Emmanuel: An Advent Dayenu
Sermon
God in Flesh Made Manifest
Cycle A Gospel Lesson Sermons For Advent, Christmas, And Epiphany
Object:
In the Jewish tradition there is a liturgy and accompanying song called "Dayenu." Dayenu is a Hebrew word which can be translated several ways. It can mean: "It would have been enough," or "we would have been grateful and content," or "our need would have been satisfied."
Part of the Dayenu is a responsive reading that goes like this:
O God, if thy only act of kindness was to deliver us from the bondage of Egypt, Dayenu! -- It would have been enough.
If thy only act of deliverance was to divide the Red Sea waters, Dayenu! -- It would have been enough.
If thy only act of mercy was to provide manna in the wilderness, Dayenu! -- It would have been enough.
If thy only act of graciousness was the gift of the sabbath day, Dayenu! -- It would have been enough.
If thy only act of love was to favor us with thy Torah, Dayenu! -- It would have been enough.
If thy only act of lovingkindness was to bring us into the land of Israel, Dayenu! -- It would have been enough.
The reading then concludes: "How grateful are we and how doubly blessed for all these acts of kindness and mercy and graciousness which the Lord our God has bestowed upon us."
Dayenu celebrates the multilayered grace and extravagant love of God.
The scriptures appointed for the Fourth Sunday in Advent remind me of the Dayenu. I believe it can help us as we seek to hear God's word to us through these texts today.
Both texts tell of the birth of a special child. "Behold," Isaiah prophesies, "a young woman shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel."
Matthew quotes that text in his Gospel and adds the explanation that Emmanuel means "God with us" or, more accurately, "God is with us."
In the movie My Blue Heaven, one character attempts to explain a situation to another. The second character, played by Steve Martin, keeps saying, "I'm wit-choo, I'm wit-choo." And then explains, "When I say I'm wit-choo, I don't mean it like an expression. I mean I'm wit-choo; I'm wit - choo!"
Just so, the name of the promised baby Emmanuel, God with us, is far more than an expression. It means far more than that God understands us. It means that God is with us. Physically, truly with us. Not apart from us. Not up in heaven or off in some other world detached from and indifferent to our lives, our hopes and fears, our choices, decisions and indecisions, our thoughts and words and deeds; no: God is with us.
Jesus said it this way: "Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I" -- where? -- in the midst of them. And if we press the question, "Where in the midst of us?" the gospel gives these answers:
In the bread and wine which are not only signs of his presence, but his body broken for us, his blood shed for us.
In his word, in which he assures us of God's favor and love for us apart from any consideration of our naughtiness or niceness.
In the ministry of one believer to another, not only speaking words of comfort, but himself or herself embodying comfort, bringing Christ to another in his or her own ministry of caring and compassion.
In all these things, we know God as Emmanuel, God with us. If you are here this morning because you are seeking God, you have come to the right place. For here the wine is poured and here the bread is broken. Here the word is heard, for here the word is spoken. Here God's people seek to embody Christ in their love for one another, haltingly, at times, to be sure, and not without failure. But God was willing to take that risk by coming into our midst as a baby, and like a baby, we often stumble and fall. If God could take that risk, can we not respond in openness and trust?
Had God simply given us that much -- a promise signifying that God is with us -- Dayenu! That would have been enough. We would have been grateful and content. But there is more.
In Isaiah's day, the Assyrian empire had become the dominant power in the Middle East. It was threatening Judah and Judah's near neighbors. Calamity is about to befall the people of God. The heat is on. The pressure intense. We are besieged. "Where, now, is our God?" the people cry. Comes the answer: Emmanuel. God is with us.
This child is an embodied way for God to say what God and the angels so often say in scripture: "Fear not. I am with thee." "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy. For to you is born... a savior, Christ the Lord." And because this is so, we in faith can say with the psalmist, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Why? "For thou art with me."
When such fearsome foes as cancer and AIDS and debilitating disease and relentless pain assault us; when alcohol or chemical dependency, physical abuse or mental confusion, marital breakdown, or parent-child strife, dead-end job, or the news that "your department has been transferred; your position may be eliminated" comes in flat tones, shaking our foundations, that is when we cling with all our being to the hope-renewing sign of Emmanuel -- an incarnate assurance that God is with us.
This baby, you see, is for us a way to keep the faith. For just when we are most tempted to believe that God has abandoned us or forgotten us or doesn't care a whit about our fate, God gives us a sign: Emmanuel, an embodied reminder that God is with us. Not merely that God understands, but that God is with us, beside us, among us, in our midst, to allay our fears, to save and comfort and console, and not to damn.
Had God simply given us that much -- a child, an incarnation of the divine promise -- Dayenu! That would have been enough. We would have been grateful and content. But there is more.
Matthew describes Joseph as "a righteous man."His was a moral uprightness that made Joseph unwilling to expose his pregnant fiancée to public shame and humiliation, but which also made Joseph unwilling to marry her, and so he "planned to dismiss her quietly." God had other plans, and in a dream God informed Joseph of those plans.
The question for Joseph then becomes a question of conventional wisdom and common decency versus radical faith and obedience to the living God. Where shall he invest his trust? In God's promise and command, or in currently accepted practice that passes for righteousness?
Put that way, the question is not only applicable in our day, but urgent. Whom shall we trust? It is not only our enemies who would cause us to abandon obedience and lose faith. Sometimes it is our friends and neighbors and the prevailing morality of society that tempt us to buy into attitudes and adopt behaviors that are inconsistent with the faith.
Such attitudes as, "Helping the poor is a matter of charity, not of justice. And therefore, it is purely voluntary, a good holiday time activity. After all, many of the poor choose to live that way."
Such attitudes as, "The problem in Africa in general and the Horn of Africa in particular is not lack of food but overpopulation. Starvation may be cruel and hard to watch, but as Ebeneezer Scrooge once observed at this very time of year, it does decrease the surplus population."
And what of this matter of choice that has in the past few decades become enshrined as the idol before whom all Americans are expected to bow down and do obeisance? The culture genuflects reverently before the altar of Choice. Political leaders preach secular sermons about preserving the Freedom to Choose. But where are the voices that speak of the morality of that which is chosen? Is there no longer a distinction between good and evil? Do we really believe that all choices are equally good? If we do not, then how do we develop the ability to do what Isaiah describes: "Refuse the evil and choose the good"? And how do we teach that skill to our children? How do we help them develop moral gyroscopes that spin in a direction consistent with the gospel?
If the freedom to make choices is worth defending, then the morality of the choices people actually make is worth debating.
If our neighbors would have us believe otherwise, would have us deny that there are morally inferior and morally superior choices, then we are in a situation not dissimilar to that of Joseph: guided by the urbane worldly wisdom of conventional morality.
So when you hear the great blaring, banal voice of the culture beckon to you with all the subtlety of a gum-cracking streetwalker, think of the child, the one named Emmanuel which means God is with us -- with us in our struggle to live by faith and by values consistent with that faith, not by the values of convenience and amoral choice.
If that were all there were to this text -- Dayenu! It would have been enough.
But there is one last item, and that is the baby himself, the child who is our Emmanuel, our guarantor of God's promises, our sign that God is with us.
Jesus is our Emmanuel; not merely a sign of God, but the Son of God, incarnate, embodied deep in the flesh of Mary's child.
The sign God gave to Ahab entailed little risk on God's part. The signs God gave to Noah, to Abraham, and to Moses -- rainbows and stars in heaven and sticks turned to serpents -- entailed little or no risk to God. But God's own Son, entrusted to the frail and feeble hands of humankind -- what greater risk could there be than that?
This is our assurance that God is not asking us to do anything that God is not willing to do: to take a risk. In our case, the risk is trusting God and keeping the faith, despite all invitations to do otherwise.
His name shall be called Emmanuel -- which means, "God is with us." To trust that it is so is a risk worth taking, a Spirit-empowered choice worth making. Not only can you believe it; you can bet your life on it. Dayenu! It is enough.
Part of the Dayenu is a responsive reading that goes like this:
O God, if thy only act of kindness was to deliver us from the bondage of Egypt, Dayenu! -- It would have been enough.
If thy only act of deliverance was to divide the Red Sea waters, Dayenu! -- It would have been enough.
If thy only act of mercy was to provide manna in the wilderness, Dayenu! -- It would have been enough.
If thy only act of graciousness was the gift of the sabbath day, Dayenu! -- It would have been enough.
If thy only act of love was to favor us with thy Torah, Dayenu! -- It would have been enough.
If thy only act of lovingkindness was to bring us into the land of Israel, Dayenu! -- It would have been enough.
The reading then concludes: "How grateful are we and how doubly blessed for all these acts of kindness and mercy and graciousness which the Lord our God has bestowed upon us."
Dayenu celebrates the multilayered grace and extravagant love of God.
The scriptures appointed for the Fourth Sunday in Advent remind me of the Dayenu. I believe it can help us as we seek to hear God's word to us through these texts today.
Both texts tell of the birth of a special child. "Behold," Isaiah prophesies, "a young woman shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel."
Matthew quotes that text in his Gospel and adds the explanation that Emmanuel means "God with us" or, more accurately, "God is with us."
In the movie My Blue Heaven, one character attempts to explain a situation to another. The second character, played by Steve Martin, keeps saying, "I'm wit-choo, I'm wit-choo." And then explains, "When I say I'm wit-choo, I don't mean it like an expression. I mean I'm wit-choo; I'm wit - choo!"
Just so, the name of the promised baby Emmanuel, God with us, is far more than an expression. It means far more than that God understands us. It means that God is with us. Physically, truly with us. Not apart from us. Not up in heaven or off in some other world detached from and indifferent to our lives, our hopes and fears, our choices, decisions and indecisions, our thoughts and words and deeds; no: God is with us.
Jesus said it this way: "Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I" -- where? -- in the midst of them. And if we press the question, "Where in the midst of us?" the gospel gives these answers:
In the bread and wine which are not only signs of his presence, but his body broken for us, his blood shed for us.
In his word, in which he assures us of God's favor and love for us apart from any consideration of our naughtiness or niceness.
In the ministry of one believer to another, not only speaking words of comfort, but himself or herself embodying comfort, bringing Christ to another in his or her own ministry of caring and compassion.
In all these things, we know God as Emmanuel, God with us. If you are here this morning because you are seeking God, you have come to the right place. For here the wine is poured and here the bread is broken. Here the word is heard, for here the word is spoken. Here God's people seek to embody Christ in their love for one another, haltingly, at times, to be sure, and not without failure. But God was willing to take that risk by coming into our midst as a baby, and like a baby, we often stumble and fall. If God could take that risk, can we not respond in openness and trust?
Had God simply given us that much -- a promise signifying that God is with us -- Dayenu! That would have been enough. We would have been grateful and content. But there is more.
In Isaiah's day, the Assyrian empire had become the dominant power in the Middle East. It was threatening Judah and Judah's near neighbors. Calamity is about to befall the people of God. The heat is on. The pressure intense. We are besieged. "Where, now, is our God?" the people cry. Comes the answer: Emmanuel. God is with us.
This child is an embodied way for God to say what God and the angels so often say in scripture: "Fear not. I am with thee." "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy. For to you is born... a savior, Christ the Lord." And because this is so, we in faith can say with the psalmist, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Why? "For thou art with me."
When such fearsome foes as cancer and AIDS and debilitating disease and relentless pain assault us; when alcohol or chemical dependency, physical abuse or mental confusion, marital breakdown, or parent-child strife, dead-end job, or the news that "your department has been transferred; your position may be eliminated" comes in flat tones, shaking our foundations, that is when we cling with all our being to the hope-renewing sign of Emmanuel -- an incarnate assurance that God is with us.
This baby, you see, is for us a way to keep the faith. For just when we are most tempted to believe that God has abandoned us or forgotten us or doesn't care a whit about our fate, God gives us a sign: Emmanuel, an embodied reminder that God is with us. Not merely that God understands, but that God is with us, beside us, among us, in our midst, to allay our fears, to save and comfort and console, and not to damn.
Had God simply given us that much -- a child, an incarnation of the divine promise -- Dayenu! That would have been enough. We would have been grateful and content. But there is more.
Matthew describes Joseph as "a righteous man."His was a moral uprightness that made Joseph unwilling to expose his pregnant fiancée to public shame and humiliation, but which also made Joseph unwilling to marry her, and so he "planned to dismiss her quietly." God had other plans, and in a dream God informed Joseph of those plans.
The question for Joseph then becomes a question of conventional wisdom and common decency versus radical faith and obedience to the living God. Where shall he invest his trust? In God's promise and command, or in currently accepted practice that passes for righteousness?
Put that way, the question is not only applicable in our day, but urgent. Whom shall we trust? It is not only our enemies who would cause us to abandon obedience and lose faith. Sometimes it is our friends and neighbors and the prevailing morality of society that tempt us to buy into attitudes and adopt behaviors that are inconsistent with the faith.
Such attitudes as, "Helping the poor is a matter of charity, not of justice. And therefore, it is purely voluntary, a good holiday time activity. After all, many of the poor choose to live that way."
Such attitudes as, "The problem in Africa in general and the Horn of Africa in particular is not lack of food but overpopulation. Starvation may be cruel and hard to watch, but as Ebeneezer Scrooge once observed at this very time of year, it does decrease the surplus population."
And what of this matter of choice that has in the past few decades become enshrined as the idol before whom all Americans are expected to bow down and do obeisance? The culture genuflects reverently before the altar of Choice. Political leaders preach secular sermons about preserving the Freedom to Choose. But where are the voices that speak of the morality of that which is chosen? Is there no longer a distinction between good and evil? Do we really believe that all choices are equally good? If we do not, then how do we develop the ability to do what Isaiah describes: "Refuse the evil and choose the good"? And how do we teach that skill to our children? How do we help them develop moral gyroscopes that spin in a direction consistent with the gospel?
If the freedom to make choices is worth defending, then the morality of the choices people actually make is worth debating.
If our neighbors would have us believe otherwise, would have us deny that there are morally inferior and morally superior choices, then we are in a situation not dissimilar to that of Joseph: guided by the urbane worldly wisdom of conventional morality.
So when you hear the great blaring, banal voice of the culture beckon to you with all the subtlety of a gum-cracking streetwalker, think of the child, the one named Emmanuel which means God is with us -- with us in our struggle to live by faith and by values consistent with that faith, not by the values of convenience and amoral choice.
If that were all there were to this text -- Dayenu! It would have been enough.
But there is one last item, and that is the baby himself, the child who is our Emmanuel, our guarantor of God's promises, our sign that God is with us.
Jesus is our Emmanuel; not merely a sign of God, but the Son of God, incarnate, embodied deep in the flesh of Mary's child.
The sign God gave to Ahab entailed little risk on God's part. The signs God gave to Noah, to Abraham, and to Moses -- rainbows and stars in heaven and sticks turned to serpents -- entailed little or no risk to God. But God's own Son, entrusted to the frail and feeble hands of humankind -- what greater risk could there be than that?
This is our assurance that God is not asking us to do anything that God is not willing to do: to take a risk. In our case, the risk is trusting God and keeping the faith, despite all invitations to do otherwise.
His name shall be called Emmanuel -- which means, "God is with us." To trust that it is so is a risk worth taking, a Spirit-empowered choice worth making. Not only can you believe it; you can bet your life on it. Dayenu! It is enough.
