Born of a Virgin

Sunday January 7, 2007
Luke 1:34
How will this be since I am a virgin? An unexpected and unexplained gift of life

I quit going to church in my sophomore year of college. It wasn't college that caused it

One of the big questions that troubled me was, the virgin birth? How are we supposed to make sense of the virgin birth?
Is it really that big a deal?
Only two of the four gospel writers bother to mention it; It is important to Matthew and Luke, but not to Mark and John. Paul, who writes the largest portion of our new testament never mentions it. The idea that Jesus was born of a virgin doesn't appear to be a great importance to the early church.
Should it be that important to us? Would it make that much difference to us if it could be proven that Mary wasn't a virgin? Would that change what we believe, how we read the bible, how we live?

The thing is; even as enlightened as we are in the 21st century, we know about fallopian tubes and ovaries whereas Mary most certainly did not, as enlightened as we are there are still unanswerable questions. Just watch the news. As much as we know about the brain, how it works, its chemicals and firing synapses. As much as we know about the human psyche. As informed as we are about the diversity of cultures and religions in our world... what to do in Iraq is still a mystery. Being there as a military presence does not seem to work. Will sending more troops do any good? Won't troop withdrawal leave Iraq in a state of utter chaos and and anarchy? As much as we know... there are still mysteries and unanswered questions.

We know so much about medicine; we know about viruses and bacterias, we understand the immune system, the importance of nutrition, we can treat so many illnesses with medication; yet we still cannot answer why our loved ones get cancer or alzheimers or why children develop autism. Even more importantly how do we deal with these illnesses, pick up the pieces and move on? It is a mystery... difficult to explain. We cannot seem to find an answer to the problem of getting medication to the people of the African continent to the treat their AIDS epidemic even though the medications are available here.

We know so much about culture and society. We know so much about economics. But homelessness is still rampant as is poverty. There are still mysteries and unanswered questions.


My point is this;
If we read the story of the virgin birth to be a statement about human sexuality
that it is something that God would avoid like the plague, we have missed the point of the story.

If we read this story as proof that Jesus was special, unique, perfect, above reproach,
I think we have missed the point.

If we read this story as a test case for the literal truth of the Bible, we have missed the point...
Luke and Matthew were not concerned with the issue of literal or
metaphorical truth in the bible.

I once asked a seminarian who was delivering his ordination paper so that he could become a pastor recognized by ABC to explain a statement he made. In writing about the Bible, he called it inerrant... without error, which always causes me to bristle... so I asked him to explain.
It was a black church... and so he started to preach.
When I read in Exodus that God appeared in a burning bush... I do not know that a tree actually burst into flame... but I know God was there... well, amen, preach it...
When I read in Exodus that God parted the Red Sea, I do not know if the river stopped flowing or if it defied gravity to stand up in the air... but I do know God was there... Amen... Go on...hallelujah...
This is what I mean by inerrant... God was there...

Luke and Matthew stand in a long line of Biblical writers who maintained tenaciously the illogical belief that God could do something new, something amazing, that God could create a future where no human mind could conceive of a tomorrow... that despite appearances, God was there... God is here.
And what is more, God is active...

Many cultures had stories of virgin's giving birth. It was a popular way to assign divinity to Rome's Caesar's to say that they were born of virgins.
It wasn't common in Jewish literature to speak of the Messiah being born of a virgin... it seems to be a new idea that Luke and Matthew record...
but even though it is unheard of it stands in a long line of foolish, tireless, dogged witness, that God erupts in our world to do the impossible...
Bringing manna from heaven
Making the Red Sea Part
bring water from a rock in the desert
making a shepherd boy David into a warrior and king
Over and over again the people of Israel maintained that their God could and would do the unexpected and the unexplainable... and that is the real point of the virgin birth... That God can do the impossible... that God will invade the impossible, encorigible and descouraging patterns of our lives to bring life, new, hopeful, impossible life

I asked before;
would it make much of a difference if we lost the idea of the virgin birth?
And as I sat down to consider this topic, I thought, no, it really wouldn't make a difference.
But as I considered all the times that Israel hoped and prayed and lived expecting their God to do the impossible... the idea of the virgin birth become quite vital...


Just as vital as Martin Luther King hoping for freedom for his people when it just seemed illogical, impossible...
Just as vital as telling our daughters that one day they could be president, or our sons that they will grow up to do great things... despite the obstacles... irregardless of the fact that we cannot prove these promises
Just as vital as telling an addict that they can be clean and sober
Just as vital as telling a new mother that her developmentally delayed baby can and will grow, can will learn, can and will achieve... maybe not like everyone, but this baby has a future.

To sideline the virgin birth to simply metaphor or a myth that is impossible to prove or believe leaves us without an imagination of the divine, a dream of what God just might do in this world, in our lives...stuck in the patterns of greed manipulation, despondency and violence that seem to run our world. It leaves us to live without the hope, the comfort or the conviction that God is here, that God is active... that we can be active in living and building the kingdom.

What happens when we get stuck in an imagination-less rut?
Consider a railroad. The standard US railroad gauge, the distance between rails, is 4 ft. 8.5 in., which is a strange and seemingly arbitrary measurement for standardization. Where did that number come from. English engineers who were involved in the construction of the American railroad brought that number. They learned that number from those who constructed the tramways used before railroads. They got it from the standard tools for building wagons which used the same wheel spacing. That number was arrived at from the wheel ruts on old long-distanced roads because the axles would break if they did not fit easily into the ruts. And the roads were built originally by the Romans to fit their war chariots. The distance between rails used by trains still in the United States came from Roman war chariots. For more than 2000 years no one has stopped to wonder if their might just be a better way, an easier way, process more economic of time and energy to create railroad tracks. They could not imagine a new way.
Of course we aren't really concerned with railroad tracks. Obviously that lack of imagination hasn't made much of negative impact on our lives. But it does illustrate the point, that we get stuck in ruts. Walter Brueggeman has said that the whole point of the Christmas story is lost when we get wrapped around the axle of How? How did a virgin have a baby? The point of the Christmas story, he suggests, is not to explain to us how it is that God acts in this world. Instead the Christmas story is meant to awaken our imagination. That the Christmas story is meant to induce us to dream. What would it look like if God were to do something miraculous.
And while the rest of the world waits for scientific proof, facts and figures to suggest viability, we as disciples simply need imagine.
One church I know of imagined what miraculous thing God might do for the homeless and hungry... and at first they started a soup kitchen, which is a good place to start imagining. But they realized that they hadn't imagined enough. Jesus didn't simply feed the hungry, he ate with the hungry. And so now they have a combination soup kitchen and potluck dinner, regularly, where members of the church not only feed, but sit and eat with, talk with, get to know, the homeless people they feed.
I've the story of a family that struggled to raise a severely disabled son. He was nonverbal and unable to walk on his own. He was incredibly medically involved and as much as they loved him, the stress was wearing on them and on their marriage. Until a deacon from church came to visit and sat with their son and talked to him and read to him not like a poor disabled boy, but like a person. For a moment they could imagine him that way. And it changed the way they though of him and the way they treated him.
Or the story of a woman with cancer. Head wrapped in a scarf, cheeks sunken, skin gray, body weak from so many treatments. Until her church pals showed up for a spa day and they did her fingernails and toe nails and they exfoliated her skin and brought her a beautiful new wig. And she imagined being healthy again. And she got healthy again.
Do not be afraid, the angel said to Joseph. If you read carefully, Joseph was going to leave Mary, when he heard of her pregnancy. He couldn't imagine anything good coming of a baby that wasn't his. Do not be afraid, the angel said do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
I cannot explain to you how it is that God does strange and unexpected and amazing things.
But for today, we don't need to know how, Like Joseph, we just need to imagine... today is a day to wonder, what next.