Absurd Requests

This sermon was delivered at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday December 23, 2007, the 4th Sunday in Advent.

Isaiah 7:10-16
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
Romans 1:1-7
Matthew 1:18-25

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

The Reverend Doctor Kathryn Roberts is an Old Testament scholar and an ordained minister in the Reformed Church in America. One of her sermons is called “Uh oh, It’s an Angel.”[1] She contends that whenever someone sees an angel in the Old Testament it’s to announce a pregnancy. See an angel, uh oh, someone’s pregnant. I won’t argue with her either.

In Genesis 16, Hagar leaves her mistress Sarai who has been abusing her because she is carrying the child of her husband Abram. Mind you, Sarai gave Hagar to her husband so she could bear him a son, but that didn’t prevent the green monster of jealousy from raising its ugly head. Hagar is abused for doing as her as her mistress commanded. Yeah, that’s gratitude.

While Hagar is making her sojourn into the wilderness, she receives a visit from the angel of the Lord while she is resting at a spring on the road to Shur. The angel says to Hagar, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her.” The messenger of the Lord tells Hagar to return to the woman who is abusing her. Now tell me, what would you say to the angel?

Sure, the angel promises her son will be the father of a great multitude, but the angel also promises he will be a wild ass of a man with his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him. This still doesn’t sound like a good deal to me. I sure wouldn’t want my sisters to be involved in this sort of a situation.

Hagar returns to her mistress and bears her husband a son, Ishmael. Ishmael means God hears.[2]

Hagar receives a horrible request, and complies naming her son after the act of mercy she receives in the wilderness, God hears.

About twelve years later, Abram, since renamed Abraham, receives three visitors from the wilderness.[3] He welcomes them to his camp and invites them to stay for a meal. When the three men agreed to stay, Abraham directed his people to set a feast before them. Curds and milk were laid out along with bread made from his finest flour. A choice calf was slaughtered and prepared and put before them, all the while, Abraham waited off to the side tending to the needs of the men.

When they finished this fine meal of veal they were pleased with the hospitality and courtesy Abraham showed. So in his honor, one of the men said that he would return in about a year and Sarai, now called Sarah, will bear Abraham a son. She was in the tent, but she heard the prophecy. She was on the near side of 90 years old and she was going to bear her 100 year old husband a son. This messenger’s word made her laugh out loud.

But she carried a child and she bore a son. She named him Isaac which means “He laughs.”[4] A 90 year old woman bears a son, I’d be laughing too, but I would be laughing because of how outrageous this is, not because of how funny it is.

There are other examples in the Old Testament, birth announcements coming from messengers and travelers from the Lord, these others include the birth of Samson.[5]

Samson is promised by an angel of the Lord to a woman known in scripture as the barren wife of Manoah. (How’s that for a name to be known by for all eternity?) An angel of the Lord appears to her and promises a son who is to be kept holy and prepared to serve the Lord as a Nazirite. Of course Manoah doesn’t believe a word that his wife tells him about this most unlikely birth, not without hearing from the angel of the Lord himself. So the angel appears to Manoah and confirms the prophecy. She too bears a son and names him Samson. Samson means Sun or the Sun’s Man.[6]

Samuel’s mother Hannah receives the announcement of his birth from Eli, an old man of a priest in the temple, and he thought she was drunk. But as soon as she showed she was praying in earnest and not bombed out of her skull Eli bid her to go in peace. You’re drunk! Oh, no you’re not, you’re going to have a baby, now get out of here and have a nice day. What kind of an absurd conversation is this? Thank you for your kind words O prophet. As I said, she named her son Samuel, which means “name of God.”[7]

But the Old Testament isn’t alone with these odd birth announcements. Luke gives us the astounding annunciation of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s son.[8] Zechariah was a priest and a righteous man, and his wife, Elizabeth was unable to bear children. One season, Zechariah was chosen to take the incense into the Holy of the Holies, and while there he was greeted by the angel of the Lord who told him “do not be afraid for your prayer had been heard.” He was told his wife Elizabeth would bear him a son.

Now, as had been the case for Abraham and Sarah, Zechariah was old and according to scripture, Elizabeth was “advanced in years.” When told of his wife’s pregnancy, he asked the angel “How shall I know this?” Zachariah is told “I am Gabriel, who stands before God.” And because Zechariah would not believe Gabriel, the angel took Zechariah’s ability to say anything. He was mute until his son was born and named John. John means “God is gracious.”[9] This is the man who will become John the Baptist.

So by the time we get to today’s narrative from Luke, we’ve pretty much established that Dr. Robert’s presumption has merit, not just in the Old Testament, but in the gospels too. See an angel, uh oh, somebody’s pregnant. Oh, and by the way, it’s going to be an unusual pregnancy. Just who do these angels, these messengers, think they are? They take the lives of ordinary people and place on them extraordinary demands. These are some outrageous commands.

Imagine being a ninety year old woman and being asked to bear the child of the promise into this world, or her hand maid getting abused while bearing the son who was the presumed child of the promise. Imagine telling the Lord in prayer that if you bear a son you will dedicate him to the temple as Samuel’s mother did, or being told by the angel of the Lord that you will bear a son and you will dedicate him to the temple as Samson’s mother did.

In my humble opinion, the most absurd of these requests comes in today’s gospel reading. Joseph has just learned that his betrothed, Mary, is pregnant. Now, they hadn’t known one another so he couldn’t have been the father, so who was? I’m not sure it really mattered to him, whoever on earth was the father could be the father. He was ready to be done with her.

Then just as he had resolved to do this an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

Now, I may be a little too much of a twenty-first century man, but if I had heard that, I would have been looking for the speaker and the camera. My fiancé is carrying the child of the Holy Spirit? Yeah, right sure. Where’s Candid Camera? Am I getting Punk’d?

What kind of absurd notion is this?

Then he gets his next absurd request from the Spirit: “She will bear a son, and you will call him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Jesus means God is salvation.[10] Then the Spirit continues, but the people will call him Emmanuel.” Emmanuel means God is with us.

How absurd is this? Joseph’s girlfriend is pregnant, she’s carrying the child of the Holy Spirit, he’s going to call him Jesus (the first century equivalent of Bob) and they (whoever they are) will call him God with us.

Forgive me if I find this a little absurd.

We have heard this story so many times. We know how it ends, both on Christmas morning and again on Easter morning. We have heard this story so many times that it is easy to lose the wonder of the day and the time and the events, and lose just how utterly absurd these requests are. This morning, it is that outrageousness I want us to recapture.

What Hagar, and Abraham and Sarah, and Manoah and his wife, and Hannah, and Zechariah and Elizabeth, and Joseph hear from the Lord’s messengers is so wild that there is no way on earth this could be happening, but it has. The lunacy of these events is beyond our ability to imagine, and each is more absurd than the last, but we are to keep believing. And that’s the message: In the world of the Lord our God, what we are asked to do for the advancement of the Kingdom can be pretty darned absurd.

Whether it’s raising children who will become a great nation, like Ishmael and Isaac, or children set apart for service to the temple, like Samson and Samuel, or the herald of the Prince of Peace or the Prince himself, John and Jesus; the Lord, directly and through messengers, makes demands upon us that are wild and outrageous and absurd. And we can’t allow ourselves to gloss over this absurdity because we have heard the stories so many times in the past. The Lord has always made absurd requests of the people and this will not end any time soon.

A couple of weeks ago, two members of the Presbytery of Arkansas’ Committee on Ministry came to the Session meeting for the Presbytery’s triennial evaluation. They come to check on the church, but for more than any other reason, they come to help us focus our mission as the church in the community and in the world. They asked three questions, questions to help us focus who we are and what we do as the Body of Christ:

What are we living for?
What are we willing to die for?
What excites you?

When seeking the prayerful answer to these questions, don’t be surprised if the answers seem absurd. The God of this world is able to do infinitely more than we can ever hope or imagine, and this same God comes upon us as the Holy Spirit to anoint us to participate in these wild, outrageous, and absurd activities.

Yet, we must also be discerning about the answers we hear. I will not advocate someone entering into much less returning to an abusive situation. And I have difficulty finding the wisdom and the glory of women with so much love to give not being able to bear children. So with a discerning ear, we have to ask God through prayer—individually and in groups—for the answers to these questions. And we have to listen to hear the answers when they come. And we have to remember, the answers may look nothing like we expect them to look.

Today, through the power of the Spirit who dwells within us and feeds our faith, we testify that the Lord of Lords comes to earth in a manger as a little baby. A baby born of a virgin comes to save us, Jesus saves. We will call him Emmanuel, God with us.

So now, let us follow the example of Joseph, the man who heard one of the most absurd requests and wonderful prophecies imaginable, let us do as the messengers of the Lord command us.

[1] The actual title is “Oh Shit, It’s an Angel,” but I’m not going to say that in worship.
[2] Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, entry for Ishmael, entry #10117
[3] Genesis 18
[4] BDB Lexicon, Isaac, entry #8121
[5] Judges 13
[6] Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Samson entry.
[7] BDB Lexicon, Samuel, entry #10049
[8] Luke 1:5-25
[9] http://www.babynames.com/name/JOHN accessed December 23, 2007
[10] A Boy Named Jesus, http://homileticsonline.com/subscriber/printer_friendly_installment.asp?installment_id=93040353, accessed November 19, 2007.