4 Advent Yr B December 20 2020

4 Advent Yr B December 20 2020

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16, Romans 16:25-27, Luke 1:26-38, Canticle 15

 

It is the voices of women we hear today. A reprise of Mary’s song, and this story of Mary and Elizabeth. I love that the women get the last word before the glorious impossible, the incarnation, God bursting into humanity with new life, hope, peace, joy, and love. 

 

I have never quite believed that Mary sat quietly and meekly while her life changed completely and absolutely. When I close my eyes and try to imagine this scene, I see Mary. In my imagination, Mary is a very young girl, and yet very excited to be a woman, and ready to be married to Joseph. Mary is a Jewish girl; she knows well the stories of God’s activity in the life of her people. She has lived her whole life in this community of faith. Mary has lived her whole life in the community of people who believe there is a special relationship between God and them. They believe that their story, the story of this community, day in and day out, through slavery, wilderness, kingdoms, and exile, is the story of God’s working through them to accomplish the divine purposes on earth.

God is trusting God’s people to have raised Mary in the right way, to have taught her the story of faith, taught her to recognize God’s hand at work in her life. Gabriel has made the proposition. The great archangel has announced God’s purpose, the heavenly messenger has posed the question, and the girl is clearly troubled.

Mary is perplexed. Perplexed in Greek leans much more towards “to be in doubt” or “not to know how to decide or what to do.” In my imagination, this is much closer to how I see Mary responding. Actually, I think Mary must have been terrified. The sort of terrified you get when your stomach just seems to twist and fall out of you. She must have wondered what was happening to her, being visited by an angel was a new thing, there weren't stories of her people about an angel visit. 

I imagine Mary saying something like, “Not me, no way, I can’t do that. Don’t ask such a thing of me, I’m only a girl. You’ve got the wrong person. The God bearer should be royal, a person of honor, it can’t be me.” She must have doubted herself; she must have doubted her own capability to be the God bearer. Any young girl would. What must have gone through her mind?

And Gabriel responds, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” Mary, you are the one. Mary is low born, without title, without power. And this is the very place of incarnation. God sees the suffering and comes low to meet people in their sorrow. Jesus always sought proximity to people who were hurting or alone or in need, and Jesus was always there grieving alongside them, tending to their wounds, making them feel seen. 

 

Gabriel does go on to remind Mary of the story she already knows, the story of her people, and who this son is to be. Mary wants to know how this can be. We want to know how this can be. This is incredible, inconceivable, incarnation is unreasonable. This doesn’t make sense. Gabriel explains that the Holy Spirit will take care of it, and then gives her evidence of the possibility, her old, barren cousin Elizabeth is also pregnant, nothing will be impossible with God.

How can this be? How can Mary get pregnant by God? Is all of Christianity founded on this inconceivable possibility? I ask this question, because this question has been asked of me, by adults and children alike, by your children, by my children. I turn to one of my favorite writers, Madeleine L’Engle when I ponder these things. She writes in a book called Bright Evening Star, “It is not that in believing the story of Jesus we skip reason, but that sometimes we have to go beyond it, take leaps with our imagination, push our brains further than the normally used parts of them are used to going.” She goes on to write “I had to let go all my prejudices and demands for proof and open myself to the wonder of love. Faith is not reasonable because it wasn’t for reason, but for love that Jesus came.”

It is for love that Jesus came. And so, for love, Mary says yes. And it is in love that we light the fourth candle on the advent wreath today.

This is the story of these women, and it speaks volumes to us today. What does Mary’s yes to the love of God, have to do with us? Mary’s active, engaged yes, empowers each of us to say yes to the possibility of God in our midst. Mary’s yes can be our yes. Indeed, it is because of Mary's yes and Elizabeth’s declaration that Love wins. The angel Gabriel announced to Mary, “Hail favored one, the Lord is with you.” The Lord is with you, these are not just words spoken to Mary, these are words spoken to each of us and to all of us. Mary said yes, God waits for each of us to say yes.

The terrifying part of Gabriel’s invitation is what will happen if we say yes? What does God-bearing look like? Mary didn’t know, she risked everything when she said yes; she risked everything on the promise that God was with her. All we know is that saying yes to God changes everything and risks everything we have. 

 

Mary’s yes was brave, and terrifying. Mary’s yes became fierce as her son grew into his fullness, his call, and she watched the powers turn against him. Can we be brave and fierce like Mary? Can we put ourselves aside and say yes to God in the flesh, incredible, inconceivable, incarnation?

The story is about God and God’s love for us. It’s about the promise God made to Mary and God makes to us to bring us out of a life of greed and why not me, into a life that bears hope and promise. The real world is the world in which Mary said yes to God, and the world in which each of us says yes to God. It is living fully and completely, it is feeling pain and joy, it is giving and receiving, it is life, and it is death. This world is messy and confusing and often scary. A world into which God is born in a dirty barn, so that love could burst forth. It is a world in which we enter into relationships with one another, where we see each other face to face, it is a world in which how God created us is wonderful, it is a world in which we understand the sacred in each of us and treat each other as if we were all God-bearers.

“Fear not, here comes God.” We should be terrified, and reassured at the very same time that our yes brings Christ into this world. We Christians have been taught to look for the Christ in everyone we meet, to practice a radical hospitality to serve the Christ in each other, for in serving them we are serving Christ himself. What do we -- each of us -- have to offer the Christ this year? Where do we see the signs that Christ has been born among us?

Mary’s yes didn’t just happen all those years ago, Mary’s yes happens everyday you and I bear love ourselves. God is still up to something. God continues to burst forth in our lives. Love wins. 

3 Advent Yr B December 13 2020

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3 Advent Yr B December 13 2020

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, John 1:6-8,19-28, Psalm 126 or Canticle 15

 

Every time I hear these verses from John, I hear The Who singing “Who are you”. That ages me I suppose. Who are you, I really want to know, tell me, who are you, the verses in that song continue on in a search for identity, who are you? A long time before that recording, the priests and Levites ask Who are you, and John the baptizer confesses, or witnesses, or testifies, all the same word, exactly to who he is not, he is not the Messiah. Who he is, his identity, is the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord. 

 

This third week of Advent, we, like John the Baptist, are called to know who we are, God’s beloveds, and to witness to the light, so that all may believe. Today I want you to consider three things that John the Baptist is doing to witness to the light. 

 

First, it is rare and refreshing, John has zero-interest in making this about himself. We are so used to this character John the Baptist, that I think we don’t feel the extent to which he puts himself aside for Jesus. John has his own posse, his own band of followers. And here comes this upstart Jesus, preaching a new way. From the constant self-expression and self-aggrandizement encouraged, promoted, and even demanded by social media to the posturing of too many political candidates as the only person who can do the job, we are living during a distinctly ego-centric, if not full-on narcissistic, time in our culture. We experience it everywhere. From not listening to the experts in science because you think you know better, to demanding the right to do whatever you darn well please in public, this is not about you at all. John shows us that. John sets himself aside and points to Jesus and witnesses to the light that is coming into the world. 

 

Second, in this way, John stands as a model and example of what life lived in response to God’s call looks like. And what does that look like? You are God’s beloved, you are enough, you are what God made you to be. So many could be disappointed and frustrated with John not taking power and opposing Jesus. John is very clear in himself that he is the voice in the wilderness, the one that points to Jesus, but is not the long expected Messiah.

 

As we consider John as a model and example of what life lived in response to God’s call looks like, we must also consider Mary, whose Magnificat we read together. The song of Mary that we sing each Sunday of Advent, is the oldest Advent hymn. It is also the most passionate, the wildest, and one might almost say the most revolutionary Advent hymn that has ever been sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary as we often see her portrayed in paintings. The Mary who is speaking here is passionate, carried away, proud, enthusiastic. There is none of the sweet, wistful, or even playful tone of many of our Christmas carols, but instead a hard, strong, relentless hymn about the toppling of the thrones and the humiliation of the lords of this world, about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind. This is the sound of the prophetic women of the Old Testament—Deborah, Judith, Miriam—coming to life in the mouth of Mary. Mary, who was seized by the power of the Holy Spirit, and who speaks, by the power of this same Spirit, about God’s coming into the world, about the Advent of Jesus Christ. Like John, Mary puts aside her own self interest for this glorious impossible. 

 

She, of course, knows better than anyone else what it means to wait for Christ’s coming. Her waiting is different from that of any other human being. She expects Jesus as his mother. Jesus is closer to her than to anyone else. She knows the secret of his coming, knows about the Spirit, who has a part in it, about the Almighty God, who has performed this miracle. In her own body she is experiencing the wonderful ways of God with humankind: that God does not arrange matters to suit our opinions and views, does not follow the path that humans would like to prescribe. God’s path is free and original beyond all our ability to understand or to prove.

 

There, where our understanding is outraged, where our nature rebels, where our piety anxiously keeps its distance—that is exactly where God loves to be. There, though it confounds the understanding of sensible people, though it irritates our nature and our piety, God wills to be, and none of us can forbid it. Only the humble believe and rejoice that God is so gloriously free, performing miracles where humanity despairs and glorifying that which is lowly and of no account. For just this is the miracle of all miracles, that God loves the lowly. God “has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.” God in the midst of lowliness—that is the revolutionary, passionate word of Advent. *

*– Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), ‘Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’

 

And thirdly, John the gospel writer invites us to an acceptance of our identity as God’s beloveds. Rather than striving for the affirmation of others we are free to make the sacrifices required that deepen our sense of calling, purpose, and meaning. 

 

And in that light, because I am and we are God’s beloveds, and part of our call is to set ourselves aside and point to Jesus, I am choosing to receive this Advent during Covidtide as a gift, maybe you will too. Advent, and preparation for Christmas, has often been a time of stress, a time of expectation that cannot be met. But this time, we have the opportunity to name it all, and do it quite differently. Rather than hiding sadness and grief and loss from the world and from our friends, the gift is that we are all in it together. Rather than working ourselves into a frenetic ball of nerves about not getting it all done, we let go of our perceptions of control and affirm our call as god-bearers, and like Mary we receive the gift of new birth. And as those of you who have given birth know, it’s scary and joyful all at the same time. And with Mary and John at our side, we claim our voice to call out God is here, Love wins. 

Fourth Sunday in Advent Yr A Dec 22 2019

Audio   Fourth Sunday in Advent Yr A Dec 22 2019

Isaiah 7:10-16, Romans 1:1-7, Matthew 1:18-25, Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18

Here we are, the fourth Sunday in Advent, ever so close to incarnation, God with us, Emmanuel. Ever so close to the completion of God’s arc toward love, and mercy, and compassion. And even though we celebrate again and so very soon, the birth of the baby born in Bethlehem, the birth of the Messiah, we continue to wait. We continue to wait for the completion, the fulfillment, the promise, that God will bring all creation to Godself. We hear that promise in the collect for today, “Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a dwelling prepared for himself.”

Matthew’s story of Jesus’ birth is so very different from Luke’s. Luke gives us the story from Mary’s perspective; Matthew tells the story from Joseph’s perspective. And Mark and John don’t include a birth story at all. In Matthew’s story, Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Joseph could have had her publicly ridiculed and even stoned, but being a just man, decides to part ways with her quietly. But Joseph listened to an angel, who told him that this baby is the fulfilment of all of the yearning and all of the stories that Joseph knew, this child is Emmanuel, God with us. And Joseph knew, that in this child to be called Jesus, God comes to be right where we are. Matthew also tells us later in his story of the promise that Jesus will be with the people to the end of the age. Matthew looks to all of the stories of his people that came before him and sees in those stories this promise of God’s fulfillment, that God will and does dwell with God’s people.

Matthew’s perspective points us in the direction of the coming of Christ, the climax of creation. Advent puts us in the midst of celebrating the birth, incarnation, God coming to be right where we are, and the fulfillment of all things, the completion of the arc of God’s love for all of creation. It is all right here in front of us, and yet we forget. We forget that this story of God with us, is a story that is full of cosmic consequences. It is a story about new birth, incarnation, and it is a story about now, and not yet. Advent calls us to consider this reality. Alongside of the romantic versions of a baby and angels, is the appearance of one whom the reaction is, “do not be afraid.”

I think we have been trained to be afraid or anxious. Afraid of the end of times. Anxious when we must wait. We either avoid the stories in scripture, or we become afraid of them, or we pass them off as the visions of a stark raving madman. And we live in a culture that teaches us to be afraid of so much. Be afraid of change, be afraid of the madman who stalks in the night, be afraid of the unknown man who will scam you. Be afraid of what you cannot control, be afraid of the weather, be afraid of the additives in your food, be afraid of your neighbor. In a world that makes us afraid at every turn, every angel that appears begins with, “do not be afraid.”

But because Advent gives us time to be present in the then, the now, and the not yet, and presents us with stories that point us both to birth and growth and to the end of time, we enter into this most uncomfortable of places, and wonder what it may be all about. We rest in the in between, counting on transformation, growth, and just like pregnancy, we will be forever changed.

I think many of you have read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis, or at least seen a movie, but I’m fairly sure that many have not read all the way to the end of that series of stories, The Last Battle. Time, in these stories, is best described as Kairos, rather than Chronos. Chronos being time measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, it is measurable and quantifiable. Kairos is not, it may be defined as God’s time. You’ve all experienced it, in a very limited way. It’s when heaven and earth meet, and we don’t really have the words to describe it. It’s why we have poetry, and music, and art, and science fiction novels, because we have no other way to be in God’s time.

The collection of stories by CS Lewis that begins with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and ends with The Last Battle is called The Chronicles of Narnia. Narnia is the land that is real, it is Kairos, God’s time. Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, children living in war time London, all travel to Narnia and eventually meet Aslan, the great lion. Aslan is the lion who is put to death by the wicked White Queen and is resurrected to love the children and all the talking animals. Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy reign as benevolent kings and queens until they return through the wardrobe to Chronos, as if they had never left. Throughout the stories there are other characters, Lady Polly and Lord Digory, Eustace and Jill, all whom have lived in the other world of Narnia. And there are the Calormenes, those who live in Narnia, but who do not follow Aslan, they follow Tash.

Eustace and Jill are in Narnia, they find the King, Tirian, and the Last Battle ensues. It is a battle between the followers of Tash, and the followers of Aslan. As the battle rages on, Eustace, Jill, and King Tirian walk through a door to a stable, afraid of who is in it, and enter a place of grace and beauty. Just before them, a dreaded Calormene had entered, along with the trolls, and they were unsure if they should be afraid. The world beyond the door to the stable is light and filled with beauty, unlike the dark world Narnia had become. Soon enough, our characters meet up with the others, Peter, Edmund, Lucy, Polly, and Digory, and learn that they had all been in a train wreck, and this is life on the other side of life. This is the end of time, and the beginning of time.

Aslan, the great lion came to them, and all were welcome at the great feast. But most importantly, for our conversation today, is this. The Calormenes had served Tash, the Narnians had served Aslan. The Glorious One who appeared to them all called them all Beloved. All of their waiting, all of their expectation, all of their hopes, and dreams, and fears were born in the truth that they had come home at last. Their new lives were just beginning. The land had become more real and more true.

The Last Battle is won by the love that is born in Bethlehem, the love that hangs on the cross, and the love that calls all creation to itself.

You see, Advent is real and true time in which we are called beloved, in which we come closest to realizing the glorious impossible of incarnation, the unreasonableness of God with us, the awesomeness of the fulfillment of God’s dream for creation; not to be feared but to be anticipated. We live as if Chronos is less important than Kairos. We wait in quiet expectation; we prepare the mansion in which Jesus resides. Let us, along with Mary and Joseph, bear the love that wins into the world. Amen.

4 Advent Yr C Dec 23 2018

Audo  4 Advent Yr C Dec 23 2018 Micah 5:2-5, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-55, Psalm 80

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. Elizabeth, barren and too old to conceive, Mary, unmarried and too young to have a baby, both of these child-bearings are inconceivable. Our response to this inconceivable conception calls forth some Holy Imagination. I turn to one of my favorite writers, Madeleine L’Engle, when I ponder these things. She writes in a book called Bright Evening Star, “It is not that in believing the story of Jesus we skip reason, but that sometimes we have to go beyond it, take leaps with our imagination, push our brains further than the normally used parts of them are used to going.” She goes on to write “I had to let go all my prejudices and demands for proof and open myself to the wonder of love. Faith is not reasonable because it wasn’t for reason, but for love that Jesus came.” 

It is for love that Jesus came, and we need to respond like Mary, like Elizabeth. We need to respond with shouts of joy, with dances of gladness. This Good News changes us forever; it changes our world forever. It is as inconceivable and unreasonable that each of us is a God-bearer as it is that Mary is a Christ-bearer. It is inconceivable that God has burst into our world. And yet, all of Advent we wait in active anticipation of the moment that God bursts into our world as a baby, and that God bursts into our world to bring our history; our lives, to fulfillment. We cannot continue to respond to this Good News with business as usual. We cannot respond to the sacredness of each other the same as always. Just saying Merry Christmas is not enough. The Good News is Our King and Savior now draws near: Come let us adore him! 

This inconceivable conception that God bursts into our lives must change us. It changed Mary, it changed Elizabeth, it changed Zechariah, it left him speechless, it changed Joseph, he had to defy the law in order to love and support Mary, it changed a community, it changed an entire people. Mary responds to this inconceivable conception first when the angel Gabriel comes to tell her, and it is reported that Mary says “let it be to me according to your word.” My hunch is that maybe it took her a little while to come to this kind of brave acceptance, initially she probably said something a little more like “no way, I can’t have a baby, I’m too young, I’m not married.” By the time we catch up with her in the story we read today, Mary is singing “my soul magnifies the Lord.” Mary’s response to this inconceivable conception progresses from brave acceptance to joyful praise. I wonder if Mary needed some time to get used to the idea that she is the Christ-bearer so that she could move from brave acceptance to joyful praise. I wonder if Mary didn’t have a little advent waiting of her own. 

When Mary and Elizabeth meet, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps and Mary is filled with such joy and hope that she sings and dances. Mary and Elizabeth lived in a dark time under Herod the Great, whose casual brutality was backed up with the threat of Rome. And yet Mary’s song is a song of freedom, a song of liberation for her people, it is subversive and it is revolutionary. It is joyful and it is hopeful. Advent waiting calls us into this paradox, the paradox that Mary embodies, that finding involves losing; that hiding involves revealing; that birth involves death. 

While our culture has been celebrating Christmas since Halloween, we continue to wait. This fourth Sunday of Advent is oh so difficult, we just want to be there, we just want to have it now, and it is so hard to resist the pressure to just say Merry Christmas. But Advent waiting as Mary shows us, forms us and shapes us, so that the inconceivable conception can take hold of us, and can give birth to the Holy Imagination that bears God into this world. 

Mary spent most of her life waiting; from the moment the angel Gabriel comes to her and announces do not be afraid, through the final moments as she waited for her son’s death on the cross, and the hours up to the inconceivable resurrection. Mary waits. I think Mary’s waiting can teach us that Advent is a time that summons us to embrace waiting as a way of life. Advent summons us to practice waiting, and by doing so to put down the foundations of a life shaped by waiting, so that when those times come when we have no idea what to do, those times of sadness, times of joy, times of difficulty, times of division, we fall back on that deep, still waiting in the present moment that opens up a space for God’s interruption in our midst. 

We wait in this present moment with Mary, with Elizabeth. We wait with quiet and confident expectation for this inconceivable conception to come to fruition and fulfillment. In the waiting we may be changed. We may be filled with hope, hope that God indeed is turning the world around. But we also know that waiting is not doing nothing, so we must act with justice and mercy, knowing that indeed with Mary we are bearing God to this world. In this present moment God turns each of us around. 

It is no coincidence that the way that God interrupts our world is to be born into our world, it is no coincidence that God interrupts our world to live and love, and suffer and die just like each and every one of us. Being human means being born to die, and only a God who is willing to share that can actually help us face our own mortality and that of those we love, and to help us live every present moment fully alive. It is in the waiting for the births and the deaths, and in the moments in between, that God breaks in and surrounds us and lifts us with love. 

I am reminded of my own pregnancies during Advent waiting. I am reminded of the joy and hope and dreams of bringing a baby into the world. I am reminded of the fear and trepidation of bringing a baby into the world. I am reminded of the blissful ignorance of what the future would hold. As I look backward to that time I am filled with nostalgia at its wonder, I am forever changed and cannot respond to the world with anything less than compassion and hope. And I look with hope to the possibility of what the lives of our sons will bear. But it is the present moment that is pregnant with possibility, the present moment that bears God in their lives, in my life, in our lives. 

Do not be afraid; listen for God to be born in this present moment. Do not be afraid; act with justice and peace and kindness. Do not be afraid; find the people who need your works and actions of assurance that they are loved as you are loved. The world is about to turn. Our King and Savior now draws near: Come let us adore him.

9 Pentecost Yr C Proper 11 July 17 2016

9 Pentecost Yr C Proper 11 July 17 2016 Audio

My favorite high school teacher was Mr. Everett Anderson, we affectionately called him Ev. He was a diminutive man. Most of us took his Shakespeare class and actually loved it. Ev could be caught jumping up and down and on top of desks with excitement. Most of us claim him as our favorite teacher, but he didn’t look like or act like or sound like the kind of person any of us would consider cool. Ev taught us about learning, about passion, about reading, and about getting along with one another. Jesus seems to choose the most unlikely teachers for us. The hated Samaritan man, the woman at the well, the child at his feet, the sinners with whom he ate, instead of respected Pharisees or lawyers, instead of authoritative experts or great prophets. However, the teachers Jesus has chosen for us are teachers who do the unexpected and who are the unexpected, like my favorite high school teacher. The Priest and the Levite in the compassionate Samaritan story we read last week, really do exactly what is expected of them. These Holy Men were not allowed to be unclean, therefore they could not touch the man who had been beaten, so they had to, in fact they were required to cross the road.

Our dear Martha in our story today does what is expected of her when she is entertaining people in her home, she can’t be blamed for that. You know what it’s like to have people over to your home for a meal, and Martha has this added stressor, Jesus is actually important in her circle of friends. You know what it’s like to spend the whole day cleaning, you know what it’s like to plan the menu, to buy the groceries, to prepare the meal, to set the table, to get everything just right. And you know what it’s like to feel like you’re in it alone, when no one steps up to help. You get a bit resentful, maybe even cross. You may even say out loud to whoever is close enough to hear, “doesn’t anyone care that I’ve got to do all this work myself?” Ahh, Martha, we are so much like you.

Martha actually has much to teach us. She reminds us of the value and sacredness of the work of hospitality. She reminds us never to take that work for granted; she reminds us that to even begin to meet Jesus, we welcome all comers with food and drink.

It's why it' so important to me to welcome all at this thanksgiving table. And it is why it is so important to me to “stay at the table.” What I mean by that is that I am committed to being part of the community of people who are Christians, of all types and varieties, and the community of people who are not Christians, because I think that we all have something to learn from one another, because I don’t think that there is only one way to follow Jesus, and because I know that staying out of difficult conversation effectively silences our voice, and I am not interested in being silenced. The metaphor of “staying at the table” is a metaphor of hospitality. Martha reminds us that the work of doing, of setting the table and inviting all to come, is very important work indeed.

But that is not the only piece of the story today. In the midst of Martha’s frustration with Mary, we also have Mary's story.

Mary becomes an unlikely teacher today. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, in the company of men, receiving all that Jesus has to teach. Mary is doing the unexpected, and making Martha quite mad in the process. Luke’s gospel shows us what the Kingdom of God is like. The Kingdom of God is like Martha working in the kitchen, and Mary learning at Jesus’ feet.

I think the most helpful way to read this story is in relationship to the story about the compassionate Samaritan. The pairing of these stories point to the importance of doing and hearing in the Gospel of Luke. The placement of these two stories illustrates that it's doing AND hearing, not doing OR hearing that matters. When the lawyer in the compassionate Samaritan story asked about the bottom line of what it means to be saved, Jesus goes to the heart of the matter by telling a story about love in action on the part of a hated stranger toward his most unexpected neighbor. In today's story, we hear that sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening carefully is also important, right at the heart of things, too.

Mary listens to Jesus, and the Kingdom is near. We live in a world that seems to equate busyness with importance, and a long to-do list, especially when it's finally completed, gives us a sense of satisfaction and even security…at least, until we start on a new list of tasks to be completed. Our days are full, one after another, of many things, and our minds are full and overflowing, worried and distracted, sometimes like Martha, by many things.

Can you imagine what life would be like, even for a little while, without all of the things that keep us busy? Can you imagine what life would be like, even for a little while, without all the talking we do? Can you imagine what life would be like, even for a little while, just listening to what Jesus may be saying? It may be a little like the Kingdom.

It seems to me that we can't hear God still speaking if we don't stop, not just sometimes but regularly, and just sit and listen, like Mary at the feet of Jesus. How can the Stillspeaking God get a word in edgewise over the cell phones, voicemail, television, and Internet and Pokemon hunting that bombard us? How can we tend to our internal lives like careful gardeners who spend time nurturing new growth, pulling weeds when necessary, and gently showering the thirsty green plants with refreshing water?

Our teachers today, the dreamer Mary, the practical Martha, show us the wisdom of balance. Mary shows us the wisdom of quiet listening, of expectant listening, of listening for the voice of Jesus, of dreaming. Martha shows us the wisdom of hospitality. Our job is to find the balance, to make room for both ways to meet God and greet God, and in the encounter, the Kingdom is near.

And then, there is Jesus. The story is probably really about Jesus. Jesus offers love to both Martha and Mary. In this story, neither are excluded, Mary and Martha are Jesus' beloved followers. In this world, where we label and divide people and choose not to love based on difference, Jesus shows us that love is possible. In this world, where agreement seems to be more valuable than difference, Jesus shows us that the nature of love receives the beauty and uniqueness of all of humanity. Jesus shows us that each and every life matters. Amen.

4 Advent Yr C Dec 20 2015

4 Advent Yr C Dec 20 2015 Audio

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. What would be like if we greeted one another in this way? Each of us are God-bearers, just like Mary and Elizabeth, should we not greet one in expectation and hope? Our advent waiting draws us ever closer to fulfillment. 

Elizabeth, barren and too old to conceive, Mary, too young to conceive, both of these child-bearings are inconceivable. Our response to this inconceivable conception calls forth some Holy Imagination. I turn to one of my favorite writers, Madeleine L’Engle, when I ponder these things. She writes in a book called Bright Evening Star, “It is not that in believing the story of Jesus we skip reason, but that sometimes we have to go beyond it, take leaps with our imagination, push our brains further than the normally used parts of them are used to going.” She goes on to write “I had to let go all my prejudices and demands for proof and open myself to the wonder of love. Faith is not reasonable because it wasn’t for reason, but for love that Jesus came.” 

It is for love that Jesus came, and we need to respond like Mary, like Elizabeth. We need to respond with shouts of joy, with dances of gladness. This Good News changes us forever; it changes our world forever. It is as inconceivable and unreasonable that each of us is a God-bearer as it is that Mary is a Christ-bearer. It is inconceivable that God has burst into our world. And yet, all of Advent we wait in active anticipation of the moment that God bursts into our world as a baby, and that God bursts into our world to bring our history; our lives, to fulfillment. We cannot continue to respond to this Good News with business as usual. We cannot respond to the sacredness of each other the same as always. Just saying Merry Christmas is not enough. The Good News is Our King and Savior now draws near: Come let us adore him! 

This inconceivable conception that God bursts into our lives must change us. It changed Mary, it changed Elizabeth, it changed Zechariah, it left him speechless, it changed Joseph, he had to defy the law in order to love and support Mary, it changed a community, it changed an entire people. Mary responds to this inconceivable conception first when the angel Gabriel comes to tell her, and it is reported that Mary says “let it be to me according to your word.” My hunch is that maybe it took her a little while to come to this kind of brave acceptance, initially she probably said something a little more like “no way, I can’t have a baby, I’m too young, I’m not married.” By the time we catch up with her in the story we read today, Mary is singing “my soul magnifies the Lord.” Mary’s response to this inconceivable conception progresses from brave acceptance to joyful praise. I wonder if Mary needed some time to get used to the idea that she is the Christ-bearer so that she could move from brave acceptance to joyful praise. I wonder if Mary didn’t have a little advent waiting of her own. 

When Mary and Elizabeth meet, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps and Mary is filled with such joy and hope that she sings and dances. Mary and Elizabeth lived in a dark time under Herod the Great, whose casual brutality was backed up with the threat of Rome. And yet Mary’s song is a song of freedom, a song of liberation for her people, it is subversive and it is revolutionary. It is joyful and it is hopeful. Advent waiting calls us into this paradox, the paradox that Mary embodies, that finding involves losing; that hiding involves revealing; that birth involves death. 

While our culture has been celebrating Christmas since Halloween, we continue to wait. This fourth Sunday of Advent is oh so difficult, we just want to be there, we just want to have it now, and it is so hard to resist the pressure to just say Merry Christmas. But Advent waiting as Mary shows us, forms us and shapes us, so that the inconceivable conception can take hold of us, and can give birth to the Holy Imagination that bears God into this world. 

Mary spent most of her life waiting; from the moment the angel Gabriel comes to her and announces do not be afraid, through the final moments as she waited for her son’s death on the cross, and the hours up to the inconceivable resurrection. Mary waits. I think Mary’s waiting can teach us that Advent is a time that summons us to embrace waiting as a way of life. Advent summons us to practice waiting, and by doing so to put down the foundations of a life shaped by waiting, so that when those times come when we have no idea what to do, those times of sadness, times of joy, times of difficulty, times of division, we fall back on that deep, still waiting in the present moment that opens up a space for God’s interruption in our midst. 

We wait in this present moment with Mary, with Elizabeth. We wait with quiet and confident expectation for this inconceivable conception to come to fruition and fulfillment. In the waiting we may be changed. We may be filled with hope, hope that God indeed is turning the world around. But we also know that waiting is not doing nothing, so we must act with justice and mercy, knowing that indeed with Mary we are bearing God to this world. In this present moment God turns each of us around. 

It is no coincidence that the way that God interrupts our world is to be born into our world, it is no coincidence that God interrupts our world to live and love, and suffer and die just like each and every one of us. Being human means being born to die, and only a God who is willing to share that can actually help us face our own mortality and that of those we love, and to help us live every present moment fully alive. It is in the waiting for the births and the deaths, and in the moments in between, that God breaks in and surrounds us and lifts us with love. 

I am reminded of my own pregnancies during Advent waiting. I am reminded of the joy and hope and dreams of bringing a baby into the world. I am reminded of the fear and trepidation of bringing a baby into the world. I am reminded of the blissful ignorance of what the future would hold. As I look backward to that time I am filled with nostalgia at its wonder, I am forever changed and cannot respond to the world with anything less than compassion and hope. And I look with hope to the possibility of what the lives of our sons will bear. But it is the present moment that is pregnant with possibility, the present moment that bears God in their lives, in my life, in our lives. 

Do not be afraid; listen for God to be born in this present moment. Do not be afraid; act with justice and peace and kindness. Do not be afraid; find the people who need your works and actions of assurance that they are loved as you are loved. The world is about to turn. Our King and Savior now draws near: Come let us adore him.