Advent 4

         We’re at the end of our preparations. The house is decorated. Cookies are baked. The gifts are in piles in the bedroom closet (no peeking!) We’re ready to receive all our guests. Soon the whole family will gather again. We’ll share old stories. We’ll catch up with each other. After a week, we’ll also begin to get on each other’s nerves as we remember old wounds and hurts. We will face the myth of the perfect family. Maybe we will have the grace to accept what we’ve become and appreciate what’s true.

         What are we trying to make or create in this holiday? Old King David is thinking about his legacy. He is wondering what he will leave behind. He intends to build a great temple. After all, how can God live in a tent after David lives in a great mansion? David is thankful for all that God has done for him. I wonder if David’s impulse might just be a little self-serving – a pious edifice Built to glorify David as much as to God. God tells Nathan the prophet, “Tell David, I don’t need what you want. I’ll build him a “house.” God promises that David will have a future descendant who will rule well forever.

         This is the trick of the Christian faith. We work and pray and submit and try to change – all in an attempt to do better and to be better. This is all to our credit. Like David our sacrifices are often unconsciously self-serving. We want to lose weight or give up a bad habit so that we can be more successful or so that we can like ourselves more. What exactly are our standards of success? What is our motivation? Are we really so selfless or virtuous as we claim in our aspirations?

         The angel Gabriel tells Mary, “You have found favor with God.” Was she looking for favors? This visit comes as a surprise. There is a legend that the angel first visited Mary at the well. She was so afraid that she ran away and the angel had to go find her hiding in her bedroom. Mary is certainly virtuous, but her goodness is not the cause of God’s great gift.

         This is how God works. God chooses to bless us and to love us. The best we can do is to be open to what God might be offing us, and to be willing to accept it. This is what Mary does. This is what Mary is commended for.

         Over the years there has been much theological reflection around who Mary might be and why God chose her. Much of this reflection justifies the inferiority of women (she must be extraordinary to bear the son of God), or it rationalizes the inferiority of the body (she must have been sinless to bear Jesus.) There may be merit in admiring Mary, as long as we remember her shared humanity. It is more of a miracle if Mary is one of us than if she is somehow supernaturally different.

         Mary herself acknowledges how this great blessing is grounded in what is most real. When Mary responds to Elizabeth’s blessing, she glorifies how God works. God lifts up the poor. God feeds the hungry. God acts within the lives of real people who have done nothing to bring attention to themselves. We might surmise that God looks out for people who are faithful and who try to love their neighbor. Mary simply reflects on how God rescues all of God’s people. I imagine many don’t deserve the help that is offered.

         Mary reminds us that God comes to the people who need God. Instead of running from our brokenness, it’s likely where we are to find God. Instead of building up our lives virtuously, productively and blamelessly (so that we don’t really need God, we can seek God in all our failures and weakness. This is where God seeks us first. We are not ultimately saved if we live as if we need no saving. We are saved when we can face our sin, our loss, our death, and accept that life is a gift we have not earned. We are most blessed when we see God’s unexpected and surprising love break into the patterns we have no strength to change.

         As we continue our advent preparation, we may find that self-mortification has its place. Maybe it is time to clean out a few closets and make ourselves ready for God to visit. And we need to let go of the belief that we have anything to wrap up and give to God. This is not what we are waiting for. We are waiting for the surprise that God will give us – if we are willing. Are we ready to set aside our holiday plans of perfection and success? Are we willing to accept our own poverty? Can we say that we have no power in this homecoming at all? However we prepare, God is ready to come among us. We can wait for the blessing if we can get out of God’s way.