"Saying Yes to God"
Luke 1, on the 4th Sunday of Advent
Angels don’t show
up very often in the Scriptures. But
when they do appear, usually something BIG... strange... and wonderful is about to happen.
The angel Gabriel came to tell Mary
that she had been chosen by God to help change the world, by bearing the Christ.
Though Gabriel
called Mary "favored one," she
didn't feel favored-- at least not at first.
She felt perplexed. “How can this
be?”
And yet Mary responded to Gabriel by
saying, "Here am I, the servant of
the Lord. Let it be with me according to
your word."
In other words, Mary says, "I'm not sure what all of this means. but nevertheless, here I am, ready to be of service in God's
work. Whatever you say, God."
What a wonderful, faithful thing for
Mary to say! It couldn't have been an easy
decision for her. Change never is.
There was a lot at stake for
Mary. She was young. Her marriage to Joseph had been arranged, and
she was full of plans for her life and their future together. She had some sense of what kind of life it
would be... some idea about what she
could expect in life.
Mary was poor... and vulnerable. As a female, her economic SURVIVAL depended
on marriage. Her security depended on
her attractiveness as a wife and mother. So-- what did it mean for a girl like Mary to say yes
to God’s plan?
It meant risking all that she had hoped
for... all her plans for her life. It meant risking her security. And it meant risking her very LIFE. The penalty for a woman caught in ADULTERY in
her day could be public STONING. If Joseph
believed that her pregnancy was a result of an illicit affair, then-- by LAW-- Mary could be taken to the
edge of town and STONED to death.
Mary's story reminds us that to be
God's servant in the world means risking radical changes in our priorities. It means placing our very lives into God's
hands. It means trusting in God to CARE
for us—even through dangerous times.
Yet Mary responded in obedience and
trust and courage. "Here I am, Lord." I'll be your servant."
If Mary's DECISION was extraordinary, her RESPONSE to the decision was even more extraordinary.
Luke tells us-- after the angel left-- Mary hurried to visit
her elderly cousin Elizabeth, who had been unable to bear children all her
life. As proof that nothing is
impossible with God-- the angel Gabriel
had told Mary that Elizabeth was six months pregnant in her old age.
When Elizabeth hears Mary's voice,
the child leaps in her womb, and she knows that she has been especially touched
by God. Filled with the Holy Spirit,
Elizabeth calls out: "You are BLESSED
among women. Blessed is she who believed
that God's promise would be fulfilled!"
By declaring both Mary and the fruit
of her womb “blessed,” Elizabeth begins a series of blessings that weave
through Luke’s birth narrative and intensify its tone of joy and praise. Mary, Zechariah, and Simeon will all add
their blessings, praising God for what God is doing at this moment in
history and recognizing that those who
are privileged to be instruments of God’s saving work have been richly blessed.
Mary's song is a song of JOY and PRAISE. "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for
he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on, all generations will
call me blessed."
Joy comes to us as a GIFT-- often an unexpected gift. So all we can really do is to receive
it... believe in it... and stop doing things that get in its way.
That's what happened to Mary at
Elizabeth's house. She stopped wringing
her hands and wondering what in the world she was going
to do next. She got surprised by JOY and
started singing a song the church is still singing to this day.
Mary has been a model of faith for
Christians through the centuries. God
needed Mary's freely given "YES"
to God's gracious invitation to become the Mother of Jesus. The mystery of INCARNATION could not have
taken place without Mary's wholehearted "YES". And that "YES" couldn't have taken place without Mary's
unbounded trust in God.
Do you wonder? How was such radical
obedience and openness on Mary's part made possible? How did she get from saying, “How can this
be?”—to “Let it be, according to God’s word”?
I think it grew out of the sense of trust
that had developed in her as she heard the stories of the God of Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob... and how God had
always dealt with her people. That long
history had taught her two things about God--
that God was utterly mysterious...
and yet always good. God's ways
are almost never obvious... but they
inevitably work out better than we could imagine. And that's some of the GOOD NEWS of
God.
The old King James Version puts part
of Mary’s song of praise this way: “He
hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.” I think that’s an especially apt translation,
for it is by our imagining, by what our hearts picture in fear or desire, that
we humans are pushed and pulled in our many directions.
Imagination can be a channel for our
destruction—especially when fear and resentment prevail. But it can also serve to gather and bless and
inspire us.
We live in a society in which the gap between the rich and poor has
widened… a society in which many people
of goodwill are finding it important and necessary to declare that black lives
matter… where it’s important and necessary to stand in solidarity with our
Muslim neighbors. We live in a time of
fear and suspicion of people who are different… and a growing number of people believe
they need guns to protect themselves against all the terrible things they imagine.
We live in a world in which many
people lack adequate food or safe water or shelter or sanitation. The
list could go on and on. But it doesn’t
have to be that way.
As I was working on this sermon, I
was reminded of a photo I saw some time ago Facebook: a young Palestinian mother in Gaza is holding
her newborn child, saying, “I hope my
daughter will live in peace.” Imagine
it! Is anything impossible for God?
I’ve really grown to love the season
of Advent. As Gracia Grindal writes in
one of her hymns, “We light the Advent candles against the winter night.” Not “because of” or “during,” but “against”
the winter night. The light of Advent,
like the light of Christ, is a protest to the darkness that surrounds us.[1]
Instead of being overwhelmed and despairing
over what’s wrong in the world or trying to trying to avoid it by working to
“have ourselves a merry little Christmas,” the themes and the music of Advent
can point us to another way: the way of hope. They way of joyful obedience that Mary models
for us—working with God to change the world.
I heard a story about a hungry child
in a poor community who prayed fervently one Christmas for some food and toys,
but nothing happened. A cynical friend
asked her with a sneer, "What
happened to this God of yours? Why
didn't He hear and answer you?'
The child answered simply, "Oh, I'm sure God did hear me... and told someone to bring me a Christmas
gift. But I guess they just forgot."[2]
I think more often than not, this is
where the breakdown occurs: not with God--
but with us. God, for reasons of God's
choosing, wants to involve us humans in completing the creation. God invites us into the JOY of this, but we hear
too faintly... and forget too quickly.
In Advent, we’re reminded of the reason for this holy season. When circumstances are dark and difficult, we
need to look beyond ourselves for salvation.
We need to listen again for God’s promises and for signs that “the world is about to
turn.”
If you read through the first few
chapters of Luke, you’ll notice that there are several songs. Mary sings the “Magnificat” in today’s
story. Zehariah sings when his son John
is born and his tongue is finally loosened.
The angels sing of peace and goodwill when they share their “good news
of great joy” with the shepherds. And
Simeon sings his song of farewell when he has seen God’s promises
fulfilled.
Why all these songs? I think David Lose is right when he suggests
that singing can be an act of resistance.
African slaves knew this. When
they sang their spirituals, they were praising God and also protesting the
injustices of their lives and even pointing the way to freedom.
The civil rights leaders knew this,
too, singing songs like “We Shall Overcome” and other freedom songs.
The protesters in Leipzig in 1989
knew this as well. For several months
before the fall of the Berlin wall, the citizens of Leipzig gathered on Monday
evenings by candlelight around St. Nikolai Church—the church where Bach
composed so many of his cantatas—to sing.
Over two months, their numbers grew from a little more than a thousand
people to more than three hundred thousand—over half the citizens of the
city. They sang songs of hope and
protest and justice, until their song shook the powers of their nation and
changed the world.
Later, when someone asked one of the
officers of the Stasi, the East German secret police, why they did not crush
this protest like they had so many others, the officer replied, “We had no
contingency plan for song.”[3]
Today,
I hope that as we are gathered around this word from the gospel, we will to
imagine ourselves alongside Mary, seeing history’s hard cruelty give way to hope
and gracious surprise. Let us sing Mary’s song of praise with
her... and envision the vindication of
the poor.
A lot of what we do when we come
together in worship is practicing this imagination of the heart, by the gift
and command of God. In the liturgy, we imagine
that love rules already, that the lowly
are lifted up, that death is conquered, sin cleansed away... peace
triumphant...and Christ touched and seen and tasted. On the verge of Christmas, we imagine and
sing with Mary.
Imagine with the Magnificat its dream of a justice that
redistributes wealth and privilege and power.
Imagine a world where the lion and the lamb can be together in peace…
where those who have been proud and rich can be in solidarity with those who
yearn for a turning of the socio-economic tables… imagine discovering that
there can be enough for everyone in God’s realm.
And remember that we're invited to
participate more fully in God's saving work in the world.
Mary was invited to bear
Christ. And so, my friends, are we.
We can choose to say YES to God, and
open ourselves to let God use us as instruments of love and grace and mercy and
justice and peace.
Today’s gospel story is about Mary. But it’s your story and mine as well. God has chosen each of us, favored each of us,
graced each of us.
By the power of God’s Spirit, God has
descended upon us and conceived Christ in us. We are called to be God-bearers, calling that can bring with it extraordinary privileges
as well as significant hardships. But
the promise remains the same: nothing is impossible for the
One we serve and bear.
We are called to bear the love of Christ out into the world... and let it transform the world, as it
transforms us.
" Let it be with me. Let it be with us, according to your Word.” Let it be!
Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan
December 20, 2015
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