"Saying Yes to God." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Fourth Sunday of Advent.

"Saying Yes to God"

Luke 1

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 apparently 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 a young peasant girl from a small village.  Her marriage to Joseph had been arranged. 

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 lir3.  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. At the very least, she will be disgraced in the eyes of the people of the village. She’ll be damaged goods.

            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-that, 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 starts singing a song the church is still singing today-- a song we might think of as the first Christmas carol.  Her 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."

            Mary sings about the God who saves not just souls, but embodied people. The God she celebrates isn’t content merely to point people toward heaven. God’s redemptive work begins here on earth. God fills the hungry not only with hope, but with food.  God isn’t satisfied with comforting the lowly, but lifts them up, giving them dignity. This is a merciful and subversive song, that sings of how God shows strength by disrupting the world’s power structures, bringing down the powerful from their thrones, and lifting up the lowly.

            Through the centuries, Mary has been a model of faith.   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 keeps widening…  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 and with refugees.    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 ways of the world seem to have taken over, and mercy is in short supply.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.  Mary models for us a way of joyful, hopeful obedience, working with God to change the world, hoping in God’s promises.

            If you read through the first few chapters of Luke, you’ll notice that several songs.   Mary sings the “Magnificat” in today’s story.  Zechariah 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 pointing the way to freedom. 

            The civil rights leaders in our nation knew this, too, as they sang their 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 didn’t crush this protest like they had so many others, the officer replied, “We had no contingency plan for song.”[1]

            Today, I hope we will sing Mary’s song of praise with her...  and watch for signs of how “the world is about to turn.”

            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 re-distributes wealth and privilege and power, so that everyone has what they need.   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, and spoken God’s Word to, over, and in 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, a calling that can bring with it extraordinary blessings, 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, according to your word.” 

            Let it be with us, according to your Word.”

            Let it be!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

December 24, 2017     

                                                     

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[1] David Lose, “Singing as An Act of Resistance, at davidlose.net, December 14, 2015.

"Entertaining Angels": A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Luke 14:1-14 and Hebrews 13:1-2

"Entertaining Angels"

Luke 14:1-14 and Hebrews 13:1-2 

            By all accounts, Jesus loved parties. The Gospels tell us that he often had so much fun at parties that he was accused by some of being a glutton and a drunkard. 

            Yet the party Jesus attended at the Pharisee’s house didn’t get off to a good start.  It seems that this party didn’t seem to be a party at all—not by the standards of the Kingdom of God.   

            A leader of the Pharisees had invited him to a Sabbath meal, and people were watching him closely.

            Now, from a biblical perspective, a party or shared special meal is supposed to be a gospel feast--  a sign of God’s hospitality, a sign of God’s kingdom breaking in,  offering hope to the poor and oppressed, the least and the lost.  
             The prophet Isaiah described the great messianic banquet, where God will be the host: "…the LORD will make for all people a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines…and wipe away the tears from all faces"[1]

Note that the text says "all people."  That’s part of what Jesus was getting at when he told his host he should invite the poor and the lame and the blind –- not the social elite, but the ones who have nothing of their own to bring.  They can’t offer anything in return for their invitation.   

            One thing you can be sure of:  they won’t be heading for the "highest," most prestigious seats.  They’ll hang shyly by the door, probably wondering, “Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here?”  They might be afraid to take any seat until the host comes over, puts a reassuring arm around their shoulders, guides them to a table, and then introduces them to the other guests.  That’s what a party is like in the kingdom of God.
            It’s helpful to know something about Palestinian wedding feasts of that time.  It was the custom for the male guests to recline on couches, with the center couch being the place of honor, reserved for people of wealth, power, or office.  If somebody was reclining there and a more prominent man arrived late, someone of lesser rank would be asked to move to a less prestigious location. 
            In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus isn’t just giving a lesson in manners.  He’s pointing to the ways in which the realm of God turns these customs upside-down and establishes its own social and spiritual order.

            In today’s gospel, we hear Jesus saying, “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled    and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”   

            In the epistle lesson, from the letter to the Hebrews, we hear words written to the early Christian church a few decades after Jesus:  “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

            Hospitality is a very important biblical theme.  Lives which have been redeemed and re-formed by the love of Christ demonstrate openness and generosity and hospitality.

            When the Epistle to the Hebrews talks about how, in showing hospitality to strangers, some have entertained angels without knowing it—it alludes to a story in the eighteenth chapter of Genesis, in which three strangers visit Abraham and Sarah.  They receive them graciously, bring water to wash their feet, and extend typical Middle Eastern hospitality:  they bring them drinks, slaughter a calf, and bake cakes.  It turns out that the three strangers are on a mission from God,  there to tell them that Sarah is going to conceive in her old age and have a child.  So the men were angels, messengers from God.              

            This is one of many Bible stories in which God makes an appearance in an unlikely, unexpected way.  If people aren’t open to something new and strange and different, they might miss a revelation from God.

           

            “Let mutual love continue,” the letter to the Hebrews admonished the early church.  Let love among you be genuine and powerful and real.  But don’t forget the stranger…don’t forget to be hospitable. 

            Sometimes people in a congregation enjoy loving one another so much that they become an intimate and closed community   and an outsider doesn’t feel welcome… can’t figure out how to break in.  When that happens, we might miss a revelation from God.

            But what Jesus was talking about in Luke is even more serious than that.  He scolds the host, criticizing him for his choice of guests.  “Don’t invite these kind of people,” Jesus says, referring to friends, relatives, business associates—people who will, in all probability, agree to the conventional social custom and in some way return your invitation.  People who are like you, people you’re comfortable with.

            Jesus proposes a human community based not on social custom, economic reciprocity, on “people like us”— but on the good news that each person is a precious child of God.  This teaching challenged people two thousand years ago, and it continues to challenge us today.

            At Jesus’ table there is no distinction.  There are no boundaries.  And he insists that this is the way things will be in the kingdom of God.

            Jesus tells a parable to make his point.  A man gives a party, invites friends, and at the last minute learns that not one of them can come.  So the man invites “the poor, the cripples, the blind, and the lame.  He invites strangers who are passing through town.  To any who are reluctant to come because they don’t have the right clothes or manners or connections to come, he won’t take NO for an answer.  Go out, he says.  Bring them in.  I want my house to be full.”

            This advice runs counter to the way we’re used to thinking about things.  We tend to invite people who are our friends or relatives—people we feel comfortable with…people like us… people who’ve invited us to their parties.  But Jesus says these notions of politeness and reciprocity and associating with people like us miss the true meaning of hospitality. 

            The connection between today’s Gospel and epistle lessons is in how they move beyond the specific reference to hospitality, to focus on grace and love in our interactions with others.   Today’s scripture lessons remind us that there are lots of people out there who need to experience the love and peace and joy of Jesus Christ.  They remind us that we need to be faithful in our relationship with God, and in our relationships with others.  

At the very heart of Jesus’ preaching and teaching is a radical inclusiveness.  This is one of the basic principles of our Christian faith.  We can’t escape it.  All are welcome at the table.

            Many communities in this world define themselves by exclusion.  But a church united around the story of Jesus is a very different sort of community.  The New Testament word for “hospitality”--  philoxenia—literally means “love of strangers.  It’s the opposite of xenophobia, which is the fear of those whom one does not know.  Hospitality, in the biblical sense, is about making room for others in our lives.  It means being able to say, “Make yourself at home.”

            We are a community of people who follow Jesus—the One who upsets the seating arrangement at the dinner party by suggesting that the people on the fringes of society are honored guests.  The Jesus who dared to hang out with women and tax collectors.  The Jesus who calls us to love our enemies and welcome the strangers.

           

            The epistle lesson from Hebrews chapter urges the church not to neglect to show hospitality to strangers, “for by doing that, some have entertained angels without knowing it.”         

           

            Alice Walker’s short story “The Welcome Table” tells of an old African American woman, tired and thirsty, who enters a white church.  “Some of them there at the church saw the age…the dotage…the missing buttons down the front of her mildewed black dress.  Others saw cooks…chauffeurs…maids…. While others were reminded of riotous anarchists looting and raping in the streets.”

            The story tells how the hierarchy of the church mobilizes in defense of the racism of the congregation:

            The reverend of the church stopped her pleasantly as she stepped into the vestibule…  “Auntie, you know this is not your church?”    As if one could choose the wrong one.

            “Inside the church she sat on the very first bench from the back, gazing with concentration at the stained-glass window over her head….” Until the men of the church picked her up and carried her out of the church.

            The old woman stood at the top of the steps looking about in bewilderment.  She had been singing in her head.  They had interrupted her.  Promptly she began to sing again, though this time a sad song.

            Suddenly…she looked down the long gray highway and saw something interesting and delightful.  She started to grin, toothlessly, with short giggles of joy, jumping about and slapping her hands on her knees…  for coming down the highway—was Jesus.

            She would have known him, recognized him, anywhere.  There was a sad but joyful look to his face, like a candle glowing behind it…

            “All he said when he got up close to her was “Follow me,”  and she bounded to his side.  Finally she started telling him about how many years she had cooked for them…cleaned for them…nursed them…

            She told him indignantly about how they had grabbed her when she was singing in her head and not looking, and how they had tossed her out of his church….”[2]                  

            So… who is on the guest list in the realm of God? 

           

            As most of you know, we’ve been working as a congregation to achieve greater clarity about our mission and to identify our core values.  A group of 30 people met last November, and then a group met last May to follow up, and we ended up with a lot of notes from our ideas.  There was a great deal of general agreement about what our core values are, but we needed to do some work to boil down the work to five core values that can guide us when we make decisions about how to best use limited energy and resources and that can help others understand who we are and what makes Littlefield Presbyterian Church vital and unique. 

            Bob Stead, Anna Dewey, and I met twice to do this “word-smithing,” to pull together all the ideas in a way that communicates clearly.  Then we took that draft to Session for some final editing, and Session approved it at the August meeting. 

            One of the core values we spent a lot of time on was the one about Inclusiveness, because that might mean different things to different people.  

            There are people who have been hurt or disappointed by previous church experiences and people who have never had any experience with a church community.  How do we find ways to help them connect with their spiritual longings?  How do we make it clear that they are welcome and invited?  So we tried to spell it out:

            “As children of God, we see all persons as God’s children.  As Christ welcomes all to the table of fellowship, so we also invite, respect, and accept all—regardless of social/economic/marital status, sexual identity/orientation, race/ethnicity, and faith orientation.”

            Today’s scripture lessons remind us that a community that is faithfully following Jesus cannot be a community that excludes.  It’s un-Christian to do so.

            Part of our hospitality is finding ways to get the word out that everybody’s welcome, and to actively invite people and then make them feel at home.

           

            You may remember the story about the man who got on the elevator of his hotel and saw a neatly lettered sign:  “PARTY TONIGHT IN ROOM 815.  EVERYBODY INVITED.”    

            For the rest of the day, he kept thinking about that sign.  Who would give a party and issue an open invitation like that?  Was it for real?  Who would accept an invitation like that?  Maybe others who—like himself—were in town by themselves and were lonely?  People who were curious?  Maybe some people who were really needy, starved for companionship?

            He fantasized about what the party would be like, and who might be gathered there.  By the time he returned to the hotel later on, the sign had been removed by someone—perhaps the hotel management.  Or maybe the person who’d written it had gotten cold feet. 

            The man never found out who had posted the invitation, or who would have attended the party.  He felt a vague sort of disappointment, wondering what the party would have been like.

            Who would throw a party and invite everyone?   Jesus Christ…and the church of Christ.

            So I invite you to reflect prayerfully today and in the coming weeks:  Who’s on our guest list?  Is it as inclusive as God’s guest list?   

           

            We have been invited to a gospel feast for which we can never reciprocate.  Jesus stands waiting as our host, ready to put reassuring arms around our shoulders and guide us to places of honor in the kingdom of God.

            Like the host in the parable, God has heaped up his table with good things like love, grace, forgiveness, and new beginnings… precious promises of the presence of the Holy Spirit…   and the promise that sin and suffering will not have the last word in our lives, because love is stronger than death. 

            Christ has put the bread of life and the cup of salvation on his table, and he is eager to share them with his guests.  God has prepared a great feast-- a table piled high with the food and drink that gives us new life. 

            At God’s party, everybody is invited.  Everybody is welcome.

            Y’all come!    

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

August 28, 2016

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[1] Isaiah 25:6,8.

[2] Alice Walker, “The Welcome Table.”