2017-12-24 – Rev. Dr. Ryan Sato
2017-12-24 – Rev. Dr. Ryan Sato – First Baptist Church Edmonton
VEXATION, VOCATION
Luke 1:26-38
Whenever I read or reflect on Mary’s “call story”, I’m always astounded about the age/stage of Mary’s life…
She is a teenager. And yes, in 1st century Jewish culture, women married younger, but a teenager being put upon to “be the only hope” for the promises of God, for the good of the world…was quite an “ask” in terms of “how much ought we give this younger generation” in relation to responsibility and organizational-management for the dream of God…
Frederich Buechner helps us imagine the conversation with the angel Gabriel and Mary.
She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child,
but he’d been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it.
Gabriel told her what the child was to be named,
and who he was to be,
and something about the mystery that was to come upon her.
“You mustn’t be afraid, Mary,” he said.
As he said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great, golden wings
he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation
hung now on the answer of (this) girl.
And the cloud of witnesses in the heavenly realm…held their breath…as Mary replied…
“I am perplexed! What kind of greeting is this?”
Ahhh, that sounds a bit more teenager-esque to me! You have to appreciate that teen-non-conforming spirit…
And Gabriel echoes the phrase that we’ve been hearing time after time this Fall as we’ve walked through the OT stories…the voice of God saying:
“Do not be afraid!”
Mary is of course, old enough to know how this should work biologically…she queries:
“How can this be? Since I am a virgin?”
And Gabriel assures her that “the impossible will be made possible”…
Now…we don’t know the time lapse between v. 37 and v. 38…
>> Nothing impossible with God….Here am I…<<
Perhaps Gabriel and Mary bantered…and debated…and swapped stories and examples from their people…
–Remember Father Abraham…and Sarah…Abraham muttering, “Can Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child? And I’m a 100…really?” And God said to Abe: “I will keep my promises.”
–Or how about Moses…a newborn baby who was as good as dead after the “diabolical death decree” of the King of Egypt…but he was saved by Pharoah’s daughter…floating in a basket, stuck in the reeds…God keeps promises…
–And how about Hannah? Deeply distressed, weeping bitterly as she longed for a child…and the Lord remembered her…and she bore a son Samuel, who would rise up as a prophet thus proving that God keeps his promises…
Perhaps this story-telling and faith-affirming banter lasted for hours… Gabriel finally pausing… allowing the silence to settle in…and then saying, “So?”
“You mustn’t be afraid, Mary.”
And Mary’s response is a prayer and a proclamation…
“Here am I.”
“Here am I…the servant of the Lord;
let it be — with me
according to your word.”
–Then the angel of the Lord departed from her.
* * * * * * * *
So….how is the call of God interrupting our lives or disrupting our lives this Christmas eve?
How might this story intersect with our lives?
In the midst of the “Christmas to do” lists that linger in our minds…
I invite you to pause and ponder…
Because the great news of this Christmas story is this…
“You mustn’t be afraid… (insert your name here).
And perhaps you might say… “Well, I’m not really afraid right now, Mr. Reverend.”
Well, that’s fine and good…but I think we would all readily admit that we are just one text, or one phone call, or one e-mail, or one doctor’s visit/blood test/biopsy away from tumultuous times…
And we don’t have to search too far…as we look at the world, or read the latest headlines…that we live in a world full of anxiety and fear…
with varying degrees of fragmentation, distraction, corruption and discord.
Can we hear Gabriel’s assurance?
“You musn’t be afraid!”
* * * * *
And so…on Christmas eve 2017…on the eve of Christ’s birthday…let’s respond to this good news…
Let us respond by letting God be God…imagining and seeing God as the protagonist of the story…the protagonist of our life stories…and author of the story of our church…
And let’s also make Mary’s prayer and proclamation our own…
“Here am I! The servant of the Lord.
Let it be with me…according to your word.”
And let’s also pluralize this prayer…(let’s do this together)
“Here we are…Servants of the Lord
Let it be with US…according to your word.”
Now the intriguing and instructive tone (?) of this prayer is that it is a prayer where we are not in charge…
One commentator puts it this way:
“The action of ‘let it be with me’ is not anything that Mary will do on her own.
It is WHAT GOD WILL DO IN MARY…as she embraces the action of God.”
All Fall, as we’ve walked through the OT stories, & we’ve reminded each other that God is the protagonist of the story. Yes, of course, there are heroes of faith…but God is the true hero of the story. God faithfully and fervently takes the lead and proves good on his promises…time after time!
Our prayers and our actions do not put us in charge of God’s unfolding story in the world.
Instead our prayers are acts of submission…that shape our lives with a humility and willingness to entrust our hopes and fears in the hands and providence of the one who leads the way…and the one who companions with us along the way…
God is with us!
Emmanuel abides with us!
As Christ is reborn in us today and in the forthcoming 12 days of Christmas, God invites us once again to join God in God’s redeeming and restoring work in the world…
Q: What will God do IN US? Today. This Christmas. This coming year?
May our “how can this be”…be transformed into “let it be.”
This isn’t a quick fix…
But today’s story gives us the opportunity to sit & banter alongside Mary…
Perhaps the way forward for some of us is to ask…
What is God doing in us? In me?
What is God doing around us? Around me?
How is God inviting us to…
How is God inviting me to…stand up for the vulnerable; fight for the rights of the downtrodden; radically welcome the ‘other’ into my life, into our church;
Call out the haters & the discriminators;
Care…for the creatures…and creation…
And we might protest.
“This is impossible!”
But let’s pray with Mary…and let’s listen with Mary…
God help us. God hear our prayers!
God move in us…
God enthuse us, inspire us, embolden us, animate us.
Bring forth and birth miracles through us…
Here we are.