futures lie in ruins? Our loved ones fall ill? Our pregnancies and marriages fail? Our young husbands die? None of this is part of the life we planned for ourselves or – as children playing house – the future we dreamed. Like Zechariah, we look for answers to shed light on the unexpected, the difficult, the impossible, the devastating.

Zechariah got punished for his arrogance – 9 long months of silence to think it over. Or maybe his punishment was really grace, since it was only when things got dark that he could accept the mystery and recognize the source of true light.

German theologian Karl Rahner believed that God could only be approached in absolute mystery. He wrote this, “If God’s incomprehensibility does not grip us in a word, if it does not draw us into his superluminous darkness, if it does not call us out of the little house of our homely, close-hugged truths…we have misunderstood the words of Christianity.”

I don’t know about you, but I want to understand things. I want to know how to get out of our difficult financial situation. I want to know what is going to best help my son and how he’s going to be 10 and 20 years from now. I want knowledge and information. I want to know what my commitments will entail and where they will lead.

But like the Isrealites in the desert, we are people living in darkness who have seen a great light. And the light isn’t knowledge or information. It isn’t answers to all our worldly problems. It’s the Word becoming flesh and making his home among us. It’s the incredible mystery of God with us.

In all honestly, it’s not what we think we want. It’s not something we fully understand. But when we open our hearts in a holy state of fear and wonder, it’s enough.

Amen.