In his book, The Sacred Journey, Frederick Buechner shares his story. He writes, “It seemed to me then, and it seems to me still, that if God speaks to us at all in this world, if God speaks anywhere, it is into our personal lives that he speaks. God speaks into and out of the thick of our days. My assumption is that the story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all.”
That, my friends, is an exciting proposition. Consider the story of the messenger of God speaking to the personal life of young Mary, speaking a magnificent word into and out of the thick of her days. If Mary’s story is our story, then the message Gabriel brings to her, the annunciation of Jesus’ birth, is also being spoken to us.
Gabriel announces, “You will name him Jesus, Son of the most high, the throne of his ancestor David, holy, Son of God!”
God speaks into the thick or out of the thick of our lives, and that is good news for us to hear. I’m far from being a Gabriel, but hear this word from the Lord: “Nothing will be impossible with God” (1:37) Hear Mary celebrate, “The lowly will be lifted up!” (1:52).
The birth stories of John the Baptist and Jesus tell this story. You remember John’s story; his parents were old and his mother was barren. Like the story of Sarah and Abraham, the lowly Zechariah and Elizabeth are lifted up. This is the story Luke shares through the whole sweep of Luke and Acts where we find an “orderly account” of impossible things.
- The healing of the sick
- The resurrection of Jesus
- The gift of the Holy Spirit
- The formation of the faith community
- The release of captive apostles
The life of faith is the story of impossible things becoming possible.
In Pat Conroy’s My Losing Season, he writes:
The important thing was to be alive in the moment, open to every possibility
and configuration, and make that moment yours only, again and again.
I needed to open myself to all the possibilities around
me, to hold nothing back, to live in the moment at hand with my art
and my game on the line. (pp. 134-135)
Listen! Hear Gabriel’s greeting to Mary as if spoken to you, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Be assured with her. “Now you have found favor with God.” Favored one (charisomai). Found favor (charis), which could be equally translated as “grace”. “You have found grace with God.” Mary is the object of God’s grace and love. I appreciate J.B. Phillips' tender interpretation of this conversation between Gabriel and Mary.
“Greetings to you, Mary, O favored one!---the Lord be with you.”
Mary was deeply perturbed at these words and wondered what such a greeting could possibly mean. But the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary; God loves you dearly
Greetings, O favored ones, the Lord be with you. We, too, are the objects of God’s grace and love. That is unless we too easily disqualify ourselves and prefer to think that she was favored because she was in some way a more appropriate object of God’s grace. Startlingly, nothing in the text provides even a hint in that direction. Luke identifies her simply as a young girl who was engaged to be married. More is said about Joseph being from the house of David and about Zechariah and Elizabeth. Luke describes them as being “righteous and blameless,” The Gospel lesson tells us that they kept God’s commandments and prayed to God (1: 6-7, 13). Not a single word is uttered about Mary’s virtues; nothing at all about why God has chosen her.
That’s the point. God chooses because God chooses (Bruggemann). Mary doesn’t earn or deserve the honor of being the mother of Jesus any more than any other. The extraordinary thing about Mary is precisely her ordinariness. Mary is a member of the priesthood of all believers. grace. The biblical story is not one of the just being rewarded and the unjust punished but of the relentless unmerited nature of God’s grace.
G. K. Chesterton spoke of the “sacred intoxication of existence” because of this grace (p 121, Buechner). He wrote,
“You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the play even open
and grace before the concert and the pantomime
and grace before I open a book
and grace before sketching, painting
swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing:
and grace before I dip the pen in the ink”. (p 119)
The grace of God at work in Mary’s life is the same grace at work in our lives. Mary holds nothing back and identifies herself as the servant of the Lord, the doulos, “slave of the Lord.” She understands that her service is God’s plan not hers alone. She will not be the Lord’s servant so that she might earn or find God’s favor. Because she has found favor, she is open to every possibility and configuration. She affirms God’s plan and says, “Let it be with me according to your word.”
I just imagine this is something of what my friend, Billy Crockett, was meaning when he said, “You work a long time, and every now and then, you wish they’d catch you unaware of yourself.”
May God’s spirit come to us and touch us until we each respond, “Let it be with me according to your word, according to your love.”
What will be our response to God’s desire to bring love to us and to share love through us? Is it improbable that God would find favor with us? No one is so low that God’s grace will not lift them up! Be open in this moment to God’s plan and say, “Let it be with me just as you say!!” Mary gives herself wholeheartedly!
We are integrally included in the love and work of God. Today is the day of salvation: Our time is now.
I can’t help but think of the many times along my faith journey in congregational life that I have heard the words, “Now is not the time!” If not now, tell me when!?”
Our new church start began with non-sexist language in the bylaws regarding deacon and ministry, but every time we prepared to ordain new deacons or call women to serve, someone would caution us, “Now is not the time.” One day we determined now is the time to do what we feel God is leading us to do.
In April 1963, writing from the Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King wrote a letter to his fellow clergy who had called his actions and activities “unwise” and “untimely”. He said their concern sounded like that of a white brother in Texas who wrote, “All Christians know that colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.” Then King responded, “We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to move from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.” It is always the right time to choose to act on God’s grace.
The time is ripe. God chooses to grace us all. Good tidings, favored ones, the Lord is with you. For you have found favor with God.
“Who me? I’m too lowly.” Remember, nothing is impossible with God!
Let us pray: May grace keep choosing us, the lowly, to do love!