Scripture scholars, with their careful study, indicate that what we call the Infancy Narratives of Jesus (Matthew chapters 1-2, and Luke chapters 1-2) were added after the remainder of their respective gospels were completed. And, of course, as with all the gospel accounts, the Infancy Narratives are theological statements directed to each one’s (Jewish or Gentile Christian) audience. They are composed to support the faith of their communities.

The Scripture readings for Advent have been selected to help move believers through this season with increasing awareness of the various comings of the Christ (in history, in each moment, at the end of times as we know them). This past week I was struck by the two “annunciations” almost at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 1:5-25 and Luke 1:26-38). The angel Gabriel is sent by God, first to the elderly priest, Zechariah, while he burned incense in the Temple at Jerusalem, and then to the very young woman in Nazareth, just going about her daily chores, named Mary.

Zechariah and Mary are both disturbed by the sudden appearance of this heavenly messenger. Gabriel reassures them that they have nothing to fear. Easy for him to say! Neither of these two are used to God’s personal envoy showing up unannounced. But from there, the responses of Zechariah and of Mary differ greatly.

Gabriel announces to Zechariah that God has heard his prayer. He and his wife, Elizabeth, will be having a son who will have an important role in God’s process of salvation – like a second coming of the awesome prophet, Elijah. The mighty angel even gives a name for the son to come, John.

Instead of being immediately filled with joy, Zechariah asks, “How can I know this?” And reminds the angel that he and Elizabeth are old.  Gabriel replies, “Look man, God sent me to give you this good news, but since you doubt, you will not be able to speak until all this is fulfilled. Sure enough, the old priest becomes mute. 

Six months after Elizabeth becomes pregnant, Gabriel show up in the little insignificant Galilean village where Mary, fiancée of a man named Joseph, lives. The angel begins by greeting her as one who has “found favor with God.” Mary is taken aback. “What might this mean,” she wonders. Gabriel offers what he obviously considers to be comforting words, and explains that God is asking her to bear a son and to name this son, Jesus. He continues with how great this child will grow up to be – a new David who will rule God’s people forever.

Mary asks the very concrete and highly practical question, “How can this happen since I haven’t had intercourse?” Gabriel basically answers, “Leave that up to God. God will bring it about.” And quickly follows up with news that Elizabeth will be having a son, also, in about three months. That’s enough for Mary. She replies, “I am God’s servant, may it be so as you say.”

Zechariah asks for some kind of proof. “How can I know this?” He is more focused on what he imagines he and Elizabeth are capable of than on what God can do. Zechariah has been praying exactly for a son, but seems to have lost confidence that this is possible, even for God. He represents the wearied faith of his people. He hesitates, but God knows his deeper desire.

Mary asks a straightforward functional question. “How can this come about, given my reality as it is today?” There’s no indication that, at this point in her betrothal, she has been praying for a son, much less a “new David,” conceived through God’s grace. She represents the faithful response of her people and their deep longing for a Savior. Most likely that is what she would have been praying for. Mary, unlike Zechariah, is open to let God be God, to let God determine what can be.

Each day is given to us as an annunciation of new possibilities. Do we tend to respond like Mary, with openness and trust? Are we too used to reacting out of doubt and fear, like Zechariah? God is bigger than our expectations, emotions, and what feel like hard facts. We have a choice on how we will welcome God’s invitations to more.

The United States has just gone through one of the most tumultuous elections in recent history. Countless people are emotionally battered and bruised on all sides. A small majority of voters feel that they have “won”. For those who were wanting, with their whole being, their candidate to prevail, only to fall short, there are feelings of pain, loss, and maybe even fear with the outcome. Perhaps they are searching social media to discover how this “terrible thing” could have happened. The same media that had fueled their previous optimism! They had invested so much personal energy, and now sense that they have come up empty. The others, “them,” are rejoicing. 

We are trained to win, and to avoid losing at all costs. Where will those who feel defeated look for hope now? Will they turn again to the same less than reliable sources that brought them to believe that their side would, and had to, win, or else their world would fall to pieces? What now?

In the Eighth Chapter of the Gospel of Mark (Mark 8:11-13) Jesus has just recrossed the Sea of Galilee. He has been healing, liberating, and nourishing people’s spirits and bodies. The poor, simple people are beginning to feel that they have not been forgotten and abandoned by God. They have a basis for hope. They feel loved and cared for.

Some Pharisees meet Jesus and confront him. They demand that he produce for them a clear sign from heaven as proof of his legitimacy. They have been continually probing and testing him. Jesus sighs deeply in exasperation (know the feeling?). He responds, “Why does this generation demand a sign? The truth is, no sign shall be given it.” With that, Jesus gets back into the boat to go to the other side.

What credentials could Jesus have produced for those who had wholeheartedly committed themselves to proving that Jesus was a fraud? They wanted to show to all that Jesus was an enemy of the Law, therefore an enemy of the people, and of God. They were blinded by their total focus on the result they desired more than anything. 

Too many people in our time are suffering from depression. Where do we look for reasons to keep moving forward day after day? What do we rely on to lift us and to help us to see that life continues to be worth investing ourselves in? Have we, too, become blinded to all that is around and within us?

God is still alive and well. Jesus’ work of healing and lifting people out of their imposed misery goes on. Goodness is all around us, despite “the facts” that seem to define our world. If we are looking to ground our hope in anything or anyone other than God, we will miss the wonderful signs that fill our lives.

The narratives of Jesus’ birth in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were added much later to the story of his life, ministry, teaching, crucifixion and resurrection. Maybe people were wondering about Jesus’ origins. As with everything about the Gospels, these depictions of Jesus’ infancy were not so much about historical facts, but were all about their theological message.

Matthew wanted to make it very clear that Jesus was the Messiah the Israelites had been waiting and hoping for so long. Yet it is the non-Jewish Wise Men from the East who recognize him. His own people, by and large, could not.

Luke’s aim was to show that Jesus belonged to all people, came from a humble background, so it is the shepherds, simple people who, because of their work were not able to keep all the details of Jewish Law, that receive the heavenly message and come to honor this wonderful, newborn baby. The important people missed the opportunity.

The last verse of Luke’s version of Jesus’ birth and childhood (Luke 2:52) notes that Jesus grew in wisdom, maturity, and grace before God and humanity. The mystery of God’s presence, in and through Jesus, is known as the Incarnation. Jesus is the enfleshment of God in human history.There is in him, seamlessly, both the human and the divine – however that can possibly be! But it seems that we have a tendency to think that what is divine in Jesus dominates and diminishes the human dimension.

The God part surely must have been overpowering, right? This isn’t what Christians believe. In the Letter to the Philippians, (Philippians 2:6-11) Paul quotes an ancient Christian hymn that says that the Son emptied himself of any divine advantage and embraced our humanity fully, from conception through death and beyond. Jesus is exactly like us, temptations and all, except that we sin (Hebrews 4:15). 

We grow and develop. Jesus grew and developed, like us, over time, little by little. He grew in wisdom, which is much more than knowledge. Wisdom is a gift of the Holy Spirit, given to those who are open to learn from their experiences and sufferings.

Jesus matured, which is more than just growing older. His body developed and changed, as did he mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. He outgrew childhood and childishness. His ability to respond augmented – even his ability to respond to God.

Jesus advanced in grace before God and humanity. His ability to welcome and incorporate Abba-God’s inspirations became more and more acute. And all this showed in the way he interacted with others. They could recognize something grace-full about him.

Jesus grew. We grow. This means that we have the same capacities as Jesus to become more and more fully who God desires us to be. We just need to let God take the lead. Then we, too, will grow in wisdom, maturity, and grace. And it will show.

Maybe it’s been this way forever, but we weren’t aware. Growing up there were no social media through which the whole world flows into ours, and not always gently. Today we can know, with great detail, the wonders and the atrocities happening around us. Often this bombardment fills us with a sense of discomfort and inner unrest. Anxiety is intensely attacking us. Even very young children are suffering and em from this atmosphere of anxiousness.

I’m not sure that the churches don’t, perhaps unwittingly, contribute to feelings of interior agitation. A message, not from Jesus, might come forth from them that sows seeds of doubt about one’s goodness and eternal fate. Society can put out the warning that there’s something very wrong with you if you don’t (behave, dress, think, choose, etc.) as the current norms or style dictate. Anxiety is coming at us from all sides. How might we deal with it?

The final verses of Matthew’s Gospel Chapter 11 (Matthew 11:29) give us a clue. Jesus first says, “Take my yoke and put it on.” Yoke was one of the words used by the Israelites to refer to the Law. Over time, the Law became translated into 613 commandments, instead of the Ten. It became very difficult for the average person to follow the Law then. Only a privileged few succeeded. What is this yoke that Jesus asks us to put on? He condensed the Law into love God, love neighbor, love self. Still not easy, but much simpler.

Then Jesus says, “Learn from me.” He offers his own life, rooted in God’s absolute and all-embracing love, as an example. When we focus on God’s love and not on all the ways we might get life wrong and get lost, we don’t need to pay as much attention to the other voices expecting, or demanding, us to live according to their rules. Jesus, alone, is our model and reference.

Jesus continues, “For I am meek and humble at core.” It helps to understand the virtues of meekness and humility as practiced by Jesus. Meekness is in no way weakness. Meekness is strength that doesn’t need to prove itself by making others feel it. If we are strong, in some way, thanks be to God! The meek person is confident of his/her strength, and knows it comes from God. There is no type of bullying in meekness. Humility on the other hand is both knowing and embracing the truth about ourselves – we are neither God nor trash – but little, gifted and beloved. And that’s okay.

The end of this verse is, “And you will find rest for yourselves.” If we know we are loved by God, and we know who we are and don’t need to prove anything, interior rest will be ours. If we are trying to love ourselves and those around us as our way of loving God, of course imperfectly (perfection is neither human nor a virtue, God knows us better than we know ourselves, that we’re meant to be perfectly imperfect), we can be at peace. There are no artificially manufactured demands on us from within us or from anyone else. This is Jesus’ antidote to anxiety.

British Scripture Scholar, J. B. Phillips put it this way: “Give as you’ve received, without any charge whatsoever.” In the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 10:8), Jesus is sending out the Twelve on their first solo mission. He gives them some instructions, including this reminder.

How quickly we forget. Religion has sadly, and too frequently become associated with money – large quantities of it. From the selling of indulgences and high offices, to the mega-churches preaching the “prosperity gospel,” we have fallen again and again into the money-power connection. Those with much money have the ear of those at the top. Those with less means can wait their turn in the outer chamber.

Perhaps if church leaders in every age had been rooted in the Gospel that Jesus proclaimed, and had listened to the prophetic voices around them, we would not have the painful divisions among us. This scandal of disunity greatly hinders people from other religions to take Christianity seriously. We have been given a rich and beautiful message to share, but the witness of our lives too often doesn’t match. We need to walk the walk, not just say the right words.

This saying about receiving and giving first struck me back in the late 1960s. Our whole faith is rooted in Jesus, who is the epitome of grace – free gift of God. If we think about it we can probably see that all that we are and have has been given to us, directly or indirectly. If we are able to do anything, others have given us life, raised us, taught us, trained us, guided us, etc. If we have anything, or have become anything, we may have cooperated with the gifts given us, but they are still gifts. We are not to claim them or hoard them, as if they were our possessions.

The invitation is to give freely, without charge. Certainly we wouldn’t think of making our family members or friends or others pay for what we share with them. But we can put a price on our gifts – not money of course. We have a tendency to attach an emotional or psychological toll to our giving. People who know us well have come to realize that if they accept our offer of help, it will cost them. If we have this tendency, it would be more honest just to ask for money.

The gift-tax we charge might be expected praise from the receiver, or a certain action or behavior, or a feeling of inferiority and indebtedness in them or favors in return. It is no surprise if they avoid asking us for anything else. Jesus points us to the boundless generosity of the Supreme Giver. God gives all freely, expecting nothing in return, and invites us to follow suit as best we can. We have received so much!

There are several sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospels that are difficult to understand. Probably many of them are lost on us because of the different customs, popular phrases of that time, and not always being able to know who, exactly, is the audience being addressed by each particular passage. The land and culture of Palestine 2,000 years ago is quite different than the global, media-driven reality of 2024. This is not to say that we have any better grasp of what life means today than we do of life in the time of Jesus.

One of these sayings that always puzzles me is in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 8:18-22). Jesus has realized that his mission is larger just than being the local healer in Capernaum. Their were still crowds of people pressing around him to be cured and freed from their “demons,” when he gave the order to his disciples to go over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, to get on with their broader mission.

Right at the moment of their departure, a teacher of the Law approached Jesus and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go!’ Jesus, instead of responding, “Follow me,” uses examples from nature to give this learned man a picture of the cost of discipleship, what it will mean to follow him. “Foxes have their dens, and birds have their nests, but the Son of Man has (read “I have”) nowhere to lay his (my) head.” Jesus is saying, “Look friend, if you follow me, you will not have a nice, quiet space, and hour upon hour to study the Law. I don’t even know where I will sleep tonight.”

At that point, one of Jesus’ followers says to him, “I’m ready to follow you, Lord, just let me go home and bury my father first.” Jesus answers, “You follow me now, let the dead bury their own dead.” Sounds harsh. This disciple only wants to fulfill his duties as a son. What does Jesus mean? 

In countries with hot climates, either wet or arid, those who die are buried very quickly, because the corpse begins to decay rapidly. And the average person cannot afford the luxury of embalming. So, this disciple is saying, “My father is alive now, but he will die sooner rather than later. I’ll wait at home until then. After his death, I’m all yours.”

Jesus, with his enigmatic reply is saying, “Let those who have crafted their lives into a coffin of certitude and security take care of those who are similarly dead. You follow me into the adventure of insecurity and uncertainty of those who choose to be alive to the challenges and invitations of this moment, and entrust themselves to the security of God’s promise of love. This is how you will help to bring to birth God’s Kingdom more fully today.”

Jesus had a great sense of urgency about his mission. He didn’t know how much time he would have to do what Abba God is asking of him – to proclaim, and to inaugurate, the coming of God’s Kingdom. Anyone who chooses to follow him needs to have the same sense of urgency. “Now is the time! The Kingdom of God is at hand! Are you committed to this, or not?” A response of, “Yes, I will, but…” is lacking the necessary immediacy. There’s work to be done! Just look around you!

What are we waiting to have happen before we do what we can to make our world a better place for all?  What are our excuses and rationalizations for not acting decisively for what we know is right and good? How are we proclaiming and bringing about God’s Kingdom of Love, Truth, Freedom, Justice, Peace today? How do our lives demonstrate a priority and commitment to promote, here and now, these Kingdom values? How alive are we?

Now to the second gospel passage mentioned in the last post. Jesus has been trying to get his disciples to focus on and to accept the reality of the moment. He’s told them what history teaches, prophets who push against the status quo end up, not in glory, but, too frequently, dead. After all they’re on their way to Jerusalem, the center of the power brokers who cling to the letter of the Law in their attempt to keep God pleased with them (and, by the way, keep themselves in positions of privilege and power.) The disciples don’t get it. They’re still arguing about which of them is the greatest. Who’s going to have top billing in the new kingdom which Jesus is about to establish?

In the Gospel of Mark (Mark 9;38-40), John, again, comes hurrying up to Jesus to warn him that someone, “who’s not one of us,” is using Jesus’ name to drive out demons from suffering people – whatever demons meant at that time. John continues, “We tried to stop him because he doesn’t belong to us.” As if to say, “We’re the only ones who have the right to help people using your name.” Jesus’ reply is telling. “Don’t stop anyone from doing powerful deeds for good. Whoever does this in my name can’t be opposed to us.” Then Jesus adds, “Anyone who is not against us, is for us.”

From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus has consistently taught that God’s family is not limited by blood, nationality, manner of worship, or social status (not even the designation of “sinner” excludes someone.) When he’s told that his family is outside the crowded house in which he is proclaiming God’s Word, Jesus asserts that anyone who takes in God’s Word and puts it into action in their lives, however they can, is his family – like all those around him who are hungering and thirsting for his message of an all-embracing, all-loving God. And like his mother, who struggled to understand him and his mission. She also treasured and lived God’s Word as best she could.

Our world still suffers from this disease of tribalism. We feel more secure thinking we can pigeonhole people, nations, and religions. Whatever they are, they’re not like us. It’s not possible that they belong, because they’re so different. We’re right, so they can’t be. Jesus invites us to recognize any good that people do, and to acknowledge that the source of all good is God – even if they who do good don’t believe in God, or at least not like we do. Look for the good that people are doing, and thank God. Our tribes tend to be too small. God’s tribe is incredibly extensive and wonderfully inclusive. 

Shortly after King Solomon died, the people of Israel split into two kingdoms, due to the short-sighted and immature leadership of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, who succeeded him. Rehoboam refused to listen to the wisdom of his more experienced and older advisors who counseled him to begin gently with the people. Instead, Rehoboam followed the advice his young buddies who told him that he must be hard and demanding. There was rebellion. Two tribes chose to stick with Rehoboam, and the Temple in Jerusalem. These became known as the Judeans.

The other group of ten tribes went north to the area we know as Samaria, chose their own king and set up a holy place in Bethel. The animosity between these two “kingdoms” of brothers only grew over time due to mutual grievances and reprisals, big and small. They called themselves the Kingdom of Israel.

When the northern tribes were conquered by the Assyrians, in 721 BC, The Assyrians, as was common practice, took all the people of wealth, skill, education and power into exile, under their eye, and transplanted captives from various other nations in Samaria. This greatly reduced the likelihood of rebellion against the captors.

Now the population of Samaria consisted of the poor, ignorant, and incapacitated Israelites, and those from other nations and religious traditions. This mixing of religions only increased their loathsomeness in the sight of the “pure” Judeans. In short, the Judeans hated the Samaritans. The Samaritans despised the Judeans. This tradition of enmity was faithfully passed on down from generation to generation.

Which brings us to a couple of gospel passages. The first, in Luke’s Gospel, the turning point in the action happens near the end of Chapter Nine (Luke 9:51-56). Jesus has determined that it is time to confront his fate, and so turns resolutely in the direction of Jerusalem. He senses that it is only in the Holy City that the kingdom he came to announce could really receive significant impetus. The most direct route to Jerusalem crosses the territory of Samaria.

Jesus, when he travelled with his band of disciples, would send messengers ahead of them into the towns on their way, to prepare the townsfolk, and to make ready for any hospitality he and his group might require. Very shortly after beginning the journey, Jesus sends the Sons of Zebedee, James and John, ahead with this task. The first village these two enter refused to offer welcome to Jesus and his followers because their destination was Jerusalem, the hated capital of their bitter enemies.

James and John, instead of going on to the next town, return to Jesus to ask, “Master, do you want us to call down fire from Heaven to consume that inhospitable place?” (No wonder Jesus nicknamed those brothers, “Boanerges” or “Sons of Thunder”!) Jesus responds, “No way, let’s move on.” It is as much to say, “Keep your eyes on the goal, and live like you are part of God’s Kingdom, not continuing the rivalries and hatreds of the past. Like it or not, we are all brothers and sisters.” We all belong to the same “tribe”.