An Upside Down Christmas

Luke 1:47-55

You may have heard this before, but several years ago (41 to be more precise) I had the opportunity to do a youth internship with a church in Wellington, New Zealand.

When I left North Carolina, it was February.  Spring was just around the corner.  The days were already beginning to get longer.  But when I got down under to New Zealand, they told me it was already fall.  The days kept getting shorter and shorter till June 21.  By the fourth of July it was cold and rainy and windy. 

But by September, things started to warm up.  The days became longer.  The summer solstice occurred on December 21.  Then everyone closed up shop and headed for the beach.  It was Christmas.  Yes there were Christmas trees and nativity scenes and believers celebrated the coming of the Christ child.  We sang about the gold and the green and the sparkle.  But there was no snow—only a warm white sandy beach.  This was an upside down Christmas.

So maybe you can understand why, every once in a while I try to sneak in this beautiful carol by New Zealand hymn writer, Shirley Murray:

Carol our Christmas, an upside down Christmas;

Snow is not falling and trees are not bare,

Carol the summer, and welcome the Christ child,

Warm in our sunshine and sweetness of air. 

The young woman named Mary, whom we meet in our text from Luke, had no way of knowing about an upside down Christmas in New Zealand.  Yet, as far as this ancient Mary was concerned that first Christmas was very much an upside down Christmas.  And Mary had her own upside down carol to sing—which we will get to in a moment.

 

But first, let me review the situation.  Mary was a nice young woman.  She was engaged to guy named Joseph.  She had never had sex with Joseph or anyone else.  She was good girl--doing all the right things.  Making all the right plans.  Then God came along. 

Now the way God saw things, God was simply going to do a wonderful thing.  God likes to do wonderful things—at Christmas time and other times.  What God was going to do was pay a visit to this little planet earth, which was only a tiny speck in God's vast dominion of creation.   

 

But the way Mary saw things, God turned her world upside, with a message.  The message came through an angel, which can be an upsetting experience.  The angel announced that Mary would bear a son.  Her finance, this guy Joseph, would not be the biological father.  The child would be called Son of Most High.  And God would give to this child the throne of David.

What an honor!  I'll be the king's mom.  My son will be a hero!  Everybody will look up to him.  And I will be famous.  But wait a minute.  I'm not married.  This is 7 BCE and everybody expects everybody to have a mommy and a daddy who are married to each other.  What will the people say?  What will Joseph say?  What a disgrace.

Mary was perplexed.  And Luke says she did a lot of pondering.  "All right, Mary said--if this is what God wants, this is what God wants: "Let it be according to your word."

Then Luke gives us this beautiful Christmas carol that Mary sang about her upside down Christmas.

My soul magnifies the Lord.  My spirit rejoices in God my Savior"

"God has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud....

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones

And lifted the hungry with good things,

And sent the rich away empty. 

 

Do you understand what Mary was singing?  God has turned my little world upside down.  Now God is going to turn the whole world upside down.  It is sort of unsettling.  God is going to drive the powerful from their position of power.  God is about to feed the poor and send the rich away hungry.  God is getting ready to dislodge, disrupt, and disturb.  Dislodge the powerful.  Disrupt the status quo.  And disturb the comfortable.

And what did God do?  Think about the Christmas story for a minute.

The almighty God of the universe came into the world.  How did God come into the world?  Not as a king, but as a baby.  Who was the mother that bore this child?  A princess or a queen?  No this poor unwed mother named Mary.  And that disturbed a lot of people.

Now where should a prince be born?  In a palace of course.  That's the usual lodging of a king.  But God dislodged the story from our usual thinking.  Where was the baby born?  No in a stinking stable.  And who first got the Good News that God had come to be with us?  Members of the Cabinet?  The Roman Ambassador?  Folks who were comfortable with their comfort?  Oh no.  God had not come to honor the comfortable.  God had come to disturb the comfortable.  No, it was shepherds, working the night shift out in the fields.  An ordinary bunch of farm hands who first went to the manager to see the baby Jesus...

But the Christmas story doesn't end at the manager.  In time the baby grew up to be an adult.  He became a teacher.  Soon his teachings and his miracles were drawing national attention.  Here was a man on the way to top.  Was this the next poster boy for Focus on the Family?  Oh no!  Jesus was disturbing, disrupting and dislodging a lot of comfortable folks.  Look at the people that hung around him: crooked tax collectors, prostitutes, political fanatics and the poor. 

And where did all this disturbing, dislodging and disrupting lead for Jesus?  Did they crown him king?  You probably remember the story.  That led him to a cross and gave him a crown of thorns.

And later after it was all over--after Easter and Pentecost had passed, how did the world view those who followed his way?  Roman documents tell us that Christians were called atheists because they rejected the family values of the Romans.

And even Luke, in his second volume called the book of Acts reports the charge the enemies of the church were bringing against the church: 

"These people --these Christians-- are turning the whole world upside down."

 My soul magnifies the Lord.  My spirit rejoices in God my Savior"

"God has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud....

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones

And lifted the hungry with good things,

And sent the rich away empty. 

Today is December 16, 2007.  Here in the Northern Hemisphere the shortest day of the year comes on Friday.  For those of you who are counting, Christmas is only 10 days away.  Christmas is a day of celebration, comfort, and joy.  Christmas is always right side up—for everybody.  Or is it. 

I don't want to disturb you too much.  I don't want you to be too uncomfortable with Christmas.  But as I recall the words of Mary Magnificat, I am reminded there is more to Christmas than Frank Sinatra dreaming of a White Christmas through a Muzak speaker in the mall.      

This Christmas as you look at the Baby Jesus--take another look--a hard look...  He is not all that cuddly and comfortable.  He's not here to tell you that the world is all that nice.  He's not here to help us justify our comfort.  Actually he's here to make us uncomfortable.  He's here to bring down the powerful from their thrones.  He's here to turn the world upside down.

This Christmas take another look at the manger scene.  This is how God chose to come into the world.  As you look at the baby Jesus resting peaceful in his Cretch, try looking at Christmas through the eyes of a mother and daughter I saw sleeping on the streets of the tony Georgetown section of Washington DC.  I didn't stop to ask their names.  And I know that the issues of homeless are complex.  So just pray for all the homeless people this Christmas.  Pray that they may find shelter and hope.

If you see the Nutcracker this year, try looking at the world through the eyes of a Russian Ballet Dancer, held prisoner a Guantonomo Bay.  His crime—having a name that sounded similar to the name of someone who was suspected of being a terrorist.  I heard this man's story last year at Little River from the lawyer who, in spite of many obstacles, was trying to give him meager representation.  I don't remember the prisoner's name.  It was Russian and I sometimes forget Russian names.  So just pray for all the prisoners in Guantonomo this Christmas.  Pray that they may treated with justice and fairness.

  If you enjoy a Smithfield Christmas Ham this Christmas, try looking at the world through the eyes and hands of the workers who processed that ham.  According to a resolution passed at this summer's annual meeting of the Central Atlantic Conference the meat packers work under unsafe conditions.  They are discouraged from reporting injuries and seeing their family physicians for injuries suffered at the work place.  The workers live in an upside down world.  They are on the downside.  The management, which rules by threats and intimidation, is on the upside.  I don't know the names of the individual workers at Smithfield.  But pray for all of them and pray for the management too—that justice and fairness may prevail.

Maybe what I am suggesting sounds like strange prayers for Christmas.  But you know how it is.  We're UCCers.  And I'm a UCC pastor.  We look at the world a little different from most folks.  That just part of who we are. 

Oh yes, and one other thing.  This Christmas, remember Mary.  Remember Mary—she had another way of looking at the upsides people of this world and the downside people.

My soul magnifies the Lord.  My spirit rejoices in God my Savior"

"God has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud....

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones

And lifted the hungry with good things,

And sent the rich away empty. 

Remember Mary and look at Christmas in a different way.  Looking at Christmas as God's big upside down event.  Remember God who came into this world dislodging, disrupting and disturbing.  Dislodging the powerful.  Disrupting the status quo.  And disturbing the comfortable.  Remember God.  And remember who side you are on.

Christmas has nothing to do with the dates on the calendar, or the reports from the weather person on TV or even the hemisphere in which you were born. 

But Christmas has everything to do with the Almighty God of the universe who came into this world as a little baby.  Christmas has everything to do with the way that babe turned the world upside down?  And Christmas has everything to do with the way you follow in his footsteps.

Right side up Christmas belongs to the universe,

Made in the moment a woman give birth

Hope is the Jesus gift, love is the offering,

Everywhere, anywhere here on the earth.

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