Answered Prayers
The much sung Garth Brook’s song, “Unanswered Prayers,” has always irritated me. I love his music, but I have never really liked this song. The refrain goes like this, “Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers Remember when you're talkin' to the man upstairs That just because he may not answer doesn't mean he don't care Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.” But the truth is that while we may not receive the response we had hoped for, I believe God always answers prayers. The problem for most of us is that we miss it. God responds and because it is something we didn’t imagine, we miss it. That’s what happened in Jesus’ time. In first century Palestine, people were praying to God for someone to bring unity and peace, for God to do a mighty thing in human history. “What people wanted was a king like David who would unify the nation, rally the troops, drive out the occupying Romans and re-establish the monarchy. That’s what a messiah is supposed to do- make things right by defeating God’s enemies, establish a new order of things based on real power.” So you can imagine how they could miss the answer to their prayers. You can imagine how God’s response might sneak past them. God had something entirely different in mind. God had in mind a gift far more vulnerable, far more significant, but more powerful.
You know them well by now. She’s a teenager who isn’t married, she’s engaged but everyone knows that isn’t enough. He is her fiancé with a good reputation and a decent job. They aren’t particularly extraordinary people. They are faithful and that’s about as much as they can claim. She has news so pressing that she simply can’t wait any longer, she is now showing and people are talking. She is young, too young by some people’s standards and she is pregnant. What would people say? Would they care about the circumstances or her intentions? Would they look at the two of them differently? Did it matter what God had in mind for them? It is a vulnerable situation at best and a dangerous one at worst. Joseph is devastated and confused. How could this be? It wasn’t his child, it couldn’t be. He wanted to do right by her so perhaps he would let her go without much of a fuss. He loved Mary and he didn’t want to shame her so maybe he would just tell folks that things didn’t work out- that she had found someone else or that perhaps one of her uncles needed some help with the house work in the next town over. Joseph was a faithful Jew and knew the laws well, so he feared for Mary’s life, hear this from the Book of Deuteronomy, (22:23-24)
23If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, 24you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death…
Joseph thought it would be best for everyone if he dismissed her and moved on. I bet in those moments Joseph probably felt as if his whole life might cave in. But then something happened….maybe it was because Joseph was so raw, so vulnerable that he was willing to see possibilities that he couldn’t before, but it was a you-better-get-ready-for-this-now-or-never-life-changing-Holy-Spirit-blessing-here-I-am-Lord kind of moments…An angel came to him in a dream. He probably unstuck his face from his tear covered pillow, opened his red eyes and pulled himself up. His throat was dry, his heart was pounding, and his soul was hungry. The angel sang to him, “‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Don’t be afraid to marry her, to support her, to love her. The child she is carrying is something special, something extraordinary, something from God.
He was standing on the edge. He could have heard the news and ran anyway. But I bet Joseph shot awake on his straw bed and splashed cold water on his face. I wonder if he said aloud to God, “You have got to be kidding.” But he stepped forward in faith anyway. He decided he would risk it all, risk looking foolish and unfaithful, risk his future livelihood and respect. You can almost picture the town gossips whispering as he passes. They probably spent hours kvetching about how foolish he is to believe such a wild story about his fiancé. Who would be so naive? But Joseph married her anyway, just as the angel of the Lord commanded. Joseph stepped forward in faith and risked it all. He was willing to look for God and see God even when the world denied it.
And I can’t help but to cower a bit at this story. It makes me wonder where I would fit. I wonder if any among us would be able to do the same? Would we be willing to risk our respect, our status, our livelihood to follow God? Would we have missed God’s answer to our prayers?
The community of the faithful Jews were praying and waiting for a messiah, for someone to crush their enemies, to protect them from Roman rule, to lift them up and bring about a new reign. But instead they got something tender and vulnerable, something powerless by the worlds’ standards. They got two teenagers engaged to be married and a baby on the way- an answer to prayer. It’s easy to see how this answer could have been missed. God had something entirely different in mind. The faithful prayed for power and God sent vulnerability. The faithful prayed for a mighty king and God sent a tiny baby. The faithful prayed for a military leader and God sent a Prince of Peace. God had something entirely different in mind.
God seems to have a way of doing this. Often God seems to have something different in mind for us. We pray for a Methodist man with a family and God sends a quirky Congregationalist woman with big dreams. We pray for a trip to the Stephen Leader training in Orlando and we end up with offerings from those in our midst, from those in the wider community and money from the pocket of a rummage sale dress- enough to go and some left over! Friends, I believe, just as Joseph and Mary, that if we look for God, we will find God. If we are willing to risk letting go of what we thought we were waiting for, our response will arrive. It may not arrive in a pretty package with a bow. It may not arrive with trumpets or escorts. God’s response might be something we have overlooked or failed to see. It might be forgotten or on the way. As we prepare to welcome God’s in-breaking into human history, let’s remember how it was almost missed, how the one we prayed for came to us in the frailty of a barn with two teenagers with not much to lean on but faith. Amen.
John M. Buchanan “Extravagant Gift” Christian Century, December 11th, 2007