Gold, Common Sense and Fur

Perhaps you’ve seen the item on the Internet about the couple who’d been married for five years but had not yet been blessed with a child. The woman really, really wanted to be a mom, so she decided that some serious praying was called for. In fact, as people sometimes do when they get desperate, she decided that some bargaining was in order. She said, “God, if you give me a child, I promise to be the perfect mother, and to love the child with all my heart, and to raise the child with the Bible as my guide.”

Well, you always have to be careful what you pray for. Within five years the couple was blessed with four children. Her husband thought that they’d been blessed right into poverty. And their minister said, “If you pray for rain, make sure that you carry an umbrella.”

The woman didn’t quite pull off the perfect mother bit, but she tried:

• She tried to be patient when the children smashed a dozen eggs on the kitchen floor while searching for baby chicks.
• She tried to be understanding when they opened a hotel for homeless frogs in one of the bedrooms, and it took her two hours to catch all twenty-three four-legged guests.
• She tried to see the humour in it all, the day that her daughter poured ketchup all over herself and rolled herself up in a blanket because she wanted to see how it felt to be a hot dog.
• And she did laugh one Sunday morning when she explained to her children that they were going to church to worship God, and one of her sons wanted to bring a bar of soap so that he could “wash up” Jesus too!
  

The real test came the year that all four children were in the Christmas pageant. The daughter was Mary, two of the boys were shepherds, and the other boy was a wise man. The one little shepherd had practiced his line over and over again: “We found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.” But somehow on the night of the pageant it came out, “We found the baby wrapped in wrinkled clothes.” Mary stood up and said, “You blew your line, stupid,” and she slugged him. An angel had to break up the ensuing fight, and she bent her halo in the process. The mother slouched a little bit in her seat.

Then Mary dropped the doll representing Baby Jesus, and it bounced down the aisle crying, “Mama, mama,” and the mother slouched lower still.

When the wise men appeared, the other son stepped forward wearing a bathrobe and paper crown and he said, “We are the wise men, and we are bringing gifts of gold, common sense and fur.” The congregation dissolved into laughter. Later, the pageant received a standing ovation and everyone agreed that it was one of the best Christmas programs they’d ever seen.

Gold, common sense and fur. Sometimes you have to turn things upside down in order to get people’s attention. That’s what Jesus did. He turned things upside down. In fact he did so…from the very beginning. He’s born a king…not in a great palace, but in a stinking stable. The first people to visit him are not dignitaries from another monarch or the leading citizens of the realm, but a bunch of poor, ragged shepherds. And when men from other lands do come and visit him, bringing gifts from places far to the east, these wise and respected men kneel down and worship this little baby; they worship him. The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible says that “they knelt down and paid him homage,” but that amounts to the same thing as worship. It’s an act of respect or reverence toward one whom you consider to be your superior. As a kid I always thought that that scene didn’t make a whole lot of sense: these grown men, wise and well-respected in their communities, kneeling down and worshipping a baby! It’s not the way that I would’ve scripted it. But that’s the point. It’s not the way that we would’ve scripted it; it’s not what we would expect. Because, from the very beginning, Jesus took people’s expectations and turned them upside down.

You know what? I think that if Jesus came to church next Sunday, if he walked right into this sanctuary and sat down in one of these pews, we wouldn’t recognize him. Or if we did recognize him, we wouldn’t like him. In fact, the Church has always had problems recognizing Jesus. For the better part of 2,000 years, the church has had trouble recognizing him. Far from looking for someone who would turn our expectations upside down and try to re-make us more fully in God’s image, Christians have tended to say, “I’m quite comfortable with my expectations; in fact, I’m so comfortable with them that I’m going to remake Jesus in my image!” Every generation of Christians has tried to remake Jesus in its own image. The philosophical theologians of the early church tried to turn Jesus into a category of Greek thought. The people of the middle ages especially depicted Jesus as a king. Prosperous North Americans in the 19th century thought of Jesus as history’s greatest businessman. The Progressives of the early 20th century envisioned Jesus as a social reformer. And today I suppose that most of us think of Jesus as kind of a nice guy who comforted the sick and tried to be present for people who were distressed.

And I do this as much as anyone else does. Every preacher, to some degree, remakes Jesus in his or her own image. I grew up in a very liberal neighbourhood, in a politically progressive environment, so yes I tend to think of Jesus as a social reformer. I guess for me he’s sort of a combination of Tommy Douglas and Saul Alinsky, with a bit of Nellie McClung thrown in for good measure. Douglas, of course, was the preacher turned politician who was the first leader of the NDP. Aliinsky was the hard-nosed, tough-talking activist who organized communities around their economic and political interests and taught them how to fight City Hall, and Nellie McClung was the feminist and author of children’s books who was into reforming almost everything. Tommy Douglas, Saul Alinsky and Nellie McClung. That’s the image of Jesus that I’ve crafted for myself. And I’m suggesting that all of you – that each one of us – has an image of Jesus in our own minds that probably says more about who we are than who Jesus was.

I can’t claim to transcend my own pre-conceived notions and tell you exactly what Jesus was like. I can’t do that. None of us can. But I can tell you this: Nice guys don’t get crucified. Liberal social reformers are a post-Enlightenment creation. And people who lived 2,000 years ago can’t possibly conform to the social and cultural and thought patterns that we’re familiar with and comfortable with. It just isn’t logical to think that someone who lived that long ago, in a very different cultural context than our own, could look and act like 21st century folks such as you and I.

The only thing that I can say with something close to confidence about Jesus is that he was deeply aware of his humanity and he was comfortable with his humanity. Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man. We tend to think of him as the Son of God, and the Bible speaks of him that way as well, but if you read the gospels carefully – especially Matthew, Mark and Luke – you’ll see that when “Son of God” is used it’s usually someone else talking about Jesus. Jesus calls himself “the Son of Man;” which could be translated as “the Human One.” That fact – plus my own preconceived notions that it’s good to be in touch with your own humanity – the fact that Jesus probably called himself “the Human One” suggests to me that Jesus was deeply aware of his own humanity and that he was comfortable with his humanity. This is to say nothing about Jesus’ divinity, except to make the point that if Jesus was both human and divine, then an understanding of divinity – an understanding of who God is – begins with an exploration of what it means to be human. If Jesus is the Human One, then what’s theologically sound is not to take pre-conceived notions of divinity and impose those on Jesus, but rather to look at Jesus in his humanity and explore what that might tells us about the nature of divinity.

I think Jesus was very human. I think Jesus had a sense of humour. In fact, I think Jesus had a rather irreverent sense of humour. For example, when Jesus talked about the kingdom of God as being like a tiny mustard seed, and when Jesus talked about the kingdom of God as being present in the midst of a pathetic little group of poor peasants, I think Jesus was poking fun at both the religious establishment and the Roman Empire, with all of their extravagant ceremonies and impressive military parades and grandiose ideas about what kingdom and majesty mean. For centuries scholars have developed their carefully reasoned explanations of what Jesus meant when he talked about the kingdom of God, when in fact maybe Jesus was just making a joke!

Jesus was very human, with a sense of humour, yet he is the one to whom the wise men paid homage. In fact, as near as I can figure, human and humour and homage all come from the same Latin word which means, “of the earth.” Jesus was a very down to earth man, and he seemed rather comfortable being that way. And maybe the whole point of getting down on bended knee as we think the wise men did to pay homage to Jesus is not to show subservience to One who is high and lifted up but rather the whole point is to get down on bended knee, to touch the earth, to get in touch with one’s own earthiness; with one’s own humanity.

And in so doing, to get in touch with divinity.

Jesus takes our assumption of God as One who is high and lifted up and turns that assumption up side down [kneel and touch the earth with hands].

I suggested a few minutes ago that if Jesus walked into Knox on a Sunday morning, we wouldn’t recognize him. In fact, Jesus does walk into Knox each Sunday morning. Jesus walks through these doors with each visitor; and Jesus walks through these doors with each one of you. Indeed, Jesus walks through these doors as each visitor; Jesus walks through these doors as each one of you. And maybe we don’t recognize him because we don’t recognize…ourselves. Maybe we don’t see the precious reflection of his Spirit in others as they walk through these doors because we don’t recognize the precious reflection of his Spirit in ourselves.

If you want to recognize the Human One in our midst, then first you have to be comfortable with your own humanness. With all of your foibles, you have to embrace your own humanness. With all of those things within you that you may not be comfortable with, you have to embrace your won humanness. With all of those voices inside of you saying that you have to conform to something other than who you really are, you have to embrace your own humanness.

And once you’ve done that, once you’ve even just begun to do that, once you’ve made at least a tiny little baby step toward embracing your own humanness, you might be able to embrace others in their humanness. You might be able to welcome others in their humanness. They may not look like you. They may not act like you. They may not conform to your preconceived notions of how one ought to look or act in church or anywhere else in the world. But then, Jesus doesn’t conform to our preconceived notions either. As we embrace our humanness, as we embrace the humanness of the stranger, we embrace something of the Christ in ourselves and in the stranger.

To be fully human is to be something like Jesus: even when your kid smashes a dozen eggs, even when the person next to you speaks a language that you can’t understand, even when we flub our lines, and talk about gold and common sense and fur. Amen.


Text: Matthew 2:11

Preached by Bruce D. Ervin

The Epiphany of our Lord

6 January 2008