ABe Born In Us Today@[i]
Polk
City UMC
December
22, 2002
Mark
Haverland
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.
Greg,
Id like you to be the chair of the Administrative Council. Its an important job and I think you can do
it very well, if you choose. Long
pause
Okay, Ill give it a shot.
Bob,
I really need you to stay on another year as chair of the Pastor Parish
Committee. Its a transition year: continuity and experience will be very
important. Long pause
. Sure, Ill
stay with it.
Jim,
I need someone to relieve Deanna as chair of the Finance Committee. Shes done it a long time and wants out. Besides we need some new blood on the Ad
Council to help us through these next few challenging years. I know you can make a great contribution. Long pause
.
Well, I guess I can help you out.
Tim,
were kind of in a spot now without a chair of Trustees. Would you be willing to step in and help get
us through what will be a very hectic process of finishing off the building project. You know
this stuff really well and can be really helpful. Long pause
.Okay, Im busier all the time
over at the school with all our new projects, but Ill see what I can do.
Deanna,
I know you need a break and youve been doing this finance committee for a long
time, but I really need someone who is reliable and conscientious to be the
treasurer and pay the bills. Long
pause
.. Sure, I do it all day at work, I can take an evening or so a week to
keep the books.
Joan,
you are the best person for the job of financial secretary. It requires someone with deep commitment to
the church and who has the respect and trust of the members. Will you stay on another year? Long pause
.. Sure, Bill grouses some, but
Im pleased to be of service.
Jackie,
I really need the help you give me with communion and worship planning. Will you stay another year on these
jobs? Linda, Mary, Bill, Mary, Olga,
Kim, Heidi, (have I left anyone out) please help make this church a strong
witness for Jesus. Long pause
. Sigh,
well okay, if you cant find anyone else, Ill see what I can do.
Mary,
says the Angel Gabriel, I need someone to have my babay
a son who is not your own, and who will grow up to save the world. Long pause
.."Well, I had other plans,
but, o well, what the heck, Ill do it if you really want me to.
What
can Mary possibly mean to us? A lot, if
my experience at this church is any test.
She has been a role model for just about everyone here. Mary is
an insignificant, pregnant, unmarried teenage girl in a small village, in a
remote part of a remote country until God selects her for a very special
task. What God does, of course, is to
call Mary through the angel Gabriel to be the mother of God=s
son, no small task for such narrow shoulders.
Now God=s call is never easy, but this call surprised,
frightened and annoyed poor Mary. Just
like my call to each of you. But she
responded. And so did you.
When
I was a young pastor, some of the teenagers in the church asked me to speak to
their Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter about sex. I think the church has some important
messages about teenage sexuality and so I went recruiting a friend who worked
at the Young Women=s Resource Center to help me and we held
forth. I remember during the course of
the evening asking them what they would do if they were pregnant. Whom would they talk to? When I asked if they would tell their
minister, they hooted with horror and derision at the thought of bringing this
important dilemma to a pastor for guidance.
I was a bit hurt by this rejection, but I understand the fear, for the
church has been a source of great guilt for young people who find themselves in
roughly the situation that Mary finds herself as the Christmas story begins. We who love the church need
to work harder to be a place where young people can find support and loving
assistance in times of need.
We,
after all, find our origin in a remarkable story about Gods choosing a
pregnant and unmarried teenage girl to be a very special person. I don=t know what lies behind this story. Was there a rumor about Jesus being
suspiciously early in the married life of Mary and Joseph? Was teenage pregnancy as common then as now? Children born to unmarried women hardly shock
us anymore since nowadays fully one third of all births are to unmarried
women. Maybe in those days this sort of
problem presented itself fairly often as well.
The standard explanation for the virgin birth from biblical scholars is
that the early church relished a story which said that Jesus was a very special
person in his life, his death and even in his birth. Lots of famous people had
fantastic birth stories. The call to
Mary was really no different from the summons to Moses, Abraham, Isaiah and
Jeremiah. God surprised all of them by
calling them in the midst of rather ordinary lives. They did not seek out the job God had in mind
for them. They did not even feel
particularly worthy. They had not prayed
for the responsibility of being God=s agent. So
the call came as a surprise and it frightened them. The job is dangerous, after all. People get killed for doing God=s
work. None of us really wants God to
come so close as to enlist us in his service.
We have other plans. Moses,
Abraham, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Mary, especially Mary, all had other things to
do, important, urgent things to do as, of course, do all of you. Mary was a teenage girl, after all, dreaming
of marriage to her boyfriend. She looked
forward to being a wife, mother, and housekeeper. She wanted most of all to be like her mother
and join the ranks of respectable women.
In short, she was like every other teenage girl in history. But God had other plans. Dont you just hate it when that happens?
AHow can this be?@ Mary asked.
And that is all she asked. There
are some more questions that she might also have asked. Questions we would likely want answers
to. Will Joseph stick around? Will my parents still love me? Will my friends stand by me, or will I get
dragged into town and stoned for being pregnant before being married? Will the labor be hard? Will there be someone there to help me when
my time comes? You say the child will be
king of Israel, but what about me? Will
I survive his birth, not to mention his life?
What about me? Is there any way
for this baby not to bring so much grief?
Why me? Why now? God doesnt answer such questions. To be God means never having to explain why.
It is the nature of our God to make something out of nothing; to take nowhere
and make it somewhere, to take nobody and make her somebody. The power of our God is the power to
transform ordinary people into prophets.
The power of our God is to take a pregnant teenager and make her into
the mother of God. With our history in
this regard, you would think that pregnant teenagers would seek us out, hoping
for a similar transformation. But we, I=m
afraid, have forgotten the biblical lessons in this regard: God can shine light
into even our darkest corners.
If
such questions occurred to Mary, she did not ask them. According to Luke, she listened as the angel
told her the barest details about how it would all come to pass. It was going to happen, that much seemed
clear. She had only to say yes to it or
no. She had to choose only whether to
embrace the life God thrust upon her or to defend herself against it however
she could.
There
is a lot of talk these days about all the choices we have, and about how it is
up to each of us to choose our own lives.
But more often than not, life seems to choose us. Our best laid ten-year plans are interrupted
by life=s
own plans for us: by sudden illness and surprise babies, by aging parents and
the economy. I think it was John Lennon
who said that life is what happens when you are making other plans. Terrible things happen and wonderful things
happen, but seldom do we know ahead of time exactly what will happen to
us. Like Mary, our choices often boil
down to yes or no: yes, I will live this life that is being held out to me or
no, I will not; yes, I will explore this unexpected turn of events or no, I
will not.
If
you decide to say no, you simply drop your eyes and refuse to look up until you
know the angel has left the room. Then
you smooth your hair and go back to your spinning, or your reading, or whatever
it was you were doing, and you pretend that nothing happened. You can stay home on Sunday morning, as lots
of folks do, to make sure that God doesnt surprise you with a request for
service, and, even more dangerous, that you dont surprise yourself by saying
yes. Life is far safer, easier, cheaper,
and more tranquil if you stay home and just say no. Avert your eyes when God calls, thats the
easiest way out. Im in the midst of
volunteering again as a conservator for a poor woman in a nursing home whose grown
son is a loser and a mooch, and whose stepson is a
selfish, callous crook. As I drove over
to the sons house with some gift cards for food and gas, I thought, boy, I
sure didnt need one more thing to do I my life. Why cant I say no to God once in a while.
The
news announced to Mary surprised, frightened and annoyed. There was no delight, no joy, no lighthearted happiness.
Mary, the angel says, you will have a baby out
of wedlock. God wants that baby for his
own. And, incidentally, he will grow up
to die a horrible death which you will watch all in order to save his
people. And Mary said Ayes@ --
but she did so with a heavy sigh. As we say during the rougher stretches on the
backpack trip: If you can=t get out of it, you had better get into it. This is what Mary did. God seemed determined to use her and she
acquiesced.
She
said yes. And so can we. We can set our book down and listen to a
strange creature=s strange idea.
We can decide to take part in a plan we did not choose, doing things we
do not know how to do for reasons we do not entirely understand. We can take part in a thrilling and dangerous
scheme with no script and no guarantees.
We can agree to smuggle God into the world inside our own bodies. We can play the hand God deals us, trying to
find Jesus in cards it seems can=t possibly win.
We can step up and do the work God asks us to do. You are ready or you wouldnt be here.
Deciding
to say yes does not mean that we are unafraid, by the
way, it just means that we are not willing to let our fear keep us locked in
our rooms. So we say yes to the
angel. We say, AHere
I am; let it be with me according to your word,@ and so saying we become one of Mary=s
people, one more person who is willing to bear God into the world.
And
this, I think, is the point of the story: AWe are all meant to be mothers of God.@
Meister Eckhart, a medieval mystic and theologian,
said it best: AWhat
good is it to me,@ he said, Aif this eternal birth of the divine Son takes
place unceasingly but does not take place within me? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of
grace and 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? This, then is the fullness
of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us.@[ii]
O
holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin, and enter
in, be born in us today.