i also reference the first reading and the psalm:
the first reading is 2 samuel 7:1-11, 16
the psalm is mary's magnificat in luke 1:46b-55
the holy gospel according to luke (1:26-38)
26In
the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God
to
a town in Galilee called Nazareth,
27to
a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph,
of
the house of David.
The
virgin’s name was Mary.
28And
he came to her and said,
“Greetings, favored one!
The
Lord is with you.”
29But
she was much perplexed by his words
and
pondered what sort of greeting this
might be.
30The
angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for
you have found favor with God.
31And
now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and
you will name him Jesus.
32He
will be great,
and
will be called the Son of the Most High,
and
the Lord God will give to him
the throne of his ancestor David.
33He
will reign over the house of Jacob forever,
and
of his kingdom there will be no end.”
34Mary
said to the angel,
“How can this be, since I am a virgin?”
35The
angel said to her,
“The
Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and
the power of the Most High will
overshadow you;
therefore
the child to be born will be holy;
he
will be called Son of God.
36And
now,
your
relative Elizabeth in her old age has
also conceived a son;
and
this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.
37For
nothing will be impossible with God.”
38Then
Mary said,
“Here am I,
the
servant of the Lord;
let
it be with me according to your word.”
Then
the angel departed from her.
The gospel of the lord.
-----
today in 2 samuel we hear of a god who will not be boxed
in. david is king, with a palace
of his own and he’s ready to build god a house—a temple—a sturdy and permanent
place to stay always.
but
god does not work that way. our
god is a god who moves with us. a
week and a half ago during our soup supper we learned about a faith journey of
finding christians and places of worship in all of the many places that the sharer
lived. we at christ the king have
traveled quite a bit in our own short time as a congregation from a movie
theater, to the old place down the road, to here, in this place. and who knows where we might end up
next, but what we do know is that we’ve got a god that’ll keep going with us.
god’s
message for david is “6i have not lived in a house since the day i
brought up the people of israel from egypt to this day, but i have been moving
about in a tent and a tabernacle. 9and i have been with you wherever
you went.” god has been with the
israelites since long before they had a king. as we heard in mary’s magnificat, god was with sarah and
abraham. god was with the
israelites in the wilderness and will be with them when they are forcibly
removed from their land into exile.
god will not be put in a box, in a building, in a temple.
instead
god chooses to make god’s home among us and in us. god chooses to come to us in a young, teenage girl named
mary. the angel gabriel comes to
mary with the proposal and mary, caught up in understandable fear and confusion
asks the angel, “how can this be?”
how
can this be? how can god be doing
this new thing? i am hardly more
than a child, weak and lowly, yet you look with love on me. the angel comes to mary and names
mary. the angel comes and calls
her favored. the angel proclaims
the good news and mary rejoices at the god who lifts up the lowly, who fills
the hungry, and who overturns the mighty with justice and love that are
strong. the angel comes to mary where
she’s at, to call her by name.
the angel comes to mary, claims her as favored and mary responds to the angel. mary chooses to join god in this new thing. mary says yes to god and then begins the adventure to come, with hallelujahs and heartbreak
as only a mother could know.
and yet god doesn’t just come to this young, unwed
teenager. in her old age,
elizabeth, whose name means “promise of god” is also invited to participate in
this new and longed-for thing god is doing. for her whole life, elizabeth has lived in a culture where,
as a woman, her worth was defined by her ability to give birth, to be a mother,
and so she had been considered a failure—barren.
fertility issues are not uncommon nowadays and they
certainly happened back then with the added hardship that if a woman could not
have children, it was attributed to her being sinful and could lead to economic
hardship later in life.
yet god’s promise, god’s blessing is with elizabeth. she is no failure, but not for the
reason you might expect. yes she becomes
pregnant, but more importantly, both
she and her soon-to-be-born child point to and encourage the coming
savior. as we’ve been hearing the
last few weeks, john will prepare the way for jesus and will baptize him,
kicking off jesus’ ministry with a bang, a tearing open of the heavens.
elizabeth, too, provides encouragement and pronounces the
coming of christ. upon hearing
elizabeth’s news from the angel gabriel, mary goes to visit her. elizabeth hears her greeting, is filled
with the holy spirit, and proclaims blessings on mary, the mother of her lord,
who is then moved to her own proclamation: the magnificat, which we heard as
our psalm today.
together these two women who have no business bearing the
good news—proclaiming god’s favor—take up the challenge, saying yes to god’s
invitation to participate in this new thing. pregnant with children, they are also pregnant with hope and
with passion for the new thing that god is bringing forth in and through
them.
mary herself may have been visited by an angel, but the
angel is long gone and in the months to come, she’ll be needing support as
people find out that she is pregnant and not yet married. elizabeth becomes that support for mary
and in turn mary encourages and supports elizabeth. they become each other’s angels. they come to be together, to call each other by
name, to call each other favored; to tell each other god is with them.
god comes to mary and elizabeth, and then in
the resulting confusion, excitement, and anxiety, god remains with them in each
other. today is the day in our
church year that our god who will not be boxed in, who will not remain inside
one building, so permanent and at times so far away. today is the day that god comes to mary, to elizabeth, and to
us.
the angel of god calls you favored. the angel announces god’s presence with
you and invites you into this new thing.
in a few short days, we will find jesus with us in a barn and in our
lives, and today god leaves the boxes and buildings to be with us, to remain
with us. in the ups and downs and
struggles, god sends angels—maybe named gabriel, or taylor, or barbara, mat or
stuart. god sends angels to be
with us and to help us know that not only are they with us, but god is with us
as well. moving with us as we
move, sitting together with us in the sorrow and in the quiet, claiming us always
for god’s own.
thanks be to god.
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