Sermon by Br Ian for Advent IV 2010

How good am I at being disgraceful?  How much do you want to be disgraceful?

Before your imagination runs wild let me say a bit more.  I am talking of course about being disgraceful in the sense of being frowned upon, judged, humiliated, scorned, because of what we say, or who we are.  If I’m honest I think I am not very keen or good at being disgraceful, and yet the willingness and ability to be disgraceful is I think quite important in the vocation of Christian discipleship. 

We hear in today’s passage how Mary and then Joseph confront the reality of being publicly disgraced in order that God’s will may be done.  Willingly, or at least with the help of some angelic prodding, they walk the path of public disgrace; we can hear the voices of indignation from neighbourhood gossips “you know that girl Mary, she’s only got herself pregnant you know!”, “have you heard, Jacob’s son Joseph is going to marry Mary, but who’s  the father of the baby?”

Disgrace not just to Mary and Joseph, but perhaps even more so to their respective families, in a culture where family ties and the wider network of relationships was very important.

So through this story, disgrace presents itself to us as a potential part of our walk with God.

It may happen of course in many different ways, all of them offering us the opportunity to take the risk, trust in God, perhaps confront our own prejudices, and yet also realise that we don’t need the populist support of the crowd.

So in a tangible way what might a disgraceful Christian do or say or be?  What might it mean for us to embrace this thing we might call ‘Godly disgracefulness’?  I’ll reflect on one possible option.

One way to be disgraceful is to be wasteful.  To be publicly disgraced is to allow ourselves to be wasteful and perhaps be on the receiving end of some judgement or scorn because of our wastefulness.  In wastefulness I don’t mean being mindless in how we use energy or leaving lots of food on our plate, but an apparent wastefulness of our time, resources, bodies, minds for a cause and object which the crowd at large may well consider wasteful, even disgraceful.

From a disgraceful birth Christ went on to live a disgraceful life; wasting his time, so some people thought, with those who couldn’t give him anything back in terms of influence or material wealth or kudos;  wasting his powers, so some thought, in changing water into good wine at the end of the banquet;  allowing the apparent waste of costly ointment,  apparently wasting his words on those who couldn’t, or didn’t want to understand; wasting his life, so Peter thought, to die as a criminal.

It is a life and death marked by a certain wastefulness.  A disgrace, some might say, in using his talents and gifts and authority and power for the wrong people and in the wrong ways.

So there is I think enough of a challenge to us to be willing to waste our time and perhaps face disgrace because of the people we associate with,  the sort of people who do not give us obvious influence, wealth or kudos. 

We may find disgrace in wasting our resources on projects and causes and events which have no obvious gain, except the gain of proclaiming things like forgiveness and grace, which are of course difficult to pin down and measure.   In a world of efficiency drives and result orientated procedures, the role of wastefulness can be difficult to embrace.  Wastefulness is not good, it is not productive.    And yet I do not see Christ as some idle good for nothing, or some wishy washy idealist.  He has a clear mission and purpose, and he deliberately sets out to waste his time, and authority so as to reflect the strange logic of God’s grace.

The wastefulness of Christ is to give whether it is deserved or not; to speak and act even when the fruit does not immediately appear; to live the kingdom today for a kingdom that is still to come. 

So in Godly wastefulness, or perhaps in other ways, let us embrace the task of being disgraceful servants of God.  Amen.