Call described by blessing – Luke 1
This
is a story about three people and two children. As it happens they are all
related and their unusual stories wrap around each other – as our lives do. An
old couple, Elizabeth and Zechariah, learn of an unexpected birth. They are
happy. I wonder is they are also concerned. My wife says that it’s not the
birth late in life that is hard; it’s chasing the toddler in middle age. They
live in a time when fertility is sign of God’s favor or disfavor. There is a
lot of hope and relief invested in this child.
This
is also a story of another kind of unexpected birth. This one raises eyebrows
for different reasons. The young woman is unmarried. She must have done
something wrong – or she’s hiding something. (Of course she is!) She is also on
the outside of things. It’s not as if a child had never been born out of
wedlock before – but respectable people do things better. She will notorious
and her child will be suspect.
The
funny thing is that no one is worried. They are all just delighted. They don’t
worry about the practical problems to be overcome. They are simply full of joy
for the miracle that God is working in them (literally!)
Of
course we can’t help but hear the echo of all out theological justifications.
Jesus is the Son of God and John will be the one sent by God to prepare the
way. The Holy Spirit has worked this unbelievable thing. It’s all part of God’s
plan. True – but how would we feel if we were in their shoes?
When
we are surprised by unexpected birth it means the reconfiguration of our
household. Someone has to watch the infant. Someone has to chase the toddler.
We may love and rejoice at new life – but new responsibilities? And how often
do we judge the foolishness of young people who have children before they are
ready? Don’t we all have a life checklist in our mind that we think should be
checked off in the right order? Finish your education. Get a steady job. Get
settled. Find a nice neighborhood (with good schools.) Then it’s time for kids.
It doesn’t work out that way for Mary (and honestly it doesn’t often work out
that way for us.)
Mary
is understandably afraid (as well as Zechariah.) Legend has it that when she
first met Gabriel she dropped her jug at the well and the angel had to go find
her hiding in her bedroom. Do not be afraid? It seems the appropriate response
to me. The next response is harder to see. Mary is accepting – and it seems to
lead to her rejoicing.
Throughout
our lives we are offered a different path. Sometimes we have courage to take it
and sometimes not. When we do we enter into a new landscape and we encounter
experience that we would not have imagined. Perhaps this is the joy for our
characters this morning. They are on an adventure. They are going new places.
More important, they know that they are journeying with God. They have been
invited into God’s work of saving the world.
For reflection:
Remember a time in your life when you felt called to something.
What new thing was begun in you? What emotions did you have? What changed for
you? What did you have to give up?
The
songs of Advent – Our work described by blessing -
the Song of Mary, Canticle 15, Prayer Book page 91
The
canticles we speak or
sing from the prayer book can become for us a kind of artwork from the past. It
is as if we have entered into a sort of museum of praise. We hear the cadence
of the words and we marvel at the beauty. Isn’t it nice?
The
song of Mary is crafted within the Gospel of Luke to tell a larger story. It is
also Mary’s song. She sings it in response to all that she has experienced. We
could be suspicious and examine the text through modern scholarship, but let’s
listen to what she has to say (leaving aside the impossible question about what
really happened and what her actual words might have been.)
Mary
praises God for all that God has done and for what God has done for her. We
admire her great faith, and her willingness to do what God has asked – but what
a big job! There is a lot of getting out of the way and letting God do whatever
is necessary. We talk about living like this. Doing it is the trick. We want so
much. We need so much. We are so busy. Mary just says, “Let it be for me
according to your word.”
What
happens when she gets out of the way? Jesus is born, or course. Before that
happens, Mary has a few things to say about what God does when we get out of
the way. The poor rejoice. The rich and powerful are empty-handed. The world is
flipped upside down. The words are beautiful, but have we listened? All of the
things we admire, all of the things for which we strive will be swept aside.
The people we ignore (or despise) may just move up a few rungs on the ladder
ahead of us.
I
think this is what happens when we get out of the way and we let God bless us.
So often we come with our to-do list for God. Rightly so, and as soon as we
send in our list the better, so we can get down to the real business of getting
out of God’s way.
The
vision Mary shares may not go down so well with the one-percenters, but she
describes a world where everyone if filled and all are honored and blessed.
It’s what we really want anyway. We’re just too afraid to leave it to God.
For reflection:
Read the Song of Mary of the Song of Zechariah (BCP 91, 92). When
have you had a glimpse of God working and at the same time you knew you were
doing God’s will? How does this make you see the world differently? How does
this change what you desire? How does this change how you feel about your own
gifts? How does this strengthen your faith?
What
blessing will we bear to the world? Titus 2:11-14, 3:4-7 (below)
We
are encouraged by the heroes and heroines of our faith. Their stories remind us
of how God is faithful and powerful to save. They remind us that God will work
wonders through us, as we are willing to be open to God’s leading. The bible
can only help us if we want help. Mary, Elizabeth, and Zechariah lived through
miraculous and difficult times. So do we. Our civilization and culture are
different. We speak different languages. God is still at work and still seeking
the salvation of the world.
Unlike
the characters in these stories, we have the advantage of knowing the ending.
We know Jesus in a way that they could not. We are reborn and inspired. We
believe God’s spirit lives in us. God has called us and transformed us. Now God
would send us to bear the good news.
Our
trouble is that we cannot see that which we take for granted. We know we’re
saved, but isn’t everybody? We know God loves us. What does it matter what we
do? God will always forgive us. All true – or not nearly true enough.
God
has let us in on a secret. Life is not that hard. Most of what we worry about
will be all right in the end. We need to love and trust. On the other hand life
is hard. It is unimaginably difficult for people who do not know the love of
God. It is frightening for people who cannot trust that God will take care of
them. We live in an age when no one knows what is going to happen next or what
will happen to us.
God
comes to us in the form of a child to tell a new story. We don’t have to earn
respect or honor, for we have that already by being God’s children. We don’t
have to protect ourselves with wealth, or weapons, or achievement, for God
gives us all that we need. We don’t have to earn love, for God has already
given us all the love we can imagine in the gift of Jesus.
Knowing
this also is a responsibility. At the very least, we should seek to live as if
what we believe is true. We should be rejecting the fear of our age and
embracing values deeper that materialism or tribalism. If we have courage, we
can declare what we know. We can serve with our hands. We can give our wealth.
We can listen to people around us who are discouraged and afraid and we can
give them our faith. The hands we have are God’s anyway, as well as our money
and our faith.
We
are good news to the world. We are the face of God to the stranger. We get to
pass on the best news there ever was. God loves the world and the world will be
made new.
For
reflection: When have you been able to share good news (of any kind) with
someone else? When is it easy to share? What gets in the way? How can you share
or be good news to someone today?
Titus 2:11-14
For the grace of God has appeared,
bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly
passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled,
upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of
the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself
for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a
people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
Titus 3:4-7
When the
goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not
because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his
mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit
he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been
justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal
life.
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