20080921 Humility and Offering

20080921 Humility and Offering: The Nativity of the Theotokos
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Philippians 2: 5-11
St. Luke 10: 38-42; 11: 27-28

Today we celebrate the feast of the Nativity (the birth) of Our Holy Lady, Mary. In the hymns for the feast, we sing that on this day the barrenness of Joachim and Anna has been removed. It is also the removal of barrenness from the world – the one who is born today is the gate through which Christ the Messiah, the salvation of the world, enters. This means that we are celebrating something much more than the birth of a great saint today: we are celebrating the Incarnation of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. For without the Incarnation of Christ, the birth of even this most blessed Lady would not adorn our calendar; nor, for that matter, would her icon adorn our walls.

To make this point, the iconography of the Church rarely depicts Our Lady separate from Her Son. [Notice above you: this, like this one on my right, has her holding Christ. Even the one over the altar has her bowing to Him.]. Nor is this is not an insult to Our Lady. No icon is EVER written without reference to Christ – for when we reverence any saint, we do not reverence them, but the Christ who is in them; who has purified them. So today’s celebrations of Our Lady’s birth is proclaimed not just as the joy of her parents or of the holy life the newborn child would eventually lead, but within the context of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, the salvation of the world, and the salvation of all who believe in Him.

In the birth of Mary, you have a juxtaposition of weakness and strength; the weakness of the elderly and heretofore barren Joachim and Anna, [and] the weakness of their newborn babe; with the strength of God and the inexorable tide of history leading through their small efforts to the grand climax of the world’s remaking. St. Paul reminds us today of another juxtaposition, when he says that “Christ Jesus, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.” The point St. Paul is making is that Jesus Christ was one with God the Father. He was God. All glory and honor were His natural due. But He did not cling to this; rather, He humbled Himself to also become man.

We have much to learn from this example. There is so little humility in the world today. Whereas God did not cling to the glory and honor that really were His due; we devote all of our energy clinging to things we do not even own. I do not just mean the culture of debt through which we are destroying ourselves and our economy; we cling greedily to everything that lies within our reach: our homes, our cars, our collections, our time, our reputations, our children, our pride. Do we not realize that none of these things are ours by right? That even the good things in our care are just ours “on loan”; given to us by God in our roles as His stewards? Only a thief clings so hard to things that are not really his.

Everything really was God’s; but as St. Paul goes on to say in today’s epistle; “He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” God gave up so much; as Father, He gave “His only begotten Son”; as Son, He gave up His own glory to become man, then suffered immeasurably on the cross. God is shown to be so humble, so loving, that He gave up everything up for us. But there is more: not only was God willing to give up all the good things that really were His, He accepted pain and punishment for crimes He did not even commit. The death He suffered on the Cross was not for things He did: it was for our sins – it was punishment for what we have done. What a tremendous example and offering of humility and love!

But what about us? Just as we cling to all those things that are in our possession only through providence; so, too, do we reject all the punishment that we really have earned! How rare it is to meet a person in today’s world who will step up and take responsibility for the mistakes he has made! Rather, we like to present ourselves as victims of someone else’s crime, or of some huge conspiracy against us. We have created entire institutions to shield us from the results of our folly. We have come to the point where we do not even recognize “sin” and “heresy” as meaningful concepts. And as far as we are from taking ownership of our own sin, we are so much farther from being willing to sacrifice ourselves for the sin and mistakes of others.

In our greediness, our irresponsibility, and our lack of love; we are so utterly unlike Christ. And this is tragic. We are greedy and avoid blame because we are proud: we want to be recognized as good and worthy. Having lots of things and avoiding blame are signs of success here in this world. But here is the irony: the path of Christ, the one that takes us through poverty and self-sacrifice, is the one that really leads to Glory; as St. Paul finishes today’s epistle reading; “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

As Christian’s here at St. Michael’s, we have forsaken the ways of the world; we cling not to our possessions or our pride, but to the Truth. We acknowledge our own sins and we help others work through the consequences of their own. And through this, we receive glory. Through this, in Christ, we are perfected. Through this we look to a life of abundant riches, not just now, but for all eternity.