God dressed up as our lives

 

Luke 1: 26-38
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
December 24, 2023

Painting from a billboard in New Zealand, 2011, of a White woman dressed in a blue head covering, brown robe, red hooded tunic over a white undergarment, blue skirt, looking at a pregnancy test wand with her hand over her mouth and a thoughtful look on her face.

Author Paula D’Arcy wrote, “God comes to you disguised as your life”. So, because we’ve heard the story year after year, perhaps it’s not hard to imagine God disguised as a conversation between an angel and a young woman about how God will come disguised as baby who will change the world. But even Mary was perplexed by the angel’s greeting, the only time this word occurs in the Bible. Sure, people have been troubled, confused, bewildered, afraid, hesitant and resistant when God showed up and told them how their lives would change because God had something for them to do and be. But Mary is the only one who gets to be perplexed, and as the younger generations say, yeah, that tracks.



So, she asks a question, the question: “How can this be?” It can be tempting to think of Mary being meek and accepting but remember she’s talking to an angel. A being of power and agency. I’m thinking she comes back at this angel with an attitude of “You’re the reason I’m so perplexed, so explain yourself”. God may be disguised as her life, but she’s the one who will carry this baby amidst gossip under the gaze of everyone. Mary is humble, but she is also self-possessed.



Over the years people have wondered and asked, “Did Mary have a choice?” Did she really have the freedom to say no? After all, pregnancy is always a risk, especially in that time for someone so young and as yet unmarried. If we read this through the lens of patriarchy, then no, she didn’t have a choice, rather she was obedient. Which kinda makes God into a monster who’s into power and control when it comes to the bodies of those who can give birth. But if we read it through the lens of liberation, Mary is a willing participant in the deliverance of her people, not only a servant of the Lord but an instrument of God’s peace, a driver of God’s justice. In Eastern Christianity she is Theotokos: one who bears, wears God into the world.



And yet God coming to us disguised as our lives doesn’t mean everything that happens to us—both good and bad—is God. Like the so-called prosperity gospel that says that God rewards faith with wealth and well-being. Or that God disguised as our lives means everything happens for a reason. Or that there’s a silver lining in everything. Or that there’s a purpose for or redemption in our suffering. Nope. That’s not the theology of liberation, but one that keeps us in our place, whatever that place is. It keeps the privileged in power and the oppressed thankful for what they have.



God coming to us disguised as our lives has more to do with what God can do through us, when we bear God, wear God into the world. Sometimes when God shows up disguised as our lives, it’s at a time when we have no choice at all, when our life has been changed beyond our control.



Two pink lines on that home Covid test.

What do you mean, I have cancer?

Come quickly if you want to say goodbye.

There is a tornado warning in your area.



And then God comes to us disguised as the keening sound of grief, as the fervent one-word prayers of help, please, and the raw angry ones too, as stunned silence, and as our questions: “How can this be? Where are you, God? Who am I now?”



Once again, you may say, “This sounds pretty depressing, this isn’t why I came to church today”, but if it’s one thing Advent is about, it’s love, and love is messy and heartbreaking as much as it is beautiful and life-giving, and so is Christmas. And so God comes to us disguised as our lives but also as love. And community. As generosity and giving. As friendship and belonging. As people disrupting their lives for us and ours for them. God coming to us disguised as our lives has more to do with what God can do through us, when we bear God, wear God into the world.



God disguised as our lives, the emptying of God into human lives, God comes to us dressed up as an immigrant and a refugee, as a drag queen and a non-binary person, as a trans teen and a young Black mother, as a disabled person and a drug user, as queer old man and an autistic toddler, as a gun-violence survivor and a homeless veteran, as Palestinian children and as victims of antisemitism, into lives whose choices have been limited by others.



Your healthcare is banned because of your gender or gender identity.

We have money for war but not for your housing or mental health.

We need you to wait just a little longer to raise the minimum wage.

You are not welcome here because of the country you come from.



God comes to us dressed up as our lives, as love, as community, because there are people who don’t know that God, the holy, the sacred mystery of being, is disguised as their lives and that they are good news for God’s people. That they are enough. That they are worthy. That they are not broken, the world is, and we all have a part to play in its repair and its wholeness. God comes dressed up as our lives so that we can be willing participants in our liberation, in the deliverance of all people, including the privileged and the powerful from their self-interest and that includes us.



When we begin to understand that the holy is dressed up as us, each one of us, that we bear, that we wear God into the world, we begin to understand how Mary could come to a place where she could say “Let it be with me according to your word”. Where it’s not just me, it’s not just you, it’s everyone, everywhere, all at once. Where we no longer have to compete for the truth because it’s all true and none of it gets near the truth. Where if we can’t recognize God dressed up as the next person we meet, we might as well give up (Gandhi). Yet God doesn’t give up on us, so long as we don’t up on each other.



I have faith in God, in the holy, in the sacred mystery of life and love that hums through all of us. Where I lack faith is in my faith in humanity—in humanity’s ability to recognize God dressed up as our lives. And so, God I believe—help my unbelief. But I can only do that one person at a time. Here am I, servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word. Amen.

Benediction – enfleshed.com (adapted)

The Christ Child is born under rubble
and we have work to do to free ourselves
from systems of violence that make this possible.
So go forth changing your life and being changed by others’ lives.
Go forth knowing and hoping
God comes to us disguised as our lives. Amen.