What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, December 18, 2011

Fourth Sunday in Advent
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 • Luke 1:46b-55 • Romans 16:25-27 • 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.

Today in the Prayer of the Day we prayed, “Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come.” When we responded “Amen”, did we really mean that? The four Sundays of this and every Advent season, we begin that prayer with the words “Stir up your power, O God.” Do we really want God’s power to be stirred up in us? Are we prepared for the impact that God dwelling among us mortals really would have on our lives?

Our response to this prayer taps into the creeping belief in us that God is not an active, present participant in our everyday lives. When we picture the story of our lives, do we imagine God as one of the characters in it? As much as that may be what God desires for us, our “default” God may be more likely to be pictured in the background of our lives, waiting, watching, maybe encouraging us...but not acting on, in, beside, underneath and around us.

The passive God looks similar to the god of the deists, the Enlightenment philosophers who believed in a “clockmaker” God who created the world, and set it in motion, but is not present in its ongoing innerworkings and the playing out of everyday life. In a recent study of the spiritual lives of American teens, surveys showed that this distant “deist” conception of God was the most common belief in God. In fact, far from an incarnate God, the belief system most cited by teens was something the authors called “moral therapeutic deism”, a belief that God is a generally disinterested divine power, who set up a world system where peace and prosperity are provided by God for people who are nice. For many teenagers, the study found they adhere to a religion that is helpful but not entirely necessary, or that demands much of anything from them. (Smith, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Teenagers, 2005)

We are not alone in our skepticism of an incarnate God. Perhaps more than we give her credit for, Mary also wrestled with the impossible possibility that God could be with her...and take up residence...in her. (1:28) The only thing the angel Gabriel had said to Mary was “You are favored! God is with you” and already Luke says she is “perplexed” and that she “pondered”--debated, reasoned, wrestled--with what sort of greeting this might be.” (1:29) So often our picture of Mary depicts her as immediately pious, accepting, and obedient to God’s favor of her. But the three verses between Mary asking “How can this be?” and confessing “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” is the space where she has to work through and process what it means that God wants to accomplish great things through an unmarried teenage mother from the back country. Is that not also the space that we inhabit, too? Do we not keep God at bay, wondering if God is done interrupting people’s live to use them for the health and healing of the world?

The good news is that the angel’s announcement to Mary is God’s announcement to us. God still is at work in the world. Far from us fitting some kind of “checklist” for being “nice” that God must approve before God can come to us, God chooses to identify with us by coming as one of us. God plants the seed of Christ not just in Mary, but in the whole human race, regardless of how impossible it may seem. This is the promise of Christmas that we are watching and waiting for this Advent season: that God’s incarnation in Jesus means God favors us each, and wants to do marvelous things through us.

Where does God’s love want to take the story of your life? What shape does God setting up a dwelling place in us, and not in a place of bricks and mortar, look like? What does it look like in all the places and positions that we have in our lives to imagine God wanting to accomplish something for the health of the world through us? It may not be bearing God’s Son! But what else does God want to see enfleshed through you? Not in the sense of being a pawn in a grand chess game that God is playing with the world. That would cheapen our worth. But rather, God wants Mary’s song to become our song, a song that we, too, matter to God’s bringing down the powerful from their thrones and lifting up the lowly; we have a part to play in “filling the hungry with good things, and sending the rich away empty.” (1:52-53)

This past April, perhaps some of you got up at 5:00 am like I did to watch the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Catherine Middleton in England. There was so much fanfare and publicity, it was almost obscene how much media coverage there was over it. But in the midst of the service was a profound moment that many may have missed, but that was the true highlight of the whole event. The Anglican Church's Archbishop of London, Richard John Carew Chartres, was speaking to tens of millions of people around the world when he started his sermon by saying something that didn't just speak the heir to the throne sitting there in the church, but something that empowered everyone who heard him. He said, "Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire." It was a quote from Catherine of Siena, an Italian theologian of the Middle Ages. He continued by saying, "Every wedding is a royal wedding, with the bride and groom as king and queen of creation, making a life together so that life can flow through them into the future. ...A generous God, who so loved the world, gave God's self to us in the person of Jesus Christ. In the Spirit of this generous God, [we] are to give [ourselves] to each other." On a day when everyone was watching to give royalty their due, everyone was themselves made into royalty...the same royalty that God declares to Mary, and that God declares to us. God wants to set the world on fire not just through the high and mighty, not just through the family who was made holy by that angel's visit, but through you, and through me.

So take a minute today, and because we all have such different situations and contexts we live our lives in, imagine one way God could use us to impact the health of the world between now and Christmas. This fourth week of Advent gets to be its longest this year, with Christmas not upon us until a week from today. But what one thing could we do that would reflect the favor God has on us, of wanting to set the world on fire through us, and make a difference towards God's ongoing healing work? Is it something as ordinary as providing a place for someone to stay? Is it as small as buying someone something to drink? Is it as simple as extending an invitation to someone to a seasonal party? It doesn't have to be big. But the important thing is to see it as connected to one of the many the marvelous things God wants to accomplish through us. What great thing will that be?

To make those connections, we will all need some practice. So we're going to pretend, just for a moment, that I'm Gabriel, and you all all Mary.

"Greetings, favored ones. The Lord is with you and intends to do great things through you.

Congregation: "How can this be? We are ordinary, everyday people."

"Yet you have found favor through God, and the Holy Spirit will come upon you, guide you, and work through you to care for this world and for all people God loves so much. For nothing is impossible with God.”

Congregation: "Here am I, a servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.

Amen."