A Change in Perspective

A Change in Perspective Luke 1:39-45

Jim Parsons, on the comedy “The Big Bang Theory,” has made famous a saying that has been a joke in the church for as long as there have been pews. Whenever someone tries to sit at the end of the sofa in his apartment, you can count on him saying, “You’re in my spot.”

It is clear, from the context, that no one else is allowed to sit in this spot, and that the offender has to move. It has been a joke in the church because people who come to worship often develop that kind of proprietary feeling about where they sit in the sanctuary. Even our bishop reports that one Sunday, while he was sitting in the sanctuary a few minutes before the service was to begin, he had someone come up to him and say, “You’re in my spot.”

In telling this story, the bishop was trying to make a point about hospitality. There are things you should do, or not do, when it comes to making people feel welcome when they visit your church for the first time. It is often assumed by the people who make this point that there is something wrong with having a regular spot in the sanctuary where you choose to sit. The problem, however, is not having a regular spot, but in insisting that the spot belongs only to you.

Sheldon tried to explain to Penny, the next door neighbor, the reason for his attachment to this spot – an explanation that even his roommate Leonard missed for its significance. Sheldon said, “That is my spot. In an ever-changing world, it is a single point of consistency. If my life were expressed as a function on a four dimensional Cartesian coordinate system, that spot, at the moment I first sat on it, would be 0-0-0-0.”

That makes sense to me, even as I agree it could have been said differently. Sheldon, like all of us, needs an initial reference point for dealing with the changes that come in life. In other words, everyone needs a home base where they feel safe and know they belong. We all need a place where, when things get confusing or overwhelming, we can go there and start to get oriented again.

We usually think of that as meaning that we need to be grounded in a value system for discerning right and wrong. Or it could mean we need an agreed-upon procedural method for getting something done, so we know if we are doing it right. But I think it can also apply to a location, like the end of a sofa or a place in the sanctuary. While we all need value systems and rules for living, we also need a place where we are comfortable, a place we can call home.

When I was in communications theory, there were actually studies done about why people sit where they sit in a sanctuary. It turns out there are lots of factors, ranging from sight lines, to distance to a bathroom or the nursery or an exit, to neck angles in rooms with sloping floors, to the placement of overhead speakers so that it is neither too loud or too quiet. There is no one best spot, but we tend to find a spot that works best for us so that we can feel at home when we sit there.

Most people get to choose their spot in the sanctuary, and that is a good thing. People need to feel comfortable when they come to worship. At least, you need to feel comfortable enough to be willing to risk what worship asks from us. My pastor growing up was fond of saying that it was his job to comfort the disturbed and to disturb the comfortable. That’s just another way of saying that worship is what we do to get back to 0-0-0-0, to get back to that point in our life where we are safe and oriented. Or to put it in theological terms appropriate for church, worship is what we do to make sure we are right with God.

You get to choose where you sit, and I am glad that you have chosen to sit in this sanctuary. For me, I am pretty much assigned a spot. I have learned that when I am first appointed to a new church, it takes a while before the pulpit feels like it is my spot.

I have to get used to how the room sounds when we are singing together. I have to get used to where people sit and how often they sit there. I have to get used to who moves around during the service, and when and why they do it. And when I have learned this, it then feels like the place where we meet together to be with God.

That is why moving from one side of a room to the other, or moving closer or farther away from the pulpit or the exits, or moving to a new church, changes more than just where you are sitting during the service. It changes how the room feels and sounds. It changes everything else about how you perceive the actions of our time together. And that is why people are tempted to say to a visitor something as inhospitable as “you are in my spot.”

Sheldon Cooper reveals the disadvantages of that claim. It can lead to an inflexibility that leads an inhospitality that excludes and denies someone a place to call home, in our attempts to protect what makes us feel safe and familiar. And that is a big part of what’s behind our reading for today.

People then, as today, had a comfortable sense of what was right and wrong. They had a safe place to stand for discerning what God rewarded and what God punished. They knew, based on their understanding of the law and prophets, that bad things happened to bad people, and good things happened to good people.

That is why they were confident in thinking that priests who became mute must be bad priests, because God does not allow them to talk anymore. They knew that women who can’t have children must be bad women, because in Genesis it says that women were made to have babies. They judged women who had children without being married as bad women because they broke the Levitical laws.

These are the people in our reading. Zechariah was a priest who became a mute, so he couldn’t do his job and say the prayers to lead the people. Elizabeth was a wife who couldn’t do her job and bear her husband’s children. Mary was a young woman who couldn’t do her job and wait until she was married to have children. From the perspective of the times, these were all bad people.

Because they were seen as bad people, they couldn’t stay in their spot any longer. Zechariah took his wife to an unnamed and now unknown village where they could be away from the judging eyes of their friends and former colleagues. And while they are there, they are visited by the unwed and pregnant cousin of Elizabeth, whose name was Mary. This was further proof, from the perspective of the people, that these are bad people who have done bad things, hanging out someplace that good people don’t even know about.

The people of faith, from their spot, from their perspective, made an inflexible and inhospitable declaration that banished three people from their polite and religious society. That is a point that many people today would still be comfortable in making. We would make this declaration because we know that good people make good choices, and bad people make bad choices. We would make this declaration because we know that good choices lead to good consequences, and bad choices lead to bad consequences – people get what they deserve.

And yet, sitting in the midst of all this certainty and declaration, we have this reading for today. We have this story as part of our scriptures. Something happens here that should move us from our comfortable and safe spot. Something happens here that should change our perspective.

If we look at the context, we learn that Zechariah is mute because he encountered God in the Holy of Holies. God told him that he would have a son, whom he was to name John. This son would be the precursor for the coming of the messiah. And Zechariah had a moment of doubt, so God gave him an opportunity to think about it until his son was born. That is why Zechariah is mute – not as punishment, but as a time to change his spot before God.

If we look at the big picture, we learn that Elizabeth was not barren. She was just being prepared for becoming the kind of mother who could raise a special son. She was being prepared to raise the kind of son who would need to experience her unconditional love. She was being prepared to raise the kind of son who would need to deeply explore his relationship with God – even if that meant going off into the wilderness to confront the demons of the world. That is why Elizabeth seems to be late in life to have a child – not as punishment, but for being made ready for the right time to receive this gift.

And Mary – Mary had not rushed her life to experience something that was not allowed by law. She had kept herself according to the law and will of God. And like so many before her, God chose someone considered unlikely by others to be the vessel bearing God into the world in a new and unique way. That is why May is unwed and pregnant – not because she disobeyed the law, but so that through her God’s law could be fulfilled in love.

This passage tells us that when things get confusing or overwhelming, we need a place where we will be welcome and feel safe. And the good news of this passage is that if we can’t find that place, if someone says to us that we are in their spot and we need to move out, then God will come to wherever we are and make his place with us. God will come to us, and make for us a new spot to call home.

That is the good news of Christmas – God comes to be with us. God comes to the “comfortable in our pews” us, and God comes to the “banished to the boonies” us. God comes to the “can’t find the words” us and God comes to the “how long, O Lord?” us. And God comes to the “I am not worthy” us, even when others whisper and point and condemn us.

God comes to be with us because being with God is our initial reference point. Being with God is where we are meant to be. Being with God is our 0-0-0-0 point where everything makes sense again, and we know we are safe in God’s love and grace. And the appropriate response to being with God is joy. That is the response of the baby John, even before he is born, because he doesn’t know anything about being in the right or wrong spot. He is where God means him to be, and Jesus has come to be with him.

This passage resets our reference point for relating to God and for relating to our neighbors. Wherever we are, when Jesus comes to us, we can hear Jesus say, “You are in my spot.” And we can hear this to mean, “You are in the right place when I am with you.” It is time to sing our joy!

UMH 246 “Joy to the World”