We continue our annoying liturgical mash up with the story of the Annunciation. For those of you wondering why I use the term “mash up,” you might have needed to be here last week to appreciate fully how we need to work to line up our liturgies and readings. Last week we lit the pink candle in the wreath and celebrated “Mary Sunday.” Naturally, our readings were about John the Baptizer . . . for a second time this Advent. Better still, in the suggested Advent candle lighting liturgy, our focus was on . . . the patriarchs. Apparently, it is really hard to coordinate candle colors and readings and themes. Now, I can wrap my head around how the fruit of Mary’s consent enables the fulfilment of God’s promises to the patriarchs and matriarchs of the OT, but I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why we can’t read about Mary on her day as we light the pink candle. But that’s a rant for another day.
The Gospel story
today, of course, is well known. Those who have attended Advent for the
last eight years know its importance for us to comfort and encourage our
sisters even as we correct our brothers’ attitudes toward women. If you
are newer or visiting, there exists in some corners of the Church the idea that
women are responsible for sin entering the world. Since Eve ate the
forbidden fruit, women are responsible for bringing sin into the world. Genesis
does not make that claim. Adam eats of the fruit even though God has
instructed him directly not to eat the fruit. But, if we have friends and
coworkers and others in our families who hold to that non-biblical perspective,
the Annunciation serves as a correction or, even better, redemptive story of
that line of thinking. Mary, in her answer to the angel Gabriel, consents
to bearing the Baby, thus the means of salvation enters the world through
her. So, if people want to blame Eve, they must credit Mary. Y’all
are attending an Episcopal church, and Church of the Advent at that. We
are well established in our fight against misogyny in the church. We have
not entirely stamped it out, but at Advent, we are not surprised that God uses
women to lead the parish or do His work in the world around us. And if
some men of a certain age trend toward misogyny, they have at least learned to
keep such thoughts to themselves, right? I’m glad even you guys are
laughing at that. But on a very serious note, I am sure all of us know
women who have heard that Eve blame as a theological justification for
misogyny, both from the pulpits and in their homes. Mary’s consent at the
Annunciation is really a good way to tend to our sisters and brothers who
misunderstand God and forget that He created us all in His image.
Like all great
biblical stories, though, there are lots of teachings for us to explore in the
Annunciation. Just to place us all in the context, I’ll remind us of the
wider story as we look at the specific Annunciation. In the bigger
background, God has been silent for nearly 270 years. Malachi is the last
recognized prophet who spoke with God’s voice. Now, the people of Israel
are dealing with the reality that God does not speak to them and they have been
subjugated by foreign powers. By the time Mary the Mother of Jesus
appears, Rome is the oppressive empire. The big pastoral problem facing
the priests and rabbis is the silence of Yahweh. Prior to this period of
silence, Yahweh was a God who spoke. He
spoke to particular figures, but He also spoke to all the people through the
voice of the prophets. Because of their
circumstance, the people of Israel wonder whether God is still honoring the
Covenant He made with their ancestors. It makes sense to us. Israel
is not experiencing the blessings of the Covenant at all and God is silent.
A little closer to
home and just a few months before our story, Elizabeth and Zechariah have been
told they will give birth to the one who will announce the birth of the
Messiah. Their son will be the one crying out in the wilderness.
For her part, Elizabeth is thrilled. She has lived her life accursed by
God, insofar as her neighbors are concerned. Barrenness was a sign of
God’s curses in those days. You know this, even if you have forgotten.
Sarah, the wife of Abraham, is the first woman in Scripture whom we encounter
who is desperate for an heir. Others appear, perhaps Rachel and Hannah
the next most famous. And we should all remember Naomi’s misfortune of
losing her husband and two sons in her older age. Good. I see some
nods.
Some of us may be
scoffing at the stories in our heads. A few of us may even be thanking
God in our heads that He does not cause us to have babies later in life.
That’s ok to doubt. You are not alone. Zechariah, Elizabeth’s
husband is a priest. The angel tells him that he will have a son who will
introduce Messiah and whose name will be John. Zechariah scoffs and gets
nine months of silence for doubting God’s plan. We talked a bit last week
about the unique ministry of John the Baptizer. His primary job was to
announce the coming of the Messiah. But because He spoke with the voice
of God, because he was a recognized prophet, the people flock to him to hear
his preaching and teaching and to be baptized. For their parts, the
Temple leadership does not know what to make of the child announced to
Elizabeth and Zechariah. The Temple leadership sends their subordinates
to listen to John’s preaching and teaching and report back to them.
Cynically, when later confronted by Jesus on the nature of John the Baptizer,
the leadership is unwilling to state they believe that John’s authority comes
from God.
That’s our big background. God
has been silent for a long time. Now He
has spoken to two women, Elizabeth and Mary, and asked that they play
significant roles in the redemption of humanity. With me so far? Good.
There’s one other background of which I want to remind us. Each of the Gospels was written with the
redemption of the world through the Life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of
Jesus Christ. But each of these books
was written, inspired by the Holy Spirit, by authors with particular foci or
goals in mind. For example, Luke pays a
lot of attention to the healing miracles of Jesus. It makes sense. Luke was a physician. Matthew gives us some of those numbers and
wealth parables. Again, it makes sense to
us since he was a tax collector. The
Church has held for nearly 19 centuries that Luke spent years interviewing the
major witnesses to God’s work in Christ Jesus.
Some of the stories, like this one, has interesting observations because
Luke had the opportunity to ask the Apostles and early disciples what they
experienced, what they felt, and what they thought. So when we read Luke commenting on such
things, he was likely told these during his interviews of the one described in
the Gospel that bears his name or in his sequel we call Acts.
Now, look at our passage from Luke.
Mary gets this weird greeting from the angel Gabriel declaring her
blessed among women. How does Luke say
she responded to the greeting? She was
“much perplexed” is a pretty good translation of the participle used. I bet she was troubled. Imagine if an angel appeared to us and
declared we were blessed among women or among men or among children, how would
we feel? Now, put some decades between
the event and an interview with Luke.
How would you describe your thoughts and feelings at the time?
The angel goes on and tells Mary she will conceive in her womb a son
whom she is to name Jesus. Her son, the
angel goes on to tell her, will be called the Son of the Most High and will
inherit the throne of His ancestor David and reign forever. Mary, for her part, wonders how this can be,
since she does not know a man. I know
there is a lot of discussion around the song “Mary, Did You Know” on social
media right now. A few people have come
into talk about it. Most of the time we just
give thanks that it did not make it into our hymnal, as there are some
troubling misogynistic attitudes and claims in the song. But then we talk about whether she did
know. My answer is a little bit of yes
and a little bit of no. Did she
understand the sword that would pierce her own heart, to use a reading coming
up later in the Christmas season, in the way that it did? She watched her son, miraculously conceived
through the power and Spirit of God, crucified.
What could have prepared her for that?
And would she have done it had God spelled it all out for her in advance? Would any of us? But she understands how babies are made. “Knowing a man” is an idiom for being a
virgin. She likely knows that if she
gets pregnant, there will be rumors and gossip.
But she is willing to submit to God’s plan and do what is asked of
her. The young lady is a true model of
faith and heir of Abraham.
That is, of course, not to say that she has no doubts. She has already questioned how she will give
birth without knowing a man. Luke tells
us she was perplexed by the angel’s greeting.
Who knows what else she was thinking!
But, the angel addresses her doubts and concerns with the emphatic
double negative that nothing spoken by God cannot not happen. By speaking, God causes His Will to occur, no
matter what experience or nature teaches us.
And reminded of the power and speaking of God, Mary consents to play her
part in salvation history.
We know how it all ends. In fact,
most of us will return tonight to celebrate the Incarnation announced in this
pericope, as will a number of visitors and friends and family. But this morning, we are reminded of the
impact of God’s spoken word in a unique way.
Each of us is reminded today that when God speaks of us, whatever He
intends cannot not happen. That first
spoken word of us is likely our creation.
When God breathes life into us, we are indelibly stamped in His
image. We know, of course, that His
image is in some way infinite, so we are unsurprised that we may differ by appearance
or by temperament or by passions or by talents or anything else we might use to
distinguish. But that God speaks life
into our very being is a foundational understanding of our existence. To use the language of Prayer C, by His Will
we are created and have our being. How
do we know God knows us and cares for us?
Because our very existence and continued existence is upon His Will!
In some ways, that should likely be enough for us, but God knows our
needs before we ask. His next spoken
word about us is at our Baptisms and Confirmations. God reminds us in that Sacrament and Rite
that by virtue our acceptance of His Will in our lives, to use the language of
Mary today, we are heirs of His promises.
To put in easier language and of the language of today, we understand
that God cannot not redeem those who have come to the water of baptism in
faith. Talk about surety! That does not mean that our lives will be
easy. It does mean that God will redeem
all our suffering and even our deaths because He has spoken that covenantal
love over us. Like His Son, whose
Incarnation we celebrate tonight, our lives may not resemble what the world
values. He may even call us, in
imitation of His Son, to lay down our lives for His sake. But the promise us there that our sufferings
will be redeemed and cannot not be redeemed!
Lastly, and perhaps a bit buried in our story, is the transformative
nature of His grace on our lives.
Elizabeth, an older lady presumably past menopause, becomes pregnant and
births the last of the Old Testament prophets!
Mary, a young virgin, becomes pregnant and gives birth to that Holy
Mystery we call the Incarnation, the fully human and fully divine baby who will
grow to become the Savior of the world, even when the world rejects Him and His
purposes. By virtue of our Baptisms and
Confirmations, you and I are grafted into that amazing story of salvation
history. You and I are promised that we
can become vessels of His saving grace in the world around us. We are reminded that we can do whatever He
asks of us because what He speaks cannot not happen. We can tackle evil in His Name. We can fight injustice in His Name. We can fight privation in His Name. We can do anything that He asks of us because
of the certainty with which He made each one of us, promised each one of us,
and chooses to dwell with each one of us!
And perhaps, on this the Fourth Sunday of Advent, as we wrap up our
patronal season and reminder of our spiritual DNA as a parish named after this
season, we are all corporately and individually reminded of how His dwelling
with us transforms us. God took an older
barren lady and transformed her into the most important of Old Testament
prophets. God took a younger lady and
transformed her into the God Bearer, to use the language of our Orthodox friends
and neighbors. He even transformed the
way He relates to us by virtue of that Holy Mystery we call the
Incarnation. Because humans could see
and hear Him, because He came and dwelt among us, we are reminded of His heart
for all human beings and for ourselves.
And remind of all that, what can He not do for and with us!
In His Peace,
Brian†
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