Psalm 17:3-7; Matthew 1:18-25
Fourth Sunday in Advent 2013This Advent and Christmas season is certainly a special time of year to recognize and celebrate labors of love. Especially the quite extraordinary ones that start out small but then blossom to have a big, beautiful, blessed impact on world.
One such small labor of
love was started in 2003 by a man named Bob Carey for his wife, Linda. Bob is a photographer. He finds his work to be all about the
reaction, getting people to think.
Linda gives a glowing report about how he isn’t afraid to be himself, to
really put himself out there, and about how really knows how to make her
laugh.
Being this way, Bob came up with a
uniquely selfless labor of love to offer comfort and encouragement during Linda’s
treatment for an aggressive form of breast cancer. This kind-eyed, gentle-smiling man with a bit
of bearish build decided … are you ready for this? … to put on a pink tutu and
little else and then take several self-portraits in various locations. The over-the-top photos had the desired
effect of inspiring her laughter and of helping them both stay positive as she endured
grueling rounds of radiation and chemo therapy.
What happened next was
simply wonderful and I believe divinely blessed. Linda
freely shared these photos with her fellow patients. It’s not hard to imagine the empowering buzz
this created. Inspired by Bob and
referring to her treatment, one fellow patient I saw interviewed on the Today
Show said, “I immediately felt like, ok, I can do this.”
Recognizing the broader
positive impact of his labor of love, Bob decided to create more self-portraits.
And then a website, www.thetutuproject.com,
to post them on. It’s global popularity then
led to his starting a non-profit foundation to raise funds in support of all
kinds of cancer-related costs. Countless
people have been helped and inspired by this husband’s decision to offer a bold
and beautiful labor of love.
And I have to say, for such a quirky concept,
his artistic work is really quite well done.
I can see how his locations and posturing resonate even more deeply than
his tutu wearing with the pink advocacy color.
I think the one of Bob standing mid-stage surrounded by white swan
ballerinas at the Metropolitan Opera House is my favorite … or maybe it’s the
one of him with his back towards us while standing at Lincoln’s feet in Washington,
DC … or it could just be the one of him atop a crumpled stone wall just across
the water way from a blue bridge at Roosevelt Lake in Arizona. Truth is, they are all my favorites and I’m delighted
to celebrate the work of this fellow human being.
There are thousands of
stories like this to be discovered and celebrated and, pray God, emulated in new
ways. I encourage you to find them as
2013 sets and 2014 dawns. By being on
the lookout for and identifying little labors of love, we can help them to grow
into even greater blessings. And
significantly for today, this fourth Sunday in Advent, so close to Tuesday’s
evening worship services … our doing so will honor the long ago loving labor of
another very special husband.
I’m speaking, of course,
about Joseph. Now you may say, “Wait a
minute, Pastor Rich, we just heard in Matthew 1:18 that he and Mary were only
engaged.” True enough, but understand
that in the Jewish culture of their day, engagement was more than a social
matter. It was a legal contract. So in the eyes of religious law, they were for
all intents and purposes husband and wife.
This is important to understand because there were legal protocols in
place for breaking off an engagement.
Especially, say, if a husband was to be given the utterly shocking news
that his betrothed had become pregnant … knowing full well they had yet to live
together or consummate their union.
We all know this is what
happened, though Matthew doesn’t give the precise details about how Joseph was
told. But believing her to have been
unfaithful, I understand he had two legal options – bringing her to public
trial with the likely outcome of her being sentenced to death by stoning (study
Deuteronomy 22:20 and Numbers 5:11-32) or avoiding this by more discreetly divorcing
her.
Regarding that crucial, conflicted
time of decision making, a popular fellow preacher writes that “We’re not used
to this. We’re accustomed to thinking
about the beauty and wonder of the birth of Jesus, and that’s appropriate. But let’s not forget the distress, sense of
betrayal, disappointment, and a host of other emotions that Joseph must have
experienced, or the fear and hurt that Mary would likely have also felt as they
sorted out their divinely complex relationship.”
This fellow preacher asks
this of us because by not forgetting this, we can more fully relate to Joseph
and Mary, imagine ourselves in their sandals and really realize that like us,
they were “people who go through all kinds of things, some quite damaging, and
yet whom God uses nevertheless to accomplish God’s purposes.”[i]
Wouldn’t you say there
is truly no better time to offer labors of love that have a chance to grow and
glorify God then when life’s most messy?
The forgiveness, the healing, the reconciliation, the need to turn tears
and fears into laughter and hope … it’s honestly got to start someplace.
So Joseph, we are
reminded in Matthew’s Gospel, “planned to dismiss her quietly.” (Matthew 1:19). Being a “righteous” man, he chose this labor
of love not just for Mary, but even more so as
a labor of God’s love, of holy mercy.
He took the holy high road.
And he stayed on it,
even in his restless sleep … for God’s will was even clearer to him when he
next awoke. Through divine revelation in
the deep watches of the night, it came to him that his labor of love was for a
magnificently more merciful purpose. It
was not just to save Mary from stoning or to help him socially save face. His labor of love helped fulfill God’s
purpose of bringing about the birth of the Savior of the whole world! To be fully present to this, Joseph
understood he was not to dismiss her after all. He was to stand faithfully by her side come
what may. He was to humbly embrace the
holy calling of being step-father to Emmanuel, God with us, to Jesus.
This was a choice,
another colleague of ministry has written, that “he could never have expected
to make and yet, it was also a dilemma which will parallel one we will probably
all face at one time or another as we sort out how we are called to do the
right thing in a situation that at first seems all wrong. I’ve seen it happen,” she writes, “and so
have you. This story of Joseph gets live out again and again and again.”[ii]
Throughout this year of
2013 -- with its Lenten, Easter, Advent, and regular holy time seasons now come
to pass -- what little labors of God’s love have you offered? Gifted to those who were most in need of acceptance,
bold support, holy mercy? Gifts that by
God’s grace then blossomed into big, beautiful blessings for many others?
This week and on into
2014, as we faithfully and continually celebrate God’s amazing labor of love who
is Jesus Christ, know that I’m truly not expecting to see photos of any of you adults
in pink tutus. And I guarantee you won’t
see any of me! But I do fully hope to labor
on in the Lord with you all by carrying healing laughter and profound hope and humbly
righteous love to support people’s lives.
By grace and through faith, may
we be sure to cultivate this caring, Christ-mass culture in our homes, here at
FPC and through all of our relationships and communities. Amen!
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