Picture it this way. The teenage daughter walks in the house. “Hey mom, dad, guess what? I was down at the gas station filling up the car when something happened. An angel walked up and told me that I was going to have a baby. Wow! Can you believe it?”
I’m not trying to make light of the scripture today, but if you think about it, that’s about how this story began. According to tradition, Mary had gone down to the village well to get water. It was one of the routine chores the young girls in the family took care of each morning. She would have carried the empty jar to the well in the center of town, filled it with water, and then lifted the heavy jar back onto her shoulder for the walk back home. But today, while she was at the well, Matthew told us an angel appeared to her with the message that she was going to have a child. God had selected her of all of the young girls in the entire world for the honor of bearing a child given her by the Holy Spirit.
We remember this story every year and smile as we think of the great things that came from Mary’s role. She is remembered by many as one of the most important women in history. She is held up as a model for motherhood and a symbol of purity and faithfulness. As we experience another Christmas this week and celebrate the miracle birth, I think it is worthwhile to take a few moments and remember just what Mary experienced; what she actually went through to reach that point of honor and praise. Because, it would most certainly not have started out that way.
Many of us know what it means to live in a very small place; a small village or small neighborhood. Everyone knows everyone else and knows most of their family background as well. There is a certain comfort and security that comes with that kind of community, but there is more. There are expectations that exist; expectations of things that members of that community may and may not do. There are roles in the community, and everyone knows what everyone else’s role is to be. There are rules and guidelines that define what is acceptable in the community. Those social norms exist because the place is so small and what one person does can have a real impact on everyone else in the community. One person’s behavior can create a reputation that might then be associated with everyone in the community. “It’s that neighborhood where…”, or “It’s that kind of place.” There have to be rules, and those rules have to be enforced. They are not intended to be harsh or cruel, but they are seen as ways to ensure the way of life that the community has created.
While it is a large city today, Nazareth was a very small town of perhaps 300 people when Mary’s family lived there. Nazareth had been around for a long time, sitting on a hill overlooking some of the most famous events of history, but is never mentioned once in the Old Testament. It was a small Jewish village. It is fairly safe to assume that when Mary went back to the well for water the next morning, well, let’s just say there were some eyes following her, and a few “tisk tisks” being uttered from a few doorways. The odds are very small that the village had put up one of those banners across the street reading, “Welcome to Nazareth: Future Home of God’s Own Son!” It reminds me of another small town in one of Jesus’ stories that Luke recorded. That story went something like this.
We don’t know much of anything about the father and son, or what might have created the rift between them. We don’t know if one of them was right and the other was wrong. We don’t know if the father had been a fair man, or if the son was just rebellious. All we know is that there was a man with two sons, and one of those sons had come to dad asking him to give him his share of the estate. However tame that may sound to us today, on that day in that place, the son was essentially saying, “I’ve had enough. Give me what is going to be mine, and let me live my life the way I want to live it! I wish you were dead.” Rather than wait for his part of the inheritance, he wanted it now. We don’t know the father’s thoughts as he divided things up; if he was sad, disappointed, or just relieved to see an end to the arguing, but he divided up the estate and gave his son the part that would one day have been his anyway. A few days later the boy packed up everything he owned and walked away. Out the door, down the street, out the town gate, and down the road to whatever the world was going to offer him. He was free.
As sometimes happens, the world proved to be a bit more challenging than the young man’s inheritance was prepared for. He lived large for a few months, but about the time the inheritance ran out and he needed to find a job, a famine occurred making jobs scarce. Finally, the young man took a job walking fields to gather leftover grain to feed to a farmer’s pigs. Pigs of all things. And they ate better than he did. Luke tells us that the young man was hungry, and that “no one gave him anything.” It is the picture of loneliness. But finally, Luke says, the young man came to his senses and realized that even his father’s servants were in better shape than he was. It also seems that there was more than simple hunger involved. The young man began to realize that he had hurt his father, had shamed him and needed to somehow make up for that mistake. Let’s remember what happened next.
Word spread through town quickly. Someone traveling on the road had seen the young man, and he was headed in their direction. People came out of their homes and shops and headed for the town gate. Those with children brought them along because today they were going to learn a lesson that they would never forget. Today, they were going to see what happened to young men who shamed their family, and their village. Everyone knew what was going to happen. It was a law written long ago for a ceremony called the kezazah. The boy would walk up to the city gate. The father would stay at home and refuse to see him. Instead, villagers would meet him at the gate and throw a large clay pot on the ground at the boy’s feet. The pot would shatter into pieces, representing how the relationship between the father and son was now shattered as well. The villagers would turn their backs to the boy, and the former son would turn and walk away. He would not dare enter the village he had shamed.
The village gathered at the gate and waited. When the father learned that his son was coming, the old man went to the gate. At first, people were confused, but then understood that the old man was angry and shamed enough he wanted to be there to throw the clay pot himself. This would be a lesson the village children would remember for a very long time. When the boy was seen coming toward the gate, the crowds began to shout and taunt him, encouraging the old man to teach his son a lesson and remove the shame from their village. Then the old man saw his son approaching.
Luke said, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”
The crowd went silent. First, men do not run. To run you need to hike up your robe so you can move freely, and that means showing your legs in public. Men would not do that. It was a shameful act. And then, instead of fulfilling the kezazah and throwing a clay pot, the old man threw his arms around his son and kissed him, accepted his apology, and yelled to his servants to bring a clean robe, put one of his own rings on his son’s finger, and put new sandals on his feet. As they walked through the town gate, the father shouted to everyone, inviting them to the big party they were having that night to celebrate his son’s return. They would kill the fatted calf and everything. The old man was elated.
The townsfolk were in shock. They pulled their children away and sent them home. “No wonder his son behaved like he did,” they said, “if that is the kind of father he has.” Not only did he run in public, and failed to perform the kezazah, he was treating the boy like he did nothing wrong— like he was actually happy to have him return. First, the son brought shame onto his family and his village, and now his father compounded it.
The old man did not care. We don’t know how many villagers came to the party that night. All we know is that as the older son was walking back from his day of working the fields, he heard the music and dancing. He asked one of the servants what was going on. He could not believe what he heard. He stood outside the house with others from the village that were angry at the additional shame the family was bringing upon their village. The father came out and pleaded with his son to come inside and welcome his brother home, but he would have none of it. “It is not fair!” the older son said. “He brought shame on all of us. He went out and wasted everything he had living an unclean life. And now he comes crawling back, and what do you do? You bring even more shame on us. And while he’s been doing all that, I’ve been here, working hard to support the family and village, I’ve followed the rules, but he’s the one you throw the party for? He’s the one you kill the fatted calf for?”
As the old man tried to explain, Luke left the story there, leaving us wondering how things finally worked out. Most likely it ended like this: The older son saw that he had no choice if he was going to remove the shame from his family and his village. He looked around the ground for a stone, a large stone. He picked it up and threw it at his father. Others did the same. Then they found the younger son and did the same. And finally, the shame was removed. The older brother regained the family’s place in the village, and all was right with the world. We remember this story as the story of the prodigal son.
This, I am afraid, is what Mary faced as well. Her family’s responsibility was clear. But even more, there was Joseph, her betrothed. This was something like a super engagement; not yet married, but more than just being engaged. They were not yet husband and wife, but if Joseph were to die, Mary would be seen as a widow. What it meant was that if Mary was going to have a child, according to the law she must have committed adultery, and the punishment was clear. At best, Joseph would beat her severely and then he and her family would send her away, carrying the reputation of an adulteress, to spend the rest of her life unmarried, alone, living on the streets as a beggar, or worse. Or, Joseph would pick up and throw the first stone, and Mary would be killed by her family and her village. That was the old law. Joseph had no choice.
We don’t know much about Joseph. We don’t know how he first reacted to Mary’s news. We can guess how the village reacted, and the pressure they put on Joseph to act, but we don’t know what was in his mind. We don’t know if he was relieved when the angel appeared to him to confirm what Mary said, or if it was still difficult for him to get past the feeling that he had been shamed. What we do know is that somehow, Joseph and Mary found the strength to stand together and believe together that they were doing something that was bigger than the old laws.
They were doing something that was more important than the stares and jeers they would have faced every day from the people who did not understand.
As we go through our week of Christmas this week, and as we meet all of the people whose paths we are going to cross… let us remember… we are to be different.
Remember the young couple in Nazareth. This week we sing about them as people whom God honored and blessed. Back then, everyone whispered about them as shameful people who no longer had value or a rightful place in the community.
Remember that our role is not to determine the value of those around us and decide whether or not we think they are a risk to what we believe is right and just. Our role is to love our God, and love those other people who are around us - not just family or those who behave like we do. We are to love all of them, even the Mary and Josephs. We are to be different.
That’s the gift that Mary offers us this week. Merry Christmas.
Amen.