Sermon for December 22, 2024: Worth the Risk based upon Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:46-55

​Matthew 1:18-25 The Birth of Jesus the Messiah

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.  Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 

But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘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.’ 

All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’ 

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

Luke 1:46-55 Mary’s Song of Praise

And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

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     Today is the Sunday in Advent when traditionally we are invited to consider love: what it means to love and be loved; how this season of waiting is inspired by love and fueled by love; how the Incarnation is Divine Love come alive and made flesh; and how God has been, is, and will be with us because of love. Love is a risky business. Loving opens us up to the potential for great growth and great pain. Being loved well can help us to learn to trust and to be trustworthy. Love gone awry or withheld or manipulated can break our conviction, warp our confidence, and even put us in danger. Love is a risky business. Fortunately, it is also Jesus’ family business.

     The first chapter of Matthew is Jesus’ genealogy, and within that genealogy are five women whose stories are shaped by the risks of love:

• Tamar, who a series of husbands die in quick succession and was functionally abandoned by her father-in-law until she tricked him into doing right by her
• Rahab, who, in a bout desperate love, saved two soldiers from certain death by hiding them in her place of business, thereby saving her own family in the coming battle
•  Ruth (another widow) who loved Naomi so powerfully that she followed her to Bethlehem
• Bathsheba (whose first husband is killed by David, who then takes her for his own) who will fight with fierce mother-love for her son Solomon to become king.

     The fifth woman is Jesus’ mother, Mary, who we learn more about in the book of Luke. Mary loves God so passionately as to risk both a public scandal by carrying a pregnancy that began before she was married and private scorn by telling her fiancé that he was not the child’s father. Between the risks of pregnancy in a teenage body and the potential for violence from an angry partner and angry family, what danger she could have been in. And, yet, we that her love of God and of her people helped her decide that God’s calling was worth the risk.

     Only two of the Gospels, Matthew and Luke, tell us the stories surrounding Jesus’ birth. Both Gospels make clear, even before we meet the Christ-child, that we know that his is a family marked by all the complexities of love. In fact, his very life is a testament to the risks of love. Let us return to Matthew and to Joseph’s call story. Most of the Bible does not speak of romance in way that reflects modern American sensibilities around building relationships and building families. Duty and obligation shape stories of marriages and parenting as much, and sometimes more, than love as we might understand it in the modern sense. And, yet, how can we not describe Joseph’s bravery in Matthew as love? How can we not look at the risk he took in staying with Mary, in raising her child, and not call it loving?

     As Dr. Wil Gafney notes in a commentary on this text, there is a part of Torah that says people caught in adultery should be stoned (even though there are few stories of that happening in the Bible). Even if that violence was unlikely, a pregnancy before marriage and from someone other than her betrothed, according to Gafney, would have made it challenging for Mary to marry someone else later. Her ability to sustain relationships in her community and even have enough money to survive would have been sorely tested.

     Joseph’s trust in God allowed him to take the risk of treating Mary in the most loving way possible. By continuing with plans to marry, Joseph offered Mary great care in a time she needed it. I do think it’s a little funny that Joseph trusted God enough to marry her, but also made sure a baby boy was born before taking the next steps in the relationship. This is a little bit of “trust but verify” from Joseph that I can appreciate. His love of God was guided by wisdom. I’m sure that would come in handy has he helped raise the child who would come to be known as “God is with us.”

     In looking over our Advent devotional readings for this week, I saw that the authors invited us to consider the idea that “hope is worth the risk.” Upon reading this phrase, I thought this poem by Emily Dickinson:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

     This poem is well-known for a reason. The first line is so lovely, evoking the pretty and tough little birds we all share space with. I think of the chickadees that fuss at me from the red pines next to our house as I boil maple sap outdoors in March. May my hope ever be as tenacious as an annoyed chickadee, frustrated by smoke and disruption, undaunted by the large stature of the irritant, and unceasing in its willingness to shout the truth of its exasperation for all creatures to hear.

     That being said, the last line of the poem pulls me up a little short. Hope, the tough little thing, even in the hardest situations, “never- in Extremity,/ It asked a crumb- of me.” Far be it from me to take issue with the great Emily Dickinson, but my first impulse is to think of hope as something like a fuel that keeps us going.  Kayla Craig, in our devotional, calls hope “a force that propels us toward God’s presence and redemptive plan for all creation, for all time.” Why would hope, a force within us, ask something of us, the ones who would be hopeful?

     Then, I thought about it a little more. I realized that I often think of hope in a similar way to how I think about love: it is something that both exists but also is something I do with intent. Hope and love may arise unbidden, but also, usually must be cultivated to truly thrive. Our scriptures for the day show us a hope cultivated right alongside love, like how my great-grandfather taught me to grow green beans up a stalk of corn. Joseph and Mary’s sense faithful obligation to, and trust in, God gave rise to deeply loving actions. That same faith and trust was the foundation for the hope that allowed them to accept their calls from God. Maybe they had a potential for hope that was pre-existent within their souls. But, they actually had to feed that hope to make it concrete in this world. Hope didn’t simply float around in their brains. It came alive in their faithful and loving actions. Hope was a risk. And, they took that risk on purpose.

     I follow a lobsterman named Jacob Knowles on Instagram. A few months ago, he found a thing with feathers, in this case, a migrating pine warbler, that had gotten lost at sea. Between the fog and the northerly wind, the tiny bird ended up a 30-minute boat ride from shore, on the verge of either drowning or becoming seagull food. Because these little birds are brave and want to survive, they are often willing to take the risk of landing on a boat if one comes near. Fortunately, this one landed on one helmed by two loving men. They’ve rescued many a tiny bird as they work and have developed a whole system for managing them.

     Jacob’s coworker Cody snags the warbler with a net. The humans then stick it under trash can that makes a surprisingly good bird cage. They give it some crumbs to eat and water, and go about their day, eventually heading to land. During this rescue, once they arrived on land, Jacob took hold of the little bird to release it. The bird, a spunky and brave little creature, bit the fire out of his thumb to make sure he remembered that it was a wild thing not to be messed around with. I bet it knows the chickadees at my house. With a respectful laugh and a comment about “biting the hand that feeds you,” Jacob let the bird go, and it flew towards the land and trees where it was supposed to be.

     We are in a season where we tell, once again, the stories of hopeful risks and loving actions that are the foundations of our faith. My prayer today is that even if you find that your hope is thirty minutes out to sea and stuck in a trash can, you can still find the love you need to sustain it. When powerful forces push you off course, may you find a safe place to land and rest while you figure out what comes next. This Advent, may all those strong enough to do harm to those who are smaller and more desperate, choose to do love instead, even if it means getting their hands a little dirty. And, may the beaks of the small and brave remind the powerful that they can’t do whatever they want without consequence. Hope and love are risks. May we remember these stories of our faith and know that the risks are worth it.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:
​The video of the bird rescue: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DA3vxMKxtnf/?igsh=MWw3MjJheTcyd295bA==
Wil Gafney, "Advent IV, " A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W (New York, Church Publishing Incorporated, 2021)
You can find the text of the poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42889/hope-is-the-thing-with-feathers-314
​Kayla Craig, "Hope is Worth the Risk," Words for the Beginning: An Advent Devotional (A Sanctified Art, 2024)