A Whole New Way
Commentary
Do we believe in one God, or many? Is the Father of our Lord, Jesus, just one in a caste of gods, the only one we worship, but in competition with the other gods in their sphere? Are Allah and Yahweh different gods, or one and the same, where only the name has been changed?
Christmas is a time of rejoicing. A time to give gifts, to expect a little magic, a time to feast and party. Our secular neighbors do all these things, but they do not pay much attention to the power of the thing we believe God has done on our behalf.
Christmas is the occasion for us to recognize that God humbled himself so that we might not be afraid of him but would be drawn to the ancient relationship of God and humans, where Moses talked to God like a man would with his friend. God gave up all the power inferred in the scriptures and took on our life in the form of an infant, so that his parents had to change his diapers and feed and clothe him. They had to protect this infant from the powers that be, and hide him from their madman ruler, Herod the Great.
Thus, God became known to people in what seemed to be a whole new way. And not known only to the Jewish people, but to us, the goyim, those who are outside that community of blood relationships and tribal society. God came to remind us that we are known to God by name. We are known, and loved, and included in the family of all those who have responded to that same voice that Moses and David and Mary of Nazareth and John the Baptizer heard.
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
David the king meant well. “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” He is clearly aware that he should not be treated better than God. As he sees it, living in an established house with walls is living higher than those living in tents. And since he has had experience both ways, he should know. They didn’t have aluminum stakes and nylon cords to hold up their rip-stop nylon tents, as we do today. The walls of the tents of the deserts, even today, are heavy and hard to put up, and it takes several men to square it up and see to it that the winds will not collapse it.
One night, years ago, I was in a tent we had put up on top of one of the capes of Nova Scotia. It was an idyllic evening, and we had purchased two lobsters from the man who rented us the space and melted butter over the campfire and enjoyed dismembering the shells and feasting while watching the sun set. As we were cleaning up, we noticed that the wind seemed to be rising.
And it did. As we snuggled ourselves into our sleeping bags, the wind began to scream and pounded on our tent. We got up and zipped all the windows closed. As the storm grew, the tent began to breathe, swelling as far as it could and then collapsing the sides. I was terrified but was not about to wake my husband. After all, what could he do to stop the storm? I crawled more deeply into my nice warm bag and repeated to myself, “If the tent collapses, the door is at my feet. If the tent collapses, the door is at my feet,” until I fell asleep. In the morning, all was well, and my husband had made coffee.
“How did you sleep?”
“Reminding myself where the door was, in case the tent collapsed,” I admitted.
“Well, we survived,” he laughed. We had learned that tents breathe in storms, and that you need a sturdy tent and tight lines. That’s life for those who live in tents.
Houses are iffy things in arid areas, too, since there are surely termites nearby. That’s why David’s house was built of cedar. Termites hate cedar. And he wanted the same protection for the ark of the Lord.
But the idea irritated God. “When did I ever ask any of the leaders of the people to build me a house of cedar?” Sounds a bit peeved to me.
The Hebrew word for ‘house’ is Beth (pronounced Bait’). The meaning, however, is wide. It can mean house, it can mean home, or dwelling, or the lineage of the people who have lived in that house. Hebrew is like that – one word with many nuances which become plain only in context; unlike English, where a house must be lived in to be a home.
God makes use of this wide number of meanings. “I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place…. Moreover, [I] will make you a house…. I will raise up your offspring after you, …and I will establish his kingdom…. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever….”
What is going on here, we may ask. Does David feel badly that he has an exalted place, a house rather than a tent? Yes – but more than that. When the Hebrews left Egypt and followed Moses in a nomadic lifestyle, they naturally lived in tents. Tents can be taken down, carried with the tribes, and put up in a new place. Nomadic people usually live in tents for that very reason. And when they came into the Promised Land, the people still lived in tents. But as they settled down, they each wanted a house, something that could not be easily moved, and land for gardens and chickens, and fields for sheep and goats.
There are two points here: we may make temples and cathedrals all we want, but God does not need them. God does not live in that place; God lives in our hearts. Thus, we can always talk to God, wherever we are, because God is always right here -- with us, inside us -- accepting our affection and worship, ready with a word of warning or praise when we need guidance.
It is we humans who want to set aside a place for God to live. That way we can keep God at arm’s length, not intruding into our lives. We furnish our cathedrals with gold or fine woods, with stained-glass glories of windows or plain pieces of glass to let the light in. Some churches are literally covered in pictures -- frescoes and icons -- that portray biblical figures or stories, so that people who cannot read will be reminded of what they have been told about that story.
But the building of a temple, like the building of a house, has a different meaning as well. It says that the people are now settled in the land. They have no need of a tent so they can carry the Ark of the Covenant as they move around. They are building houses for themselves, have built a palace for their king, and with the building of the temple, they feel that they have gained control over God.
So, God says to David, “Your son will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” Solomon the wise built the first temple in Jerusalem. He called for cedar from Lebanon to be the columns that held up the rafters, had them richly painted and accented with gold. And, to replace the simple sacrificial altar which had been natural stone, not shaped or decorated he built a high altar, worthy to hold the sacrifices the people made to the Most High. He called for crimson drapes and purple hangings – the two most expensive dyes in that time and place – to show people God’s beauty. When people came to worship there, they were amazed and awed by the beauty and size of the place.
But Solomon forgot that his grandfather had been a breeder of sheep and his father a shepherd in his youth. He became invested in his power and money. He married many wives, most of them from the families that ruled neighboring city/states. They worshipped other gods, and eventually he put up temples for them to worship those other gods. They worshipped them in holy orgies and their sacrifices even included human beings as their pagan neighbors did. God Almighty, The Most High, Elohim or Yahweh, whichever name people used at different times in the history of Israel, was pushed aside in favor of rituals that God finds repugnant.
The prophets in ancient Judea warned that the people would lose everything; that the temple would be destroyed, and the people carried away into Babylon, if they persisted. But they did not believe the prophets.
When the Jews returned from Babylon, the temple was rebuilt. But the second temple was also destroyed, this time by the Romans, and only the Western Wall of it remains, a place now called the Wailing Wall. A place for people to gather again and pray. Today, people write prayers on slips of paper and slide them into the seams of the wall, still reaching out to the God who promised that David’s house would not die out with the temple.
We all need to know – does God live with us yet, like a shepherd lives with his flock? Did God take on human flesh in the form of Jesus of Nazareth? Was John right to call Jesus “the Good Shepherd?’ What does that title mean?
Romans 16:25-27
This is the final “doxology” (praise hymn) of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. And Romans is the theology of Paul in its final, finished form. It is the work of his life, all bound up in a single scroll, of which he is rather proud (although he would be reluctant to say so). His pride shows in his comment that this is his gospel. Most Christians will be surprised when we tell them this. He has been an apostle, like the twelve who followed Jesus from the beginning, who stuck with him throughout his ministry, even when others left him because he said something so profound that they could not bear it.
Paul has said of his ministry that he has been an apostle since his vision of Christ on the road to Damascus; that he is, as are all the apostles, “a servant of Jesus Christ, … set apart for the gospel of God…” (See Romans 1:1, 1 Cor 1:1, 2 Cor 1:1 and Gal 1:1) He goes even further in Galatians 1:11, where he says, “For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” In other words, although he was not an apostle while Jesus was on the earth, but he received the good news directly from the Resurrected Christ (Jesus) just as the rest of the apostles did.
In today’s passage, the conclusion of his writings, he lays his writing alongside the prophetic writings (the Old Testament prophets, as well as intertestamental prophetic writings) saying that all of these people speak on behalf of God, inspired by the Spirit, at “the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith…”
It is often said that the scriptural writings we accept can be divided between the “Old Testament” as we Christians call the Hebrew Scriptures, and the “New Testament” which is new not in its content, but in its reaching out to those who never called themselves children of Abraham, or Jews. We Gentiles (for so the Jewish authorities designated those of us who came from the ‘pagan’ religions of the Greco Roman world) have a special reason to celebrate Christmas. For we had never been recognized as children of our Heavenly Father by the people who knew they were chosen by God (and still sinned). But in our Christmas celebrations, we include stories and rituals that were never part of the Judaic tradition and rejoice that we no longer live in ignorance of the intention of God to include us in the family for whom Christ came, taking on human flesh so that we might know that God loves us exuberantly, passionately and forever.
Luke 1:26-38
“In the sixth month” is an interesting way to designate when the angel Gabriel was sent by God. It would seem apparent that Luke means ‘in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.’ But that’s not necessarily so. It could mean in the sixth month of the Jewish calendar, which begins sometime in March or April of our modern calendar. Thus, it might mean in our month of September. This would make sense from the perspective of those living in that time and place, as what we call autumn, which is when we harvest our crops, but in Israel is the time to plant wheat and other grains, which are then harvested before the heat becomes unbearable for such plants.
Gabriel came to Mary, a young girl – young enough, in fact, that there was no question of her physical virginity. It is still customary in many parts of the Middle East to marry off a daughter who has just barely begun to menstruate, thus ensuring that she has never known a man. And it is still customary in many parts of the Middle East that this girl, of about twelve to fourteen, will be married to a full-grown man, who has established himself in business or who holds lands that bear crops and forage plots where their sheep and goats may feed. Once, when I was doing some research, I found a picture of an eight-year-old girl, standing with her husband, who was older than the child’s father. This was considered appropriate as recently as 2000 C.E., when the picture was published in the National Geographic. These marriages are considered by the men as appropriate, as it makes it easier for the husband to raise up his wife to be the kind of woman he wants as a wife.
Was this Mary’s situation? We can’t know. There are always variations in the way people live, even where there are established norms and expectations. But I rather doubt that she was so young, or that Joseph was so old (legendary stories notwithstanding). Mary was surely young, much younger than the average age of twenty, prevalent in our time and place for brides. (And surely, she and Joseph had been promised to each other far before the events that Luke relates, for marriages were often arranged when the intended partners were still children – she, perhaps, as young as three, he more like fifteen, the age at which a young man would be established as an apprentice, or beginning his learning in reading and writing or teaching.
Gabriel, the angel of this story, is the emanation of God – not exactly God, yet not truly separate from God. Think of the three angels that stopped at Abram and Sarai’s tent. They look like human men, yet they speak for God. It is their prophecy that makes them known to the first parents of God’s chosen people. The Hebrew word for angel literally means “broker” – one who carries messages or business deals from God to a human and back again.
For her own part, Sarai laughs at their words, for it is patently ridiculous for her to have her first child at her advanced age. Not only is it clearly impossible for her to conceive, since she’s post-menopausal, but where will she find the strength to give birth, let alone chase an infant around? Her laughter irritates the angels. “Is anything too wonderful for God?” By the next year at that same time, the angel who does the talking says, they will come back, and they will have a son.
This business of angels bringing messages and the recipient of such attention turning down any favors God might be offering or laughing at the ridiculousness of the message is quite common. In fact, wherever we read of a prophet or king being called by God, the usual response of the person is to say, “Oh, no. I have no talent for talking to large crowds.” “Oh, I can’t, I have a handicap that makes me nearly incomprehensible to others (that would be Moses).” Oh, I’ve never had any learning! I trim sycamores for a living and do a little sheepherding on the side.” “I’m too young. No one will listen to me.” The usual response is: “Find someone else.” Or, a flat out “No!”
In Mary’s case, she was clearly confused by Gabriel’s approach. Especially as he greeter her with an odd title: “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”
There was a moment in my early walk with God when I heard a small voice say, “You know, you’re one of my favorite people.”
What kind of a greeting, indeed. “God does not have favorites!” I answered. “We’re all created equal!” But then, God does call only a limited number of people to be shepherds of the flock. And I was called at a time when there were few women in seminary, fewer still serving as pastors (I was in the third group of women to be ordained in my denomination, number nineteen, in fact, in a total of 25 in my conference). The first woman to chair a major board in my conference. Is that what that voice meant? If I’m still uncomfortable with that remark 45 years later, (and I am!) imagine how that greeting made Mary feel.
Gabriel went on: “Don’t be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” As Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof, ‘How about you find some other group to be your chosen ones?” For the life of a chosen person is never easy. God will send the Holy Spirit, and she will conceive without the need for a man. And because of this miraculous conception, “the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” If Mary had been a woman rather than a girl, she would have run for her life. And we haven’t gotten to the part where Joseph thinks to call off their marriage. We have only a glimpse of what it will mean to her mother and father if she is pregnant before the wedding. (Though we must know that this man and this girl, having been promised to each other years before, could be intimate before the ceremony; people would smile slyly at the event, but there was no shame.)
But Mary isn’t entirely innocent. “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” This is where Gabriel says, “Don’t worry about it. God will take care of it all.”
And then, Gabriel gives her a sign. “Your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her was said to be barren.” (See, there, the sixth month?)
That offering of a bit of knowledge Mary could not have had as yet makes up the young woman’s mind. “Alright, then, here I am, God’s servant. Let what God says come true.”
When I think of how few of us have had some clear message from God, how few of us are ever asked to do one specific thing, how many of us have excuses upon excuses for why we cannot do what God wants, this simple statement of trust is nothing short of miraculous!
Perhaps that miraculous assent will spur some of us onward, make a difference in our lives, and change the world. Who will say “Yes,” first?
Christmas is a time of rejoicing. A time to give gifts, to expect a little magic, a time to feast and party. Our secular neighbors do all these things, but they do not pay much attention to the power of the thing we believe God has done on our behalf.
Christmas is the occasion for us to recognize that God humbled himself so that we might not be afraid of him but would be drawn to the ancient relationship of God and humans, where Moses talked to God like a man would with his friend. God gave up all the power inferred in the scriptures and took on our life in the form of an infant, so that his parents had to change his diapers and feed and clothe him. They had to protect this infant from the powers that be, and hide him from their madman ruler, Herod the Great.
Thus, God became known to people in what seemed to be a whole new way. And not known only to the Jewish people, but to us, the goyim, those who are outside that community of blood relationships and tribal society. God came to remind us that we are known to God by name. We are known, and loved, and included in the family of all those who have responded to that same voice that Moses and David and Mary of Nazareth and John the Baptizer heard.
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
David the king meant well. “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” He is clearly aware that he should not be treated better than God. As he sees it, living in an established house with walls is living higher than those living in tents. And since he has had experience both ways, he should know. They didn’t have aluminum stakes and nylon cords to hold up their rip-stop nylon tents, as we do today. The walls of the tents of the deserts, even today, are heavy and hard to put up, and it takes several men to square it up and see to it that the winds will not collapse it.
One night, years ago, I was in a tent we had put up on top of one of the capes of Nova Scotia. It was an idyllic evening, and we had purchased two lobsters from the man who rented us the space and melted butter over the campfire and enjoyed dismembering the shells and feasting while watching the sun set. As we were cleaning up, we noticed that the wind seemed to be rising.
And it did. As we snuggled ourselves into our sleeping bags, the wind began to scream and pounded on our tent. We got up and zipped all the windows closed. As the storm grew, the tent began to breathe, swelling as far as it could and then collapsing the sides. I was terrified but was not about to wake my husband. After all, what could he do to stop the storm? I crawled more deeply into my nice warm bag and repeated to myself, “If the tent collapses, the door is at my feet. If the tent collapses, the door is at my feet,” until I fell asleep. In the morning, all was well, and my husband had made coffee.
“How did you sleep?”
“Reminding myself where the door was, in case the tent collapsed,” I admitted.
“Well, we survived,” he laughed. We had learned that tents breathe in storms, and that you need a sturdy tent and tight lines. That’s life for those who live in tents.
Houses are iffy things in arid areas, too, since there are surely termites nearby. That’s why David’s house was built of cedar. Termites hate cedar. And he wanted the same protection for the ark of the Lord.
But the idea irritated God. “When did I ever ask any of the leaders of the people to build me a house of cedar?” Sounds a bit peeved to me.
The Hebrew word for ‘house’ is Beth (pronounced Bait’). The meaning, however, is wide. It can mean house, it can mean home, or dwelling, or the lineage of the people who have lived in that house. Hebrew is like that – one word with many nuances which become plain only in context; unlike English, where a house must be lived in to be a home.
God makes use of this wide number of meanings. “I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place…. Moreover, [I] will make you a house…. I will raise up your offspring after you, …and I will establish his kingdom…. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever….”
What is going on here, we may ask. Does David feel badly that he has an exalted place, a house rather than a tent? Yes – but more than that. When the Hebrews left Egypt and followed Moses in a nomadic lifestyle, they naturally lived in tents. Tents can be taken down, carried with the tribes, and put up in a new place. Nomadic people usually live in tents for that very reason. And when they came into the Promised Land, the people still lived in tents. But as they settled down, they each wanted a house, something that could not be easily moved, and land for gardens and chickens, and fields for sheep and goats.
There are two points here: we may make temples and cathedrals all we want, but God does not need them. God does not live in that place; God lives in our hearts. Thus, we can always talk to God, wherever we are, because God is always right here -- with us, inside us -- accepting our affection and worship, ready with a word of warning or praise when we need guidance.
It is we humans who want to set aside a place for God to live. That way we can keep God at arm’s length, not intruding into our lives. We furnish our cathedrals with gold or fine woods, with stained-glass glories of windows or plain pieces of glass to let the light in. Some churches are literally covered in pictures -- frescoes and icons -- that portray biblical figures or stories, so that people who cannot read will be reminded of what they have been told about that story.
But the building of a temple, like the building of a house, has a different meaning as well. It says that the people are now settled in the land. They have no need of a tent so they can carry the Ark of the Covenant as they move around. They are building houses for themselves, have built a palace for their king, and with the building of the temple, they feel that they have gained control over God.
So, God says to David, “Your son will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” Solomon the wise built the first temple in Jerusalem. He called for cedar from Lebanon to be the columns that held up the rafters, had them richly painted and accented with gold. And, to replace the simple sacrificial altar which had been natural stone, not shaped or decorated he built a high altar, worthy to hold the sacrifices the people made to the Most High. He called for crimson drapes and purple hangings – the two most expensive dyes in that time and place – to show people God’s beauty. When people came to worship there, they were amazed and awed by the beauty and size of the place.
But Solomon forgot that his grandfather had been a breeder of sheep and his father a shepherd in his youth. He became invested in his power and money. He married many wives, most of them from the families that ruled neighboring city/states. They worshipped other gods, and eventually he put up temples for them to worship those other gods. They worshipped them in holy orgies and their sacrifices even included human beings as their pagan neighbors did. God Almighty, The Most High, Elohim or Yahweh, whichever name people used at different times in the history of Israel, was pushed aside in favor of rituals that God finds repugnant.
The prophets in ancient Judea warned that the people would lose everything; that the temple would be destroyed, and the people carried away into Babylon, if they persisted. But they did not believe the prophets.
When the Jews returned from Babylon, the temple was rebuilt. But the second temple was also destroyed, this time by the Romans, and only the Western Wall of it remains, a place now called the Wailing Wall. A place for people to gather again and pray. Today, people write prayers on slips of paper and slide them into the seams of the wall, still reaching out to the God who promised that David’s house would not die out with the temple.
We all need to know – does God live with us yet, like a shepherd lives with his flock? Did God take on human flesh in the form of Jesus of Nazareth? Was John right to call Jesus “the Good Shepherd?’ What does that title mean?
Romans 16:25-27
This is the final “doxology” (praise hymn) of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. And Romans is the theology of Paul in its final, finished form. It is the work of his life, all bound up in a single scroll, of which he is rather proud (although he would be reluctant to say so). His pride shows in his comment that this is his gospel. Most Christians will be surprised when we tell them this. He has been an apostle, like the twelve who followed Jesus from the beginning, who stuck with him throughout his ministry, even when others left him because he said something so profound that they could not bear it.
Paul has said of his ministry that he has been an apostle since his vision of Christ on the road to Damascus; that he is, as are all the apostles, “a servant of Jesus Christ, … set apart for the gospel of God…” (See Romans 1:1, 1 Cor 1:1, 2 Cor 1:1 and Gal 1:1) He goes even further in Galatians 1:11, where he says, “For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” In other words, although he was not an apostle while Jesus was on the earth, but he received the good news directly from the Resurrected Christ (Jesus) just as the rest of the apostles did.
In today’s passage, the conclusion of his writings, he lays his writing alongside the prophetic writings (the Old Testament prophets, as well as intertestamental prophetic writings) saying that all of these people speak on behalf of God, inspired by the Spirit, at “the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith…”
It is often said that the scriptural writings we accept can be divided between the “Old Testament” as we Christians call the Hebrew Scriptures, and the “New Testament” which is new not in its content, but in its reaching out to those who never called themselves children of Abraham, or Jews. We Gentiles (for so the Jewish authorities designated those of us who came from the ‘pagan’ religions of the Greco Roman world) have a special reason to celebrate Christmas. For we had never been recognized as children of our Heavenly Father by the people who knew they were chosen by God (and still sinned). But in our Christmas celebrations, we include stories and rituals that were never part of the Judaic tradition and rejoice that we no longer live in ignorance of the intention of God to include us in the family for whom Christ came, taking on human flesh so that we might know that God loves us exuberantly, passionately and forever.
Luke 1:26-38
“In the sixth month” is an interesting way to designate when the angel Gabriel was sent by God. It would seem apparent that Luke means ‘in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.’ But that’s not necessarily so. It could mean in the sixth month of the Jewish calendar, which begins sometime in March or April of our modern calendar. Thus, it might mean in our month of September. This would make sense from the perspective of those living in that time and place, as what we call autumn, which is when we harvest our crops, but in Israel is the time to plant wheat and other grains, which are then harvested before the heat becomes unbearable for such plants.
Gabriel came to Mary, a young girl – young enough, in fact, that there was no question of her physical virginity. It is still customary in many parts of the Middle East to marry off a daughter who has just barely begun to menstruate, thus ensuring that she has never known a man. And it is still customary in many parts of the Middle East that this girl, of about twelve to fourteen, will be married to a full-grown man, who has established himself in business or who holds lands that bear crops and forage plots where their sheep and goats may feed. Once, when I was doing some research, I found a picture of an eight-year-old girl, standing with her husband, who was older than the child’s father. This was considered appropriate as recently as 2000 C.E., when the picture was published in the National Geographic. These marriages are considered by the men as appropriate, as it makes it easier for the husband to raise up his wife to be the kind of woman he wants as a wife.
Was this Mary’s situation? We can’t know. There are always variations in the way people live, even where there are established norms and expectations. But I rather doubt that she was so young, or that Joseph was so old (legendary stories notwithstanding). Mary was surely young, much younger than the average age of twenty, prevalent in our time and place for brides. (And surely, she and Joseph had been promised to each other far before the events that Luke relates, for marriages were often arranged when the intended partners were still children – she, perhaps, as young as three, he more like fifteen, the age at which a young man would be established as an apprentice, or beginning his learning in reading and writing or teaching.
Gabriel, the angel of this story, is the emanation of God – not exactly God, yet not truly separate from God. Think of the three angels that stopped at Abram and Sarai’s tent. They look like human men, yet they speak for God. It is their prophecy that makes them known to the first parents of God’s chosen people. The Hebrew word for angel literally means “broker” – one who carries messages or business deals from God to a human and back again.
For her own part, Sarai laughs at their words, for it is patently ridiculous for her to have her first child at her advanced age. Not only is it clearly impossible for her to conceive, since she’s post-menopausal, but where will she find the strength to give birth, let alone chase an infant around? Her laughter irritates the angels. “Is anything too wonderful for God?” By the next year at that same time, the angel who does the talking says, they will come back, and they will have a son.
This business of angels bringing messages and the recipient of such attention turning down any favors God might be offering or laughing at the ridiculousness of the message is quite common. In fact, wherever we read of a prophet or king being called by God, the usual response of the person is to say, “Oh, no. I have no talent for talking to large crowds.” “Oh, I can’t, I have a handicap that makes me nearly incomprehensible to others (that would be Moses).” Oh, I’ve never had any learning! I trim sycamores for a living and do a little sheepherding on the side.” “I’m too young. No one will listen to me.” The usual response is: “Find someone else.” Or, a flat out “No!”
In Mary’s case, she was clearly confused by Gabriel’s approach. Especially as he greeter her with an odd title: “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”
There was a moment in my early walk with God when I heard a small voice say, “You know, you’re one of my favorite people.”
What kind of a greeting, indeed. “God does not have favorites!” I answered. “We’re all created equal!” But then, God does call only a limited number of people to be shepherds of the flock. And I was called at a time when there were few women in seminary, fewer still serving as pastors (I was in the third group of women to be ordained in my denomination, number nineteen, in fact, in a total of 25 in my conference). The first woman to chair a major board in my conference. Is that what that voice meant? If I’m still uncomfortable with that remark 45 years later, (and I am!) imagine how that greeting made Mary feel.
Gabriel went on: “Don’t be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” As Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof, ‘How about you find some other group to be your chosen ones?” For the life of a chosen person is never easy. God will send the Holy Spirit, and she will conceive without the need for a man. And because of this miraculous conception, “the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” If Mary had been a woman rather than a girl, she would have run for her life. And we haven’t gotten to the part where Joseph thinks to call off their marriage. We have only a glimpse of what it will mean to her mother and father if she is pregnant before the wedding. (Though we must know that this man and this girl, having been promised to each other years before, could be intimate before the ceremony; people would smile slyly at the event, but there was no shame.)
But Mary isn’t entirely innocent. “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” This is where Gabriel says, “Don’t worry about it. God will take care of it all.”
And then, Gabriel gives her a sign. “Your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her was said to be barren.” (See, there, the sixth month?)
That offering of a bit of knowledge Mary could not have had as yet makes up the young woman’s mind. “Alright, then, here I am, God’s servant. Let what God says come true.”
When I think of how few of us have had some clear message from God, how few of us are ever asked to do one specific thing, how many of us have excuses upon excuses for why we cannot do what God wants, this simple statement of trust is nothing short of miraculous!
Perhaps that miraculous assent will spur some of us onward, make a difference in our lives, and change the world. Who will say “Yes,” first?
