Stephen V. Sprinkle, Ph.D.
Professor of Practical Theology
Brite Divinity School, and Theologian-in-Residence
The Episcopal Church of St. Thomas the Apostle
December 20, 2020
(St. Luke chapter 1:35) The angel said to her…
1:37 “…Nothing will be impossible with God.”
1:38 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
The Book of the Prophet Isaiah commencing at chapter 6:1 and concluding with verses 8 & 9:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2 Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3 And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”…
…8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!” 9 And he said, “Go and say to this people:…”
In addition to the famous Luke chapter 1 announcement of the incarnation to Mary, I have chosen a prophetic text not often paired with it. One might well ask, “Why? What is the point of doing so? Why put the call of Isaiah into scriptural conversation with the call by the Angel Gabriel to Mary, whom the ancient church knows as ‘the God-bearer’?
And I answer, “The point of doing so is this:
- The ongoing incarnation of God in this time and in this place,
- God’s incarnational imperative that we commemorate at this this time of year,
- An incarnational imperative that has never been the sole responsibility of Mary of Nazareth or the prophet scholars known as First Isaiah.”
And I go one step further:
- The incarnational imperative by which God purposes to save has never been more urgently needed than here and now, given the great convergence of moment, message, and mission.
“Incarnation,” you see, is more than the church’s way of indicating that Mary’s baby, Jesus of Nazareth, is the fullness of God bodily, as the Letter to the Colossians teaches—the ‘en-flesh-ment of God,’ God-with-us.
Comm-union with God requires com-muni-cation, a great, inclusive conversation commencing with God and the holy angels as these scriptures teach us, but necessarily continuing the message by the living community of the faith, that is, those who believe the imperative of the message, and who send forth com-muni-cators of the message of salvation by word and deed at the time it is most needed.
Just like right here and right now. This is the imperative moment, when the infection of the people is raging in our ICUs, prisons, long-term care facilities, and cities and towns. Incarnation is the divine imperative message inoculated into the hurting world’s need until the coming of the Eschaton when the whole creation becomes a New Creation, and finally, God is all-in-all.
Incarnating the message is the Christian mission, accepted and carried out whenever we who believe follow the example of Mary and the Prophet Isaiah by our active enactment of the promises they make: “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word,” and “Here I am; send me!”
How could this time and place not be our divinely appointed moment?
- This moment of public health crisis—when thousands upon thousands of families are broken and grieving from the assault of what the scriptures call “The Final Enemy,” Death in the persona of the novel coronavirus, with untold thousands yet to come here and abroad:
- When Christmas is reduced to a sheltering in place, awaiting the next level of vaccine availability; and
- When massive numbers of people have swallowed the disinformation and distrust sown for months by anti-vaxxers and the trivializers of this pandemic’s deadly power?
- When the false prophets of so-called ‘religious liberty’ have made a political toy out of the necessity of masking, of distancing ourselves from crowds, and make a virtue out of ignorance about immunization?
I cannot go a step farther with this message without meeting head on the theological malpractice of so-called ministers and religious leaders who sow discord and mistrust of God-given medicine and science in the name of religion. The credibility of the Christian message of health, healing, and salvation is at stake, when misguided quacks and false prophets are defaming the very faith that has founded innumerable hospitals, sent medical missions to care and cure billions, and has midwifed international public health movements around the world. Are these malpracticioners really ready to shut down Dallas Presbyterian, Dallas Methodist and Harris Methodist, and Baylor Scott and White All-Saints in service of their fatal errors? Such false teaching is no Christmas gift. It is a toxic lie and a defamation of the Savior of the world to say, “Well, we trust in Jesus to fix it…the blood of Jesus is all the medicine you need.” Good God, Christian ministers have spread this heresy and we must call it for what it is: Anti-Christ.
These are the same false teachers who have spread a racist ethos in their assemblies that has created a well-founded cynicism of black and brown people for a biased healthcare system that is the medical malpractice side of white-supremacist expressions of religion, especially here in the south. No wonder so many of our brown and black siblings in America are suspicious of vaccines and medicine after generations of abuse—a sin for which we must beg their forgiveness and the forgiveness of God, even as we work to set our healthcare systems not pre-dominantly white any longer, but finally fully right.
The theological power of Incarnation, the center of the Christian message that God sends healers, heralds of hope, and the love of God to all people, has a deeply ethical dimension. It demands we seek truth, pursue justice, and proclaim the Christmas miracle by not only what we say, but what we do, as well.
On the one hand, we Christians have a holy obligation to act ethically for the public good. Like the actor and director George Clooney has said against the apologists for so-called ‘religious liberty’, “Religious Freedom, eh? Well, this is what your freedom is: you can smoke till your lungs turn black, but you can’t do it on the bus; and you can drink till your liver drops out of your body, but you can’t drink and get behind the wheel of a car.” To those who refuse to mask up, Clooney said, “Put on the mask. The vaccine is here. We can save 60,000 lives until it gets to us.” Thank you, Mr. Clooney! On the ethical side, that is what practical theology sounds like and acts like.
Now, on the theological side, it is my turn:
You can cry, “Lord, Lord” all you please until you are blue in the face—but until you act on what you say your believe, all your protestations are no more than thumping an empty barrel! Let’s get both practical and theological, then!
As a practical theologian, I declare that the doctrine of the Incarnation is the most practical of all the messages of our religion. Christ Jesus who is God-with-us has shown us that God is among us now in the risen power of the Holy Spirit. That is what the nativity story in Bethlehem and the agony of Jesus on the Cross are all about! Christianity is an embodied faith. Our bodies: black, brown, red, yellow, white and pink matter to God, who became one of us! Jesus our Mediator is both fully human and fully divine. Our Savior is able to save us from all things common to us, so that from everything that is common to us—in life and disease, in death and in life beyond death—Our Savior might save us. If that is anything more than a routine list of doctrines we were once told to believe, then we should show some concrete sign of what we believe by what we do. The concrete mission that clergy and church members alike are called to embody is, to personally incarnate, to live out our faith by following the word and deed of those upon whose shoulders we now stand. When moment, message, and mission converge, and the call of God comes to us, then it is our turn to rise up and declare, “Here I am. Send me.”
The vaccines are here, and reception of the vaccines is totally voluntary. No one advocates any form of coercion to take them, just as no one should compel anyone with medical contraindications to be vaccinated. But COVID-19 is a well-documented killer. Paralyzing doubt about the vaccines is a luxury we Christians cannot afford. If you doubt how important getting these vaccinations into our arms is, then just ask the families and friends of more than 317,000 Americans who have succumbed to this damnable virus.
What is a practical Christian to do when the moment of public health crisis is upon us? When the imperative truth of the incarnate love of God is embodied for us in the Christmas message? What then is our mission? What then are we to do?
Well, here is what we are to do. Roll up our sleeves! Roll up our sleeves as a declaration of faith, and assume the leadership of love Christians are uniquely suited to do. As the vaccine becomes available, receive it in the hope of the Incarnation. Model the best of our religion. Talk about the necessity of vaccination to everyone you know. Use social media to get the word out that the vaccine is a life-saver. Do what you can to alleviate the distrust that threatens the health of all of us. That is what Doubters of Great Faith here at St. Thomas know how to do: to forge a new relationship with truth in our practical acts of commitment, doubts and fears notwithstanding.
Remember, as the Angel Gabriel proclaimed at the Annunciation: “For nothing shall be impossible with God.” Stand, then, with Mary and Isaiah, with the bishops, saints and martyrs who, when the time came, said, “Here I am. Send me.” So when you sing “O Holy Night” later this week, you may do so without regret, and with holy love in your heart.
Why? Not because someone told you to do it. Because, instead, this is what you believe.
Amen.
Stephen V. Sprinkle+
Theologian-in-Residence
