“In the Tight Spots”
A sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood PC
Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 23, 2007
Texts: Isaiah 7:10-16, Matthew 1:18-25
“Between a rock and a hard place.” I suspect you’ve been there, maybe more than once. “Between the devil and the deep blue sea”--bet you’ve been there, too. “Between a rock and hard place” means caught between two undesirable alternatives. When matters get even worse, you find yourself “between the devil and the deep blue sea,” that is, caught between two dangerous alternatives.
On the job, the customer is always right, but so, too, is the boss. A simple ‘worker bee’ can be caught in the middle--between the rock and the hard place. At home, you know each meal should have fruit and vegetables, but the kids have got to have something they will eat. And there you are--between rock and hard place. Take this medicine, says the doc, or you won’t get well. ‘Warning,’ reads the label, ‘this medicine will likely make you sick.’ Tough choice. Sitting at the kitchen table, with a stack of bills on your left, and the check book on your right, how often the bill payer can be caught between the devil and the deep sea of red ink.
It’s the big squeeze, and it happens all the time--no one escapes the snares of contradicting directions and clashing commitments. Give 110% at work--every day, never let up, go the extra mile, pay the price for success . . . , but take time for your kids, court your spouse, exercise regularly, attend church, keep a neat home and yard, read widely, rest regularly. What’s a person to do?
Hard choices are not limited to individuals. As a nation, it seems to me we are “between the devil and deep blue sea” in Iraq. Stay the course, and pile on the war debt--$480 billion so far, or $4,100 per U.S. household. See more young American men and women maimed and killed. See our country dragged deeper and deeper into irresolvable regional disputes and religious rivalries. Or, pull up stakes and leave the beleaguered people of Iraq with some 700,000 fresh graves, and a bigger mess than when we started. Leave now, and be prepared to see governments fall, sectarian violence rise, and turmoil spread. What’s a nation to do?
In today’s scripture readings, one king and one carpenter find themselves in similar binds. From the book of Isaiah we learn of the dilemma facing King Ahaz, our man in Jerusalem. He is caught between a saber-rattling alliance to the north, led by Syria, and to the south, the mighty Egyptian army. Sandwiched between these two powerful nations, King Ahaz is trying to use deft diplomacy to keep his tottering kingdom alive. Enter the thundering prophet Isaiah, saying forget diplomacy, faith alone will save the nation. “If you don’t believe me,” says the prophet, “ask God.” But King Ahaz is not about to change course. So he cites the biblical injunction: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”(Dtr. 6.16).
In Matthew’s gospel, Joseph’s predicament is a good bit more familiar to us, but no less difficult. On the one hand, he’s got common sense and Jewish law telling him to ditch pregnant Mary; and on the other, he’s got a dream--a communications medium always open to interpretation. Joseph has a dream telling him not to worry, it’s all been taken care of. The pregnancy is part of a far larger picture, a divine plan even, foreseen by the prophet who wrote of a young woman’s pregnancy as a sign of God’s immanent rescue of God’s people.
Common sense, or uncommon vision, which will it be? Send Mary away quietly, no need to press charges, make a fuss; your family and friends will certainly understand. Or, take the risk that God may indeed be doing something that is utterly new, completely unanticipated by all but a lone prophet centuries ago. Joseph is between a rock and hard place. Just goes to show you, no matter what your station in life--king or carpenter-- life is full of hard choices.
King Ahaz notwithstanding, I suspect most of us would agree that it would be nice for God to provide us with a sign when we have a difficult decision to make. Not that we would want to put God to the test, anymore than King Ahaz, but a simple sign would be lovely. Perhaps something in neon, blinking in the night sky. Keep the old job, or take the new one? Invest now, or wait for prices drop? Sell the car, or get it fixed? Move, or stay put? Just a sign, please Lord, if not a billboard on the highway, how about just a little handwritten note in the mail box.
I will go you one better than that, says Holy God. I’ll send my own son. He will stand with you--between the rock and hard place--where you thought there was no room for another breath, much less another being.
According to Matthew’s gospel, the baby to be born to Mary and
Joseph will have two names--Jesus, meaning “he will save us from our
sins,” and Emmanuel, “God is with us.”
Jesus, “he will save us from our sins,” meaning that even when we
make the wrong choice . . . . When all seems lost, even then--all is
forgiven. Emmanuel, “God with us,” meaning that we are not alone in
the tight spots of our lives. The world would restrict him to
ancient story and sentimental song. But the Church is convinced that
Jesus lives. “We are certain that he lives as God with us, touching
all of human life with the presence of God.”
Jesus lives in the story--the “greatest story ever told,” the story we yearn to hear again and again, the story we never tire in telling--in the reading of scripture, the singing of song, the preaching and teaching. The Risen Jesus lives as the Church. Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox, Liberal, conservative, evangelical. Grand cathedrals, humble store fronts. Jesus lives as Edgewood Church. The Risen Christ lives here as the Word is read and proclaimed, as bread is broken and wine is share, and as ministry is done in his Holy name.
Jesus lives in the suffering of the poor and the abused. Jesus lives in the agony of those fighting deadly diseases and choking addictions. Jesus lives in the pain and suffering of refugees fleeing oppression, and of immigrants fleeing poverty. Jesus lives in hope--our hope for more than we have yet seen--in our family situations, whatever they may be. More hope for the Church, all of our struggles and disagreements, notwithstanding. And more hope than we have yet seen for the world, torn by violence and scared by greed. Jesus lives in our hope for “a new heaven and a new earth, for certainty of victory over death, and assurance of mercy and judgment beyond death.”
Our Presbyterian “Declaration of Faith” proclaims, “In Christ God’s Word of acceptance takes flesh: by grace through faith we are set right with God, adopted as children of God, not because of anything we have done, but because of what Christ has done.”
Oh, but I am getting way ahead of the story. Back to Bethlehem. To
Mary and Joseph and the coming baby. Why a baby? Why would God chose
to reveal God’s self as a tiny, vulnerable infant? Why not a
powerful army, marching by day, instead of shepherds, coming by
night? Why not royalty instead of peasant parents, a palace instead
of a stable?
Surely, God could have communicated God’s will in more forceful
ways--in unmistakable, undeniable signs.
Instead, God chooses to make the divine self known in such a gentle, humble way so as to preserve human freedom. Our freedom to choose. Our freedom to choose God, to choose what is good, what is just, what is kind, what is faithful and loving. Between any rock and every hard place, we have the freedom to choose. Even pressed between what seems to be the devil and the deep blue sea, we have the freedom to choose how we shall respond.
Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl writes, “The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
We may not like our choices, we may wish for other options . . . . . In the work we do to put food on the table, in relationships that define our lives, in the inevitable injuries and illnesses that beset us, we have the freedom to choose how we shall respond. It is our choice whether to respond begrudgingly or, with a share of the divine grace God extends to us through Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
To Jesus Christ, who loves us
and freed us from our sins by his blood
and made us to be a kingdom,
priests of his God and Father,
to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Rev. 1: 5,6
1 Frankl, Viktor E., MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING, third edition, Touchstone Books, p. p 75.