blessed fellow. And nowadays I am privileged to share ministry with her. We are truly partners in ministry, and that is giving me great joy.

Transcription

1 Let s Let It Be Luke 1: 26 38; Sermon preached the Fourth Sunday of Advent 2014 December 21, 2014 McCormick United Methodist Church, McCormick, SC Paul A. Wood, Jr., D. Min. Christmas means many things to us. It is a time for waiting; a time for hoping; a time for giving; and this might surprise you, but it is also a time for giving ourselves over to the will of God. That s our focus for this sermon. Let s let Mary, the mother of Jesus, show us what it might mean to give our whole selves over to God yield to God s will, to obey, to let God s will unfold in our lives. But let s think for a moment about Christmas as a season for gift-giving. You might have heard about the grandparents who decided to send money to all of their children and grandchildren. They would write a check to each one. They would put each check in an attractive Christmas greeting card and send it off in advance of Christmas in case their loved ones might want to purchase something or go out for a special meal. These two had been together a long time. They had seen many a Christmas in one another s company. Grandma addressed the envelopes and put on stamps. Grandpa wrote out the checks. They wrote the same note to each loved one. It gave them a lot of satisfaction to drive together tp the post office. But when they got back home they made an unsettling discovery. Neither one had remembered to put the checks into the envelopes. And each recipient had the same heart-felt note: Get your own present. We focus today on Mary. A thousand sermons, I guess, could be preached about Mary the mother of Jesus, and each one would have a different message. She is one of the richest characters in the scriptures. Of everything we might give our attention to, I want us to focus on one sentence. Mary replies to the angle: Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word. (1:38) You who are regulars here know something about me, or I hope you know it. I am proud of Kay. She has accomplished a lot of great things and been of service to many, many people, especially in her many years as a Registered Nurse. She has been a great mom, and she has been a steady friend to some fortunate people. Kay has also been a wonderful wife. Among many things about her which I learned a long time ago, she is honest and has enormous integrity. So I am one

2 2 blessed fellow. And nowadays I am privileged to share ministry with her. We are truly partners in ministry, and that is giving me great joy. But something you don t know is that when Kay began to speak about a yearning to go into ministry; when she began to feel that particular calling from God I was not pleased. I resisted and resisted. This was my strategy in the beginning: when she began to talk about the possibility that she was called in to fulltime ministry, I would change the subject! Yes, I would. She would mention God and say that God might want her to be a pastor or a chaplain or something which meant fulltime work, more formal education, more certifications and the whole nine yards. And dear loving Paul, servant of the Lord, Paul, would change the subject. Of course, that strategy didn t work for long. Kay was persistent, and I think she kept pushing me because God was pushing her. Eventually, I became one of her biggest supporters. I look back on that as a time when I yielded, ever slowly, to the will of God. I have a theory that most of us resist the will of God. We are too free-spirited to put it in a positive way, or out-and-out rebellious to put it in a more negative way. When our best Christian theologians define sin, they usually call it resistance against God or rebellion against God. Most, if not all of us, push against God s wishes, especially if there s anything unpleasant about God s will for us. Awhile back I went on a spiritual development weekend which was very directive. The leaders had specific directions for us participants, and they insisted that we follow them. What they wanted was actually mundane and boring. It was absolutely harmless not challenging, really. But I resisted. I silently fumed and took any opportunity I found to avoid doing what they wanted me to do. I am still embarrassed at my behavior. I could have contributed more to the event, and received more from the event if I had just gone along. I was foolish and silly. Behind all that resistance was my pride, yes plain old pride. And, yes, the great theologians have also used pride as another synonym for sin. Luke packs a lot into these verses as the angel Gabriel speaks to Mary. It is a conversation, but Mary doesn t say anything for quite some time. The angel starts out, Greetings, favored one! Luke tells us that the girl is perplexed and that she ponders what he is saying to her. But she doesn t say anything. She is also afraid, as I am sure most of us would be. The angel says, Do not be afraid, Mary and goes on to tell her that she has found favor with God. But she still doesn t say anything. He tells her that she is about to conceive; he tells her the name of the child;

3 3 and he tells her about the absolute greatness of the child and his family connections with King David. Finally, Mary speaks. She asks a question: How can this be, since I am a virgin? Then Gabriel gets to talk quite a lot more. He says the child will be conceived by the Holy Spirit and that the child will be holy and will be called the Son of God. He tells her more astounding news that her relative Elizabeth, despite advanced age, has already conceived, for the first time in her life. For nothing will be impossible with God. It s all amazing, marvelous stuff, filled with mystery, and Mary has still said only one thing. Here am I, she proclaims, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word. Her initial question, How can this be? has become a rich and strong affirmation: Let it be. Does she say those words with emphasis and with confidence? We don t know. Maybe she says those words with a trembling heart. We don t know. Maybe she says them with great anticipation, with excitement. She does have the privilege of giving birth to and raising the child who will be the long-awaited Messiah of God. That would be enough to get most anybody excited! But Luke reports only her words. Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word. Mary sets off quickly to a small town in Judea where her kinswoman Elizabeth lives. She wants to visit with this elderly woman who had been barren throughout many years of marriage. Now she has conceived. Now she is preparing to give birth to the one who would be called John the Baptizer. Whereas the first encounter, between Mary and the angel, is covered with hushed tones, the next scene is bursting with excitement. Even the baby in Elizabeth s womb gets in on the excitement. The older woman tells the younger: as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. (1:44) The anticipation has begun, and joy is beginning to break forth. These women are excited about the events, the wonderful events that they are about to witness. Then Mary breaks forth into a great poem or song of praise. This simple, young girl from Nazareth speaks with poetic exclamation: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. (1:47) Mary really has the Christmas spirit! She is one happy, joyous believer! She knows that God is underway bringing in his kingdom. She is happy to be playing a role in the great events that will are beginning to unfold. God is doing great things for people like Mary

4 4 simple, lowly people. She sings with joy he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. You know, you couldn t get much lower on the pecking order in those days than to be a young unmarried woman. Just about everybody else was above you on the social scale. But God had looked on her with favor. And it seemed to her that God would look on lots of other lowly people with favor. But then Mary steps on our toes: He [God] has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. Uh, oh! She has mentioned our pride and the downfall of the proud. That s folks like me, folks who resist God s will, who think of themselves as too smart or well-educated or powerful or self-sufficient to let God do anything for them. It isn t the powerful on their thrones and in their late-model sedans and minivans who will be lifted up to glory. It is the lowly. That means, among others, the homeless, the landless, the refugees and others who live on the margins of society. It isn t the well-fed who will take leadership and authority. It is the hungry who will be filled with good things. The rich, in fact, will be sent away with nothing, nothing at all. Mary, by being obedient, has learned of the great reversal which is God s grace. So Mary yields to the will of God. She accepts the words of this messenger of God named Gabriel. She accepts his words and believes them. Why does she walk for three days to that village in Judea? To see if the angel was truthful and that Elizabeth really was pregnant? No, she goes with confidence and joy. She wants to congratulate her cousin. But more importantly Mary concurs, she consents, she agrees to God s plan for her. Her acceptance of God s plan reminds me of this simple phrase: If it is to be, it's up to me. She says yes to God. She lets God have God s way. She yields to God s desire that she play a major role, a huge role, in the drama of salvation. I know this acquiescence on Mary s part poses some troublesome issues for us. One of those issues is the age-old question: How can I be certain of God s will? That is a very important subject, but I m afraid it needs its own sermon. We may be jealous of someone who gets a face-to-face conversation with a spokesperson for God. It s not so often that you and I hear the will of God as clearly as Mary did. She was very fortunate. But I promise you we are not left to our own devices when we think we hear God speaking. There are others around us, other followers of Christ, for us to check with and seek confirmation of the voice and calling that we have heard. Discerning the will of God is best done in concert with other Christians. My advice: if you hear God speaking a big, life-changing message to you, then check with other

5 5 followers of Christ. Let them help you to confirm that the voice you have heard is truly that of God, and not your ego or your fears or something worse. Getting that confirmation is something that we United Methodists take very seriously when a man or woman presents themselves for ordained ministry. It is not enough to announce: I am called to ordained ministry. That internal sense of call doesn t get you ordained in our denomination. We are careful to confirm that call. So the person must become a candidate. He or she will spend extensive time in the trenches. One question will be: Can this person bear fruit in ministry? You must pass exams of various sorts such as psychological and theological before that person is received into the conference and ordained by a bishop. Again, we are looking at what it might mean to us if we model ourselves after Mary and respond with obedience to God s call. Another issue is this idea of a young woman yielding to a male angel and a God that most people perceive to be male. It doesn t seem hip or right for a young woman to just turn over her brain and her body for the important work of being mother to the messiah. Modern bells go off in our minds. And when Mary says: Here am I, the servant of the Lord a lot of people, men and women of all ages, will say: Hey, that is not for me! It s my life, and my body and my own plans for my future. They don t want anybody interfering with their own quest for satisfaction and success, even if the one making the request might be God himself. Many of us are too proud, too self-reliant and too independent to give a message from God the attention it deserves. This fierce spirit of autonomy and independence runs strong through our culture. A theme song for our very culture might be the old song which Paul Anka wrote and which Frank Sinatra made famous: I Did It Might Way. We don t want anybody messing with our plans. We all think we know what s best for our lives, and sadly too many people, when they achieve their goals, give themselves all the credit for their success. The word is out about God. God has lots of ways of butting into our lives and upsetting the apple cart. Whip through the Bible and you find accounts of dozens of people, Old Testament and New Testament, who were surprised to find that God wanted to direct their lives. God, our Creator, wants to influence us, direct us and even put us to work! The very nerve! We are the independent ones, the autonomous ones, the self-directed.

6 6 A comedian recently joked about how he went into one of those huge bookstores, found a clerk and asked for directions to the Self Help section. The clerk refused to help him. She said that if she helped him to find the Self Help section that would be defeating the purpose. He had to find it himself! I think for the most part we consider ourselves to be in charge of our lives. We should be to some extent. But if we call ourselves God s children, then we should always consider what the one we call Lord wants of us. And God our Creator has to step in sometimes, catch our attention maybe in some unpleasant way, and do the work for us. God our creator cherishes the independent spirit God has put in each of us. But God wants us to temper that with attentiveness to his will and obedience to his will So we come back to a young woman in Palestine hearing about God s plan for her life and yielding to it. You and I know better than she (at that moment of acceptance) what pain and sacrifice it would demand of her. We know how the story turns out. We know about that cross and how she stood there watching her own son hang on that awful beam. But what parent in any era could know just how much work it takes to raise a child or how many sacrifices have to be made? But Mary s sacrifices did go further than those of most parents. For that we admire her all the more. Mary said to the angel: Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word. Let s let it be with us according to God s word. Let s slow down and listen so we can hear God s word. Let s check with others to make certain we have heard God s word and not someone else s word. Let s yield; let s allow God our loving creator to have his way with us. And in that obedience, in that yielding, we will find God. I close now with this prayer written a long, long time ago by St. Thomas Aquinas: God of all goodness, grant us to desire ardently, to seek wisely, to know surely and to accomplish perfectly Thy holy will, for the glory of Thy name.