A
high school English teacher moves to the blackboard at the beginning of class
and writes these words in chalk, “A woman without her man is nothing”. “Today’s assignment,” the teacher announces,
“is to give this statement correct punctuation.” All the young men in the class write, “A
woman, with her man, is nothing.” The
young women, on the other hand, have a different take: “A woman: without her,
man is nothing!”
John
Gray’s 1992 book Men Are from Mars, Women
are from Venus has sold more than 50 million copies. Although roundly criticized as being
stereotypical in its approach to gender descriptions, the book has helped men
and women understand each other better.
Gray contends men and women approach life in such different ways it is
as if we are from different planets.
Each gender, he says, is acclimated to its own planet’s society and
customs, which is completely foreign to the other gender.
One
example of our differences is how each gender typically responds to
stress. Men, when faced with difficult
problems or situations, tend to become non-communicative so they can work out
how best to respond. Gray calls this “retreating
to the cave.” Women, responding in an
entirely different manner, become communicative so others can help them work
through their options and opportunities.
For women, often the solution is not as important as the opportunity to
express emotions and to receive empathy.
Again, Gray’s approach has been criticized for relying on stereotypes,
but behind many stereotypes often there is an element of truth.
Most
of what we know about the birth of Jesus is drawn from the Gospel’s of Matthew
and Luke. While we tend to fold together
the elements of each version, the two gospels present two distinct and very
different stories. Luke is focused on
Mary. An angel tells her she will bear
the Son of God. She responds by singing
the Magnificat. True to Gray’s thinking
about stressful situations, Mary travels to visit her cousin Elizabeth. They greet one another and there is more
singing. Luke tells us about the census
and the journey to Bethlehem. He tells
us about the birth in a stable and the visiting shepherds. It is a rich, lush story full of wonder and
joy.
Matthew
describes Jesus’ birth from Joseph’s perspective. True to Gray’s thinking, when he learns his
fiancée is pregnant Joseph retreats to himself to figure out how to
respond. He could have Mary stoned to
death, but decides to keep the matter quiet and between them. He will give her a simple writ of divorce and
be done with it. An angel speaks to him
in a dream and gives him a new direction.
He takes Mary as his wife. In
classic Mars style, the text simply says, “Mary bore a son, and Joseph named
him Jesus.” Lean and to the point, just
the way a man would tell it.
Matthew
uses one very telling word to describe Joseph.
He says Joseph is a “righteous” man.
It means he is a good person, moral, and (in the extreme) it can even
indicate he is without sin. It is not
easy, I think, for a good and moral person to tolerate the failings of those
closest to him. We expect our spouse and
our siblings and our children to live up to the moral and ethical code we
expect of ourselves. Joseph must have
been deeply disappointed when he discovered Mary was with child. Her version of how it happened must have
seemed laughable to him.
He
has, at best, two options. As we noted,
he can make the matter public and demand she be executed by stoning. This would be the path of righteous
indignation. Or, he can opt for the more
merciful path of divorce. It will free
him of Mary and responsibility for an unborn child that is not his. She will have to return to her family and
hope her father will take her back under his care.
Have
you ever received an email with a sentence or saying automatically fixed to the
end? A colleague sent me an email this
week and at the end he inserted this quote from John Schaar:
The future is not a result of
choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is
created--created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to,
but one we are creating. The paths are
not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the
maker and the destination.
I
think Schaar is right about the present and the future and about our role and
responsibility in moving forward. And I
think Joseph’s story illustrates exactly what Schaar describes. Before he goes to sleep and encounters an
angel in his dream, Joseph is very much pondering the future by weighing the
merits of the different paths available to him in the present. But after the angel speaks to him Joseph
begins to consider the possibility of a future only he can create. Remaining engaged to his pregnant fiancée is
not an option given to him by his culture, but it is the decision he
embraces. He makes his way forward into
the future in a new way. The path is
made one step at a time by taking one step after another.
It
seems to me, for one reason or another, I have been preaching the same message
in my sermon for the last several weeks.
The kingdom of heaven is not something God does for you, rather it is
something God does through you. Either
you are a willing and active participant or nothing happens.
Mary
provides the ultimate illustration of this.
The kingdom of heaven literally begins insider her body and comes into
this world through her womb. Joseph, for
his part, embraces the possibility God wants to do something through him. He faces what most likely is the most
critical and difficult decision of his life and decides to make a new path and
create a future in partnership with God’s Spirit.
We
are just two weeks away from entering the 375th year of our parish’s
existence. We will observe and celebrate
this momentous occasion in different forms and fashions. No one is forcing us to do it. We can sit back and do little or nothing. We choose to create our future by using the
occasion to remember, to reflect, and to give thanks. I believe God will act in and through our
celebrating in ways we can scarcely imagine, but would not happen if we did
nothing at all.
I
always love concluding the reading of Morning Prayer by reciting these words
from Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus: “Glory to God whose power working
in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” God’s power, working through us, can do
amazing things indeed, but only if we are willing to allow it to happen. The kingdom of heaven is not something God
does for you, but something God does through you. It is something God creates in partnership
with you. Either you will create the
future with God’s Spirit moving through you, or you will not. Either the kingdom of heaven will be born
through you, as it was through Mary, or the world will remain a cold and lonely
and lifeless place. Either you will work
with God to protect what is good and precious and vulnerable, as God worked
through Joseph, or what the world needs most will be lost. Either your heart will be open to God and it
will become a place for the kingdom of heaven to be imagined and then created,
or the world will drift along visionless and dark.
“Just
as the candle is host to the flame, so too may you burn with the power and the
glory of God’s Spirit.”
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