{"id":2579,"date":"2019-12-22T11:00:07","date_gmt":"2019-12-22T16:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=2579"},"modified":"2020-01-16T10:38:24","modified_gmt":"2020-01-16T15:38:24","slug":"angle-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2019\/12\/22\/angle-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"Angel Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Isaiah 7: 10-16<\/a><\/p>\n

Romans 1:1-7<\/a><\/p>\n

Matthew 1:18-25<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear just the sermon<\/a><\/p>\n

Frontispiece<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Late one night a few years ago snow was falling lightly in the far north, along the St. Lawrence.\u00a0 They know snow there, on the river bank.\u00a0 Coming over the border from Canada, and down south from the river, one enters a barren, flat land.\u00a0 At 1am on this winter night, the residents of little country towns–Alexandria Bay and Clayton and LaFargeville– are asleep.\u00a0 The dark moonscape surrounding the road, pock-marked with valleys and an occasional farmhouse, lies silent.\u00a0 Fallow northern fields, farms all dead or quiet.\u00a0 These fallow northern fields lie strange and difficult and stern in the moonlight.\u00a0 With pelting flakes covering the windshield and darkening the moon, nature makes a seamless shroud, \u201cblacker than a hundred midnights down in a cypress swamp\u201d.<\/p>\n

To step aside from the world of our own doing puts us out into the dark, the scene of angels.\u00a0 Angels.\u00a0 To find ourselves outside the world of our control and comfort, puts us out into the cold moonlight, the place of the uncanny, strange and unfamiliar territory.\u00a0 A return to church can be such a place.\u00a0 A sudden diagnosis can be such a place.\u00a0 An unplanned revisit to an old anger can be such a place.\u00a0 Aging can be such a place. Unemployment can be such a place.\u00a0 Loss of breath can be such a place.\u00a0 The desire to end something before it is really ended can be such a place. Sometimes things end badly.\u00a0 That is why they end.\u00a0 Sometimes things end badly.\u00a0 Therein lie the condition, the cause, the symptom, the root of the ending.\u00a0 A shooting war, on the ground, not from the technological safety of many thousand feet, but in Syria, say, or the Ukraine, say, can be such a place.<\/p>\n

Beyond the stream that imports information, sustenance and \u2018comraderie\u2019 into our homes and lives, there is this darkness.\u00a0 It is a wondrous darkness, for all its unfamiliarity away from the blue haze of the computer screen.\u00a0 Here the lights of the city, the comfort of urban dwellers, shroud and shadow. To step aside from the world of our own doing puts us out into the dark, the scene of angels.\u00a0 Angels.\u00a0 Here is the Good News of Advent: an Angel voice announces Jesus Christ in this darkness, the grace of Almighty God.<\/p>\n

Matthew<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What of Matthew?<\/p>\n

Our lectionary leads us through St.\u00a0 Matthew this year.\u00a0 So, let us carefully take an attentive look at the Gospel of Jesus Christ announced in Matthew, whose birth is accounted in the first chapter, which includes the first sermon, in Matthew.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It is a good Advent exercise.\u00a0 In the quiet breathing space of December, may we listen again for the true, the good, the right, the lasting.\u00a0 Can moderation learn anything from analytical zeal?\u00a0 Can moderation learn anything from caution? \u00a0Can Advent throw any light on Christmas?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe birth of Jesus happened in this way\u2026\u201d How quick we are to speak, to stare, to decide, to judge.\u00a0 To know.\u00a0 Or think we know.\u00a0 One teacher said to one student: \u201cYour abundant knowledge stands in the way of your real education\u201d.\u00a0 I was glad for the advice.\u00a0 How firm, much too firm, is our ostensible grasp of the ineffable, the wondrous, the real.\u00a0 Our <\/em>reverence, unlike that of the Holy Scripture, too often lacks the discomfort of travel, the fear of the unknown, the quaking before angels, the conception of, let alone by, the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Kings, shepherds, Joseph and Mary.\u00a0 Look out a few weeks. \u00a0If we are not careful, it all becomes so familiar, so cozy.\u00a0 And the newer habits of casual worship, near and far, do not help.<\/p>\n

No.\u00a0 By angel voice, the Scripture tells another story.\u00a0 Unlike the series of familiar events which make up our habituated rehearsal of the season, the Bible tells a strange story, a difficult story, even a stern story.\u00a0 This may help us more than all manner of cozy familiarity, if only to engage us when at last, or at first, we realize that it has never been easy to lead a Christian life.\u00a0 Such a life, as Ernest Tittle constantly repeated, is meant for heroes and heroines.\u00a0 As Thurman said:\u00a0 a crown to grow into. Listen to this unfamiliar<\/em> account:\u00a0 a virgin is with child; a husband, who is no husband, resolves not to take revenge; an angel appears in a dream; the angel, in the dream, interprets the Scripture; the man obeys an angel voice; the man further accepts the angel\u2019s name for what his wife, not yet truly a wife, conceives. \u00a0A virgin birth, a resolute husband, an angel voice, <\/em>a trusting woman, a name transmitted in a dream.\u00a0 This is strange, unfamiliar territory.\u00a0 We do not live in a world of virgin births, resolute husbands, angel voices, trusting dreamers, or names dropped from on high.\u00a0 Our world is rather, we prefer to think, the world of our own choices, our own creation.<\/p>\n

We have left St. Luke, now, to follow the trail of Jesus\u2019 life, death and destiny, this year, in another, different, strange Gospel, the Gospel of Matthew.\u00a0\u00a0 Matthew relies on Mark, and then also on a teaching document called Q, along with Matthew\u2019s own particular material, of which our reading today is an example.\u00a0 He has divided his Gospel into five sequential parts, a careful pedagogical rendering, befitting his traditional role as teacher, in contrast to Luke \u2018the physician\u2019, whose interest was history.\u00a0\u00a0 We have moved from history to religion, from narrative to doctrine.\u00a0 Matthew is ordering the meaning of the history of the Gospel, while Luke is ordering the history of the meaning of the Gospel.\u00a0 You have moved from the History Department to the Religion Department.\u00a0 Matthew has his own perspective.<\/p>\n

Some of that perspective involves a developing and developed Christology, an understanding of Christ.\u00a0 For Matthew, the birth narrative conveys the proper ordering of the meaning of the history of the Gospel.\u00a0 Birth narratives still matter, as if the politics of the last several years in this country were not enough alone to remind us.\u00a0 Who is he?\u00a0 Where did he come from?\u00a0 Who are his parents?\u00a0 Who are his people?\u00a0 Who formed him, He who now forms us?\u00a0 And some, or much of it, involves the law, as we shall see this year.\u00a0 It will be a good year to listen, through Scripture, regarding law.<\/p>\n

You have missed having read the earlier part, the first half of Matthew 1, the generations from Adam to Christ.\u00a0 These are found before our reading.\u00a0 Fourteen by fourteen by fourteen, are the generations.\u00a0 From Abraham to David.\u00a0 From David to Babylon.\u00a0 From Babylon to Christ.\u00a0 They run from Abraham to Joseph, who was betrothed to Mary.\u00a0 To Joseph.\u00a0 To and through Joseph.<\/p>\n

Abraham.\u00a0 Isaac. Jacob. Judah.\u00a0 Tamar.\u00a0 Amminadab.\u00a0 Boaz.\u00a0 Ruth.\u00a0 Jesse. David.\u00a0 Solomon.\u00a0 Uriah.\u00a0 Rehoboam.\u00a0 Jehoshaphat.\u00a0 Amos.\u00a0 Josiah. Jechoniah.\u00a0 Zerubbabel.\u00a0 Zadok.\u00a0 Eleazar.\u00a0 Matthan.\u00a0 Jacob.\u00a0 Joseph.<\/em><\/p>\n

Every one of these names, earlier in Chapter 1, is worth a sermon!\u00a0 We could start next week\u2026<\/p>\n

Matthew 1 tells of the birth of Christ.\u00a0 Jesus Christ (though a later scribe dropped \u2018Jesus\u2019, yet most texts hold to it), to move Matthew a little more away from Luke, pushing religion away from history, you could say.\u00a0 The freedom we have to interpret the Gospel for ourselves begins with the Gospels, themselves.\u00a0 Each is different from the others.\u00a0 John is magnificently the most different of them all, the most sublime, the most mysterious, the most divine. \u00a0Matthew tells of the birth <\/em>of Christ.\u00a0 Then he will tell of the teaching <\/em>of Christ.\u00a0 Then he will tell of the healing<\/em> of Christ.\u00a0 Then he will tell of the cross <\/em>of the Christ.\u00a0 Then cometh resurrection.<\/em>\u00a0 In five moves, he is teaching us, Matthew, the teacher.\u00a0 Matthew orders the meaning of history, as Luke orders the history of meaning (repeat).<\/em><\/p>\n

It is fitting that the first sermon, the first interpretation in the Gospel of Matthew, which we are going to follow this year, is offered by an angel.\u00a0 What other voice would be fit to herald such news?\u00a0 Yes, an angel.\u00a0 How strange this account appears when carefully studied!\u00a0 The angel interprets the prophet Isaiah.\u00a0 Because his sermon purports to tell us about the meaning of Advent and so, this is the magisterial claim, about the meaning of life, we shall want to bear down, quietly, and listen.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Now Isaiah had said that the child should be called \u2018Emmanuel\u2019, or, \u201cGod with us\u201d.\u00a0 God, present.\u00a0 Present.\u00a0 Present.\u00a0 Emmanuel.\u00a0 Come Emmanuel.\u00a0 How could any sermon, any interpretation, even by an angel, fathom this?<\/p>\n

Matthew is apparently fighting on two fronts, both against the fundamental conservatives to the right, and against the spiritual radicals to the left.\u00a0 In Matthew, Gospel continues to trump tradition, as in Paul, but tradition itself is a bulwark to defend the Gospel, as in Timothy.\u00a0 Matthew is trying to guide his part of the early church, between the Scylla of the tightly tethered and the Charybdis of the tether-less.\u00a0 The people who raised us, in the dark, in the snows of those midnight blackened towns along the train tracks of the Lake Shore Limited, Albany to Buffalo, and on to Chicago, knew this well.\u00a0 That is, with Matthew, they wanted to order the meaning of the history of the gospel.\u00a0 They aspired to do so by opposition to indecency and indifference.\u00a0 They attempted to do so by attention to conscience and compassion. Matthew emphasizes the role of law, of the law, of laws.\u00a0\u00a0 He is a legalist, whether or not he was Jewish (the general assumption, though some (I) would argue otherwise).<\/p>\n

Meaning<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

And what of meaning in Matthew?<\/p>\n

In the birth, it is the cradle we most need to notice.\u00a0 The wood of the cradle, by which Christ is born, is of a type with the wood of the cross, by which Christ is crucified.\u00a0 Born to give us second birth, the birth of spirit, soul, mind, heart, will, love, faith.\u00a0 Born to give us second birth.\u00a0 Is one birth not enough?\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n

You are meant for two.\u00a0 You are meant to live in faith, to lead a life of loving friendship, to wake up every morning to the sunshine, the light of God.\u00a0 You are meant to walk in the light.\u00a0 Walk in the light.\u00a0 For this, you need to hear a word spoken from faith to faith, and to receive the second birth.<\/p>\n

Christmas, as a cultural break, provides a seam, an opening, for grace, both apart from religion, and as a part of religion.\u00a0 You are given the light of God, to rest in your hearts, to illumine your hearts and minds, to give you peace and hope, all through the coming year.\u00a0 We will need that in 2020.\u00a0 We will need that courage this year.<\/p>\n

A student who read Genesis and Matthew for the first time said, \u201cThis is so different from the way we think.\u00a0 No one is that awestruck by God.\u201d\u00a0 And the polls confirm it.\u00a0 90% of our people \u201cbelieve in God\u201d.\u00a0 As in 1952 so in 2020 (soon!), it is fashionable to profess this general belief.\u00a0 God is with us.\u00a0 The pantheist, the spiritualist, the nationalist, the literalist, and many a Methodist can agree.\u00a0 How easily is such a belief celebrated?\u00a0 Too easily.\u00a0 God is with us.\u00a0 In nature, in the occult, in the homeland, in the Bible, in the religious organization.\u00a0 God is with us.\u00a0 A tidy tale.\u00a0 God is all and everywhere, with us, Emmanuel.\u00a0 We find God whenever and wherever.\u00a0 Audubon, McClain, Jefferson, Jerome and Marsh equally serve as guides.\u00a0 God in trees, in dreams, in politics, writings, in religion.\u00a0 It is the same.\u00a0 God is everywhere! \u00a0God is with us.\u00a0 His name shall be called, Emmanuel.\u00a0 This we find familiar and cozy.<\/p>\n

But the angel voice says otherwise.\u00a0 The angel gives another name. Read, hear <\/em>the account as represented by Matthew.\u00a0 Here is another name, not just Emmanuel, not just Advent, not just Christmas, but a name fit for the travel, darkness, and fear, of Advent.\u00a0\u00a0 It is a name spattered with the blood of history.\u00a0 It is a name that fits in a manger.\u00a0 It is a name that cries out for response.\u00a0 It is a winter name, a name in the dark, a name that sends a fierce, cold wind across the unbroken heart.\u00a0 We feel a chill.\u00a0 And.\u00a0 It is a name that burns a bright flame for every kind of love.\u00a0 It warms us now.\u00a0 It is a name that charms fears, opens prisons, brings music of life and health and peace.\u00a0 The Matthean angel gives another name, particular, not universal, a name that means one thing, not everything, a hedgehog name not a fox name.\u00a0 A name that is above every name.\u00a0 Whose birth do we celebrate anyway?<\/p>\n

\u201cHis name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save his people from their sin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesus is a personal name.\u00a0 The angel voice of the Lord gives a sermon, interprets.\u00a0 The angel replaces Emmanuel, and gives the name Jesus, which means, being translated, \u201che will save\u201d or \u201cGod saves\u201d. \u00a0Mary did not give birth to the object of an airy belief in the general proposition that God is with us, somehow, somewhere, anyhow, anywhere. She bore a son, Jesus, who saves from sin.\u00a0 This is a different, strange, stern name.\u00a0 It has personal, profound meaning for you and me.<\/p>\n

It means, bluntly, that God enters your life to get you free from your besetting sin. \u00a0Not in trees, dreams, votes, words, or committees, but in person.\u00a0 \u2018He will save his people from their sin.\u2019\u00a0 You will know him\u2014if he be known at all\u2014as He saves you.\u00a0 Christ was born to save.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To save a globe from the sin of climate exhaust<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To save a world from the sin of nuclear holocaust<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To save a nation from the sin of pride<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To save a generation from the sin of greed<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To save a church from the sin of self-congratulation<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To save a man from alcohol, a woman from suicide, a boy<\/p>\n

\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 from drugs, a girl from opioids, a family from disaster<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To save his people from their sin<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To save souls, to set us on the road to heaven<\/p>\n

Angel voice:<\/em>\u00a0 such is the name of Jesus, a name that cries out for response.\u00a0 A name that cries out for a people who can acknowledge and confess their sin, who learn the necessity of saying please, thank you and I\u2019m sorry.\u00a0 Can we become that kind of people? \u00a0A people who name God not everything but one thing, the way to freedom from bondage?\u00a0 Can we become that kind of people?\u00a0 A people who can share this:\u00a0 there is a transforming friendship through which all manner of entrapment dies.\u00a0 It is a lifelong process, and it is process of a gradually deepening friendship with Jesus Christ, in person, who saves us, his people from our sin.\u00a0 Can this friendship be ours?\u00a0 The Angel Voice commends its path to you.<\/p>\n

Coda<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

He whom Isaiah called Emmanuel, the Angel further named, or renamed Jesus.\u00a0 Strange, difficult, stern.\u00a0 The wondrous news from the darkness, if you can hear and believe an angel, is not just that God is with <\/em>us, but that truly God is for <\/em>us (repeat). \u00a0The good news is not only that God is with us, but also that God is for us.<\/p>\n

(Matthew 1 in Greek): \u03a4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b4\u1f72 \u1f38\u03b7\u03c3\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03a7\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f21 \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f55\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f26\u03bd. \u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03c3\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b7\u03c4\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u039c\u03b1\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff7 \u1f38\u03c9\u03c3\u03ae\u03c6, \u03c0\u03c1\u1f76\u03bd \u1f22 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03bb\u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f51\u03c1\u03ad\u03b8\u03b7 \u1f10\u03bd \u03b3\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u1f76 \u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b1 \u1f10\u03ba \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f01\u03b3\u03af\u03bf\u03c5. \u1f38\u03c9\u03c3\u1f74\u03c6 \u03b4\u1f72 \u1f41 \u1f00\u03bd\u1f74\u03c1 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2, \u03b4\u03af\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f62\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u1f74 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9, \u1f10\u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b7 \u03bb\u03ac\u03b8\u03c1\u1fb3 \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03ae\u03bd. \u03c4\u03ad\u03be\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c5\u1f31\u1f78\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f44\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f38\u03b7\u03c3\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd\u00b7 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u03c3\u03ce\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03bb\u03b1\u1f78\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f00\u03c0\u1f78 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f01\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03c4\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd.<\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service Isaiah 7: 10-16 Romans 1:1-7 Matthew 1:18-25 Click here to hear just the sermon Frontispiece Late one night a few years ago snow was falling lightly in the far north, along the St. Lawrence.\u00a0 They know snow there, on the river bank.\u00a0 Coming over the border from Canada, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2579"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2599,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2579\/revisions\/2599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}