Lectionary blog for Dec. 20, 2015
Fourth Sunday in Advent
Text: Micah 5:2-5a; Psalm 80:1-7;
Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)
Morgan Wootten was a basketball coach. He coached DeMatha High School in the Washington, D.C., area. His teams won 1,274 games while losing only 192 times. He was considered by everyone who knew him to be one of the great ones.
Well, everyone except his grandson. Wootten is one of only three high school coaches in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. At his induction, he told a story about his grandson’s first day of school. The teacher asked Nick, “What’s your favorite sport?” He replied, “Baseball.” The teacher knew who Nick’s grandfather was. She was surprised. She said, “Not basketball?” Nick said, “Nope. I don’t know anybody who knows anything about basketball.” The teacher was even more surprised: “But Nick, a lot of people think your Grandfather Wooten knows a lot about basketball.” Nick snorted and laughed, “Oh no! He doesn’t know anything about basketball. I go to all his games and he never gets to play.”
Many of us are like Nick and his granddaddy in our relationship with God. Though we know that God exists, we find it difficult to find any evidence that the Holy is actively involved in the worldly affairs swirling around us. In the nitty-gritty of life on earth, it often seems that God never gets to play. Today’s Scripture lessons loudly assert the real presence of a real God in the midst of our real lives in the real world.
Prophets sometimes speak to the people about God, and they sometimes speak with the voice of God to the people. Today the voice of God speaks as it proclaims that God will raise up in Bethlehem “One who is to rule Israel,” one who shall “stand and feed the flock in the strength of the Lord,” one who will be God, active and involved in life’s arena.
Hebrews reminds us that this baby whose birth we anticipate is not just any baby, it is Christ, it is Messiah, it is the Sent One of God “come into the world,” in a human body to, mysteriously, be a sacrifice, an offering, for us “once for all.” God actively dealing with the problem of our sin and giving us an example of servant leadership for us to follow in our lives.
And the Gospel from Luke shows us Mary and Elizabeth marveling at the activity of God in the world; not only in doing things no one could predict or imagine but in choosing the “lowly” and “the hungry” instead of the “rich” and “powerful,” to fulfill his promises.
God is active in the world and our inability to see it is rooted in the fact that very often the movement of God’s presence happens in places and among people most of us would not have imagined were even on God’s radar.
A few years ago, when I was pastor at Holy Trinity Lutheran in Nashville, I went to a Christmas dinner hosted by a family in our neighborhood. They were an interesting couple – she was Jewish, he was Unitarian, their son was in second grade with our son; we met at PTA. It was only a day or two before Christmas, and I had been out and about visiting and taking home communion so I came in late and wearing my dog collar. As we settled down to dinner, I found that I had been seated next to “Gramps,” just arrived from his home in Israel. Spotting my collar, he asked in what sounded to me like a British accent, “C of E (Church of England)?” I shook my head no and said,”Lutheran.” “Pity,” he said, “I have a soft spot in my heart for C of E chaps.”
Then he told me this story. He had been raised in South Africa, as he put it “in a pub.” His father ran a series of taverns in mining towns and the family lived “above the store, as it were.” He said that from the age of 8 or 9 he spent most of his time in the pub with his dad, serving drinks and learning to play piano by ear, ballads and drinking songs mostly.
When World War II came along, he volunteered for the British Army. When they asked his religion, he thought a minute. They stamped religious affiliation on the dog tags. For Jews, they put a Star of David. The last thing he wanted if he were to be captured by Nazis was a Star of David around his neck, so he said “I’m C of E.”
He was captured, somewhere in Italy. They were in a facility that had a piano, and he occasionally played when they were allowed recreation time. On Christmas Eve, two guards came to get him. They told him in English, “We’re allowing a captured Church of England chaplain to hold Christmas Eve communion service, and we know you’re C of E and that you play the piano, so we want you to play for the service. He thought, “O my God, I’m caught” for he knew no Christian songs, no Christmas carols and he couldn’t read music; he played by ear.
When he got to the makeshift chapel, he quietly explained the problem to the chaplain, who caught on quickly and asked for a quick rundown of songs Gramps could play. The priest did some rapid meter calculations he matched up three Christmas carols with the meter of three drinking tunes the pianist knew. When he announced a hymn, he would say “Our pianist will play one verse so that we can remember the tune.” The other prisoners caught on, and sang Christmas carols to whatever tune the priest and the piano-man had thought would fit. And other than thinking the English had odd taste in church music, the Germans thought nothing of it.
As he finished the story, Gramps looked at me and said, “That was the night I realized there is a God and that God is active in the world. I don’t often understand what God is doing, but I have never lost the confidence that God is here in this life with us and is leading us into God’s future.”
“His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown his strength with his arm … . He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors” (Luke 1: 50-54).
Yes, Nick. God is in the game.
Amen and amen.
