Marilu Thomas, “Disgraced”
I have particular anxiety about buying Christmas presents. When my kids were in elementary school, I procrastinated until the last few days. When you’re shopping on Christmas Eve, your choices are clear because there’s not much left. Then, one year, we had an unexpected family funeral that week and no big presents were under the tree on Christmas. One of our kids wailed, “But Mom, you had all year to buy presents!” Yes- truth. Not a proud parent moment there.
Now I tend to buy too many Christmas presents, thinking that whatever I’ve already bought is probably lame and stupid and will be a let-down for all concerned. I was relieving some of this self-made anxiety by scrolling through a website, called The 10 Best Christmas Presents Ever, when a pop-up made me laugh. It was a huge handwritten, black and white sign tacked to a telephone pole that read:
Ohio Ave. neighbors
I put a cute love note on what I thought was my wife’s car last night. We figured out today that in my tired state, I had put this note on the wrong car. If this car happened to be yours, I apologize for the confusion. I am not in love with you. Sorry.
It makes you wonder how his wife found this out and if she made him write the sign! Sometimes a large handwritten confession nailed to a pole might get you absolved. I bet Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced FTX founder, wishes he could leave a note to the world, “Hey investors. Sorry, the crypto bit didn’t work out. Apologize for the 32-billion-dollar confusion. I am not in love with you. Sorry!” After being imprisoned in the Bahamas this week, Sam hit rock bottom by getting kicked out of the Giving Pledge, the signed promise by the likes of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates to give away 50% of their wealth in their lifetime. Like the old Billy Preston song, ‘nothing from nothing is nothing’ and so Sam was publicly kicked out of the billionaires’ club. We have all had moments of disgrace—hopefully not as public as Sam’s.
There is an indelible moment carved into my psyche when I felt the meaning of the word ‘disgrace’ in my bones. I was about 8 years old at camp watching a Disney movie called, “Follow Me Boys,” about a scoutmaster and his troop. It was Kurt Russell’s first movie and Fred McMurray was the scout leader. All the boys are showing their dads what they’d learned —knot tying, pup tent set-up, etc. Kurt’s dad arrives late and, because he’s drunk, he falls onto the other dads. The ice cream he brought is melting and dripping all over them. His son is deeply embarrassed, so he jumps up and takes his dad outside. There are looks all-around of pity and disgust as he leaves. I wouldn’t know for another thirty years that my family was affected by alcoholism and addiction, but that movie outed my feeling of disgrace. I cried in front of the other kids. I knew my family was somehow different even though our house, cars, clothes, etc. looked the same as everyone else in the neighborhood. There was something not quite right and I couldn’t talk about it to other kids. I have forgotten many movies I’ve seen—but that one scene has stuck with me all these years for the emotional power it packed for me.
Have you had that feeling of disgrace? Maybe you’ve been fired or lost a job this year. Someone broke up with you or you can’t seem to keep a significant other. A loved one has an addiction or mental health issue that makes you feel you can’t share your real life with anyone. Or maybe it’s you with the mental health issue, feeling isolated and alone. The people around you—your parents, friends, siblings, teachers—have high expectations of you but you just can’t pull it off. You’ve messed something up—whatever that thing is, it feels disgraceful to you. Maybe you seem to always say something weird when you’re around others and can’t make friends. Many of us suffer from loneliness and grief during the holidays, making us feel out of step with the celebrating world. Or perhaps something in your past threatens to derail your current life. You feel disgrace looming--- as if you used up all the grace Jesus had for you or that you don’t measure up to the grace of God.
Whatever it is, you’re in the right place. You’re not alone. We are all fallible humans here. The gospel embraces those who have nothing to offer, instead of kicking them out like the billionaires’ club. As Mark 2:17 tells us, this is not a place for the sinless or perfect, but rather a hospital for the disgraced. We tend to think of the nativity as a quaint, romantic story of the beautiful virgin, the stalwart Joseph, and the beaming child, which skips over the rawer parts. Matthew’s gospel today tells us of the disgrace of Mary, Joseph, and the baby.
Disgrace is human judgment wrapped in rejection. Mary is disgraced by being pregnant and notably not by Joseph. Joseph is disgraced by being engaged to a woman who is having someone else’s baby. The baby is disgraced by being born in a stall and having a feed bin as a bed. In the height of this disgrace, the babe Jesus Christ fulfills the promise of Isaiah 7. “The Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel.” Immanuel—God with Us.
What does it mean for you today to know God Is With Us? God does not wait for us to ‘get good’ but is present with us in our disgrace, our loneliness, and our ‘nothing to offer.’ Our disgrace attracts Jesus’ grace.
The season of Advent is a time when we ponder the coming of Christ—not just as a baby but in the second coming. We know that the baby born of Mary has come to die for us, to lift the heavy burden of sin from our souls. Fleming Rutledge wrote, “The resurrection is not just the appearance of a dead person. It is the mighty act of God to vindicate the One whose very right to exist was thought to have been negated by the powers that nailed him to a cross.”
The powers of disgrace did not keep Jesus from being born and they could not keep him in the grave. Jesus is with you in your disgrace because he carried it on the cross once and for all. In John 16, he promised, “In this godless world, you will face trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world.” He has covered your disgrace with his grace. Jesus, the Immanuel, is with you when you can’t get it together, when you are judged inadequate or weak, when you don’t get the right presents under the tree or feel overwhelmed by the expectations of others. Unfathomable, unthinkable, unbelievable that Christ promises to be with you no matter what. And yet, it matches our experience of amazing grace. Grace is with you because in Jesus’ calculations, something from nothing is exactly right. Born in Bethlehem in disgrace so you would never be alone in yours.
Amen.
