Sermon: Discipleship Has Its Costs

Date Preached: Sunday 19th December 2010

Bible Reference: Matthew Chapter 1 verses 18-25

To be able to understand what’s going on in today’s set (Lectionary) readings we have to bear in mind that there are two main characters here who make two very different responses to God – and they help show the kinds of response God loves from his children (on the one hand) and those I don’t think he’s particularly enamoured of!! (on the other). I’m sure you’ve heard the famous Christmas story of a family who had twin boys whose only resemblance to each other was their looks. If one felt it was too hot, the other thought it was too cold. If one said the TV was too loud, the other claimed the volume needed to be turned up. They were opposite in every way, one was an eternal optimist, the other a doom & gloom pessimist.

Just to see what would happen, on the twins' birthday their father loaded the gloomy one’s room with every imaginable toy and game. The cheerful one’s room he loaded with horse manure.

That night the father passed by the one son’s room and found him sitting amid his new gifts crying bitterly. "Why are you crying?" the father asked. "Because my friends will be jealous, I'll have to read all these instructions before I can do anything with this stuff, I'll constantly need batteries, and my toys will eventually get broken," answered the pessimist twin. Passing the optimist twin's room, the father found him dancing for joy in the pile of manure. "What are you so happy about?" he asked. To which his optimist twin replied, "There's got to be a pony in here somewhere!"

(Now I’m sure the question occurred to you while Antony was reading the passage from Isaiah..). So why is it that King Ahaz won’t ask God for a sign – particularly after being permitted to do so, by the Lord himself? The reason he gives sounds like a good, solid, religious response, but the tone and context of the story makes it abundantly clear that it isn’t. What Ahaz protests sounds awfully virtuous “I won’t put the Lord to the test”. (You can imagine the proud tone, can’t you?). And doesn’t it reminds us of the Gospels? Jesus is often asked for a sign – and refuses to give one. So it’s perfectly legit’ to ask why is Ahaz not right when he refuses to request such a thing. Well there’s a simple answer – and that is that in his case he’s wrong because God himself has told Ahaz to ask – and that his refusal to do so is a deliberate determination to turn his back on what God is offering him.

Now we need a bit of background to see what’s going on.

King Ahaz’s kingdom – Judah - was in the middle of a deep political crisis. It was being attacked from two sides, with two neighbouring kingdoms trying to force Judah into an alliance with Assyria - a burgeoning superpower at the time And God had already spoken to Ahaz before this that he didn’t have anything to fear – but Ahaz doesn’t believe him. So when we come to today’s reading we begin to see the real reason why he’s rejecting God – he simply doesn’t trust him – and he’s already decided to submit to the Assyrian King. In other words he’s decided to trust his own political instincts, rather than trust God for his protection. So now we can understand why he has this attitude: he doesn’t want to risk letting God mess up his decision with signs. What Ahaz doesn’t know is that his failure to keep his nerve is indeed a huge sign that reverberates down the centuries. (with me so far?)

The gospel writer Matthew picks up on this sign – and knows exactly how to interpret the young woman whose child is called ‘God with us’. Joseph is the other character in this morning’s story. His encounter with the angel is told in very straightforward, pragmatic language. There are no special stage effects (like when the Welsh rugby team enters the Millenium Stadium these days), no bursts of blazing light, or fire and smoke, or drifting of snow-white feathers – there’s just Joseph asleep and dreaming. But what a different response he makes to Ahaz’s. Joseph simply, immediately, follows his dream, marries Mary, and unassumingly “steps into the story of the world’s salvation”. Though he doesn’t know it, Ahaz steps out of the light, into the background, and because of his disobedience, his failure to trust, allows events to take place without him.

It’s hard to do justice to Joseph. We get so little information and few insights into his character, and the nativity story could so clearly have been told without him. But thankfully Matthew is prepared to give him his due. Unlike Ahaz, Joseph trusts God, simply and immediately – although it involves him in heartache and shame – and as a consequence, the sign Ahaz rejects becomes a hopeful one: that human beings are capable of responding to each other and to God. In Matthew’s thinking, Joseph’s role as the one who listens to God and protects his family is absolutely vital. Joseph’s function is to be there for others, to forget himself (and his needs, desires and political instincts – like to run away from all the controversy and gossip) and to make room – to make a way – for God’s action to take place. It’s his self-abnegation, his self-denial, that makes way for the presence of God to come.

Oh boy what a lesson for us! You know – we’re all getting tired and tetchy - at the end of a year, or a long school term(!), perhaps not feeling particularly brilliant physically and strung out emotionally - and we can so easily miss the joy of this Advent Season because we naturally rely on our own resources and instincts to just get us through.

Now then where does the Apostle Paul fit into all this? – apart, that is, from his constant advice to the congregations of the new Christian churches to be patient and kind and forgiving to each other (!)

aul makes no mention of Joseph (or Mary for that matter) in Romans or anywhere else – but the mission he accepts is very similar to Joseph’s. Paul is to protect the Word of God and make room for it in the world. Paul is called to bear witness to that sign that Ahaz rejected – and Matthew accepted – which is ‘Emmanuel -  ‘God with us’.

I love how Jane Williams reflects on this:

“Thanks…to Joseph’s willingness to be nothing more nor less than God asks him to be, Paul, the Romans and we [that’s us] can see the fulfilment of prophecy. God is infinitely patient in doing what he promised, and he never forgets” -  because he’s a covenant-keeping God. The promise made to David, rejected by Ahaz, misunderstood and misinterpreted by many others, comes to completion in Jesus. And as the promise waits, it grows and grows, to include more and more of us in its scope.

When I started on this Advent series I said it’d be few weeks of challenge, didn’t I? We’ve had the challenge of being ready; of repenting and turning towards God; of waiting in anticipation – and now the challenge of asking where we stand in relation to God’s promise.

Because we have a choice: to stand with Ahaz, or to stand with Joseph. Like Ahaz we can refuse God’s sign, the sign of the coming child – step out of the story, rely on our own resources and instincts, appear devout and religious, but actually not really trust God at all. That’s where a lot of so-called nominal Christianity is – and it’s not going to harm of provoke anyone or anything.

Or we can accept the call to protect the child and to help the world see him as the sign that God is indeed with us. If we choose to stand with Joseph, difficult for our own egos though this can be, because we have to just get on with it, isn’t there a greater joy knowing that God’s forgiving and restoring action in Christ is going to be made available to a waiting and needy world?!

Christians, like their Master, Jesus, can be totally secure in their relationship with the Father – even if everything else is going horribly pear-shaped – and (by the way, if you hadn’t realized, it often does! In a world marred by sin and suffering, hardship & loss are inevitabilities – for everybody – and (probably) particularly for those who seek to live for God. After all, we follow a crucified Messiah and cannot expect any bed of roses – and we were never promised one!! As Oswald Chambers says, if God was prepared to bruise his Son, why not us – you and me?

Discipleship has a cost to it. But ….(and here’s the great news as Christmas is so nearly upon us) what we are promised is the endless, unremitting, detailed, loving care of the Father over every aspect of our lives.

Now I think that’s a tremendous cause for Advent celebration – don’t you?!  Amen