Sermon delivered 21 Dec. 2008
by Rev. Dr John Evans
Botticelli's Annunciation (1489-90)
It is almost here – Christmas. The day we celebrate the birth of the Christ child is almost here … what, Thursday.
We have this sense of anticipation, expectancy – and with Gabriel and the message to Mary — the Word becoming flesh, as the gospel of John puts it — is not far off.
“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High and the Lord will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
Here is the earth shattering, perhaps heaven shattering, news – this woman, this virgin is to give birth to . . . the Son of God . . . to the Christ.
God was to dwell on Earth.
And this is where our Old Testament lesson fits in because a reading from 2 Samuel, the Sunday before Christmas, does seem a little incongruous. The question for David, in this discourse with the prophet Nathan, was where was God to dwell? For Hebrew people God dwelt with the Ark of the Covenant – that box containing the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. David, now king, had brought the Ark of the covenant to Jerusalem and as he now resided in a fine palace, he reflected on where the Ark should reside. Perhaps he should build a temple to house the Ark of the Covenant? And so Nathan addresses David with the message, ‘Yes, that is a good idea; but not yet.’ As we subsequently know that task fell to David’s son, Solomon. Rather the message of God to David was that God would reside, not within in a building – but in his line, in his house – through his descendants. As Nathan says:
Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.
God would dwell through people – and not in a building.
So fast forward to New Testament times. Remember Jesus spoke of his body as a temple; and later in the context of the Passion, John’s gospel again, has Jesus dwelling with us, being at home with us (John: 14 23-24).
Mary is asked to bear a child. God, through Gabriel, names that child; through the power of the Holy Spirit the child is conceived, and through Joseph, the lineage of David is preserved. God not only continues to dwell within God’s people, but much more, God takes on flesh. Again as John says, “The Word became flesh and lived among us.” Or literally the Greek verb here is tabernacled – that meeting tent in which the ark of the covenant was placed. God takes on human form; if you like, is housed in a human body.
What is more, it is a virgin who conceives – out of nothing, new life is born. Isn’t this a rerun of the creation account in Genesis; out of nothing, God creates our world? And again from Easter – out of death, comes life. As Wes in his Advent reflection succinctly says:
God is the focus for hope which opens up the future toward life.
The virgin birth is ultimately about our hope that God is a God of love, and of life: the fullness of life. God joins in our life, transforms our life, so that we might have that fullness of life. When Gabriel greets Mary, we rather awkwardly translate that word “chaire”, as the word “hail”. It really was just the word used for an everyday greeting – we might say “good day”. It was not a pompous interruption by Gabriel. It is the same word which in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus uses in meeting the women at the empty tomb. . . there it is usually translated as greetings – be glad. From nothing, life!
This is the belief we have that God came among us to offer the fullness of life – and it is dramatically played out – through this everyday interruption of a young woman, a virgin named Mary.
But there is the elephant in the room – how do we cope with the virgin birth today?
If we can’t cope, and our modern, scientific mind gets stuck at this point, the whole pack of cards will come tumbling down . . . and I would suggest that within orthodox Christianity you would have very little left.
Today I am not going to try and help us prove, or disprove the virgin birth. I have sat through very unhelpful sermons, who from within our scientific world view have endeavoured to convince me this was possible; while others have shown, like I have alluded to, Jesus’ virgin birth probably did not happen, because it is just a part of a broad sweep of Hebrew tradition, story and myth. Or this birth of Jesus indeed was just a standard origin story in ancient times, a myth of the gods mating with humans – and so should be dismissed as such.
The more I reflect on all this conundrum, I would say I am unashamedly a modern person – relying on science and rationality (and thus must accept the above) – but I am also very post-modern, wishing to leave room for mystery, the miraculous, for my experience . . . room for faith.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Who has read Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the winner of the 2002 Booker prize? (I didn’t actually read it – when General Secretary in the West I would get audio books and listen to them as I was driving around the state. I distinctly remember this book, because I would get home at night and actually eagerly sit and listen to the next instalment to the story in the lounge room! It had me gripped.) Well, I would like to tell you that story. [Spoiler alert!]
The book itself has three parts. The first section is an adult Pi Patel’s reflection over his childhood in Pondicherry, a former French Colony in India. The main character, Piscine Patel (shortened to “Pi”) talks about his life as the son of a zookeeper, and speaks at length about animal behavior and religion. Pi investigates Hinduism, Christianity and Islam and sees merits in all three religions and so concludes, “I just want to love God” (pg 76 Vintage Canada edn 2002). However, because of the then political situation in India, Pi’s father decides to relocate the zoo and the family to Canada. In the middle of the Pacific, the cargo ship on which the family is traveling, with all the zoo animals, sinks.
The second part is about what then happens. Pi manages to find refuge on a lifeboat, although he is not alone. He shares the limited space with a female orangutan named Orange Juice, a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena and, as he eventually discovers, a Royal Bengal Tiger with the improbable name of Richard Parker. At first Pi believes that Richard Parker has abandoned the boat, and focuses on surviving the hyena. It is not long before the hyena begins to feed on the zebra, and then kills the orangutan, after which Pi approaches it. It is then that he notices that Richard Parker has been resting under a tarpaulin the entire time.
The tiger then kills and eats the hyena, but does not immediately attack Pi. The young man manages to construct and float on a raft using supplies aboard the boat, and thus avoids direct confrontation with Richard Parker who is back on the boat. Pi eventually marks his own territory by using his knowledge of zoology, thus taming Richard Parker. Pi reasons that while Richard Parker is healthy, he poses less of a threat than an injured or hungry beast. So keeping the tiger alive becomes his primary focus. He catches fish and turtles, and uses solar stills to obtain drinkable water. At one point, due to poor diet, nutrition, and weakness, Pi goes temporarily blind, and during this state meets another castaway on a boat traveling parallel with his own. The other man has a French accent, and after a period of amicable conversation he boards Pi’s boat with a view to murder him. As soon as he boards, however, he is killed and devoured by Richard Parker.
The story at this point begins to get well, more fanciful. The duo are washed ashore upon a strange wooded island, populated by meerkats and containing pools of fresh water. After some time, Pi finds a strange tree on the island, and upon examining the fruit, finds human teeth. He realizes that the island is carnivorous, and he and Richard Parker must leave the island immediately. The lifeboat finally washes up on a beach in Mexico after a huge, momentous voyage across the Pacific, at which point Richard Parker bounds off into the jungle never to be seen again.
Here begins the third, very short, part of the story. When Pi is rescued and taken to a hospital, two men representing, I think, the Japanese Ministry of Transport interrogate and quiz him to find out why the ship sank. Pi offers his story. This does not satisfy the Japanese, and they dismiss it as fantasy. Pi then offers an alternative, a more plausible explanation. He was on board the lifeboat with three other people: his mother, the ship’s French chef, and a wounded sailor. The barbaric chef first kills and eats the sailor, then brutally kills his mother. Upon seeing this, Pi kills and eats the chef.
Pi asks the men which story they prefer.
The novel ends with the report to the Japanese government, in which the two men have told the first story.
In our life we too have a choice. Is it a life based just on human achievement, science and reason; just what we humans can achieve and control? Will this ultimately bring hope? Or do we believe in a God who affirms life, a God of love, a God who “takes on frail flesh” and lives among us?
There are many things we can rightly question and qualify out of the biblical narrative – we need to grapple and struggle with this, but at the end of the day is the incarnation one of those things which by faith we believe because it opens up a new world, new possibilities, new life for us all?
Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with you
Ave Maria!
One Comment
We moderns know that women contribute half the genetic material to their offspring, which weakens the idea that Mary’s virginal status allowed God to make life out of ‘nothing.’ A something-out-of-nothing hypothesis that relies, as the sermon suggests, on Mary’s virginity, also relies on the pre-modern assumption that it’s the man who puts the baby in the empty vessel.
If this theological interpretation is valid, we may conclude either the virgin-birth narrative was created to fit first-century notions of biology, or else it’s an add-on interpretation unintended by the author.