Blogging to Sunday

The Advent text for this last Sunday before Christmas involves somebody who gets little press during Christmas, and we don’t read about him at all after the story of the boy Jesus getting lost at the Temple. But if there is anyone who deserves a pat on the back for his trust, it’s gotta be Joseph.
In the text for this week (Matthew 1:18-25), we read this whole story so easily, but let’s remember that Joseph had to live this story before it reads so well to us. I wonder how Joseph had first heard the news, that his fiancée was pregnant? I wonder if he had walked into the poolroom and heard the guys talking, and that’s how he found out? Or maybe his momma had heard the news from Mary’s momma, and she broke the news to her son? No matter how Joseph found out the news, it had to have left him heart-broken, mad, maybe even a bit desirous of revenge for what Mary had done. My guess is that before all this news broke, Joseph had been dreaming of some big plans for his wife and him. Maybe he had already spotted that nice starter home down the block, maybe he was already figuring out how to ask his boss for a raise when babies would come along…. But now Joseph’s thought about “baby” was anything but joyful.
But then Joseph had a dream….My, how things change.
You got any thoughts on this? I’d love to read them.

This coming Sunday I will not be preaching (our choir will share their Cantata this week!). So, since I will not be preaching, I don’t have a text to write about. So instead, I want to poke around a bit at the text that we will be using in our Call to Worship. It comes from Luke 1:47-55 (I’ll let you look it up). It’s been called “Mary’s Magnificat” by the Church, (Magnificat being the Latin for “magnifies”); it is the song Mary sings as she continues to comprehend that she will be the mother of the Messiah. We read this during the Advent season, but I wonder if we really read this during any season of our lives.
As we read this song of Mary, we read with great sentiment the humility that Mary exudes, that God has looked with favor upon her the lowly servant. We read this with great sentiment because it helps us to remember the surprising way that God came among us in Jesus Christ. That God came not in royal palaces or even in important religious centers, and that God came not through blue-blooded parentage. Instead, God came through this lowly servant, born in a feed trough in a one-horse town. Yes, we might read this part of Mary’s Song with great sentiment. But then let’s continue to read. For as we read, we read of the strength of God, which not only lifts up the lowly (such as the servant Mary) and fills the hungry with good things, but also scatters the proud and brings down the powerful and sends the rich away empty. I don’t know about you, but my sentimental connection with Mary loses its feel-good as I read this part of Mary’s Song. Because I know which side of the tracks I live on, and what place in life I hold. I might not be “powerful” and “rich” to some, but I am all this and more to most people in our world. And if you are reading this from a computer, at your leisure, then I am betting that you are among the powerful and rich as well. It kinda makes me wish that Mary hadn’t said this last part, and left me alone in my feel-good sentiment. What do you think?