Matthew 1:18-25
December 19, 2010
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Ten years ago, in a suburb of Rochester, New York, Peter Lovenheim was walking his dog. He was surprised to see a TV news truck parked down the block.
What was going on?
As it tuned out, a horrible tragedy happened. A neighbor three doors down had shot and killed his wife and then himself. Their two young children had escaped, running screaming into the night.
Lovenheim was shocked—not only by these violent deaths, but by how little true community existed in his suburban neighborhood. He knew the family only slightly, not nearly well enough to sense that trouble was brewing. Soon a “For Sale” sign appeared in front of the house where the killings had occurred, but everything else remained the same. “A family had vanished, yet the impact on our neighborhood was slight,” writes Lovenheim in a new book called In the Neighborhood. He asked himself, “How could that be? Did I live in a community or just in a house on a street surrounded by people whose lives were entirely separated?”
This is a good question for us. Do we live in communities or in a collection of isolated houses?
To find an answer to this question, Lovenheim did what any normal American suburb-dweller would do: He asked his neighbors if he could sleep over at their houses.
Yes, that’s right. He asked that he be able to spend the night with them, to get to know them better. Although his daughter yelled, “Dad, you’re crazy,” a surprising number of neighbors agreed to his request.
Sleeping Joseph
A similar situation existed about 2,010 years ago, when God looked on his earthly neighborhood and saw violence and isolation in every nation, race, and culture. The human neighborhood was fractured then—just as it is now—with people separated from God and separated from each other.
God decided to do what no one ever expected a divine being to do: sleep over.
In our lesson from Matthew today, the story is about God coming to a sleeping man named Joseph and speaks to him in a dream. Joseph is engaged to a girl named Mary, and she has just discovered she’s pregnant. Because they haven’t officially been married, this pregnancy is potentially scandalous. So Joseph—being a righteous man, unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace—plans to dismiss her quietly.
Into the neighborhood comes a messenger from God, an angel. He says to the sleeping man, “Joseph, Son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
The word of God comes through the voice of an angel, letting Joseph know that Mary’s child is a gift of God and that this baby, to be named Jesus, will save his people from their sins. Jesus will rescue us from everything that can destroy or divide us—in particular, the sins that shatter our relationships with God and with our neighbors.
But that’s not all. Matthew goes on to tell us that all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us” (vv.22-23).
Matthew realizes that God isn’t simply coming for one isolated sleepover, in a visit from an angel to a sleeping man. No, God is moving in with us, permanently. Jesus is Immanuel, God with us, now and forever!
Forget about making up a bed in the guest bedroom. It’s time to build an addition!
Be Good Neighbors
God knows that we have trouble with our neighbors. Yes, you know the ones. Parties that run loud and late, out of control flower trampling kids, no respect for neighborhood speed limits. My neighbor who seems to always run over my pathway lights when she backs up her big RV.
Neighbors can be a pain.
But as bad as these relationships between people can be, our relationship with God is equally if not more problematic. We indulge in selfish desires, trample the Lord’s commandments and drive fast through life without thinking of the consequences. We neglect Jesus’ teachings and don’t put effort into building a truly Christian community. We either ignore God or take his name in vain, rarely lifting a finger to advance God’s will in the world.
From the Lord’s perspective, each of us can be a pain.
Despite this, God wants to move in with us, get to know us better and repair the broken relationships that continue to plague us. God breaks through the divine-human barrier in Jesus, and he challenges us to break through the human to human barriers, the 3 doors down the street barrier, the racial and cultural differences barriers, as well. God comes to us as Immanuel, God with us, because God wants to be in the neighborhood.
A great number of people today are terribly lonely and don’t know how to make connections. You have heard about our church emphasis for next year to answer the question, “Who Is My Neighbor?” Are we honestly willing and ready to go out two by two and visit neighbors who live around our church?
Some of you might think that I know how to do this. Frankly, I don’t. In fact, as a normally very shy person, this is something that I am terribly afraid to do. But I need you to help me visit our neighbors. And I am not just talking with our regular church attenders about this. I am talking about all of you who are here. If you are visiting our church this morning or have started to come to our church regularly, God wants you to participate in helping us make connections with people and helping them not to be so lonely.
When we don’t know our neighbors, it’s more than a sad and tragic state of affairs. It’s a sin. The theologian Paul Tillich over a half a century ago said that separation is an aspect of everyone’s experience, and that sin is separation. He said, “To be in the state of sin is to be in the state of separation, separation from other people, separation from self and separation from God.”
But the good news of Christmas is that God enters human life in Jesus to overcome this separation. God comes to earth as the Christ Child to break down barriers and reconnect us to our Creator. “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself,” says the apostle Paul to the Corinthians, “not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us” (2 Cor. 5:19). As Christ’s disciples, we are to do whatever we can to reach out to our neighbors, make connections and work to overcome the state of separation that is such a sinful condition in our world today.
Refocus Our Lives
If God came over to your house for a sleepover tonight, he would probably find that you are overscheduled and awfully busy, but still realizing that your lives are empty. Working hard to make a living, raising children and for some of you raising grandchildren, pursuing degrees and more advanced degrees, viewing your favorite TV shows, and putting time into your hobbies—all of these activities have value, but when you put them all together you end up with a frantic and disconnected life.
Into the middle of this frenzy lifestyle that most of us have, God sends a baby. And babies, we all know, can slow us down and redirect us. Just as the coming of Jesus forced Joseph and Mary to slow down, not be afraid and refocus, Christ’s arrival at Christmas changes our pace and plans. “When Joseph awake from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him,” says the gospel of Matthew. Joseph stopped his plan to dismiss Mary and instead, “he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus” (Matt. 1:24-25).
When a baby comes into our lives, everything changes. Suddenly, we’re forced to pay attention to feedings, diaper changes and naps. When Sage and Story come over for a sleepover, we have to set up the futon bed, make sure we have boxed mac cheese for dinner, and the TV is on Tom and Jerry cartoons.
The same is true with the coming of Christ, if we allow ourselves to be changed and refocused. The great challenge of Christmas is to let ourselves slow down and see that, in fact, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).
The opportunity of Christmas is to become refocused on the fullness of life that comes from following this child by loving the Lord our God, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and going out to make disciples of all nations.
I have been talking with a few of you on how much a chore it is to take out the Christmas decorations and then the greater task to put them all back in the attic or basement once the season is over. For some of us, we don’t even try. But most of us, it is this task of decking the halls with bough and holly that helps us to slow down and refocus our lives on the true meaning of Christmas. We break the vicious and frantic cycle of life in order to focus on Christ.
A Humble King
There’s a true story about the reign of King Hussein of Jordan some years ago when a terrible tragedy occurred. Two Israeli school girls were playing in a park called the “Island of Peace,” located in the middle of the Jordan River, right on the border between the two countries. While the girls were playing, a Jordanian soldier shot them dead for no apparent reason. The news media flashed the story around the world with lightning speed. For a short while, it seemed that the fragile peace between Israel and Jordan could be broken. But then it became clear that the soldier was suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness and that he had acted with no authorization from anyone. Apologies were made and accepted in diplomatic circles, and the world breathed easier.
The story could well have ended there, were it not for King Hussein. Hearing what one of his soldiers had done, the king left his palace, left even his country and traveled to the humble homes of the families of the two slain Israeli girls. Entering each house in turn, King Hussein—who was used to having people bow before him—fell down on his knees. He bowed before the grieving parents. Then he looked up into their eyes and said, “I beg you, forgive me, forgive me. Your daughter is like my daughter; your loss is my loss. May God help you to bear your pain.”
Nothing in the annals of diplomatic protocol suggested that a king needed to humble himself like that. Ironically, a Muslim king gave the world, that day, a glimpse of how truly Christ-like king might behave.
At Christmas, God comes to have a sleepover in your life. When we follow Jesus and walk his way, we cannot avoid our neighbors. We can’t practice love and reconciliation in isolation with each other. We have to enter each other’s homes and the homes of our neighbors just as Christ is coming over for a sleepover at Christmas.
One of the many things that we collect and like to take out at Christmas is a nativity set or a crèche. This year, instead of a tree and ornaments, we decided to take out the many nativity sets and display them in our home. We have the Palestinian refugee one that was given to us over 30 years ago. There’s the brown clay set from Mexico. We have the Guatemalan set of puffy people. We have the olive wood sculpture of the Holy Family that was given to us by the group who went with me to the Holy Land this past year.
By taking out the different nativity sets and finding room on our dining room table, end tables, and kitchen counter, I am welcoming Jesus Christ to come for a sleepover.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus Christ, in your nativity you took on our humanity, entered our fevered world, and brought us a peace we could not have through our efforts. Come again and sleepover with us, Lord Jesus and bring us your peace. Disrupt us in order to birth in us a world we could not have had on our own. Your world, set right, our lives reformed closer to your image in us, our church amazed by your blessed advent. In your name, we pray. Amen.