December 27, 2005 — 11:11 AM
Get to bugging God
Isaiah 62:6-12
Luke 2:1-20
Merry Christmas! Are you glad that this day is finally here?Now stores will stop playing their incessant holiday musack. Decorations which have been up in some stores since mid-October will begin to come down. Mailboxes will stop being shoved full of catalogs urging us to buy more and more things for the people we love. Oh, and we get to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ as well!
Over the years, my husband and I have grown disenchanted with the way in which our culture celebrates this holiest of day. We are turned off by the constant bombardment of advertising aimed at making us feel like we must buy "the next big thing" that everyone is clamoring for. It makes me sad that businesses place so much emphasis on their holiday sales for evaluating whether or not they had a successful year.
And even though this is the day that all the sales were aimed at, you know that tomorrow is really more important for stores. Like the Friday after Thanksgiving, which is filled with early-bird specials and crazy discounts, the day after Christmas is pushed as a big retail day for all those who didn't get exactly what they want and wish to return or exchange their gifts for something else.
All of this focus on consumerism takes away from my awe and enjoyment of this important Christian holiday. It's easy to forget this day's real reason: God's amazing choice to enter into creation to become a means of salvation for it.
But it is that very choice that our (now often over-the-top) ritual of buying and exchanging gifts is marking. It is God's decision to give the ultimate gift - God's own self - that has inspired people throughout Christian history to give gifts to others as a reminder of what God has done.
This was a gift that was announced by angels - first to Mary when she was told that she would bear a son, and then to the shepherds who were told that this son was born to all people. This was a gift that prompted choirs of angels to join in praising God. This was a gift that brought joy and thanksgiving to the hearts of all who heard of it.
This gift did all of this because it was the gift of God, coming in human form to be the Savior, Messiah, and Lord for all of creation. It was the gift of God to bring peace, real peace, to a weary world. The people were longing for this peace that would make them whole and God was promising it to them in the birth of this baby.
The people who heard this promise were living in a time of upheaval. Luke's Gospel makes this clear as it sets the scene for Jesus' birth: everyone under the Roman rule was to be registered in their ancestral town. The whole Roman world was on the move, returning to be counted among their own people. Personal circumstances - like being nine months pregnant - did not excuse anyone from this decree. Everyone had to comply. So the promise of peace was welcomed news.
But this peace would not come easily - the announcement of the angel to the shepherd makes that clear. The peace would come from the birth of the child who came from the line of David. When the shepherds and others heard this piece of information, they would understand that this child was of royal lineage.
Those who hear that would understand it to mean that God was establishing God's people once again - freeing them from the foreign rule that had plagued them for so many years. That would not be an easy feat, but the people trusted God to make it possible.
Next, the announcement called this child a Savior. This child would be the one to re-establish God's people. He would be the instrument of God that would make it possible. And because of that, the angel called this child "Messiah," the Anointed One. The one chosen by God to fill this very important role. And because he would lead the people to be re-established as God's chosen people, the angel called him "Lord."
No wonder a multitude of angels shouted out praise for God. No wonder the shepherds traveled to see the baby that the angel told them about. No wonder everyone was amazed when they heard the announcement the shepherds had received. This child was royalty come to save the people from their miserable conditions and make them once again the blessed, covenent-community that God had chosen through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This child was anointed by God to be the Lord over all the people. This was incredible news. This was a great promise!
It seemed as if this child was a sign that God was keeping God's promise set forth by the prophet Isaiah that Zion's salvation comes and that the people will be called "The Holy People, the Redeemed of the Lord" as well as "Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken." Neither the Israelite people suffering under the foreign rule of Babylon nor the Jewish people suffering under the foreign rule of Rome several hundred years later felt redeemed and not forsaken. They wanted God to fulfill this promise. The wanted God once and for all to establish them as God's people and to bring them the healing and wholeness that only God's peace could give them.
Isaiah tells the people not to just sit back and wait for God to fulfill this promise though. Instead, he calls the people to take no rest from reminding the Lord of it. They were not to give God any rest until God had done all that God had promised. Isaiah is telling the people to bug God, constantly. "Bug God, make God do what God said God would do. Be a pest. Be like an insistent child. Keep asking and asking and asking, expecting to receive what has been promised. Don't let God rest!"
I don't know how this strikes you, but when I first read this, I thought it sounded kind of strange. God needs watchmen to be vigilant day and night reminding God of what God has promised? This is the same God who is said to have known each of us before we were even formed in our mother's womb. This is the God who is said to know how many hairs each of us has on our heads. This is the God who repeatedly called the Israelite people to fidelity to the covenant they had made with God. And now the Israelite people are being called to do the same back to God?
But the reminder isn't really for God. It is for those who are doing the reminding. Isaiah knew, as did Luke, that the people were struggling to believe that God's promise to make them God's chosen people still applied to them. Their circumstances sure didn't do anything to help them to believe. And so Isaiah called the people to remind God constantly so that they themselves would be reminded constantly of God's promise made to them as it was made to their ancestors.
And Isaiah calls to us as well to constantly remind God of the promises God has made us - promises made clear by the announcement of Jesus' birth in the Gospel of Luke: God created us, God desires for us to have healing and wholeness, and God is willing to give of God's very self to make that possible. Isaiah calls us to bug God, to not let God rest until God's promises are fulfilled, so that through our reminding we may come to believe that God's promises are true and truly are for us.
We are called to bug God, reminding God of God's promises, so that we will remember what believing in God's promises means for our own lives. As Watler Brueggemann, a retired Old Testament professor, explains in his prayer "A hard, deep call to obedience."
You are the God who makes extravagant promises.
We relish your great promises
of fidelity
and presence
and solidarity,
and we exude in them.
Only to find out, always too late,
that your promise always comes
in the midst of a hard, deep call to obedience.
You are the God who calls people like us,
and the long list of mothers and fathers before us,
who trusted the promise enough to keep the call.
So we give you thanks that you are a calling God,
who calls always to dangerous new places.
We pray enough of your grace and mercy among us
that we may be among those
who believe your promises enough
to respond to your call.
We pray in the one who embodied your promise
and enacted your call, even Jesus. Amen.
We need to bug God, to remind God of God's promises so that we remember them ourselves and remember that we are called to obedience in following God's will for our lives.
How does remembering God's promises call us to obedience on this Christmas day? How can we be partners with God in bringing about God's peace that offers healing and wholeness to all who receive it?
God's promise calls for food for all of God's creation - not a lot for some while others have none.
God's promise calls for shelter for all - not big mansions for some while others sleep outside in the cold on the streets.
God's promise calls for health care for all - not good care for those who can afford to pay for it while others fall sick and die because they cannot.
God's promise calls for a good education for all - not a great education for those who can go to a private school while others are forgotten in public institutions that are treated as second-best.
God's promise calls for safety for all - not comfort and peace of mind for those who live in nice areas and can afford to hire protection while others are afraid to open their doors and walk down the street.
As God's promise was made known to the poor and lowly shepherds through the announcement of the angel, so God's promise should be made known to the poor and lowly of God's children through our Christmas celebrations this year.
Today we celebrate that Christ, the Savior, was born. This is good news of great joy! It is meant not just for some but for all of God's people - all of creation.
So get to bugging God. Get to reminding God constantly of God' promises to come and bring peace in a new heaven and a new earth. Get to repeating God's promises daily. So that in that bugging, reminding, and repeating, you may truly believe that God's promises are real and that they are God's gift joyfully given to you.
Amen.
