Speaker 1: Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to comm.church for more information.
Speaker 2: For those I haven't met before, my name's Scott. I am part of our pastoral team here in the community. And as a team, we are thrilled to be sharing this advent with you all. This season where we put up lights, but then we also try to let our eyes adjust to the darkness that's all around us. The season where we hold out for the best of humanity, for hope, and for love, and for joy, and next week for peace that stills all of our fears.
And the longer that I follow these Christian rhythms of keeping time, the more I feel a longing for Advent, it actually starts to hit me in the middle of the fall. And this is one of the reasons that our family's on the early adapter side of the when to, decorate debate. Right? Some of you are later. That's fine.
The point is is that I love how changing the look and the feel of our home actually invites me to prepare and invites me to get ready and to set some intention in my life. And I find that with each annual return that Advent actually welcomes me, not the other way around. It brings its music of minor chords and protest, and it brings its discontent and odd, all that breaks and mends our hearts. It brings the whispered reminder that hope is not a fool's errand, but in fact, it's our truest and our grittiest art form. And I am loving the ways that our current series has given me some new perspective because if you've missed it, we are using a series of literary lenses for the familiar stories of Jesus' arrival.
We're pursuing some different advent angles. In week one, Jeremy explored the idea of Christmas as a tragedy of sorts. And last week, Bobby offered this resonant image of Jesus as the joke. She invited us to reconsider the stories we weave, including this one of a god with us, to see them as a raucous comedy. And she challenged us to look for the absurd and the hilariously farcical parts of those difficult moments that we encounter.
Finding Jesus in the joke of being alive and accepting all the ways that Jesus shows us how to be fully human, which I offer to you as an encouragement to go back and listen to that one again. Okay? Let Advent come to you. Today, we're gonna actually explore fairy tales and how all the feels and surprises and moral myths and retelling lead us further into this season. But before we do that, let's take a moment.
Let's pause. Let's pray together. Join me now. Advent God, it's in this season especially that we consider how you are always approaching, how you've been with us this past week, how you meet us here and now in kind faces and quiet space to be ourselves. And we trust too that you are aware of our deepest need today.
You step towards us even when we feel like you're so far away or maybe that we've stepped away, which is why today we ask for courage to trust that this season we're in, that this struggle we face, that this heaviness we carry, that here we are not alone. And we ask that you help us to hear the good news of the text we take up now and guide us gently towards your better way. We ask in the name of Christ, our hope. Amen. Okay.
So I am aware that as soon as I said the word fairy tale that most of our imaginations woke up for the first time today. Many of us have likely been exposed to folk stories and nursery rhymes and tales of fantasy and wonder as children. And the truth is that I've encountered many of these narratives in the media consumption of my kids and in the revival of fairy tales in new animated classics, such as Disney's 2010 film Tangled, which is based quite loosely on a German fairy tale called Rapunzel that some of you might be familiar with. Tangled is rumored to be the most expensive animated movie ever made. And I assume that Kevin Borst, is both our commons creative pastor and our full time Disney aficionado, he is sitting somewhere in the building right now checking to see if I've given you the facts, and I assure you that I have.
So don't worry about him. Okay? The point is that while this film was wildly successful, it also holds a particularly vivid place in my memory. And I want you to rewind with me about ten or so years to me and my toddler son sitting and watching this movie together, and it reaches its penultimate scene where love interest Eugene climbs up into Rapunzel's tower to set her free from the clutches of the witch who abducted her as a child. This witch has been keeping Rapunzel hidden and using her hair's unique regenerative powers as long as it's never cut.
She's been using her hair to remain immortal. Spoiler alert. K. Blug your ears. The witch violently attacks Eugene and tries to take Rapunzel away.
And Rapunzel's sort of resists, and she says, I'll go willingly if you let me heal Eugene quickly. And Eugene realizes that if he lets this happen, Rapunzel will be the witch's slave for forever. And so in one last heroic act, he cuts her magical hair, her free, and sealing his own faith fate. At which point, we all gasp. Right?
And the evil witch falls from the tower and dies without her life source, and Eugene dies of his wounds after declaring his love. And see, if you haven't seen this movie, this is where Disney gets you because the music comes down, and Rapunzel quietly sings this incantation. She sings, heal what has been hurt, change the fate's design, save what has been lost, bring back what once was mine. And her massive ears or ears. Her massive eyes start to brim with tears.
It'd be weird if her ears did that. So weird. So her eyes get all watery like this. Right? And I want you to just come with me now into this memory with me and my son because we are watching this, and I'm not crying.
You're crying. Right? And he turns his little head to me as if to say something, and I see that his eyes are brimming just like Rapunzel's. At which point, I can only assume that we finished the movie because I blacked out after that. I was just overcome with emotion.
But I have reflected many times on how my son, who didn't understand the poignancy of the poetry, and he didn't grasp the the potent metaphor of sacrifice and selflessness, and he certainly didn't grasp the ins and outs of this fairy tale, how he got caught up in the base emotion, feeling, and wonder of story, which is such a lovely reminder for us when we come back to familiar texts and stories like those that we are looking at in Advent. It's this reminder to let the images come to life and let them speak as sacred text and human story. Let them speak to whatever joy or grief that you're living with. A reminder to let emotion breathe freshness into all that you have grown accustomed to and give yourself time and space to really feel. And with this in mind, today, are jumping into Luke one where the gospel writer begins their story of Jesus' birth by telling us about some other characters, namely this priest named Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth.
And we learn early on that both of them were righteous in the sight of God. They're observing all of the Lord's commands and decrees blamelessly, but they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old. So the text gives us this information and then shifts shifts immediately to a scene where Zachariah is fulfilling his priestly duties. He's how he's been chosen from among eligible priests in a kind of lottery to serve in the temple on this particular day. And just a quick note here about this, him being selected and the duties that he was performing, these are part of long story tradition going back to the earliest of Hebrew rituals.
The book of Exodus chapter 30 tells us that Moses' brother Aaron, the first priest, would have started this practice that Zechariah is doing, a burning incense in the morning and at twilight. This would have been a really revered role in the community as it took place in the inner portions of the tabernacle and then later in the temple in Jerusalem, which is where Zechariah is standing as he fills this divinely sanctioned position. His role has been decided for him. He's practiced the rituals. He's just part of a religious outcome that is expected and reverently repeated each day, each year, a part of this heritage of blessing.
And while he is doing this ordered thing, steeped in tradition, an angel appears to him. And Zechariah is understandably alarmed, but the angel says to him, don't be afraid. Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bury you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth.
He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the lord their god and make ready a people prepared for the lord. Now this prediction that the angel is making is about John the Baptist, of course. This is Jesus' cousin who will show up later in the story to play a significant role. He points people towards Jesus' unique and refreshing vision. But what we can't rush past right here is a shift that happens in the heart of this scene.
See, this angelic appearance and divine promise shimmer with magical fairy tale properties. We see it in how the announcement runs against the grain of reality, and it hints at the most improbable turn of events. And this, as cultural historian Marina Warner contends the genre of fairy tales does all of the time. This encounter between Zechariah and an angel lifts the tale into the realm of surprise, or rather into the realm of surprisingness because we have heard the story before and we know what will happen. Yes.
Zechariah should be surprised here as he lives through a shocking shift in reality where divine tradition and faithfulness meet divine interjection and upheaval. And as they do, Zechariah's conception of how the divine works and appears in the world is challenged and transformed just as ours should as we move through Advent. Because on one hand, this season invites us to observe and turn toward the long and the steady work of God and grace that has brought us to this moment. Many of us experience that in supportive friends and family perhaps. We experience it in reverence and appreciation for the traditions and rituals that entranced us and renew us.
Many of us find it in an the awareness that comes to us when we realize how far we've come and how fortunate we are and how our agency is in fact an inheritance that we have received from so many beautiful souls before us. Just as alternatively, on the other hand, this season invites us to be receptive to the work of grace that comes as interruption. In sudden changes this past year that took your breath away, and now you find new resiliency in perhaps. Maybe in the unforeseen challenges that have given you an appreciation for your support systems and the people that have stuck with you. Maybe in every moment that you have paused at the end of your energy, at the end of your rope, and you have found some steady and yet unexpected assurance that tomorrow tomorrow is gonna be okay.
It's in instances like these that come to us as a reminder that like Zechariah, story is rooted in tales of grace that go back further than you realize. And your story is also marked by its own holy magical surprises. Now this promise that the angel gives to Zachariah is huge. Zechariah isn't sure what to do with it because after all, we have heard that they have not been able to have children. And as Zechariah reminds the angel, they are both old and not trending in the right direction.
And so this is what the base or the angel basically says to him. He says, listen, dude. I'm an angel. I've given you the best divine messaging direct from the source. No more talking till your child is born.
It's sort of this weird moment. But the point is is he leaves this moment, and he goes home. And, of course, having gone home, his wife becomes pregnant. And in Disney esque sort of fashion, she lets out some of her excitement at all that's happening. And she says this, the Lord has done this great thing for me.
In these days, God has shown divine favor and has taken away my disgrace among the people. And this is a really emotional moment. Right? We can hear in their responses this culmination of many longings and prayers offered. It's all the feels here again.
And that said, there is an interesting commentary happening in this story, and it just so happens to relate to Disney movies again. And here's what I mean. Many historical fairy tales examine and reflect on human nature very differently than our modern animated renditions. These older versions often don't include our fascination with happily ever afters. In many of these older versions of the story, good doesn't always prevail, and idyllic storyline resolutions are actually quite scarce.
And often, the moral lines of right and wrong aren't drawn so clearly. The earlier version of Cinderella is an example that I'm gonna offer you because many of us might be familiar with this story. And I offer this to you because the story, the ancient story is actually so confounding in how it hands out justice. There's the cruel stepmother who, in addition to harming Cinderella, encourages the stepsisters to maim their feet so that the glass slipper will actually fit. She's an awful person, and she just passes into obscurity when the story is over.
And then, of course, there's the neglect and the betrayal committed by Cinderella's father who ignores the abuses of his that his daughter that his daughter's suffering. And when the prince comes looking for her and asks him if he has another daughter, he lies and says, no. There is only the deformed little Cinderella from my first wife. She can't possibly be who you're looking for, which is terrible. Right?
And nothing happens to him at the end of the story. It just ends. And so the point is that these earlier versions of the story don't always vindicate. But in addition to these kinds of tales, scholar Angus Fletcher points to another variety of fairy tales that pop up in the literary record. Stories in which good luck happens to people who are foolish and rude, and even confusingly to those who are corrupt and unequivocally bad, how those people sometimes win.
And Fletcher calls these kinds of stories, he calls them fairy tale twists, where the tale's jovial ending doesn't correlate to whether or not the protagonist deserves it or not. Where in the imagined moral economy of medieval storytellers, we should just consider that just about everything could happen. Where every character is subject to the fickle turns of good fortune. The hero might benefit, but so too might the bumbling villain. A startling twist where characters don't all get what they deserve.
Now, if you have watched or been subjected to modern animated fairy tales, you know that we don't tell stories with this kind of ambiguity very often. That's something we can talk about another time because I wanna turn back to Luke one here. Remember, we were introduced to Zechariah and Elizabeth as being righteous in the sight of God and observing all of the Lord's commandments and decrees blamelessly. And with this language, the writer of Luke is clearly holding them up as exemplars of Jewish piety. They are grade a spiritual.
They follow the rules. And the writer has to do this because in the very next verse, they will tell the reader that Zachariah and Elizabeth were unable to conceive, and the writer knows that some ancient readers will assume that this difficulty derives from some shortcoming on their part, from some hidden moral fault or failure from which they now suffer the consequences. And with this inclusion about how good and faithful they are, the author says to the ancient reader and us, let me just stop you right there because that's not how the world works. Sometimes even the good and the upright and the faithful and the most beautiful people suffer. Just like sometimes even the unfortunate, the passed by, the ashamed, the too old, the disempowered, they inherit the good that has been too long in coming.
And this double twist there, that's why I love this story because it's both unapologetically honest in naming how the world works, and it's unreservedly courageous in its attempt to get us to think differently. It wants us to think about the way we tell stories to ourselves about what we deserve or what we know we don't or don't think we do. It wants us to think about the way that we take what others say about us, what they name us, what they give to us, and we carry that shame with us. It wants us to think about the way that we judge others, and we put mercy over here far from them as we conclude that they deserve or they're just getting what they deserve. And it's for these places and so many others that the story of Advent comes to address our moral myths and to set us back on the level ground that we all share, where we realize that none of us gets what we deserve in God's economy.
And that in the story of Jesus, we receive a gift and a promise of so much more. So the story continues. And a little later, we read this that oh, yeah. That Elizabeth's neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy. This is after she has given birth to their son.
And after a little drama, they named the boy John, and they, yeah, they just do what the angel told them to do there. And everyone's so excited and thrilled at what this newness means. And somewhat appropriately, the old guy and the new father in the room gets a fairy tale song to sing of his own. And this is because the divine promise spoken to Zechariah in a darkened incense filled room is now embodied in the wriggling and squealing of his infant son. And biblical scholars like to point out that the author of Luke seems to be layering the divine promises here when he speaks of John's arrival.
One of those promises is to an aging couple that has longed for a child, and the other promise is to a Jewish nation and people who have surely grown tired in waiting for rescue. And I'm okay with that kind of interpretation, but today I wanna lean toward a more literary fairy tale like interpretation. Because I think it could just as easily be said that as Zechariah holds his boy and he thinks back on the stories that he was told as a child, and he remembers the tales of how God came near in the past, maybe it dawns on him that the divine promise to him and his wife, this thing that has turned their sorrow into joy. In fact, this thing that sounded at the first cry they heard from him, that maybe all of this might have some bigger implication. So he sings and he says, praise be to the lord, the god of Israel.
Because god has come to our people and redeemed them to show mercy to our ancestors, to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve God without fear. What a beautiful phrase. And then he sings over his son. He says, and you my child, you will go on before the Lord to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the path of peace. Just such an incredible lullaby.
Right? But what I love is how Zechariah is getting caught up in the moment here. He's looking down into the squinty eyes of his infant child, and then he zooms out in wonder at the bigger story of divine love. A bigger story that we come back to as well. A story that we handle faithfully when we take it into the fabric of our mundane and difficult everyday life and choose to see everything around us differently, which is what fairy tales are bound to do to us for the record.
At least if we take author Sarah Maitland's word for it, when she says that she has come to realize that the best fairy tales and the best stories, that they're often very ancient, and that you're allowed to retell them at whim and in your own way, which is my hope for you this advent as we wait for and approach and celebrate the Christ child that in every gift you give and receive, that in every wholesome moment that fixes you with wonder, in every expression of generosity you offer, both great and small, in every grief and sorrow you treat with care, and in all the quiet reflection and holy Yuletide cheer, that you will retell this great story in your own way with a new awareness that the promise it brings to you again, that it really is yours, and it's ours, and it's theirs. It's a story big enough to include us all. Let's pray. Loving God, present to us now in words and images that we call to mind. And maybe we find that you stretch our hearts to hold the fullness of your story just a little bit more in the ways that it meets us here in the pain and the joy, in the contours of our life as it currently is, And we hold to the ways that your story invites us to zoom out a little bit.
Imagine a little and share a little bit more Even as we welcome your faithful work and the surprises that you bring, we welcome the ways that you upend our moral myths, and you offer us more kindness than we could ever imagine. And we pray. Let us hold this wonder and joy as we retell this story in renewing ways. We ask in the name of Christ. Amen.