Sacred Disruptions
Luke 2.1-20
Sermon Series –Erin Wathen, Calling All Angels: An Advent Study of Fearlessness & Strength
Advent 4C (Using text from Christmas Eve)
December 22, 2024
Late on Thursday afternoon, I ran out to do some errands. First up was a visit to the post office. I then headed to Giant Eagle to fill up the gas tank and put air in all four tires in preparation for picking Hannah up on Friday. As I was filling the tires, I discovered that the cap was missing from one of the tire valves. So, I had to make an unplanned trip to the store to buy replacement valve caps. The app on my phone told me Meijer had what I needed but I couldn’t find it because I was searching a store in Michigan. Once I corrected that little issue, it was fairly easy to find the valve caps. Soon I was back on the road—in the middle of heavy early evening traffic. By the time I got back to East Ridgewood Drive, I was feeling quite hungry and looking forward to dinner.
To my surprise, the car in front of me turned into the church parking lot. Instead of using our lot to turn around, the car pulled up in front of the church and a man got out. As I came to a stop in my usual parking spot, the gentleman began walking towards me. This was not necessarily what I wanted to see, being hungry and ready to go inside my warm house. Nonetheless, I got out and asked if I could help him. He explained that he had come to the AA meeting early in the day and had left behind a very important paper.
You see, this gentleman, let’s call him Anthony, was on probation and was required to attend 90 days of AA meetings. At each meeting he had to have a formed signed by a representative of the AA group. He had been in the area because of his job and discovered that there was a meeting at St. Peter at a time he could attend. He came, participated, had the form signed and, after the meeting, went to the restroom. He placed the form on the sink counter, only to discover it was wet. So, he moved the form to the top of the paper towel dispenser. He used the facilities, washed his hands, headed to his car, and drove off---leaving the form on top of the towel dispenser.
At some point later in the day, Anthonyrealized what he had done—and panicked. You see, he was due in court the next day and needed that form. He had four other forms demonstrating that he had attended 80 of the required 90 AA meetings. The form he left in our restroom documented the final 10 meetings, with his visit to St. Peter being the 90th and final meeting. So, he desperately needed that missing form.
I tried to calm him and told him we would try to find that piece paper. We came inside and looked everywhere—the restroom, the Fellowship Hall, the kitchen, the nursery—nothing. We looked in trash cans, even tried the church office on the outside chance someone had found the paper and slipped it under the door. No luck. I remembered that several of the AA groups had storage bins full of their books and supplies in the hall closet. My search turned up nothing. Anthony was beside himself; by the end of our searching, he was sitting on the bench in the entry way with his head in his hands.
During our extensive and fruitless searching, I made a couple phone calls, reaching out to a few folks from the Thursday group for whom I had contact info. Bill didn’t answer. Another gentleman answered but he was no longer attending that particular meeting so he could offer no help. Finally, with hope seemingly exhausted, Bill called me back. He remembered Anthony and said they had found his form. Realizing what it was, they put it in their storage bin in the closet. He told us where to find it—I had not realized that it belonged to one of the AA groups—and when we opened it, there was Anthony’s form, lying on top of the books and supplies. Anthony literally leaped for joy and then gave me one of the biggest hugs I have ever received. I don’t know if I have ever seen someone’s mood change so quickly and radically; he went from utter despair to uncontainable joy in the blink of an eye.
I was not expecting such an interruption to my evening. I really just wanted to get into the warm house and get some food in my stomach. But in retrospect, it feels like God was present in that interruption. We both arrived at the same moment; we found the paper Anthony desperately needed; I had a chance to hear his story and pray with him.
It reminded me of a brief story I came across a couple years ago about a professor who had recently retired from the University of Notre Dame. He was asked what he thought of the new experience of retirement. The professor thought about the question. After a few moments, he answered, “All my life, I have been complaining that my work was constantly being interrupted. Now I have discovered that the interruptions were my work.” [from a sermon by Allen Groethe, “Handmaids of the Lord,” Dec. 16, 2001] The interruptions—the unplanned interactions with students, staff and colleagues, the unanticipated discussions and unforeseen occurrences that kept him from doing what he planned—those were his real work.
The same is true for the Christmas story: as Erin Wathen contends in our Advent study, the disruptions are the point, because that’s where God is found. [p. 84]
Think about our scripture this morning, or for that matter any of our scriptures from this Advent season. The first Christmas was a disrupting event.
Gabriel’s announcement to Zechariah and Mary disrupted their lives. For Zechariah, it was the comfortable, predictable present that was disrupted. Sure, he had always wanted a child, but he had resigned himself to the fact that he and Elizabeth were now too old. Perhaps he was just getting comfortable with that reality when Gabriel showed up and told him he was going to be a father.
For Mary, Gabriel’s message disrupted the future she was anticipating. Having a child is disruptive enough by itself, as any parent can attest, but how much more disruptive is an unplanned, virgin pregnancy! How in the world would she explain this to Joseph, to her parents? What would the neighbors say? Would Joseph call off the marriage? God was calling her in a most unexpected direction and the road ahead was sure to be difficult. As we saw last week, this unexpected pregnancy also disrupted Joseph’s life, confronting him first with the heartbreaking possibility of an unfaithful fiancé and then with the reality of a miraculous pregnancy, the need to protect Mary’s reputation and the impending birth of son with all the responsibilities that entails quite apart from the child having a special divine mission.
This is just the beginning of the difficulty and disruption in the Christmas story. The Emperor’s decree that everyone should return to their home town to be registered on the tax lists surely interrupted many people’s lives. Mary and Joseph had to make the long journey south from Nazareth to Bethlehem, even though she was in the final days of her pregnancy. Surely, she would have rather have stayed home and given birth surround and supported by family. Instead, the couple finds themselves temporarily homeless, taking shelter in a stable and using the feed trough for a bassinet.
And what about the shepherds. They were just minding their business, keeping watch over their sheep, likely expecting a quiet, uneventful night. And then an angel shows up, terrifying them, and telling them about baby in a manger! In the end, their abject fear will be turned into uncontainable joy, but the journey from one state of mind to the other was anything but easy or expected.
But the disruption is not yet at an end. King Herod, fearful that this infant “King of the Jews” will overthrow him, orders a purge of all the young boys in and around Bethlehem. The young family must flee to Egypt, refugees from a tyrant’s murderous anger and fear.
William Willimon is correct: “There was little that was sweet, nostalgic or sentiment about that first Christmas…” [Willimon, Lectionary Sermon Resource: Year B, Part 1, p. 33] Christmas began as a disruption. Mary and Joseph’s lives were turned upside down. Zechariah and the shepherds’ normal workdays were massively interrupted. But more than this, as Herod’s reaction shows, the world was disrupted. The babe laid in a manger would grow into a man who would upset the religious and political status quo of the day by preaching and enacting the Kingdom of God. He disrupted the predictable lives of those who followed him and led them far out of their comfort zones. His death on a cross disrupted their hopes, expectations and dreams. And his resurrection disrupted the plans of the world’s greatest imperial power and overturned all our ideas about who’s really in charge of the world.
Christmas is disruptive. The first Christmas, the birth of Jesus, happened in the midst of great disruption. And that birth proved to be disruptive, because Christmas is an act of God, an act meant to transform the world.
If God is at work in the disruptions of life, as God was at work in the disruptions of that first Christmas, then how we respond is important. The shepherds’ response is instructive. Once they recover their wits, once they accept the angel’s assurance that they should not be afraid, they welcome the opportunity presented by the interruption. When the angels finish their joyous song and return to heaven, the shepherds say to each other, “Let’s go right now to Bethlehem and see what’s happened. Let’s confirm what the Lord has revealed to us.” [Luke 2.15, CEB] They seize the moment to go and see what God is doing, to see how God is at work in their lives and those of the people around them.
But they not only welcome the opportunity, they also welcome the persons who are involved in that moment. They go to meet Mary and Joseph, strangers from another town whose names they don’t actually know yet. They go to welcome a newborn child. God’s work in the world, God’s interruptions in our lives, usually involve other people. God often disrupts our daily lives, our normal routines by speaking to us in the words of another person or by calling us to show compassion to someone who is need of help.
Welcoming the opportunity and the people which come to us in the disruptions of life requires something of us. We have to set aside our plans—dinner can wait; work can be continued later. We also have to set aside our fears—our fear of the other, the person who is different from us; our fear of what we might have to give up or what might be required of us. We have to trust ourselves to God. We have to trust the admonition of the angels: “Do not be afraid.” Do not be afraid because God is with you, because God is your refuge and strength, because God is gracious and merciful and abounding in steadfast love. And then we have to act. Like the shepherds, we have to make a decision. We have to go.
Erin Wathen was in the middle of a mid-week class for men who were in a local addiction recovery program. The class focused on spiritual practices to help them as they participated in the twelve-step program. They were far enough into the class that Wathen was surprised when a young man walked in late and sat down on a bench by the wall. She didn’t know him and apparently none of the men did either. She had to stop the class to ask if he was there for the meeting. It turned out he was looking for help with food. This was awkward, as she couldn’t leave the class to help him but she also didn’t want to make him just sit there for 45 minutes until they were done. So, she invited him to join the class with the understanding that she would help him when it ended. She quickly explained to the young man who the group was and what they were doing. Then she tried to pick up with the discussion they were having before the young man’s entry disrupted the class.
It wasn’t easy. She recalls, “the flow had been disrupted and it felt difficult to transition back to what we’d been doing.
“Within about ten minutes of sitting in with us, however, the young man shared that his mother struggles with a heroin addiction and that he had recently moved home from college on order to take care of his two younger sisters. It was a truly devastating story of suffering, grief, sacrifice, and uncertainty…. His situation hit close to home for the other men in the room. They might have met him with judgment, avoidance, or some other fearful response. But instead, they gave him so much support and encouragement. They gave him hope. They affirmed how he was caring for his family. They offered unconditional love to a stranger who had wandered into their midst.
“We sent our guest home later with a grocery card and an open invitation to return. It was such an ordinary day, all things considered. But we’d also witnessed the mystery and miracle of someone having wandered into exactly the right place at he right time. When the house was full, the door was unlocked, and the Spirit was moving in all the right ways for a stranger to find welcome with fellow travelers who met him unafraid.” [Wathen, pp. 89-90]
In the disruptions, in the interruptions, in the unexpected event, at the unanticipated moment, God shows up. God shows up in a young man who needs help with groceries and so much more. God shows up when two people, one of whom needs help, pull into a parking lot at the same time. God shows up in a couple with no place to stay. God shows up in a vulnerable baby, born in the most unexpected of places. God shows up in the form of common working folks who’ve left their flocks in the field to see the wonderful thing that has taken place. God, Emmanuel, comes to us in the disruptions. God is at work in the interruptions. How will we respond? Will we be ready to welcome God’s messenger? To receive the neighbor made in God’s image? To respond to the coming of God’s child? To receive the love he brings?
May the Holy Spirit cast out our fear, calm our anxieties and pour love into our hearts so that we may respond with welcome, generosity, compassion and joy, this Christmas and throughout the year to come. Amen.