{"id":1283,"date":"2011-12-21T17:01:04","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T17:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=750"},"modified":"2011-12-21T17:01:04","modified_gmt":"2011-12-21T17:01:04","slug":"a-miracle-in-the-midst-of-ordinary-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1283","title":{"rendered":"A miracle in the midst of ordinary life – Alicia Good – Sunday, December 18, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"
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View archived files<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n
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As Christmas quickly approaches, families gather together, sharing their stories and memories of Christmases past.\u00a0 I would like to begin this morning with a Christmas story from my own family.\u00a0 It’s a story with a sad beginning, but it’s also a story of unexpected joy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On a December 18th, a little over 50 years ago, my grandfather Donald Metcalfe died tragically before his time.\u00a0 Donald left behind a young wife, Beverly, and three small boys, the youngest of whom was my father, Dave.\u00a0 He was just four years old at the time.\u00a0 Through the years of struggling alone to put food on the table for her children, Bev lost touch with Donald’s side of the family, who lived across the country.\u00a0 Dave grew up knowing that he had a mysterious uncle named Bob Metcalfe somewhere in New Brunswick, but that’s about as far back as his Metcalfe genealogy could be traced.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bev managed to raise her children well, and Dave grew up into successful man who frequently travelled across Canada on business.\u00a0 One year, Dave was travelling through New Brunswick transporting a load of lobster.\u00a0 When he registered with the airport security officer, the guard asked, “Dave Metcalfe?\u00a0 Are you by any chance related to Bob or Donald Metcalfe”?\u00a0 My stunned father, who had next to no living memories of those men, replied “Yes, Donald was my father, and Bob was my uncle.”\u00a0 That afternoon Dave gave Bob a call.\u00a0 Bob had been just a boy when his older brother died, and he had grown up longing for a connection to his Metcalfe family.\u00a0\u00a0 Bob and Dave were reunited that day, and these two men began to establish what would become a lasting relationship. The routine of a normal workday was unexpectedly disrupted by what my family believes was an act of God.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The lectionary reading from Luke today invites us to explore how God disrupts the ordinary.\u00a0 Mary is a young woman, possibly as young as 12 years old, who is engaged to be married to Joseph.\u00a0 This couple lives in the obscure and rather underprivileged town of Nazareth.\u00a0 I imagine that people in Jerusalem might have thought about Nazareth in a similar kind of way as to how we in Toronto might think about Timmons.\u00a0\u00a0 Mary is going about her ordinary life, an unimportant girl in an unimportant place, when God interrupts the ordinary. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The angel Gabriel appears to Mary with the announcement that God has chosen to show her favor.\u00a0 She will conceive a child who will be called the Son of the Most High, and she is to give him the name Jesus.\u00a0 Mary will\u00a0 become a mother.\u00a0 Mary asks, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”\u00a0 Mary is not only asking how it’s physically possible for her to have a baby, but she’s also wondering how it is that she herself could be the woman who is chosen to be the mother of this special child.\u00a0 The angel responds to Mary’s confusion by telling her that God’s Holy Spirit will come upon her to make all of this happen.\u00a0 Gabriel also tells Mary about another miracle that’s already happening in her own family, the miraculous pregnancy of Mary’s relative Elizabeth.\u00a0 Gabriel reassures Mary that nothing<\/em> is impossible with God.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 During the strongly patriarchal era of the New Testament, and indeed throughout much of history, motherhood was considered to be the ultimate way for a woman to demonstrate God’s favour.\u00a0 The inability to bear children has always been a very sensitive and difficult issue, both \u00a0in a patriarchal society, and still today.\u00a0 Historically, difficulty in bearing a child was often considered to be the woman’s fault, although today medicine has advanced us beyond this understanding.\u00a0 Difficulty in bearing a child was then, and can remain today, \u00a0a source of pain of great pain and heartache.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In Mary’s era, a woman who could not have children might even have considered herself to be cursed by God.\u00a0 Having children was also an economic<\/em> necessity for women, since they were typically unable to own property or to work outside of the home.\u00a0 Women needed to have sons who could protect them and provide for them in their old age.\u00a0 For this reason, the announcement by an angel that a woman is going to have a child is typically a scene of great rejoicing in other biblical texts.\u00a0 However, in Mary’s case, this announcement is uniquely problematic.\u00a0 Since Mary is not yet married, her pregnancy will be seen as proof of sexual infidelity to her partner.\u00a0 This supposed evidence of unfaithfulness will cause Mary to be rejected not only by her finance Joseph, but by her entire community.\u00a0 She will probably be cut off from the support of her family and friends, left without a way of providing for herself and her child and possibly forced to turn to prostitution in order to survive.\u00a0 Since Mary’s town will view her as an adultress, it is even possible that they will stone her to death.\u00a0\u00a0 The angel’s announcement of Mary’s pregnancy presents her with a big problem. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Nevertheless, Mary chooses to accept God’s plan, with the words “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”\u00a0 Compare Mary’s response to the angel with Moses’ response to God’s call in Exodus 3 and 4.\u00a0 Both Moses and Mary are chosen by God for a special purpose, but whereas Mary accepts God’s call, Moses initially rejects it. God calls Moses \u00a0to be a leader and a hero who will bring God’s people out of slavery, but Mary’s call is to surrender control over her own body and endure public shame.\u00a0 It seems to me like Mary has a lot more at risk than Moses, yet she demonstrates amazing courage and deep faith by immediately accepting God’s call.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I recognize that the idea of a virgin birth is problematic in many ways, especially in contemporary society.\u00a0 Many excellent theologians, such as Mary Daly and Rosemary Radford Ruether, have done significant work on discussing some of the very real implications to these problems, and they have greatly contributed towards a deeper understanding of the struggles women face in patriarchal systems.\u00a0 The church has much to gain from these insights.\u00a0 But this morning, I would like to share with you from my own perspective why it is that I do find the idea of the virgin birth to be meaningful.<\/span><\/p>\n

I find the idea of the virgin birth of Jesus to a beautiful, mysterious act which reveals both God’s imminence and God’s transcendence.\u00a0 On the one hand, what could be more ordinary that the birth of a baby?\u00a0 God chooses to work through the normal processes of our human biology.\u00a0 It was throug
\nh the birth of my own daughter that I realized for the first time how incredibly closely connected we are to the animal world.\u00a0 My body went about its own work quite apart from whatever I wanted it to do, disregardful of my thoughts, feelings, ideas or whatever I might have learned about childbirth.\u00a0 I felt like my being had more in common with a Holstein cow than I did with a philosopher like Plato.\u00a0 The idea that a mysterious divine force would willingly engage a process as profoundly physical and human as the act of giving birth is awe-inspiring to me.\u00a0 How wonderful to contemplate the Very God of very God, begotten not made, transcendent and eternal, willingly immersing\u00a0 God’s self into the human world of physical pleasure and pain.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On the other hand, the virgin birth conveys for me the ways in which God extends beyond the realms of human understanding into the world we sometimes express in small pieces through things like art, through music, and though our dreams of the impossible.\u00a0 Our postmodern society is learning fresh ways of engaging with the spiritual.\u00a0 We are aware that science and rationality often provide us with new questions rather than answers.\u00a0 We crave relationships and connections.\u00a0 Mystery and beauty are celebrated through ritual and creativity.\u00a0 What could be more mysterious and beautiful than a woman giving birth to a person who is also God?\u00a0 What could be more amazing than human connection with the divine?\u00a0 In the person of Jesus, I find my answers to these questions.\u00a0 Jesus is where the transcendent embraces the immanent.\u00a0 Jesus is where God and humanity become one.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jesus’ birth is a normal, everyday event but it is also a shocking, unexpected event.\u00a0 God both works in history and transcends it at the same time.\u00a0 The incarnation of Jesus is about the fullness of God taking up the fullness of humanity.\u00a0 Theologian David Yeago writes, “On the one hand, the Son of God comes into the world as humans normally do, being conceived in a woman’s body.\u00a0 He experiences what it means to be human all the way back to the silent beginning of life in the womb.\u00a0 But even as the incarnate Son participates<\/em> in the normal, he also disrupts<\/em> it:\u00a0 by bringing about new life in a Virgin’s<\/em> womb, the Spirit declares that the human reality of<\/em> the Lord is not the product of human history but a gift<\/em> to<\/em> human history.”[1]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 Jesus is everything that it means to be human, and everything that it means to be God, at the same time.\u00a0\u00a0 That’s why the idea of the virgin birth to me is meaningful, because it is the story of God and humanity becoming one in Jesus, God incarnate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I realize that not everyone here holds the same understanding of who Jesus is, and I want to say that I celebrate the reality that we are all walking together on a journey.\u00a0 It’s beautiful that we can walk together, although we come from different places.\u00a0 We have much to learn from one another’s experiences about who God is.\u00a0 Canadian Aboriginal theologian Stan MacKay writes, “My truth does not deny your truth.”[2]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> MacKay speaks about embracing humility and mystery so that communities can come together to discern truth.\u00a0 As we listen and learn from each other’s stories and experiences, God moves among us in ways that might be unexpected.\u00a0 Our different perspectives allow for the possibility of learning, change, and healing.\u00a0 I am thankful that experiencing God’s voice speaking to us though people in the community is a part of our Anabaptist tradition.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 God often comes to us unexpectedly, bringing miracles in the midst of the ordinary.\u00a0 A miraculously ordinary baby, or a chance encounter with a stranger, resulting in a family reunited.\u00a0 One Christmas Eve several years ago, my Dad once again found himself travelling through New Brunswick.\u00a0 My parents had left their brothers and sisters in Ontario in order to find work in Calgary.\u00a0 So\u00a0 Mom was at home with us kids while Dad had to go on a business trip over Christmas on the other side of the country.\u00a0 Dad was scheduled to spend Christmas Eve at a hotel in Halifax before flying off in the morning.\u00a0 On the spur of the moment, he decided to rent a car. \u00a0Without calling ahead, he drove down the coast all the way to St. John, to Uncle Bob’s house.\u00a0 Dad and Bob had developed a close relationship, and my Dad knew that he would be more than welcome.\u00a0 When Dad arrived at the Metcalfe house, he was disappointed to find that no one was home.\u00a0 But in typical New Brunswick fashion, the house was unlocked, so Dad just let himself in.\u00a0 A few minutes later Bob and the family arrived home, to find my Dad sitting in his favorite chair beside the Christmas tree!\u00a0 Dad says that when he saw Bob’s face, he became worried that he was about to have a heart attack.\u00a0 Of course, Bob was absolutely overjoyed to have Dad’s unexpected Christmas visit.\u00a0 The Metcalfe family was able to sit down together that night over a big turkey dinner.\u00a0\u00a0 My dad loves to attribute this small miracle of timing, and Uncle Bob’s healthy heart, to God’s work.<\/span><\/p>\n

May God continue to work in both ordinary and unexpected ways in our lives this Christmas.\u00a0 Amen.<\/span><\/p>\n

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[1]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Yeago, <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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[2]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> 409.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

View archived files \u00a0 Listen to this Sermon\u00a0 \u00a0 As Christmas quickly approaches, families gather together, sharing their stories and memories of Christmases past.\u00a0 I would like to begin this morning with a Christmas story from my own family.\u00a0 It’s a story with a sad beginning, but it’s also a story of unexpected joy. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On a December 18th, a little over 50 years ago, my grandfather Donald Metcalfe died tragically before his time.\u00a0 Donald left behind a young wife,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}