Has anyone seen the movie Saved? It’s a great movie, and it does a good job of pointing out some of the inherent hypocrisies of Christianity. The story is of a young girl who goes to a Christian High School, and she discovers her boyfriend is gay. She doesn’t know what to do, and she worries for his immortal soul. She soon comes to the conclusion that sex before marriage is less of a sin than being gay, so she decides to have sex with her boyfriend, with the hopes that it will make him straight. That’s the first 10 minutes. Well, she ends up getting pregnant, and the movie goes on from there.
The persecution, the condemnation, and the judgment that she faces at school from her peers, and from the school’s principal are a key theme in the movie. But held against that, is the love, the compassion, the Grace she receives from all the other outcasts in the school. From the only Jewish kid at the Christian school, from the brother of the seemingly perfect Christian girl, who is a self professed agnostic, but readily points out all the hypocrisy of the school, from the principal’s son, and from her gay now ex-boyfriend.
What does it mean to be the Body of Christ in the world, and who embodies Christ more in this movie?
Last week, we spoke about the Magnificat, about Mary’s song of Joy to God. It was a joy that swelled within her, as she experienced and encountered the wonder of God’s Grace. We spoke about how important and yet how difficult it is to truly understand and accept that Grace which is freely offered to everyone. We spoke about how wonderful an idea it is, that our value is not dependant upon what the world around us says about us, but is based only on the faith that we, as in all of creation, are the Beloved of God. Our value does not come from anything we do, or anything the world says about us, it is simply a matter of faith that we have value.
That love of self is important. It should not be confused with selfishness and egocentricity. But rather it is a marveling at our own createdness, a respect and admiration for God’s handiwork in our very nature, and a honoring of that handiwork by devoting our lives to figuring out who we truly are.
But you may recall, I ended with some words; they might be hopefilled, they might be ominous, they might be a bit of both. I said, “There are ramifications of such a notion.” Since we’re continuing with Mary in our scripture readings for this week, I’d like to continue with our discussion of Grace as well, and what those ramifications are.
Today we’re going to talk about that love of the other. I’m cautious about separating love of self and love of other. I don’t think we can love the other as deeply as we do when we love ourselves, and I don’t think we can love ourselves as deeply as we do when we love the other. But for the sake of practicality, today we’re talking about the love of the other.
Once again, we need Mary’s help in this understanding of the ramifications of Grace, and how that Grace calls us to love the world. Mary brings that love out in all of us. She draws it forth from us, and helps us to see how possible it is. And she does it all under the radar.
A teenage girl, pregnant out of wedlock, mystery father, from a poor village in the backside of a rebellious country in the dusty corner of the Roman Empire. And remember from last week, by proper Law, so great was her sin that she could by all rights be stoned to death.
And we love her. We love this social deviant, this outcast, we love this young girl who according to society did something so horrible as to deserve death in her time of history. Gabriel is right, she is the most favored. Not only favored by God, but favored by the world, by two thousand years of history.
And that we do hold her up is a sign of how possible grace is. Love is possible, and not just for those we like, or agree with, or think are morally upright. Love is possible, and fully embodied, when we realize what Grace says. That everyone, that all of creation, has value, simply because of the love of God.
This Sunday is the fourth and final Sunday of Advent. It is the Sunday of Love. And what better way to celebrate love than to see how broad, and how far reaching it can be. Yes, loving family is good. Yes, loving friends is good. Yes, loving our community is good. Yes, loving ourselves is good.
But who are the “social deviants”, who are those outsiders that we stone every day, not literally but metaphorically? Or even literally! How many gay kids get beaten up every day as we sit back silently? Often it is Christians who do it! “Send them to a special camp to get fixed. Because it says in the bible that it is wrong.” Yeah, well, it said in Mary’s sacred text that she should be executed, and how well would that have worked out for us?
We were able to move beyond social convention when we first held up Mary as beloved in God’s eyes and in our own eyes. What other social conventions can we move past today? Who else in the world needs to be held up as beloved?
What about addicts? What about the homeless? And not just saying “yeah, the mentally ill ones should be helped”, but what about the ones who got there because of poor decisions? What about our First Nations sisters and brothers? What about prostitutes? What about the billions of poor in the world? What about the earth? The earth is groaning under the weight of humanity, do we need to hold up the earth as a beloved creation of God’s, rather than as an impediment to our wealth? Who or what are all those aspects of creation that we stone everyday, stone with our economic systems, stone with our politics, stone with our words, that deserve to be loved?
One week from now we will be celebrating Christmas. We will be celebrating how God’s love became embodied in the world, in Jesus. And let’s ask ourselves how that love became embodied. Did it come into the popular crowd? Did it come in the hallways of power? Did it come with all those perfect people who followed all the rules, and condemned anyone who didn’t? Did it come to people who had made all the right decisions? Did it even get a room at an inn? Or did it come into the world in a stable, with the animals, stinking of crap, born to a woman who by all rights could have been condemned, worshipped by poor shepherds and foreigners, living, sleeping, and eating with sinners, with prostitutes, with outcasts, with people who had made mistakes in their lives, with deviants, with people no one else wanted to touch, with those who the rest of the world thought they were better than? Did it come breaking all the rules and conventions itself?
And when you answer that, answer this, what does it mean to love? Where is God’s love in the world? Yes, there are ramifications of accepting God’s Grace. Thanks be to God, Amen.
I really wanted to say "shit" at the end. I wussed out. Probably a wise decision, but still. Continued last week's sermon. I don't like doing that too often, but I think a few things needed to be addressed. I had one person come up to me afterwards and say "Your sermon changed my perceptions on a few things. There's some stuff out there I don't agree with, but maybe I need to look again." I'm not sure what they were referring to exactly, I have my hunches. But hey, whatever, if the Spirit moved within them to become more accepting, then that is a good thing.
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