Third Sunday in Advent
“Joy” — Rev. Brent Gundlah
First Reading (Jeremiah 1:4-10/CEB)
Gospel Reading (Luke 1:26-39/NRSVUE)
I remember the day like it was yesterday, even though it was actually thirteen years ago today. I was with some coworkers having lunch at a restaurant on the Boston waterfront to celebrate the holidays. I happened to be in the seat directly across the table from my boss, Neil, who was glancing at the news on the television set above my head.
Suddenly, the expression on Neil’s face changed dramatically. His eyes were now fixed on the TV and they opened wide as all the color drained from his face. I could read his lips as he uttered these words: “Oh God, why?”
Others began to sense that something was amiss. Everyone looked at Neil and then quickly turned their gazes towards the TV. It was at that moment we all learned of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
On that horrific day, the perpetrator killed twenty children between six and seven years old, and six adult staff members. Before driving to the school, he’d also fatally shot his mother at their Newtown home. As police arrived at the school he then took his own life.
The young ages and sheer number of victims at Sandy Hook made this incident particularly awful, though, at some level, it was similar to the many senseless acts of gun violence our country has experienced for years. But this one hit particularly close to home for me — and I mean that literally.
I had lived just a few miles away from Newtown for several years; I’d driven down its quiet streets and walked along the sidewalks of its sleepy downtown more times than I could count. And while I know that people frequently say this in circumstances like these, it really was true for me that day: this was the last place on earth I thought something like this would ever happen.
But there really is no place in this world that’s totally safe. Whether it be school shootings or natural disasters or famines or illnesses or tragic accidents, nowhere is small enough or remote enough to avoid the sometimes harsh realities of our existence. Theologians refer to all of this as “evil” — and by that they simply mean things that cause harm or, even more simply, the opposite of “good.”
Some of them (like murder and stealing and dishonesty) we bear responsibility for; and they would be the result of what’s called “moral evil.” Some of them (like earthquakes and hurricanes) we don’t seem to bear responsibility for; and these would be the result of what’s called “natural evil.” And some of them, as we continue to learn more about cause and effect in this world through science, seem to be a combination of both — for example: floods and fires that have intensified because of the climate change we’ve caused, wars and famines that occur due to politics and greed, or illnesses and tragic accidents brought on by ignorance or carelessness; and there’s no theological name for these things as far as I know (but there probably should be).
No matter what you call them, no matter what causes them, we all know that bad things can happen any place, any time. This has always been scary for us humans to think about, and it also creates a problem with respect to how we understand our relationship with God.
You see, if there is no God, then it’s simple: people do lousy things to one another and other bad stuff just kinda happens. And if there’s more than one God, then bad stuff could be explained as the result of conflict between Gods (say, one God convincing someone to do something rotten to someone else who’s aligned themselves with another God, or the lightning that starts a forest fire being caused by two Gods fighting up in the sky).
But if there is one God then it’s more complicated. I mean, how could the all-powerful and all-knowing — the one that took the time and effort to create us and the world we live in — allow bad things to happen to us in that world?
It’s a great question (unsurprisingly, theologians have come up with a term for it too — it’s called “theodicy”); and thinkers have been wrestling with it for thousands of years now. As far as I know, no one’s ever managed to come up with a completely convincing answer. What we do know from experience, as I said earlier, is that bad things can happen any place at any time.
What we also know from experience is that when bad things do happen, they often harm people living at the margins of society — people who lack power or influence in society — disproportionately:
Defenseless children sitting in a classroom just trying to learn; folks who live near or downwind from industrial polluters because they can’t afford to live somewhere else; the unhoused forced to deal with increasing extremes of hot and cold weather; millions who lack access to food and clean water and healthcare; people in all the places that the world’s movers and shakers either look down upon or simply ignore; folks who have not, while those who have, have more than they could ever possibly need.
And our response to all of this injustice, to all of this helplessness, to all of this evil in the world is generally the same as it was for my boss in that restaurant on December 14th 2012: “Oh God, why”? We look to the heavens and cry out to our Creator in curious desperation because it doesn’t make sense to us, because it’s not fair, because it’s not right. Things weren’t much different in Jesus’s place and time.
The Jewish people had been conquered the Romans. They toiled to pay taxes that supported the empire that occupied their land and funded the lavish lifestyles of the rich, and they didn’t have much (if anything) left over to provide for their families. Many of them (and people they knew) were victims of violence. And they wanted to understand what they had done to deserve all this — even though the answer was “nothing” because that’s not the way God works, even though God had told them that through so many of the stories they’d passed down from generation to generation (like the one about Job, for instance).
But we always want a reason, don’t we? Maybe it’s because a reason gives us power — something we can fix or change in order to make things better going forward. But God hasn’t ever been really big on providing us with reasons; I’ll be darned if I know why. And bad things continue to happen any place, any time.
But with God good things can happen at any place and any time too. God makes God’s self known to us in wonderful ways in unexpected places and through unlikely people; God chooses to lift up the people society tends looks down upon. And that’s exactly what happens in today’s Gospel story from the opening chapter of Luke, in which the angel Gabriel informs Mary that she will bear a son named Jesus who will reign over Israel forever, an event that’s come to be known in the Church as “The Annunciation.”
Many if not most of us have heard this story before, but imagine you’re walking around Jerusalem back then. Someone stops you and tells you they heard that one of God’s angels just showed up in the backwater town of Nazareth in Galilee to tell a poor, young, unmarried woman named Mary that she has found favor with God, that she will bear a son, that she will name him Jesus, that he will be called “Son of the Most High,” that God will give to Jesus the throne of David, that he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and that his kingdom will have no end.
Be honest: How do you think you would have reacted to all of this? I won’t speak for you, but I likely would have been completely speechless; and if I could have come up with any response at all, it might have been something like this: “A talking angel – really? And let’s just say that God was, in fact, finally sending us the Messiah we’ve been promised — a poor, young, unmarried woman living in Nazareth is the last person on earth God would involve in that.”
Heck, it’s so crazy that even Mary doesn’t believe the news when Gabriel shares it with her. And her reaction of “How can this be?” is really just a variant of “Oh God, why?” It’s really interesting that our reactions to tragedy and to triumph, to the worst of news and to the best of news, can be so similar. Maybe it’s all we can say when other thoughts and words fail us, when we can’t wrap our mind around what’s happening or why, when things just don’t make sense. And a whole lot of what happens in this world doesn’t make sense (then again, a whole lot of what happens with God doesn’t make sense either).
Consider today’s story from Luke, in which Mary learns that she will miraculously give birth to Jesus. She will sing out in praise and gratitude for the favor that God has shown her, but soon after will come to understand that “a sword will pierce [her] own soul too;” indeed, we already know the fate that awaits Jesus on the cross. But we also know that with God, death will not have the last word. So, we celebrate, we mourn and we celebrate; there is joy, sadness and joy. It makes absolutely no sense — and we look to the heavens in confusion and ask the same question Mary does, “How can this be?”
In the days after Sandy Hook, as politicians dependably offered thoughts and prayers but didn’t little to prevent such a tragedy from happening again, we also heard about teachers who sacrificed their own lives to save their students; we heard about a six year-old who bravely screamed “Run!” to his classmates in the hopes of giving them a chance to escape; we heard about first responders doing what first responders do in the most difficult of circumstances; we heard about the people of a community coming together to support one another; we heard about an outpouring of love and concern from all over the world. In the aftermath of that unfathomable evil, there was good to be found. And once again, we ask God, “How can this be?”
Darkness and light. Evil and good. Sadness and joy. Why do they exist not in isolation from one another but rather in tension with one another? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad things happen at all? Why does life have to be so complicated? I wish I had answers to these questions for you, but I don’t.
I was discussing this concept of theodicy — the problem of reconciling the reality of evil with the goodness of God — with a rabbi friend of mine a while ago (yes, this is what pastors of all faiths do in our spare time), and she pointed me to these words of God as revealed to the prophet Isaiah:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”
There will be waters and fires for us to navigate in our lives; we all know that. But why? Again, I have no idea; only God knows the answer (because God is God, and we are not).
And yet, while acknowledging the difficulties of life in the world, God also promises us this: I will never desert you; and all shall be well even though it doesn’t seem like it right now. And in our gospel story we’re shown once again that God works through the unlikeliest of people in the unlikeliest of places in order to remind us of this when we need to hear it most — even as we continue to look to the heavens and ask, “How can this be?”
Perhaps the best answer to this question comes from the mouth of the angel Gabriel: “Nothing will be impossible with God.”
The question for us is whether we really believe that this is true.
Mary did. Do we?