OK, our scripture reading today is Luke chapter 2 verses one
through 20. In those days Caesar Augustus
issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire
Roman world. This was the first census that
took place while Carinius was governor of Syria and everyone
went to their own town to register.
So Joseph went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea
to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house
in line of David. He went there to register with
Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting
a child. While they were there, the time
came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her first
born, a son. She wrapped him in clothes and
placed him in a Manger because there was no guest room
available for them, and there were shepherds living out in the
fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks.
At night. An Angel of the Lord appeared to
them, and the glory of the Lord shown around them, and they were
terrified, but the Angel said to them, do not be afraid.
I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the
people. Today in the town of David, a
Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord.
This will be assigned to you. You will find a baby wrapped in
clothes and lying in a Manger. Suddenly a great company of the
heavenly host appeared with the Angel, praising God and saying,
Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth, peace to
those on whom His favor rests. When the angels had left them
and gone into the heaven, the shepherd said to one another,
Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened
which the Lord has told us about.
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who
was lying in the Manger. When they had seen him, they
spread the word concerning what had been told them about this
child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherd said
to them. But Mary treasured up all these
things and pondered them in her heart.
The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for
all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as
they had been told. May the Lord add His blessing to
the reading and the hearing of His Word.
We're talking about gravity today.
One of the maybe the most famous anthem that comes out of the
stage musical Wicked and the two movies Wicked and Wicked for
Good is the song Defying Gravity.
Now, gravity is a beautiful metaphor and I don't want to
destroy the story by by focusing too much on the metaphor.
But this morning we're talking about this metaphor.
And in the movie Alphaba, who is becomes labeled the Wicked Witch
of the West. Alphaba is defying gravity.
She does it literally. So we get a visual metaphor in
the movie itself where she's on her broom and flying, literally
defying gravity. But the more significant element
of that is the social gravity that she faces.
Now, gravity itself, you know, without getting, again, getting
too far into the sciency stuff, gravity is a force that is
constant. It's related to mass.
Gravity is the force that draws all things in an area toward the
object of greatest mass. So the earth is the greatest, is
the object of greatest mass in our immediate vicinity, and we
are drawn to that. And the greater the mass of the
thing, the stronger the force of gravity acts upon that thing.
So, so, you know, a big ball of lead has more mass than a
feather pillow. So it's drawn more forcefully
toward the Earth. And that's gravity.
It's, it's an, it's an impersonal force.
It doesn't negotiate. It doesn't act malevolently.
It's not trying to do something bad.
It's not trying to do something good.
It just is. And it's a constant force.
And to escape gravity requires a constant force in the opposite
direction. It requires sustained effort
and, and a strong determination to do that.
Now, think about, you know, it's been a long time since we have
sent human beings to the moon. But think about that.
If when we had sent those Apollo rockets and, and space ships to
the moon, we had tied a rope to them to make sure that they
wouldn't get off, you know, wouldn't go too far, we could
make sure we got them back. We got a big cable, a big rope
tie, so we could pull them back, and they never would have made
it there. To escape gravity, to defy
gravity, you have to be willing to let go of anything that
tethers you to the Earth. That's what Elphaba did.
Elphaba defied gravity not just by flying on her broom.
She defied gravity because she was willing to sacrifice
everything to escape the destructive, dare I say, sinful
gravitational pull of the world in which she lived.
It wasn't a physical force like the gravity of Earth that that
keeps us from being flung off into space.
It was a social force. And in that context, the, the
social force that that was most permanent, pernicious, most
awful, most sinful, if you will, was, was a force being driven by
the not so wonderful and not at all amazing Wizard of Oz and his
chief assistant, Madame Morrible.
And, and their concern was, and the concern of others in ounces
was that all of these talking animals were dangerous.
They posed a threat. They need to be silenced.
They needed to be put to work. They needed to be made useful
servants of us rather than having their own voice to do
what they want to do and teach and lead and, and shape things
how they would like to shape it. They had to be silenced or
killed or contained or driven out.
And lots of people were joining in.
And all of the social pressure said if you want to advance in
ounces, you have to support this agenda.
You have to support this program.
If you don't support it, you're going to get ostracized.
You'll get cut out, you'll lose everything.
And that was the choice Alphabet had to make.
Would she betray her friends who were some of whom we're talking
animals, and get go along to get along and and get status and
achieve status within the Kingdom of Oz?
Or would she defy that social pressure and do the right thing
by speaking the truth and helping her friends?
Elphaba chose to defy gravity and it cost her.
It cost her friendships, it cost her status, it cost her position
it it nearly cost her her life. Spoiler sorry if you haven't
seen it. She had to give up near and and
she had to risk every significant relationship that
she had and give up most of the significant relationship she had
in order to do what she knew to be the right thing.
She knew it in the core of her she defied gravity.
It wasn't a one time decision. It was a sustained effort and
she was willing to let go of everything to do it.
Now I'm a strange person. There's going to be no argument
on that. I'm surprised I didn't get at
least one Amen out of the crowd on that.
I know I'm strange because I have a hard time watching the
Wicked movies and particularly listening to the song Gravity
without thinking of The Godfather Part 3 and Michael
Corleone. All right, I need I need you to
this next clip. It's very short and it's very
soft. Can you can you give me a lot of
volume on this one? But then we have to make sure we
turn it back down when when Allison sings because her track
is really loud. All right, Michael Corleone,
many of you will recognize this. At this point in the sermon, we
listen to Al Pacino as Michael Corleone delivering his famous
line from The Godfather Part 3. Just when I thought I was out,
they pull me back in. Now back to the sermon.
That's it. Very short clip, very famous
line though. Just when I thought I was out,
they pull me back in. Michael Corleone is talking
about the exact same thing that Alphaba sings about when she
sings about defying gravity. This social force, this social
pressure that tries to hold on to us and keep us in
destructive, broken, dysfunctional, sinful kinds of
ways of thinking and acting and behaving as individuals and as
groups. And Michael Corleone wanted to
get out. He wanted to get free.
He was the head of a of a criminal mafia family and he
wanted to get out. He wanted to legitimize the
family businesses. He wanted to escape the criminal
element of what he was doing, but he also wanted to like a
spaceship trying to fly to earth with a cable to make sure it
didn't drift off into space. He wanted to hold on to the
perks and the benefits. He knew that his wealth had been
gained through criminal activity, but he didn't want to
risk his wealth and getting out of crime.
He knew what he knew his his power was was was how he had
gotten wealthy, how he had led the family, but he didn't want
to give up his power. He didn't want to give up his
status. He didn't want to give up his
position. He didn't want to give up the
perks of the criminal life. He just wanted to give up the
risks of the criminal life. Half Measures is what Michael
Corleone did. He was unwilling to let go of
the benefits of the bad things in order to escape that
gravitational pull. And so we couldn't escape.
Every time he tried to get out, they pulled him back in.
Why of Michael Corleone was learning what those in chemical
addiction recovery programs have known for years, that half
measures avail us nothing that that a partial effort to escape
gravity. The the desire to escape the
gravitational pull without being willing to risk everything that
comes along with giving into that pull without willing to
give all of that up means you'll never escape and you'll never
get free. And that's what happened to
Michael Corleone. He just kept getting pulled back
in. What does it take to defy
gravity? What it takes is a sustained
effort in the opposite direction of the gravitational force.
It takes energy. It takes determination.
It takes 110. Well, I like that phrase.
No one can give more than 100%. It's not possible.
So you know, there you go. Takes 100% effort.
Are willing to let go of everything, even the perks that
come along with the bad behavior, even the positives,
even the benefit. Because there's always perks and
positives that come along with bad behavior otherwise no one
would do them. I have said for years we don't
have to have any laws telling people don't hit yourself in the
head with a hammer because no one does that because there's
nothing good that comes from it. We don't have to have any laws
saying you're not allowed to eat cat poo out of the litter box.
I have that law with my dogs because they're dumb.
I love my dogs, but they eat cat poo.
We don't need that for people. There's no positives.
The stuff that the reason why we have to have laws and
consequences and punishments for bad behavior is because there's
good things that sometimes come from bad behavior.
And if we want to let go of that personally and socially, we have
to be willing to give up those perks as well as the downsides.
A sustained effort in the opposite direction.
This is what Jesus was talking about when he said if you want
to be my disciple, you need to deny yourself, take up your
cross and follow me. It's not a pretty metaphor to
take up your cross. When Jesus said it, everyone
understood that meant you were on your way to die.
You were willing to give up everything to follow Jesus.
To let go of everything to follow Jesus is why I said
things like if you want to follow me, if you want to love
me, you have to hate. Hate everyone else doesn't mean
have a nasty attitude toward everyone else.
It means being willing to let go of every other relationship in
your life in order to follow me. It's why Jesus preached the
Sermon on the Mount and he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know all
y'all religious folks out there. You want to preach against
adultery, but you want to entertain lustful thoughts for
the people around you. You want to preach against
murder, but you want to live in resentment and anger toward the
people around you. You want to preach against
greed, but you want to accumulate wealth on the side.
You want to preach against hypocrisy, but you do your
religious deeds, all of them out in public, so you get the praise
of the people around you. Half measures will avail you
nothing. You let go of all of it, or
you're not really letting go of any of it.
It takes a sustained effort, a conscious decision to do that.
Elphaba was able to do that, to risk it all.
Ultimately, she didn't have to sacrifice it all.
Very few of Jesus's followers ultimately have to sacrifice it
all. We call those people martyrs.
Most followers of Jesus are not martyrs.
But we have to be willing to hold it all loosely.
So those perks, if in our effort, and it takes effort to
follow Jesus, these things have to fall away.
They fall away because if we're holding tight on to them,
they'll just pull us right back down to the ground, right back
down to all of the same destructive patterns and habits
and systems and cultures that we thought we were escaping and
said we wanted to escape. It takes sustained effort in the
opposite direction. The good news is, is that Jesus
is the OG defier of gravity. There's my vain attempt at
trendy language. The OG defier of gravity Jesus
was doing. He walked on water.
He literally defied gravity, but in his life he defied all of
that social pressure. The story of the birth of Jesus
is so beautiful partly because we see that Jesus was born not
into fabulous wealth, not into great privilege and position and
and glory and honor. But he was born to a poor family
and a poor part of town didn't even have a bed, had to be laid
in a feed box at his birth, not wrapped in silks and fine linen.
But but swaddling clothes is just a is just an old English
way of saying strips of cloth got rags to wrap Jesus in and
swaddle him in. He was willing to let go of
wealth and power and privilege and position.
He was willing to let go of the social pressure to do great and
dramatic things and, and, and, and cow people into following
him, intimidate people into following him.
He was willing to to resist the social pressure that said, you
know, Jesus, you should really under only hang out with these
good, respectable religious folks and not those people over
there. And Jesus said, these are the
people I came to hang out with. If you want to join me, you're
welcome to come over here with me.
He was willing to let go of and suffer all the social
consequences, let go of all of the social perks in order to
defy gravity. And Jesus was so good at defying
gravity that he couldn't even be kept in a grave with a stone Rd.
over the entrance. He still rose up.
And he invites us to follow him.
And it seems at times impossible, there is such social
pressure on us in the world to conform to the world's way of
thinking on so many different ways, whether it's rejecting
this person or that group, whether it's pursuing wealth as
a means of securing our peaceful and, and hopeful future, whether
it's what all of these different pressures that are out there.
And Jesus says, I want you to live in my Kingdom and think my
way and treat people the way I treated them when I was with you
here. Even if it costs you your life,
even if it costs you your job, even if it costs you your
position, even if it costs you respectability.
All of these things let go of and defy gravity like I did.
That's the choice that we have and that's the choice that
Elphaba made. I'm going to invite Allison.
She's going to come up and she's going to sing Defying Gravity
for us. I am, again, I'm an ignorant
person as well as being strange and I this was one of the few
songs that I'd heard before I first saw the musical Defying
Gravity. I love this song.
I didn't pay close enough attention to it.
I I, I called Alice and I said, hey, could you sing Defying
Gravity for us? She says, I, I can sing that.
And then she said, you know, that's a duet, right?
I'm like, no, no, I didn't. No, I'd only seen the movie and
the stage musical. Somehow it had missed the fact
that two people were singing. I said, how's that going to
work? She said, I'll work it out.
Boy, did she work it out. This is great.
So Allison is going to sing Defying Gravity for us and then
we'll talk just a little bit more.
At this point in the sermon, Allison Bradbury sang Defying
Gravity. She did a beautiful job with the
song and I wish I could include it here, but for licensing
reasons I can't include it on this platform.
If you would like to hear Allison singing, check out the
same sermon on YouTube. Just search for CRSNB sermons
and click on the Defying Gravity sermon.
Please be aware though, that I don't have good tech for
recording live musical performances, so the audio
quality is not nearly as good on the recording as Allison was
live. You can also find Cynthia Revo's
version on YouTube and all major music platforms.
Now, back to the sermon. Wow again, wow.
By God's grace, that's we can do that.
We can. Well, we can't do that.
Allison can do that, but we can do that.
We can defy gravity and and no force, no power can ever bring
us down. We will, like Prophet Isaiah
said, we will mount up on wings like eagles, run and not grow
weary, walk and not fate. Soar above, defying the gravity
that wants to pull us back in because of our Lord, our Savior,
Jesus Christ, His Holy Spirit, which gives us all that we need
to do that. It takes work, it takes
sustained effort, it takes a decision, it takes a willingness
to hold everything loosely and sacrifice whatever needs to fall
away. And we can defy gravity too.
In Jesus name, Amen. Amen.