ST MATTHEW-IN-THE-CITY
ANGLICAN CHURCH AUCKLAND NEW ZEALAND
Dialogues of Hope II
December 24, 2017
Helen Jacobi
Advent 4 2 Samuel 7:1-11,16 Psalm 89 Romans 16:25-27 Luke 1:26-38
Video available on YouTube, Facebook
For the last Sundays in this Advent season we have been looking for hope; looking for people and ways of speaking with hope; looking for dialogues of hope. Cate began our series with a conversation from a funeral where she was challenged to remain in conversation with a group of young people mourning the death of a friend by suicide. The challenge Cate said was “to stay with, not turn away or slide into glib or well practiced turns of phrase that turn to dust upon their speaking.”[1] Chris Clarke describes two scripts – one the individually focused script where the goal of our life is the acquisition of things; and the second script, the John the Baptist script where the goal is community and being grateful for the abundance of life. Ron Phillips described the power of story to transform lives that are very broken and devoid of hope.
There are 2 dialogues in our readings today – one from the Hebrew scriptures and one from the gospel of Luke. David the king of the people of Israel has led the people to Jerusalem where they will make their home. Until that time the presence of God was thought to be present in a shrine which they called an ark – not to be confused with Noah’s ark which was of course a boat. The shrine was carried with them as they traveled and housed in a tent when they settled in Israel. David thinks it would be appropriate to build a Temple to house the presence of God.
Nathan the prophet talks to God about this idea and God we are told is not pleased: Are you (David) the one to build me a house to live in? … “Did I ever ask for a house of cedar?”
and just as a reminder of David’s story – “I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be prince over my people Israel”. Don’t think for a minute that you will contain me, the Lord of all, in a temple. The Temple does eventually get built by Solomon, David’s son, and the writer of 2 Samuel knows this – so this passage ends with a promise that David’s descendants will have their Temple. But the first part of this dialogue is the part that really rings true – who are you David, to try and contain me, the God of all in a house or a temple. If you want a future for your people your words need to be words of humility – something the people of God will be reminded of generation after generation by the prophets.
And yet they kept on trying to build the kingdom promised to David. An actual kingdom.
For the next 400 years there followed a succession of kings in both the north and the south until Jerusalem finally fell in 597 and the people went into exile. All this time the hope of the kingdom promised to David was kept alive. The prophets, however, started to talk in different ways, using the language of kingdom and of a king who would come, but their meaning was different. They had a hope and a vision beyond the physical kingdom to a time when the reign of God would not be dependent on the rule of a temporal king.
They began to talk of one who would come as a Saviour, a redeemer, a messiah to show them the way to true freedom and true relationship with God.
So by the time we come to our second dialogue of the morning, the conversation between the angel Gabriel and Mary, 1000 years has slipped by. 1000 years of waiting, of praying, of trying to figure out what was meant by the king who would come.
Many different expectations had built up, most of them expected still a temporal king with an army who would establish a new nation, built on justice and peace.
So when Luke has the angel say “you will have a son Jesus and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David” – there is 1000 years of history weighed in those words.
1000 years of battles and struggles, of hoping and waiting.
This time the dialogue is very personal and intimate.
Mary is to bear a child.
God will this time be “contained”, God will dwell within Mary, in order to be born, in order to be contained no longer by the expectations of history and the longing for a temporal king.
This very particular, intimate conversation with Mary changes everything.
We need not get too hung up on worrying about whether this conversation actually took place; was Mary really a virgin and so on.
As Marcus Borg says
“(these stories) are not history remembered, but metaphorical narratives that use ancient religious imagery to express central truths about Jesus' significance.”[2]
This narrative brings us truth and hope.
Truth about God’s presence in the world in the person of Jesus and truth about God’s continuing presence in the world through us; through you and me.
At our Carol service last Sunday evening we heard this passage by Walter Burghart:
You must be [people] of ceaseless hope… Every human act, every Christian act, is an act of hope. But that means you must be [people] of the present, you must live this moment – really live it, not just endure it – because this very moment, for all its imperfection and frustration, because of its imperfection and frustration, is pregnant with all sorts of possibilities, is pregnant with the future, is pregnant with love, is pregnant with Christ.[3]
So in this final dialogue between the angel and Mary – can we find ourselves?
Can we hear the words “you have found favour with God” spoken to us.[4]
Can we name something in our lives that feels blessed by God.
We will protest no doubt – how can this be? how can it be that God would find favour with my work, my skills, my experiences?
and the angel will reply – nothing is impossible with God.
Then you reply – yes, here am I, the servant of God.
And so we have a dialogue of hope, pregnant with our own experiences, our own story.
And we wait for the child to be born.
For nothing is impossible with God.
[1] sermon 3 December 2017
[2] http://www.religion-online.org/article/the-light-in-the-darkness/
[3] Sir, We would like to see Jesus: Homilies from a Hilltop; quoted in Imaging the Word vol 3, p140