December 23, 2018

4th Sunday of Advent
Micah 5:2-5
Psalm 80:1-7
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-55

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
 grace and peace to you
from the one who works through us. Amen
 
We’re almost there,
 we’ve lit all the blue candles on our wreath,
plans and preparations for the Christmas festival
 are finished or nearing completion
 and we’re ready for it all to get here,
 
but before we jump to the baby in the manger,
 angel choruses and shepherds watching their flocks by night,
we spend some time with Mary,
the one who partners with God
to make this wild scheme a reality.
 
God, creator of the universe,
is still active and involved
 in the working of the world,
 
 but since creation
God has taken a more hands off approach,
 choosing to work with partners,
 people in the world,
to bring about God’s agenda for creation
 
and God has a habit of choosing to work with
 the people whose high school yearbook
 superlative would start ‘least likely to’
 
God chooses to work with those other humans overlook,
 underestimate, or write off as not good enough by human standards
 
 Abraham and Sarah,
 well past childbearing years
 are the parents of a nation,
 
 Joseph the youngest brother
 so annoying that his older brothers
 literally threw him in a pit
 and sold him into slavery
 saves the nation from starvation,
 Moses, the exile
who had a stutter and very low self-esteem
led the Israelites out of Egypt,
 
 Jonah the prophet
who kept running the other direction
 and only followed God’s directions
after spending a few days thinking about it
 while sitting in the belly of a giant fish
 and the list could go on.
 
So it really shouldn’t surprise us
that for the grandest plan of all
God chooses the least likely person
to help bring it about,
 
a young unmarried Jewish girl
 living under Roman occupation
in one of the smaller towns
out in the countryside.
 
One who definitely meets
 the qualifications for
 ‘least likely to work with God to save the world.’
 And yet that’s what God proposes
and Mary accepts.
 
Luke tells us that an angel, a messenger,
is sent by God to Mary,
the angel starts off “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you”
 a greeting that we are told perplexes Mary,
 
 she’s wondering just what is going
 on when the angel goes on to tell her the plan,
 she’ll get pregnant and bear a son
who will be called Jesus,
who will take the throne of his ancestor David,
 and of his kingdom there will be no end.   
 
And taking this all in Mary asks a practical question: how?
 How can this happen?
the angel responds,
it will be the work of the Holy Spirit,
 so that your child will be holy.
And then the angel throws in this extra bit of information,
your relative Elizabeth who was said to be barren is now expecting a child,
 “For nothing will be impossible with God.”
 
And considering all this,
 Mary consents,
she says “Here am I, the servant of the Lord;
let it be with me according to your word.”
and with this the plan is set in motion
 
 and the first thing Mary does
is go to visit Elizabeth,
the one person who has a chance of knowing what Mary is going through
 
and when Mary walks through the door Elizabeth cries out
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb...and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
 
Elizabeth offers affirmation to Mary,
 she sees the value and the blessing
of what Mary has agreed to do on behalf of God,
as crazy as it is
and only then does Mary break into song praising God
 
for every Mary out there,
there is an Elizabeth,
one who God works through
 to offer encouragement
 to keep doing the difficult things God has called for
 because even, or especially if,
it’s a mission from God
 it’s going to be difficult
and we will need all the help and affirmation we can get.
 
In life sometimes we are Mary
 and sometimes we are Elizabeth
and both are critically important roles for working with God.
 
I know when I was figuring out whether God was calling me to be a pastor or not
it was the outside voices, the Elizabeths in my life
that pushed me over the edge,
 
sure I felt that being a pastor was something God was calling me to be,
 but when I thought about it a lot
especially at night trying to fall asleep
 it sounded kind of crazy to me
 
until other people without me bringing up the topic
affirmed that they thought God was calling me to be a pastor too,
their words showed me that it wasn’t a crazy idea just in my head,
and their encouragement gave me the courage
 I needed to embrace what God was asking me to do.
 
Talk to most pastors about their call story
 or anyone who feels called by God
 and somewhere in there,
there will be an Elizabeth.
 
 And actually our denomination
takes so seriously the role of outside affirmation
that people who have prepared to become pastors
are not ordained until a church has called them,
has offered that outside affirmation.
 
I am a pastor today
 because you all looked at my paperwork
and heard me preach
and said yes we can see her as a pastor,
as our pastor.
 
God works not just through individuals
but through the community as well,
 and that means as a community
we have responsibility both to listen to what God is asking of us,
 and to what God is asking of others,
 
and if we see God at work in someone else
we need to affirm them,
 be Elizabeth to their Mary,
because the power that affirmation unleashes
 is far greater than we know.
 
Mary said yes to God’s scheme,
 it’s hard not to when confronted with a member of the heavenly host
who says nice things about you
 like ‘you’re favored by God’
 but we don’t hear her celebrate
 until after Elizabeth has affirmed her.
 
 Only then does she break into song
singing “my soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior...for the mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”
 
and then she goes on to explain what God is doing through her
--her the least likely to work with God--
by acting through her
 God has scattered the proud,
he has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
 
God has filled the hungry and sent the rich away empty,
God has turned the world upside down,
 all to fulfill a promise God made to Israel a long time ago,
because God is merciful
and God keeps God’s promises
 
 and God keeps God’s promises
by working through the community.
 
before we jump to the baby in the manger,
angel choruses and shepherds watching their flocks by night,
Mary calls us to consider how God is keeping promises through us,
 
 Elizabeth calls us to affirm God’s work in others,
 and together with Mary
our hearts shall sing of the day God brings,
through God’s justice
 the dawn draws near
 and the world is about to turn. Amen