“The Covenant Continues…God IS Still Speaking, perfectly!”

A meditation based on Matthew 1:23-25, 2:13 -23

December 30, 2007

Redlands United Church of Christ

Sharon R. Graff

Imagine Joseph—a man in the prime of his career, startled in his dreams into thinking about marriage and ready-made family, visited by an angel of all things, who tells him that God appreciates his fiancée, Mary, so much that she has been chosen to give birth to a great person, greater even than Joseph’s ancestor David.  This boy-child will be called Emmanuel, for he will be God in human form, God with skin, the angel says.  Contrary to the dictates of decency and order, and in subsequent dreams, the angel also commands Joseph, “Go ahead and marry her, make a family with her…”  Then a few months later, this dreamy angelic command, “…take the child and mother to Egypt and flee to safety there…”  Some months later in yet another dream, “Now it is safe for you to return from Egypt to Israel ...go home to Nazareth in Galilee …all will be well…”

If I had been Joseph, I’m not sure I would have agreed with the angel in any of these dreams that all would be well...  We can easily imagine that this is not the life Joseph would have crafted for himself.  Nor would Joseph probably have considered these plans of the angel’s to be picture-perfect.  But God neither promises nor expects perfection.  God asks only for faithfulness and promises the same.  God asks only that through it all, we trust our still-speaking God, one dream at a time…one step at a time…  Perfection, no!  Trust and faithfulness, yes!

This life-changing lesson was made perfectly clear several years ago, through a letter written by a new minister in which he described the “Perfect” Christmas Pageant.  I share it with you now.

“Dear Michael (the letter began) I accepted the call to that church I told you about last

winter—and yesterday was our annual children’s Christmas pageant.  It was wonderful,

but now that it’s over my blood pressure has probably dropped about 20 points.  The whole saga really begins 47 Christmases ago when Doris Peterson first directed the pageant, something she continued to do through seven pastors and who knows how many Christian Education Committees.  Presidents came and went, three wars were fought, hundreds of children passed through Sunday school, and Doris Peterson directing her Christmas pageant was like a great rock in a turbulent sea.  I never saw one of Doris ’s pageants (as we’ve only been here since spring), but I’ve heard about them.  They always had precisely nine characters, no more, no less: one Mary, one Joseph, three Wise Men, two shepherds, one angel, and one narrator.  The script was the Christmas story out of the King James Bible, which meant that two six-year-old shepherds had to learn to say, ‘Let us now go even unto Bethlehem , and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.’  Doris ’s goal was nothing less than perfection: perfect lines, perfect pacing, perfect blocking, and perfect enunciation—perfect everything.  That is not easily achieved with little children, even with nine carefully selected ones.  Critics said Doris would have worked with nine little people who were professional actors if she thought she could have gotten away with it.  Time and again people tried to get Doris to open things up so that every youngster who wanted a part could have one.  ‘ Doris ,’ they would say, ‘scripture says there was a heavenly host, not just one lonely angel.’  ‘ Doris , why not have a few more shepherds, and then everybody could take part in the pageant?’  ‘ Doris , if there were shepherds, there had to be sheep, too, right?  We can make little sheep costumes.’  ‘No,’ Doris would say.  ‘When there are too many youngsters, there is no control.’ 

Early this fall, however, something happened.  The Christian Education Committee included mothers of last year’s rejected Marys, Josephs, shepherds, and Wise Men.  These young mothers passed the following motion: ‘Resolved: All children who wish to be in the Christmas pageant may do so.  Parts will be found for them.’  Doris heard about it that night and was in my office the next morning at 9:00 am sharp.  ‘If those women know so much, let them be in charge,’ she spit out.  Before I could reply, she had resigned as director of the pageant.

The pageant, as I said, was yesterday.  The young mothers did not fall flat on their faces, but the program was, well, different from what everybody had come to expect over the past 46 years.  There must have been a dozen shepherds and 20 angels (a real heavenly host).  And then there were the sheep—a couple dozen three, four, and five year olds who were dressed in fake sheepskin vests with woolly hoods and their dads’ black socks, which were pulled up over their arms and legs.  Now, in your suburban Christmas pageants, I imagine sheep are well-behaved and fairly quiet.  The only sheep suburban kids have ever seen are on the church bulletin cover—quiet, grazing sheep who just stand there and look cute.  But half of the kids in this church live on farms, and they’ve seen real sheep.  They know that sheep wander around.  They know that all sheep want to do is eat.  So, some of the sheep started doing an imitation of grazing behind the communion table.  Some went to graze over by the choir and down the aisle.  Some of the sheep had found donuts in the church parlor to make their grazing look more realistic.  When the shepherds tried to herd them in with their shepherds’ crooks, some of the sheep spooked and scattered, which is exactly what real sheep do.

Doris was watching all this from the last pew, and I could just see her from where I was sitting.  She noticed me looking at her and lowered her head to hide a smirk. 

The real climax of imprecision came, however, at the point of high drama when Mary and Joseph enter, with Mary clutching a doll wrapped in a blue blanket. 

This year’s Mary was taking the role with an intense and pious seriousness.  Joseph, however, was another story.  He had gotten the part because he had been rejected more times than any other youngster in the church (and for good reason, some might say).  Anyway, Mary and Joseph were to walk on as the narrator read the scripture, ‘And Joseph also went up from Galilee , out of the city of Nazareth , into Judea , unto the city of David , which is called Bethlehem …to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.’  At least this is what the narrator was supposed to read.  It was what the narrator had read at the dress rehearsal, and at every rehearsal before that one, and at every performance of the pageant for the past 46 Christmases. 

But, after the final rehearsal for this year’s pageant, one of the young mothers had observed that none of the children could really understand the English of the King James Bible, so she decided to switch to the Good News translation for the performance itself.  So, as Mary and Joseph entered, the narrator read, ‘Joseph went to register with Mary,

who was promised in marriage to him.  She was pregnant.’  As the last word echoed through the P.A. system, our little Joseph froze in his tracks, gave Mary an incredulous look, then looked out at the congregation.  ‘Pregnant?  What do you mean, pregnant?’ he asked. 

This, of course, brought the house down.  My wife, wiping tears from her eyes, leaned over to me and said, ‘You know, that may well be what Joseph actually said.’  Doris was now wearing a look that simply said, ‘I told you so.’ 

But as the pageant wound into its concluding tableaux and the church lights were dimmed for the singing of Silent Night, a couple of magical, I would allow, miraculous, things happened.  The sheep, when they were finished with their parts, bleated their way down a side aisle to sit in the last couple of pews and watch the end of the show.  Doris Peterson suddenly found herself surrounded by a loving little herd.  Then the church went dark, and we could all see what had been happening outside for the last hour.  The first snow of winter was falling.  Big, fat snowflakes floated down, covering everything with a white blanket.  From both children and grown-ups there was a group ‘Ahhhhh!’

We sang together with sacred tones, ‘Silent night, Holy night, all is calm, all is bright.’  Our voices were soft, and all the sheep were quiet, even the ones who were still awake.  Everybody looked at the snow.  When the last verse of the carol finally died away, no one stirred for a long time.  It wasn’t planned.  We all just sat there and watched together.

Finally, Minnie McDonald broke the spell.  She’s hard of hearing and probably meant to whisper to her husband, but everybody heard.  ‘Perfect,’ she said, ‘just perfect.’

And it was.  It wasn’t perfect in the way Doris Peterson had tried to make her pageants perfect; it was perfect in the way God makes all things perfect, the way God accepts our fumbling attempts at love and fairness and covers them with divine grace.”

Enjoy the divine grace of this holiday season, my friends… God IS still speaking… through the fun of Christmas pageants, the star-filled sky of angels’ song, God IS still speaking… just as God did to Joseph… through dreams and hopes and prayers and silence… God IS still speaking… through doubts and fears and the best of intentions gone bad… God IS still speaking…speaking to us with the kind of grace-filled and grace-covered perfection for which God is so well-known.  As we end one year and begin another in this family of faith, let us listen carefully, in dreams and in wakefulness, for our God IS still speaking, perfectly…!

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