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December 14, 2003 9am Service
Sacred Presents: The White Elephant
by Rev. Terri Echelbarger
First Reading
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Second Reading
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Today is the third Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of JOY. Joy in knowing that
a baby, the baby Jesus, is on the way. As our Gathering song says, people look
east, the time is near, love the Guest, the star, is on the way.
Let us pray: God, Goddess, thank you for this time we have in Beloved Community
to nurture in one another Hope, Peace, and Joy. Let the words of my mouth and
the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. In your many names
we pray, Amen.
Society teaches us that we are supposed to be joyful about pregnancy, mesmerized
by new life and the expectations it brings; a baby represents hope for the
future, all that can be.
Our story from Matthew this morning is Mary’s pregnancy from Joseph’s
perspective. However, He is not joyful about the situation in the least. They
are engaged to be married, and he was looking forward to that, maybe excited
about having kids someday… and Mary is pregnant but he knows he did not
help make it happen.
I like this poem by W.H. Auden….
Joseph, have you heard what Mary says occurred. Yes, it may be so. Is it likely?…no.
Mary may be pure, but Joseph are you sure? How is one to tell? Suppose for
instance…well…. Maybe, maybe not. But Joseph you know what your
world, of course, will say about you anyway.
It is like the gift no one really wants to receive. A White Elephant gift ….but
not during a white elephant gift exchange ….is this a joke, one thinks
to themselves? What am I supposed to do? Laugh, admire, cry? Something one
may look at in stunned silence for a while unable to respond for a moment or
two.
I was thinking this is a lot like the response of the conservative Episcopals
to their new Bishop Gene Robinson. For some he is a White Elephant gift indeed…the
Online American Idiom website defines a White Elephant gift as something that
is costly to obtain or maintain and provides little benefit or value.
Gene Robinson has indeed been costly to obtain, and right now it is hard for
most to see any benefit. The Anglicans are about to split from the denomination.
Of course we know that one person's White Elephant is another persons treasure.
For us, Gene Robinson is a treasure, and so we pray together for him, as well
as the Episcopal Church. We know that this ongoing discussion in the newspapers
of Gene’s Robinsons life as a gay bishop may be saving lives even today
as young gay and lesbian people see hope, where sometimes there is none. Our
ability to be ‘out’ not just about our sexuality, but about our
faith, also has the capacity to save lives.
We can not tell from the story in Matthew the timeline for all the events
leading from the engagement of Mary and Joseph to the pregnancy and then to
Joseph’s discovery of the situation. He probably didn’t find out
right away. It wasn’t like there was an over-the-counter pregnancy test
and they could peer together at the test strip to see if it was a positive
or negative result.
We know more about Mary’s story from the book of Luke. Mary was told
by the angel Gabriel that she would bear a son. Talk about a White Elephant!
God wants her to have a miraculous unexplained pregnancy in a time when she
could die for it. She could have said ‘no’, put perhaps deep down
Mary knew that White Elephants sometimes turn to treasure – they don’t
always do – but sometimes they do.
Like Mary, Gene Robinson could have backed out a long time ago rather than
face the scrutiny, death threats and turmoil of the last few months, but he
did not. Mary does not. In the end, Joseph does not.
Many of us in this room are also faced with moments when we must decide whether
to be the hands and feet of God or to walk away from a situation. Many of us
give up or give away our White Elephants when we can, not even willing to give
it a second look.
Do you remember Elisabeth and Zachariah from two weeks ago? She was beyond
her child-bearing years, and yet, in an account very parallel to the one told
of Mary and Joseph, she too becomes pregnant by what seems to be a miracle.
The angel Gabriel during the conversation with Mary lets her know that Elisabeth
is six months pregnant. In Luke, Mary hurries from the encounter with the Angel
to join Elisabeth in the hill country.
There, Mary receives an affirmation from Elisabeth that she should not be
ashamed of her condition, but joyful, for indeed God was going to do great
things through her. I imagine she needed the reassurance, since Joseph had
the right to declare in public that he was not the father and demand the legal
penalty of death by stoning, for herself and the baby. Mary hangs out with
Elisabeth for three months and then returns home.
In my imagination this is when she had no choice but to fill Joseph in on
the events in progress. She would be showing a bit by then, needing for him
to make a decision about his role in the family that was to be. Or, it’s
possible that Zechariah had sent Joseph a message ahead of her, warning him
that his betrothed was pregnant and on the way, telling him the story that
an angel had impregnated her. However he heard it the first time, it is apparent
that he didn’t really believe it, Oh, he believed she was pregnant, he
just didn’t want anything to do with it.
He also didn’t want to see her hurt. He decided the logical thing to
do was to get a quiet divorce and let her fend for herself. The Episcopals
who supported Gene Robinson must have been tempted to do the same thing …quietly
back away …but they didn’t.
Our story today is a strong reminder that the logical thing to do is not always
the right thing to do. Our logic is sometimes too detached from our spirit
and heart to take in the full picture, to show up to God in a way that might
work better.
Joseph has a dream, he is told that Mary is telling the truth; the child she
carries will be important to his people, and his name should be Jesus. Joseph
decided on another way, and takes Mary home to be his wife. He decides to take
a risk, to trust God.
Joseph discovers that a White Elephant gift is sometimes treasure in disguise.
It’s like that piece of furniture one inherits from Grandma for sentimental
reasons, the dresser with ten layers of paint, and then a new lover comes and
you combine households, and you think about just letting it go—and then
someone tells you if you sanded it, it is actually very valuable.
So, while some Episcopals may find Gene Robinson to be a type of White Elephant,
I found myself reflecting over and over the last week about how often Christianity,
or any spiritual faith, has felt like a White Elephant to some of us – something
costly to obtain or maintain that provides little benefit or value.
For some LGBT people, the religion we know is like the old dresser in the
corner covered with ten coats of paint; it has no apparent value except it
held some old clothing that we used to hide our sexuality. We really never
had a chance to know what was underneath – and just now we have been
told there may be value there, and we are beginning to sand off the layers
of messages that have kept us from truly seeing the art, or the artist's intent
that is hiding underneath. If that is where you are on your journey today,
don’t give up, keep sanding, there is indeed treasure to be found.
Of course there are other things like that too, wonderful things that get
damaged and covered up, treasure deep inside that gets obscured by childhood
trauma or drug abuse. It’s hard work sometimes, but Love can reveal the
treasure. I’ve seen it happen.
Then there are the people who look like White Elephants to most of society,
the homeless for example. Take another look, there is often treasure there.
For some LGBT people, faith has been costly to maintain, with messages from
religious leaders that condemn us, and the laughter of other LGBT’s hurt
by religion that urge us to just leave it behind. Remember the song, Abide
with Me? When other helper’s fail and comforts flee, know that God does
not. God never leaves us. Look deeper; God is as close as our breath.
When we are tempted to leave our religion to the mercy of those who would
not have us be a part, let us be like Mary, fully claiming what would appear
to some to be a dishonorable pregnancy, or like Gene Robinson claiming his
place as called against adversity, like so many who have gone before, called
unworthy by a church, and stay the course, for we are as much a part of the
miracle as any other person on the earth. Children of God.
For some LGBT people our faith has been something we have sought to ‘put
away quietly’, as Joseph sought to hide Mary. It seems like a logical
decision, avoiding the controversy, the questions. However, the logical thing
is not always the thing we are called to do.
I had a meeting this week with a group that would like us to ‘put away’ the
shower project. To be honest, there are days when it seems like the logical
thing to do, it would be easier, and would end a lot of tension. However, the
logical thing is not always the right thing to do.
We know of miracles here, we know of the love to be uncovered when tears wash
away the layers of hurt; we know how often what has appeared to be a White
Elephant has turned into a treasure. How can we keep it a secret? What if someone
had kept the love from us?
Joseph, Mary, Elizabeth and Zachariah all agreed to be a part of the story
God was telling in and through their lives, and they discovered that what many
around them considered a white elephant was a treasure.
Advent is a good time to reflect upon our White Elephants. I don’t know
what yours is, a challenging work situation or person, a holiday struggle with
your family of origin. Our White Elephants may not always turn to treasure
but I just know that it is a good time to expect surprises, a good time to
show up to God and pay attention, remember, things are not always how they
seem to be.
Joseph, in the quiet of his dreams is told to trust God, to trust wisdom,
to take another look at his White Elephant situation. Not so many months later
Jesus was born and he began to change the world. A change that is not yet over,
for we are a part of the next miracle, the next generation, the next evidence
of God’s unending love.
Amen.
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