Scripture reading: Luke
1:26-38
(This is one
of my older sermons. I unpacked it this fall of 2014 and it is only one of two
that I have been able to find from my first Advent as pastor in Lakeside , Oregon
 |
| Photos taken near Desert Aire, WA: November 2014 |
I decided,
this new year in a new place, to reach back a bit, if possible. Coming to
Lakeside, a neighboring pastor named Dick Cochran, a former missionary in Iraq and Lebanon
There was no
date written on the original copy of this sermon, but I recognized it right
away. I had been ordained for scarcely more than a month and I wrote it out so
surprising carefully. I clearly draw out the element of danger and future
suffering for Mary. I know that I intended to point to the cross, though it
wasn’t clear in this one. That is the meaning of the bracketed paragraph: the only real addition to this sermon. I know I made the connection in the other sermons,
included the really, really long one that is the only other surviving part of
that series.
So here is
that sermon from when I was 30. It’s the sermon I preached long ago, except for the bracketed paragraph on the cross.
I must say
that I was 27 when I graduated from seminary (in December 1978) but it took me
2 years to pass the “Bible Exegesis Ordination Exam” the exam that was
necessary to prove that you could competently build a sermon from a selected
Biblical text, beginning with the original languages.
By the time
I finally passed that last exam, I didn’t look very promising (more than two
years living with my parents and doing seasonal agricultural work in a
cannery). I had a hard time receiving a call from a church. I was ordained on
the basis of my call to Lakeside October 8,
1981 and preached this sermon November 29, 1981. It was a sweet time for me.
Well, here it is.)
Light from a Mediterranean sun shone soft and fine,
sharp and clear. It massaged the hill country that surrounded the high Lake Galilee Nazareth
Strong patterns of shadow and brightness fell in the
narrow streets and tiny courtyards where people worked. But, somewhere, behind
all that sunshine, the greater brightness of God was at work. He prepared to
surprise a young girl named Mary. Somewhere in the brightness, an angel was
approaching with a message for her.
The girl (she was only a young teenager) walked with
her empty clay water jar through the streets to the town well, in the grotto of
the hill on which the town was built. She had too much on her mind to pay
attention to the odd turns and crooked steps of the way she had gone so many
times.
She thought how, someday soon, she would walk to this
same well, but down a different street, from a different house, Joseph’s house
(her own house). With all there was to do till then; wedding, husband, and new
home were still far off and yet very close.
She was a girl from a good family and everything had
to be done just right. Her betrothal would last the full year. Everyday, her
mother, her sisters, and she did a little more to get ready; weaving sturdy
cloth for the dresses that would last most of the rest of her life; the
embroidered patterns on her wedding gown, which would become her best dress,
grew inch by inch. After all, of all the days in the life of a Palestinian
girl, what were her proudest moments? Surely even the future days of her
children’s births would not be the royal thing that her wedding would be.
Hundreds of people, days upon days, would feast and
drink in her honor, and complement her beauty, and her goodness. Otherwise a
girl’s glory was rare. After the wedding it would be years of quiet, hard work
until her own daughters became brides like her and left her.
As she walked toward the town well, she approached
the center of her life, for which she had been raised, the day when the pattern
for her whole life would be settled. She would take her place with her husband
as one of the sturdy, respectable mothers of Nazareth
Mary was young, but her plans were set. She knew what
her future would be.
Mary could never have foreseen that all this would
soon be changed, because God did not altogether share her plan. God, too,
wanted her to become a wife and a mother, just as she did. But he would throw
in something extra.
God, in his love and favor would give Mary a
surprising gift. The gift would be a unique calling, and the calling, given out
of the love of God, would bring an unexpected, surprising responsibility, and
challenge, and danger.
Christian people, who are never understood without
understanding the love of God, find that living with God brings not only his
love, but some of love’s surprising and unexpected responsibilities, and
sometimes fear. These unexpected responsibilities change our plans. They catch
us completely off guard, with no other preparation but the faith and the trust
which God has nourished through many other surprises and fears.
The story in the Gospel of Luke tells us how Mary met
the surprise of God with shock and fear, and how her fear turned to trust and
acceptance. It tells us that we can do the same.
Mary approached the arched entrance to the wellspring
which flowed in the cool shadow of a small grotto in the hillside. It was the
village’s only well, and the popular place for the women to rest and gossip on
warm days.
How strange! Mary heard no voices. The shadows were
quiet and empty.
Mary listened to the sound of water filling her empty
jar. Then she heard another noise. A voice called her name. “Hello, Mary.”
Plain words: strange voice!
She turned, and there is no way to describe what she
saw. But this is what she heard. “Hail, O favored one; the Lord is with you.”
Without a second thought, she knew that there was
more to the message than what the plain words said. We read that, “She was
greatly troubled at the saying, and wondered what sort of greeting this might
be.” It almost hurt.
The saying of the angel troubled her. It spoke of the
love of God, but surely she already knew that. She felt it many times without
needing an angel to tell her.
She was troubled because she would have read or (if
she had not been taught how to read) she would have heard, many times, the
stories of long ago, how God had his first meetings with those whom he called
to serve him. She must have known or feared that she was being “set up”: set up
by God.
Why, the scene was too perfect. It was all there: the
light, the visionary angel, the voice of the greeting which seemed to echo
because it pounded on her heart.
Her heart told her that she would be given something
hard to do; something that would seem impossible. It was the pure love in the
voice that gave this away.
You’ve heard something like it. You’ve heard the
voice of love say, “Daddy, I love you. But I haven’t started my science project
yet, and it’s due tomorrow.” “Honey, I love you. Do you remember that noise the
car made that worried me?” Where love is the most genuine we hear it in the
times of the strongest need.
Even while we feel inconvenienced by the demands
which love makes, there is something in us that craves the responsibility as
much as we crave the love. This is one of the things we are created for.
Almost everyone wants to think of themselves as
caring people who are ready to give something of themselves for others.
What stops us is the fear that the demands (the
challenge) of the responsibility will be too much for us. You might experiment
with this. If there is any problem or person that makes you uncomfortable, ask
God to help you to be the one to find out what to do about it, and then just
see if you don’t discover a little fear (or even anger) in the pit of your
stomach at what God might say.
Mary was afraid, but she said nothing. Her silence
spoke for her.
“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor
with God. And behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you
shall call his name 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,
and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there
will be no end.”
Quite a prophecy: Mary should have been impressed.
But her answer tells us what concerned her most. “How can this be, since I have
no husband?”
This is a polite English translation. In the Greek,
she says that she has “no sexual relations with any man”. The force of the
Greek, in fact, says, “How can this thing happen? I have not, am not, and do
not intend to have relations with a man until I’m married.”
Mary is saying, as firmly as she can to this angel,
“What are you asking me to do?”
Think back, just fifty years. How would it look, for
an engaged girl to be pregnant, and her fiancée not know anything about it?
In Mary’s time, among her people, this was the same
as adultery. The formal, legal punishment was death. There would be either a
public execution by stoning that would bring shame upon her and her family; or
the fiancée, or one of the two families, could kill her quietly: maybe slit her
throat. No one would object. These things happened, and life went on, for the
living. In fact it was more or less expected.
In fact, if Joseph didn’t do anything about it, even
if he were the real father, the family would be shamed and outcast. There would
be no wedding, or no wedding anyone would attend.
No one would speak respectfully to Mary, or about
Mary, ever again. No one would do business with Joseph. He would be ruined, if
he wanted to do business with his own people.
Well, in a small town, maybe people would get over
it. But, if they did, it would take years, and it would never really be
forgotten. What was the angel asking her to do?
‘And 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 called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman
Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month
with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.”’
Mary was told that this thing would be in God’s
hands, by his spiritual power. She was not asked to do anything wrong. But she
was also not reassured that her fears would go away. She was not told that
anyone, not even Joseph, would understand what was happening, or would believe
her if she told them. She still might be rejected and even killed, though there
was that promise that the baby would be born and live.
Her picture of her life was gone. Even though she did
everything right, even though she lived with complete integrity, things would
never be easy for her. But this was promised, that God was at work here. God
was in charge. Nothing was impossible for God. This would be a great thing;
perhaps the greatest thing ever done since the creation of the world.
[Mary didn’t know, yet, that she would watch this son
die on a cross for the forgiveness of the sins of the world. She didn’t know
anything about how her son would say that if anyone truly followed him they
would have to take up their own cross in order to follow him. We are the ones
who know this. Mary was different from us really only in this way, without
knowing all this, she did it. She carried Jesus. She took up Jesus, and her
life as a mother, and her faith in her own son as her savior and Lord was her
cross. We are called to carry crosses of our own.]
Through Mary, the Lord himself, God himself, was
coming into the world, to live with his people: to be their king, and give them
the forgiveness of sins.
In some way, each one of you, each one of us, is a
mother of Christ. Each one of us is called to bring Christ and his forgiveness
into the world. In some ways Christ can come in simple easy ways: by the
attitude you show to others; by the stands you take for goodness, compassion,
and for the right; by making peace where there is no peace, or where no peace
is wanted; by the love you show; and by the witness you make when people ask
you why you do and say strange things.
God will never command you to do the slightest thing
that would violate the purest conscience, but he may ask you to do what you
don’t think is fair to you. God may ask you to do what you are not prepared to
do. God may ask you to do something that destroys your plans. God may ask you
to live in a way your family and neighbors don’t understand. They won’t
comprehend you.
They may not understand you just being here at all
(praying and singing songs and listening to me talk), but that is the very
least of it. They may not understand why you live as if you are a forgiven
sinner who must forgive others. They will wonder what you really think of them,
even when you love them unconditionally.
They won’t understand unless, or until, they know
that they need the same love poured out in Christ. But you are people upon whom
the Holy Spirit has come, overshadowed by the power of the Most High: so that
what is born in you will be called holy.
You may not have planned it that way; but here you
are.
Mary remembered who she was and who God is and she
said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your
word.”
She was able to pray, “Lord, your will be done.”
That is how it is for us.
The responsibility, challenge, danger, of being God’s
people makes its claim on us only because of God’s favor and love; because we
know we are loved and we love God back.
If there is anything in this that can frighten,
worry, or weigh on you, remember how it can come to be that you may do it. You
are not doing your own work. God is doing his own work in you. His Spirit will
help you because he is in charge. Knowing this when he comes to you in love,
only say this, “Behold your servant. Let it be done according to your word.”
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