It's Not Easy Being Green (Rock Springs UMC)

OK, Luke chapter 1, verses 26 to 38.

Luke 1:26–38

In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent

the Angel Gabriel to Nazareth, the town in Galilee, to a virgin

pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of

David. The virgin's name was Mary.

The Angel went to her and said, greetings to you who are highly

favored. The Lord is with you.

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of

greeting this might be. But the Angel said to her, Don't

be afraid Mary. You have found favor with God.

You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call

him Jesus. He will be great and will be

called the Son of God Most High. The Lord God will give him the

throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob,

Jacob's descendants forever. His Kingdom will never end.

How will this be? Mary asked the Angel.

Since I am a virgin, The Angel answered.

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most

High will over shadow you. So the Holy One to be born will

be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is

going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be

unable to conceive is in her 6th month.

For no word from God will ever fail.

I am the Lord's servant, Mary answered.

May your word to me be fulfilled.

Then the Angel left her. May the Lord add his blessing to

the reading and hearing of His word.

All right now we're continuing our series Wicked for Christmas.

I'm going to start with a video clip.

Donna, I'm going to need you to adjust volume twice here this

morning because the video clip is really low.

And then in a little bit, my cousin Ida Patterson is going to

come up and sing a song for us. And that one's really loud, so

we'll need to bring it down just a little bit.

OK All right, So if you could turn up the volume now.

And we're going to watch this clip from the very early on in

the movie Wicked. I opened the sermon with a clip

from the movie Wicked. It showed Alphaba right after

she was born and later as a child.

In both scenes, Alphaba was rejected by many of those who

should have loved her, including her peers, but also and

especially her mother and father.

Now here's the sermon. That's Alphaba and Alphaba.

Elphaba had challenges. It's not easy being green.

I know she's not the one that said that.

That was a different green person, Kermit the Frog.

But Elphaba found out it was not easy being green.

She was rejected by nearly everyone she knew from the time

she was born. Now, the story Wicked, the the

movie Wicked and Wicked for good.

In one sense, the movies are about a conflict between the

forces of good and the forces of evil.

And, and in some senses it's an adventure, an action adventure

story. But there's another sense and,

and maybe a deeper sense in which it's not just a story of a

conflict between good and evil, but a love story, a love story

between Alphaba and Fiero. Alphaba love Fiero.

She, she, you know, as a child again, as an infant, she was

rejected. As a child, she was rejected.

As she grew into a young woman, she fell in love.

She fell in love with Fiero, but she had this real concern that

Fiero would not return her love, and that left her in a lot of

anxiety. We're going to hear a song about

that in just a moment, but I want to just emphasize here as

we get started. Alpha grew up used to being

rejected, and generally speaking, we tend to expect from

the future what we've received from the past.

So when someone grows up being rejected, they often expect to

be rejected. If they grow up being unloved,

it's really hard for them to trust that someone else is

really going to love them. And that's one of the places

where Elphaba found herself mentally and emotionally in her

relationship with others. Now I've changed, I decided to

change the order of things a little bit since I put the

slides together. So let me jump ahead here.

And at this point, I'm going to invite Ida up to come and sing.

And the song she's singing is a song called I'm Not That Girl.

And it's a moment in the story where Alphaba is really seeing

that she really does love Fiero and she's deeply concerned that

he will never return that love. So Ida, thank you for being here

today. Thank you for singing.

I wish Ida had time to stay and visit with everyone afterwards.

She's going to be rushing off with me and, and her her parents

can be rushing off with me to to new beginnings to sing there.

And and I'm it is my cousin, so you can think better of Maine

because she sings so well, you know, and and don't think worse

of her because I'm bald. I'm just going to put that out

there. All right, go ahead, Aida.

At this point, Ida Patterson beautifully sang the song I'm

Not That Girl from Wicked. Due to the technical

difficulties of getting a good live recording with the

equipment I have available, I can't include it here.

I described the details of the song later in the sermon, so I

won't get into that here either. It's a wonderful song, and I

encourage you to listen to it. You can find it easily on

YouTube, Spotify, and iTunes. Now back to the sermon.

It is wonderful. Thank you thank you Ida.

Just two heads up one next weekend is the Christmas play

Wolf mountain Friday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

You're going to love it. It's going to be really, really

cool. A super Christmas with the

little kids playing superheroes and then it's a wonderful Life.

I'm George Bailey, Stephen Fagel is Clarence the Angel and that's

both of those are going to be a lot of fun.

At the exact same time as that's going on, it is going to be

dancing at The Nutcracker. Is that right at at Rio Grande

University out there? So I don't know.

I suppose if they go on lines and do some searching, they

might be able, you might be able to find tickets for that.

I'm assuming tickets are still available.

So you can go one night to see me and Steven and another night

to see Ida. You'll have a great weekend next

weekend. So it's going to be really,

really good. Thank you.

Thank you, Ida. That song, that song, that man,

I must have hit the button. I'm not that it expresses it.

This, this tension in love stories that we see in books,

movies and TV where one person loves the other and they're

deeply concerned that they're not good enough for some reason

for that other person to love them back.

That they have something wrong with them.

Some defective of body or mind or character or personality that

will keep that other person from loving them.

And Alphaba, again, she's, she's spent her whole life

experiencing this rejection. She sees Fiero, she meets Fiero,

she's falling in love with Fiero and she's just convinced that

he's not, she's not the girl for him, that he will never see her

as that girl. Now, I think that there is

something true about good stories.

And I really believe Wicked, the, the Wicked movies in the

stage production are a very good story.

I really believe that good stories, all good stories point

to the great story, even if they're not explicitly about

that. And this the, the, the good

versus evil portion of Wicked certainly points to the good

versus evil story. That is this cog cosmic story

that we're a part of and we know about through the scripture.

But there's another part of this cosmic story that we know about

through the Scripture that we often don't think about and that

that we are also, we're not just in this adventure battle between

good and evil. We are in a love story, a grand

cosmic love story. And if you don't believe me,

reread your Bible because there's passage after passage

after passage that talks about our relationship with God in

terms of a love story. Just read Song of Solomon or

some translations called Song of Songs and you'll see that most,

most clearly. But there are other places and

we're going to look at a passage from Hosea in a few minutes that

really reflects that very deeply.

But the risk is when we think about and take the good stories

like Wicked and think about them in terms of the great story of,

of the relationship of love between God and his people is

that we can get things backwards and upside down.

And, and, but we do that. We do that because sometimes in

our relationship with God, it feels very much like a love

story. And maybe you remember the first

time you really had that awareness of God and God's love

for you and how deeply God loved for you.

And there was such an overwhelming sense of God's

presence and God's power and God's love and God's welcome.

Maybe, maybe it happened at camps somewhere along the way.

Maybe it was at a vacation Bible school.

Maybe it was, maybe it was when you were baptized, but a time

when God felt so close and so real and you could just feel

like you can reach out and touch God's love for you.

But then time and life and circumstances happened and God's

love began to feel less and less real and God's presence began to

feel less and less real. And sin suddenly, you know,

because when we're in love, you're in that in love phase.

And a relationship is like nothing could ever disturb this.

This is wonderful. This is what life is all about.

This will last forever. And then maybe after 5 or 10

years of marriage, it doesn't feel that same way anymore.

You don't have to. Amy and I, Amy will tell you the

same. So, you know, we're not, I'm not

telling stories out of, you know, whatever we tell stories

out of that happens in relationships.

That initial in love experience always fades.

And the same is true in our relationship with God.

And then we can begin to have the same kind of thoughts toward

God that alphabet was having toward Fiero.

I just want to go back real quick and look at some of those

lyrics. The beginning.

Hands touch, eyes meet, sudden silence, sudden heat.

Hearts leap in a giddy whirl. Again, if you've never had that

experience with God, that doesn't mean there's something

wrong with you. But if you're one of those folks

that has had that kind of experience with God, where God

felt so real and so close, the memory of that, the memory of

that can be undermined by doubt and fear and worry when the when

the experience fades. And I tell people this a lot,

particularly when I baptize, you know, teenagers and, and adults

and, and they come out of the water and they're just on cloud

9 and everything is wonderful. And I always, I don't say it at

this time, I always tell them this before the baptism is that

that feeling will fade and the devil will whisper in your ear

that you only imagined it. That that sense that God was

close, that God loved you so much, That was just imagination.

That was fantasy, that wasn't real.

The devil will whisper that in your ear and be prepared for

that because the feeling fades. The feeling fades and we end up

with these kind of thoughts. Don't dream too far.

Don't lose sight of who you are. Don't remember that rush of joy

was we want to undo that. I don't want to live in that

past. I don't want to live in that

sense. You know that.

I feel silly about it now. Oh my goodness, how can I feel

that way? How could I imagine that was

real? That voice saying that it was

fake, It was all imagination. Every so often we long to steal

to the land of what might have been, but that doesn't soften

the ache we feel when reality sets in.

I see this so much in lives, people's lives.

I experience it in my own. We hear the promises of God.

I'll always love you. I'll never leave you or forsake

you. I love you so much.

I'll lay down my life for you. All of these things are true.

All of these things are out of the Scripture.

And then bad things happen and we wonder, where did the

protection go? I was told by the teacher, I was

told by the pastor, I was told by my grandma, my grandpa, that

you can always depend on God to carry you.

God will never give you more than you could bear.

Talk to a lot of people that say that is hooey because they've

been given so much to bear. One friend of mine who came to a

deep faith in God later in life and he devoted time, he devoted

energy, he devoted resources to loving folks and caring for

folks and guarding folks and protecting folks at great risk

to himself, at great cost to himself was a wonderful thing.

And then one bad thing after another, after another after

another, and it all began to fall away and there was nothing

left but pain. And he said to me, I thought God

loved me. We find ourselves in that kind

of position as followers of Jesus.

And that voice whispers, you know, don't go back.

Don't try to imagine. Don't try to pretend.

Don't live in this land of what what might have been.

Stay in reality. You live in a hard, cold world.

Life hurts, then you die. Blithe smile, blithe lithe Lim.

She who's wins him, She wins him.

Gold hair with a gentle curl. That's the girl he chose.

And we start to think, you know what?

If there is a God, What's wrong with me?

That God doesn't love me? What have I done?

What's wrong with me? I see these people on, on, you

know, the Internet. I see them, I hear about them

singing their song, watching movies sometimes these folks

over whom God always seems so close and so real and they Can't

Sing a song about God without breaking down into tears and,

and they just say they always feel God all the time.

What is wrong with me that I don't experience that the God

has rejected me, that God doesn't show me that kind of

love. Maybe there is a God, but God

loves other people. God doesn't love me.

Don't wish, don't start wishing only wounds the heart.

I wasn't born for the Rose and the Pearl, and that voice tells

us, and we can begin to believe. That was never for me anyway.

And it only hurts to wish for it.

It only hurts to dream about it. I'd rather expect bad things and

not be disappointed than to expect, wish for, dream of good

things with God and be disappointed when they don't

happen. We stop wishing, we stop

dreaming, we stop even hoping, and we believe whoever God

loves, it isn't me. I'm not that girl, I'm not that

boy. I'm not that man, I'm not that

woman. If we treat our relationship

like with God, like that, we have gotten the love story that

is our story that we're in. We've gotten it backwards and

upside down, backwards and upside down.

Jesus, God in the flesh longs for you and would go to great

lengths. Any links to win?

Your love, your affection, your devotion.

You see, we never have to worry about God not being willing to

love us back. We never have to worry that

we're not good enough, that we're not smart enough, that

we're not pretty enough, that we're not talented enough, that

we're not rich enough. We never have to worry about

that. And this great grand love story

that we're in that we read about over and over again in

Scripture, it's God who's out there laying down His life for

the 1 He loves and they're rejecting him.

All the risk is on God's side. All of that is on God's side.

God is longing for us to be as loving toward Him, to be as

devoted to Him, to be as affectionate toward Him as He

already is toward us. Let's look at Hosea chapter 2.

Hosea 2 · chapter mention

We read a little bit of Hosea last week.

We're going to read a little bit more this week.

This is God talking again to his people through the prophet

Hosea. And God says, therefore, I will

now allure her. God's talking about his people.

I'm going to woo my people. I'm going to woo her and bring

her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.

I'm going to get her away from all the distractions, all of the

voices drawn away. We're going to go out and in

this in, in the solitude, we will find this love and romance

for each other into the wilderness and speak tenderly to

her. And I will take you.

He's switching from the third person to the first person here.

I will take you for my wife forever.

I will take you for my wife in righteousness and injustice, in

steadfastness and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in

faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.

Something occurred to me as I was preparing this.

These are beautiful wedding vows.

I've never heard anyone use Hosea chapter 2 for their

Hosea 2 · chapter mention

wedding vows. I think this would make

beautiful wedding vows, But hear that those are God's words to

His people. Those are God's words to us.

I want you to love me as deeply, as passionately, as devotedly,

as faithfully as I love you. That's what God is longing for.

God is the one putting his heart on the line.

God is the one putting his life on the line and hopes that we

will return that love to Jesus, who is God in the flesh.

You are that girl. You are that boy.

You are that man. You are that woman.

The one whom God loves, the one whom God wants, the one whom God

longs for, Jesus loves for you and longs for you to love him

too. And that doesn't mean there's

never suffering. It doesn't mean that there's

never pain, but it does mean that life never ends with the

suffering and pain. Jesus came to earth and he gave

his life to die for us so that our life would not end in death,

but so that our death, whatever it is, in whatever form it

takes, and however painful it is, so that our death would end

in life with him forever. That's the hope that we have.

Consider Mary and all of this. It's Christmas time.

Let's consider Mary. Mary, daughter of an unknown

unnamed person in the little town of Nazareth, in the

countryside of the region of Judea.

A small town that had it had such a bad people, had such low

expectations of the community that Mary was from that it was a

proverb that nothing good came out of Nazareth.

Nothing. And, and we don't know for sure

what Mary's mindset was, but I bet my next three paychecks, I

bet my next three paychecks that Mary never expected, never

dreamed of being the mother of the Messiah.

She would have been waiting for the Messiah, like all of her

family, all of her friends, the hope, the promise that God had

made generations before. That a child would be born who

would be from the line, the lineage of David, the greatest

king in the history of Israel. God had promised David, someone

of your descendants will always set on your throne.

But it had been generations since the descendant of David

had been on the throne. And everyone was longing,

Everyone was waiting for the Messiah, for God's King, God's

Son to come and reclaim the throne of David.

But I'd bet my next three paychecks that Mary never

dreamed it would be her. Who was she?

She was an ordinary girl from a small town that no one ever

thought about. And if they didn't think about

it, they thought about it negatively.

She was a no one from nowhere. She could not have been more

ordinary. And who would God choose?

God would choose a Princess, not some random girl from some

random town. God would choose a Princess.

God would choose the one with wealth, the one with power, the

one with influence, the one with strong friends and strong allies

to to reclaim that throne. God would choose the one that

everyone in the world would look up to and admire and say, well

of course God would choose a palace to be born in and a

Princess for a mother. But God chose Mary, an ordinary

girl from an ordinary place with an ordinary life.

And God said no, no, no, you. I choose you.

You're the one I want. And God says the same to all of

us. I know you're ordinary.

I know, I know that you're not. You know none of us.

Anyone here have a million followers on, you know, TikTok?

No, me neither. We're ordinary folks.

We're ordinary people, but God chooses us to God chooses us to.

Now part of these love stories. I got this in parentheses

because I just want to touch on it briefly this morning.

We're going to get more into depth on this port next week,

but I just wanted to touch it here today because part of the,

the, the, the story that the classic love stories that we

have is the person like alphabet.

He'll never love me because I'm flawed.

There's something wrong with me. She longs to be loved for who

she is just as she is, not having to change in order to

please someone else. And and we have that longing

too. Spoiler alert.

Should I give the spoiler? Should I give?

I'll give the spoiler. Well, no, I'm not.

I'm not going to give the spoiler.

Watch the movies, you'll enjoy it.

But here's the thing, here's the thing, this longing that we see

in the movies to be loved just as we are.

God loves us just as we are, but in the movies, that's where it

stops. That's where it stops God.

It doesn't stop there. God loves us just the way we

are, but God never leaves us unchanged.

God is always drawing us closer. God is always shaping us and

making us more and more like Jesus so that we can love like

Jesus and think like Jesus and treat others like Jesus would

treat them. So God never.

God loves us just the way we are, but God never leaves us

unchanged. We'll get into that in more

depth this next week, this week, this week.

We know it's not easy. Like, oh, it's not easy being

green. And we all have those green

things about us, things that other people find difficult to

love and that fear that somehow that's going to keep God from

loving us. We can lay that aside.

God loves you just the way you are.

God has already laid down his life for you and has died for

you so that it's your death. You can live with him forever in

Jesus name, Amen. Amen.