Advent 4A + God's Heart of Stone + A & M C-L+ 12.18.22

 

God’s Heart of Stone

M. and A. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard/St Paul’s Emmanuel, Santa Paula

Advent 4A + 12.18.22

(Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25)

 

Recently, I (Alene) discovered and downloaded some of the music from the Broadway musical, SIX.  The premise of this musical is to tell the story of the six wives of Henry the Eighth, beyond the childhood rhyme for remembering what happened to each of them: “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.”  Usually, history focuses so much on the men in power that the women are relegated to the background as ornament or side facts. “SIX” tries to tell the story of the wives as full human beings, albeit in a modern pop style. In the story of Jane Seymour, the story turns to her persistence in loving Henry despite their struggles. Her song is called “My Heart of Stone,” and the refrain goes like this:

“You can build me up, you can tear me down
You can try but I'm unbreakable
You can do your best, but I'll stand the test
You'll find that I'm unshakeable
When the fire's burnt
When the wind has blown
When the water's dried, you'll still find stone
My heart of stone”[1]

This is a fascinating image because usually the term “heart of stone” usually refers to someone who is cold, heartless. But instead, Jane Seymour expresses her devotion through these words.
In the same way, I wonder if we sometimes look at God and think God has a heart of stone- that God is cold and heartless to let us suffer as we do sometimes. But what if we are the ones with traditional hearts of stone at times, too cold to see God’s constancy with us always, even when things get tough?

 

We see a glimpse of this in the story of King Ahaz today.  King Ahaz is facing a war that looks insurmountable.  Into the midst of his fear of his own and his people’s destruction, comes the prophet Isaiah practically begging King Ahaz on God’s behalf to ask for a sign, to ask for symbol of God’s presence and action in the midst of this tragedy.  We don’t know why Ahaz refused.  Perhaps it was own guilt—he hadn’t been the best of kings.  Perhaps he was afraid of what God might say.  What he tells Isaiah rings a bit too pious, “Oh no, I couldn’t ask God for a sign.  I wouldn’t presume to put God to the test.” 

One of the things that I love about the music from the musical “SIX” is that it gives a voice to the women in the story. They are not portrayed as perfect. They are human beings, with desires and flaws and schemes. But they are also people with hearts to be broken and who are trying their best to live authentically in a world that often sees them as property, not as individual human beings.

In the genealogy of Jesus, which comes before today’s passage in Matthew, we hear that Jesus has a pretty interesting heritage, especially when it comes to the women in the story. Tamar and Rahab and others make up this list of women whose stories, when told, have painted them in a colorful light. But as one commentator I listened to this week pointed out, the women in Jesus’ story that are sometimes gossiped about don’t have colorful stories due to character flaws, but because they were trying to survive in a world wherein the men treated them badly.[2]

And what do we see in today’s gospel, but another man trying to sort out what to do with a woman! Joseph is engaged to Mary, and has learned that she is pregnant. Well, that would be unexpected! So, he is deciding how to respond. His first response may seem honorable--sending her away quietly. But we can imagine how even that would cause tongues to wag! Especially when a baby showed up later! So, God intervenes! Not willing to let Joseph pass up this opportunity for grace, God convinces Joseph to take her in. And to take the child in as his own. God had already begun the process of dwelling with us in that decision, helping Joseph to make a truly righteous decision, beginning to unwind the years of women’s hurt and mistreatment by men in Jesus’ lineage.

 

But this goes deeper still. For the Greek word that is used for both the “genealogy” of Jesus in Matthew 1:1 and the “birth” of Jesus in Matthew 1:18 is genesis. I don’t think this is a mistake. It is trying remind us of the book of Genesis, where humanity is united with God in a garden and then experiences separation from God. And what is Jesus here to do? The angel tells Joseph that Jesus’ mission will be to save us from our sins. One of the possible definitions for sin here comes from the Hebrew Bible’s understanding of sin as “the power that deceives humanity and leads it to destruction.”[3]
What if humanity, following the events of Genesis, fell victim to the lie that God was not with us? What if the sin that is so often seen as original is a perception that God has a heart of stone? Jesus comes among us and reminds us that the distance between us and God all these years was not on God’s part. We are the ones with the hearts of stone that are cold, but God’s heart of stone has been there with us, constant all these years.

When King Ahaz refuses God’s offer of a sign, God gives one anyway.  God says to take a look at a new baby and know that the baby won’t be old enough to eat solid food before the armies that seem so threatening now are gone.  What stands out in this passage is the miracle of the ordinary.  A young woman giving birth to a baby is hardly news, and yet, none of us who has a new baby born into our family or into our broader circle of friends thinks it is anything but news!  We call and text and email and post to Facebook and send out pictures in the Christmas newsletter.  We make special trips to see this new little one and welcome them into the family. 

For every spring, every new life, every day that the world continues to turn is a reminder that God is with us, that we have not been abandoned.  For as the Psalmist points out in Psalm 104, if God were to hide God’s face and take away our breath, all creation would die (vs. 29).  But the miracle goes beyond that.  God doesn’t just keep the world going, although that would be enough.   God loved us enough to break through time and space, to come and dwell among us in Jesus. God persists in giving us sign after sign of God’s presence even when our human failings might get in the way.  God persists with King Ahaz.  God persists with Joseph.  God shows up with our human skin on, so that we can be saved from the power that leads us to our destruction whispering lies in our ears that God has abandoned us.  And as prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birth once again, may the far off gurgle of laughter and the smell of newborn hair tear open for us once more the veil of sin blinding us to God’s presence.  

 

May we hear through the years God’s voice singing to us:

“You can build me up, you can tear me down
You can try but I'm unbreakable
You can do your best, but I'll stand the test
You'll find that I'm unshakeable
When the fire's burnt
When the wind has blown
When the water's dried, you'll still find stone
My heart of stone.”

When the worst of life has come and gone, God’s love will still be there.  Unbreakable, unshakeable, from birth to death to resurrection. 

Amen.

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[1] Toby Marlowe, Lucy Moss “My Heart of Stone” from SIX: The Musical, 2017.

[2] Joy J. Moore’s comment in: #876: Fourth Sunday of Advent (A) – December 18, 2022 - Working Preacher from Luther Seminary.

[3] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, rev. and ed. Frederick W. Danker, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 51.