SunDec182011
Scripture: The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. (Lk 1:30 )
Luke 1:26-38
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.
[Liturgical Dancers perform Mary Did You Know ]
A Prayer. What in fact did Mary know after that visit from a messenger representing the Divine that day? A careful reading of the gospel stories seems to indicate that before Jesus birth and even during his life, Mary was in the dark a lot about who he was. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, we see through a cloudy mirror. So it was for Mary. And yet, because she didn’t know everything or misunderstood a lot of things, didn’t mean she didn’t know anything important. May we too glimpse truth afresh through Mary’s eyes this morning. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
Many months ago, when Hamilton asked if I would like to give the sermon on December 18, this last Sunday in Advent, I said I would be pleased to do so. As the day approached and I began to look more closely at the lectionary passages and liturgical themes for the day, I was even more pleased, for this Sunday’s Advent theme is love.
As a seminary student I recall sitting in a homiletics class one day 40 years ago and listening to Dr. James McGraw. Dr. McGraw taught young seminarians the fundamentals of preaching. “If you are like most preachers,” he told the students in his class that day, “there will be one primary theme that marks your ministry.”
As I look back over the intervening years and ponder Dr. McGraw’s statement, I would have to say that the theme, the word that has marked my ministry more than any other these many years is our Advent theme for today, love.
I was a year or two into my first pastorate at the Nazarene Church in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. Leona Scott was an elderly, longtime member of the church. At a Sunday evening service people were sharing testimonies. Mrs. Scott stood and said, “pastor, I don’t think we’ve ever had anyone who has preached more about the love of God than you.”
A few weeks ago I ran into Amanda in the hallway outside the main church office. “Do you have a favorite hymn or song?” she asked. I love music, both listening to it and making it. It is hard for me to choose one song and say it is my favorite, but I said to Amanda that day, “probably one of the songs I like most is ‘Amazing Grace.’”
It is a song about the unconditional love and goodness of God. You probably are aware that is was written by John Newton, an 18th Century slave trader and slave ship captain. He was eventually converted and became an Anglican minister. The song “Amazing Grace” was most likely written to illustrate one of his sermons. But grace, the unearned, unmerited love and acceptance of God was something Newton had experienced firsthand. When he wrote the song, he knew whereof he spoke.
I love the story of a little girl who had a large collection of dolls. One day a visitor was in her room admiring her many dolls, large ones and small ones, expensive ones and rather ordinary ones. “Of all your dolls, which one do you like the best?” the little girl was asked. She went to a shelf and picked up a doll that was old and worn and tattered. “This one,” she said, as she held it in her arms. Surprised, her guest asked, “Well, my, with so many beautiful dolls, why do you like that one best?” The little girl responded, “Because if I didn’t love her, nobody would.”
Dr. Karl Barth was one of the preeminent 20th Century theologians. On a visit to this country in 1962 he was giving a lecture at the University of Chicago. At the conclusion of his lecture he was asked how he would summarize the essence of the millions of words he had published. Karl Barth thought for a moment and then replied, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so."
John Newton and the little girl in our story and one of the great theologians of the 20th Century understood something significant about the love and goodness of God. John Greenleaf Whittier refers to it in his poem entitled “The Eternal Goodness.”
I see the wrong that round me lies,
I feel the guilt within;
I hear, with groan and travail-cries,
The world confess its sin.
Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings;
I know that God is good!
It was what Mary in our biblical story discovered, when the angel Gabriel paid a visit to her in her home in Nazareth that day two millennia ago. "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” In last Wednesday’s Advent Brown Bag Bible Study led by Hamilton, we were reflecting on what it means to “have found favor with God.” I think we concluded that having found favor with God does not mean everything will always be bright and cheery, that we’ll never go through any dark or difficult times.
Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth has Joseph and Mary gathering up Jesus and hightailing it out of Dodge for Egypt, shortly after he was born. The news about Jesus, the “good news of great joy for all the people,” turned out not to be such good news for everyone. It brought fear, rather than cheer to the heart of Herod, the dominate ruler in the land at the time. On numerous subsequent occasions being the mother of Jesus was a source of great pain, rather than a source of warm, fuzzy feelings for Mary.
Being the object of God’s favor does not mean that our relationships will always be perfect, or that our portfolios will never go down, or that our health will never fail, that in short, we’ll never be afflicted. No, being the object of God’s favor means that are never abandoned.
That was the point the Apostle Paul was making, when he wrote to Christians in Rome:
…I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things impending and threatening nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else (nothing, nothing) in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
One Sunday morning back in May of this year Ensemble member Carl Jenks sang a choral work by composer Ralph Vaughan Williams entitled Five Mystical Songs. The choral piece puts to music 5 poems written by George Herbert. One of the poems is entitled “Love.”
Love
by George Herbert
LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.
'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:'
Love said, 'You shall be he.'
'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.'
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
'Who made the eyes but I?'
'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.'
'and know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?'
'My dear, then I will serve.'
'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'
So I did sit and eat.
Herbert’s poem reminds me of the words we sometimes use in our welcome to the communion table. We are invited to come, not because we are wise or worthy. It is not our intelligence, our understanding of what is going on; nor is it our moral goodness that makes us eligible.
No, we are invited to come, and I quote here, “not because you are fulfilled, but because in your emptiness you stand in need of God’s mercy and assurance.”
So during this Advent season we are offered the unearned, unmerited, unlimited, inexhaustible love and grace of God. It is not ours to hoard. We who are recipients are also invited to be channels for the goodness we have freely received.
Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us of that in a sermon entitled, "Mothers of God." In her sermon she quotes Meister Eckhart:
"We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? Then, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us."
In this Advent season 2011 may it be so. May Jesus be born in us; and then may Jesus be born into the world through us.