The following is an abbreviated manuscript of a devotional I intend to deliver at the Free Methodist World Ministries Center tomorrow morning. My abbreviated manuscripts don't always read well (since I often improvise and interject extra material), but you must imagine it as the spoken word which it is intended to be:
Many will be familiar with Charles Dickens' classic book called “A Tale of Two Cities.” Today we examine the first chapter of Luke, a chapter we might call “A Tale of Two Characters.”
Without looking, who can tell me the two main characters in Luke 1?
Answer: Zechariah and Mary.
First we have Zechariah -- a man with an impressive pedigree, a priest, not only a priest but one in a line of priests going far back into Israelite history, a man who has married into Aaron's family. That's like marrying into the Van Valin family or something in our own church! And what are his moral credentials? We're told that he is upright in God's sight and obeys all the commandments. Where was he? The temple – the naval of the earth, the singular point of contact between God and man, the center of the universe for Jews.
Imagine being a first or second century Jew reading this account for the first time. You would think, “This is a good start, Luke. Here is a fine character to begin your narrative. Where else would you start your story than at the temple centered on a priest. I wholeheartedly approve."
But, to our shock, the unfolding story tells of this priest Zechariah’s failure. He doesn't believe or act in faith. He's punished. He hears the good news and doesn't accept it so he is struck dumb.
End of scene 1. This is not what we expected! We expected a story of piety – a story affirming the goodness of the priest!
Next scene 2 opens. It's location? Nazareth in Galilee of the gentiles -- a totally unimportant place. This is the opposite of the temple. Who cares about insignificant little Nazareth? It's like Filmore, IL where my wife grew up. Just a dot on the map that no one has heard of. And who's the new character? A virgin (probably under the age of 13) named Mary. Totally unimpressive. She has no pedigree, lives in the wrong place, and as a young female is at the bottom of the social latter. (Remember that this was pre-feminist movement. Young women were good for two things in those days: the sexual gratification of men and making babies).
As a reader, we want to stop the story and say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa there, Luke. Why on earth are you telling us about some no name little girl who lives in the middle of nowhere? Tell us about what MATTERS and what is IMPORTANT. Take us back to the TEMPLE and the PRIEST!” But Luke doesn't do it. As first time readers, we might even laugh at the irony of Gabriel (the highest of all angels) greeting this silly little girl with “Greetings, you who are highly favored!” The irony is just too much.
But what we find is that unlike Zechariah the priest in the temple, Mary responds correctly to the angel. She concludes, “I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said” (v. 38).
So what do we do with this? “What are you trying to tell us Luke? As a good Jewish upstanding religious leader, I think I find this a bit offensive. You're telling me a story in which a priest acts unfaithfully and a little virgin girl acts faithfully?!? Surely you're mixed up. That's not how we tell stories! You're messing with all my categories!”
And that is precisely what Luke is doing. He is messing up the categories. He's revealing something new about the heart of God that many Jewish readers may have missed: God “brings down rulers from their thrones but lifts up the humble. He fills the hungry with good things, but sends the rich away empty” (v. 52-53).
This story of two characters teaches us something: God loves outsiders. God loves losers. God loves the lowly, the humble, the insignificant, the marginalized, the poor, the oppressed, the voiceless, the silly little virgin girls who are thought to be worth nothing but baby factories.
This Christmas I want you to remember something: Jesus is for losers. Christmas is the great upheaval of all of our categories. Christmas reveals to us a God that humiliates high and lofty priests by making them dumb while greeting little virgin girls with shouts of "hallelujah!"
We stand today in the Free Methodist temple. This place is our denomination's Mecca. "We," the Tempter would have us believe, "are the center of the story. This is where the important things happen." But meanwhile we find Gabriel greeting little girls in India, starving boys in Somalia, beggars in Beijing, and alcoholics in the inner cities of America. That, my friends, is what Christmas is about. God with us. God with the losers.
