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Advent - Mary's Here Am I
Rebecca Clancy
Luke 1:26-38
I was at a holiday gathering last week with a group of women friends I made around the time our children were born. My eldest is now in her thirties, so we have been friends for a good long time. Now that our children are grown, we don’t see each other as much as we did when they were young. In those days we saw each other nearly every day. We needed each other’s company and support during the uniquely taxing business of raising young children. And besides, were interesting to no one except each other. Raising young children, the all important questions have to do with the likes of nursing, naps, teething; and, of course, those tiny little developmental milestones that at the time seem so significant. Who else would find all that interesting except another mother of young children?
There’s been much water over the damn since then. Most of us, at least those of us who did not adopt a second round of children, are now empty-nesters. Some of us have remained at home. Others of us have retooled and rejoined the work force. One of my friends became a pediatrician. It’s no surprise. She is smart and driven, scientifically minded; and she loves children.
When I saw her at the gathering I asked her about the ongoing drama in which she was involved wither receptionist. She hired as her receptionist a woman whose husband had died recently. Having been a wife and mother nearly forty years, she was lonely and aimless and hoped that a job would help her to reconnect to life, would bring her some structure and purpose. She was a very decent person, but did not belong I that position. She talked on and on to patients, and worse, did have a sense of appropriate sense of confidentiality. In this day and age, that can get you into trouble. She drove my friend increasingly up the wall, but big-hearted as he was, she couldn’t bring herself to let her go.
“I finally let her go,” my friend said, “And those were, without question, the hardest words I’ve ever had to say in my life. “I have to let you go.” “Those words wouldn’t be hard for me at all,” said another friend, whom I would describe as self-assertive and driven to control all that is in her sphere of influence. Appropriately, she is a crossing guard. “Anyway, it was for her own good,” she said. “Why treat her like she is exempt from reality and responsibility?” That’s no favor to her overall. The hardest words for me to say,” she said, “are ‘I’m sorry.’ I had to apologize to someone last week, and I’ve vowed never again to be in the wrong so I’ll never have to apologize again.” “Good luck with that,” I said. The conversation then shifted to word that are hard to say. What we came up wit was about what you’d expect, - “I love you.” “You hurt my feelings.” And, above all, ‘No.’”
As the conversation proceeded, I found myself biting my lip. My friends, have, on more than one occasion, on several occasions in fact, informed me that I have the annoying habit of not offering my own opinion, which would probably be annoying enough, but instead offering the biblical witness’ opinion on the subject. “The biblical witness would label that double minded,” I’d say. Or, I’d say, “The biblical witness would take issue with that sort of apathy.” Or, “The biblical witness forbids this kind of idle chatter.” I can’t think why they find it so annoying.
I was itching to offer the biblical witness’ opinion on the hardest words to say, but, as I said, I had been warned that I was annoying. Of course, when people warn us that we are annoying, it doesn’t automatically remove the desire to continue to be annoying. I really wanted to have my say. Suddenly, I thought of a brilliant ploy. Instead of simply offering the biblical witness’ opinion on the subject, I asked a preliminary question. “Are you interested in the biblical witness’ opinion on the subject?" I asked. If they said no, that would certainly not reflect very well on them. They were churchgoers, after all. And if they said yes, I could have my say.
I can boast my ploy was brilliant, of occurs, because I am really only in effect boasting on the Lord. I borrowed the ploy form m. If you recall his exchange with the chief priests and elders, they asked Jesus, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority.?” Jesus said to them, ‘I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? And they argued with one another, ‘If we say from heaven, he will say to us, “Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid do the crowd, for all regard John a prophet.” Thanks to the biblical witness, I had my friends between a rock and a hard place. I finally had my say.
According to the biblical witness, the hardest words to say are, “Here I am.” Here I am – the words with which God’s prophets answered God’s call to witness to him.
“After these things God tested Abraham. God said to him, “Abraham!” And Abraham said, “Here I am!” Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, can came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a us; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consume…God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And Moses said, “Here I am!” “The Lord called, ‘Samuel, Samuel.’ And he said, ‘Here I am!’ “The Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? And Isaiah said, “Here I am!”
But why should these be the hardest words to say? If you think about it, the answer is not long in coming. It is because witnessing to God is terribly difficult work and generally not welcomed by the world. And the words, “Here I am,"represent a kind of reporting for service, represent a kind of front end commitment to witness to God, come what may.
And indeed, it was not easy on the prophets. God called Abraham to leave everything he knew, to go from his country, his kindred, and his father’s house to an unknown land on which would some day exist the nation he would father. And when Abraham at the age of one hundred finally fathered a son, God demanded his sacrifice as a s test that Abraham’s faith was in the God who could do the impossible, and not in Abraham’s own flesh and blood. Abraham passed the test, and God spared his son, but only imagine Abraham’s anguish as he raised that knife to his son’s neck..
Or Moses, a humble man, slow of speech, slow of tongue. God called him to enter the court of the most powerful man in the world and demand the release of his enslaved countrymen; and then to lead them, they who gave no evidence of being God’s people at all, for forty years through the wilderness to the threshold of their Promised Land.
Or Samuel, whom God called to preside over the newly found institution of the kingship, an institution that Samuel had renounced and resisted for all he was worth, and then stand by and watch as the king that God had called him to anoint generated into a madman – jealous, paranoid, murderous.
Or Isaiah, who was called too to prophesy to kings, kings from whose line God had be this time declared the Messiah would come, but who only encountered faithless kings who refuse to listen to the word of God and led the nation to the brink of destruction. Yes, “Here I am” must have been the hardest words to say.
All of this renders nothing less than amazing, nothing less than mind boggling, what we heard in this morning’s gospel lesson. A young woman, little more than a girl really, of no imaginable note – obscure and undistinguished; and probably too, like most of her people, rather poor – was visited by the angel Gabriel who said to her, “’Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He 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. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. May said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The 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 the Son of Man….’ Then Mary said, ‘Here I am.’”
And with those words that young woman, with nothing but her faith, added herself to the company of the great prophets of Israel – absent, of course, any pride or arrogance, absent any self-assertion whatever, and absent too any self-abnegation, any evasion or irresponsibility because of her low and unlikely station, and knowing it had not been easy on those who had responded this – with nothing but her faith, she added herself to the company of the great prophets of Israel.
And it was not easy on her either. In fact, it may have been harder on her than it was on any of them: to be made pregnant our of wedlock, to give birth in a stable in a distant land, to live in obscurity for nearly thirty years, waiting, wondering what was in store for her son, then as her son finally embarked upon his ministry to hear him say and do things that she didn’t anticipate and couldn’t comprehend, and things that caused him to make very dangerous enemies, then to witness her son, her beloved son, tortured to death on a cross. I’d say that young woman proved herself the equal of the great prophets of Israel.
Here I am. Such hard words, and such a hard life that inevitably issued from them. One wonders whether any of them had any regrets about saying them. The biblical witness does not say if they did or not, but I, at least, am certain that they did not. I am certain because that same faith by which they said those hard words – by which they reported for service, by which they made front end commitment to witness to God come what may – makes regret impossible.
For faith does not seek ease or comfort; not does it require outcomes. Faith simply holds fast to God’s promises and makes witness to him. It is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Faith need not receive the promises, because it sees them from a distance and greets them. Faith then banishes regret.
Friends in Christ, God may not have called us to witness to him in such clear and commanding ways. He may not have spoken to us through a burning bushy, or through his angel Gabriel, but he has just as surely called us to witness to him. He was called us through the waters of baptism by which we have received the Holy Spirit. It is now ours to respond, “Here I am,” But the prophets who have gone before us, and we may consider Mary among them, prove that the hardest words we will ever say are too the greatest words we will ever say and live. Amen.
Pharaoh, King of Egypt, enslaved the People of Israel. It was not out, as you might assume, out of cruelty. It was, rather, out of judiciousness. The People of Israel were not Egyptians. They were foreigners. They were the rough equivalent of what we today would call the undocumented. So now as then they were deemed to be threats. Add to this that the People of Israel grew increasingly numerous, as numerous even as the Egyptians themselves. This intensified the threat. In those numbers they could simply take over. Or Egypt’s enemies could induce them to fight for them, as a kind of built in fifth column. Pharaoh, King of Egypt, had to act. And so he enslaved the People of Israel. It was the judicious thing to do. But his judiciousness was not rewarded. In slavery, unpredictably, their numbers only increased. Pharaoh’s patience with the People of Israel grew thin. Judiciousness then crossed over to cruelty. He ordered the Hebrew midwives to murder the infant boys as they delivered them. That would thin their ranks. But the Hebrew midwives refused to do so, and with their refusal, civil disobedience was born. They chose to heed God not man. But Pharaoh King of Egypt was not so easily undone. He ordered his army to search out the infant boys and throw them into the Nile. Thereafter, cruelty no doubt took on a life of its own. Pharaoh King of Egypt rightly ranks with the likes of Caligula, Nero, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. One wonders why it is that so many who rise to power become murderous and maniacal tyrants. The human cost - the suffering and misery and despair and tragedy -- are unimaginable and incalculable. Against this backdrop, a woman from the house of Levi gave birth to a healthy and beautiful infant boy. It would normally be the occasion for celebration and joy, but it was for her the occasion for anguish. When a child is born, a mother’s first instinct is protectiveness. But how could she possibly protect him? She thought desperately at first that she could hide him, and she did so for several months, but that could not go on forever. He could any day be discovered. The lesser of two evils was to abandon him to his fate. So she plastered a reed basket with bitumen and pitch, and she cast her hope upon the water. Low and behold, the daughter of Pharaoh happened upon the basket. She peered into it, beheld the crying infant, and she had compassion. The daughter of Pharaoh has never received the appreciation and respect she deserves. She is, inexplicably, overlooked. What she did was exemplary. Normally when people enslave others, they find justification for it. The enslaved are not deemed the equal of their enslavers. They are deemed subhuman. Slavery, therefore, is a necessity. More than this, it is morally right. That’s what the South advanced in this country, after all. But the daughter of Pharaoh did not fall prey to justification. She had compassion. And she acted upon that compassion. Here is an important reminder. It is not enough to have compassion. To have compassion, or any other altruistic emotion for that matter, does not make you a good person. You must act upon it. If you have compassion and you do not act upon it, that makes you decidedly less than a good person. As Martin Luther King, Jr. famously declared, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And here is something truly astounding. Her act was to adopt him. That was, to say at the least, a courageous thing to do. It certainly would not have put her in good stead with her father. I can just imagine it. “Father, I have a surprise for you. You have a new grandson.” Such an announcement could only have dumbfounded him, but his confusion would have given way to horror as she went on, “I have adopted an infant boy from among your slaves.” If nothing else, we can now set the record straight. We can give Pharaoh’s daughter the appreciation and respect that she deserves. But we can do more than that. As I said, she is exemplary, and so we can follow her example. We can show compassion to those who have cast their hope upon the water. Yes, a mother forced by dire circumstance to give her child up for adoption, hoping that her child will be loved and cherished. But too, one with an atypical identity, hoping to be accepted for who he or she really is. One of a different race, creed, or income level seeking to relocate, hoping not that she will be welcomed, for that would be too high a hope; but hoping she will be at least be tolerated. One who has transgressed, hoping he will be forgiven. One who has something difficult to impart, hoping she will be understood. We can show compassion for those who have cast their hope upon the water. For someone greater, much greater than Pharaoh’s daughter did the same. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!” “My daughter has just died. Come and lay your hand on her, that she may live.” “Even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” “Jesus, come before my son dies.” “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David, for my daughter is tormented by a demon.” “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers terribly.” “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” They cast their hope on him. And he showed compassion for them all. And when we cast our hope on him, he will show compassion for us -- unlimited even by a cross. Amen.
I attended a funeral recently. It was for my high school math teacher. He was one great guy. Everyone loved him. He taught math at my high school for forty years, and he also coached wrestling. By the time he retired, he had become something of a legend in his own time. The funeral was upbeat, not like so many funerals that are so very sad. He lived a full and long life, and we gathered to celebrate that. But for one man – a classmate of mine who wrestled for him. He was absolutely devastated. I approached him in the parking lot after the funeral and asked if he was okay. He broke down. “That man was everything to me,” he said. “I was O.K. so long as he was in the world.” Then he shared his story. His mother died when he was very young. His father was a physically and emotionally abusive alcoholic. By the time he was in high school, he was far down a bad road. He hadn’t the support to do well at school, so he didn’t. He was very angry, so he was a behavior problem. The only friends he could make were kids like himself, so he hung out with a tough crowd. And he had begun to dabble in drugs. He was pretty much a lost cause at the age of sixteen. Enter my math teacher. He approached him one day out of the blue and told him he could tell by his gait that he was born to wrestle. This could only have been a ruse to intervene. Even I, who knows nothing about wrestling, am suspicious that you can identify one born to wrestle by his gait. At any rate, the ruse worked. He intervened. And he made him into a great wrestler. On top of that, he made him into a great young man. His advice, understanding, and support were unwavering. He helped him to deal with his past in such a way that it didn’t destroy him. He filled his present with new found responsibility, purpose, structure, and discipline. And he paved his way to a future. After graduation he went to college on a wrestling scholarship and eventually became a doctor. “I feel so lost,” he concluded his story. “What am I going to do now?” While he was sharing his story, I could not help but think how hard life can be. We here are generally prosperous and privileged, so we can afford to put up a front. But behind that front life can be hard. Because it’s out there -- loss, abuse, addiction, and a host of other afflictions. It’s enough to make you lose your way. And as I said, we here are generally prosperous and privileged. What if the loss, abuse, and addiction are compounded by poverty or racism? Then it’s all but a foregone conclusion. Your way is lost. Yes, life can be hard. Life takes casualties. Lots of them. It can make us feel helpless and overwhelmed. We want to make things better, but what could we possibly do? The answer is no farther away than my late math teacher. What could we possibly do to make things better? We could reach out, like he did. And what is in view here is not merely a good example, although we must never underestimate the power of a good example and must always strive to be one. But there’s more in view than that. It has to do with the Bible. The Bible may seem like a forbidding book. For one thing it’s thousands of pages long. It makes War and Peace look like a short story. For another thing, it’s unimaginably ancient. The Bible’s story begins 2,000 years before the Common Era. I just read that a sizable portion of millennials don’t know what the Holocaust was. To them that’s ancient history - a mere 75 years back. The Bible is more than 4,000 years back. That’s unimaginably ancient. For yet another thing, it traffics in extremely complicated and sophisticated theology, plumbing in its unfolding the depths of such mysteries as our nature, the predicament that our nature has landed us in, and the means of our redemption. And it does so all the while purging itself of false starts or conclusions. So it may seem forbidding. But at the same time, ironically, the Bible lends itself to succinct summaries. Here’s one: God lives. Here’s another: Good triumphs over evil. And another: Love triumphs over fear. And another: Practice universal justice. And another: Love one another. And here’s one that’s right on point: Reach out. The Bible can be summarized in just two words. Reach out. Think about it. That’s what God did. God reached out. God reached out to Abraham and told him that from him would one day issue a nation, and not just any nation, but a nation that would somehow bless all the nations by bestowing upon them redemption. God reached out to Moses and bequeathed him an ethical law so that God’s people could bear his righteousness. God reached out to David and told him that from his descendants would emerge one who would embody that redemption. And that one in the fullness of time emerged. God reach out to his son. He told him that if he would make a great sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice, it would be the means for all people to reach out to one another. In a real way. A way that advanced God’s own being and cause. And his son made that sacrifice. And in his brief ministry that preceded that sacrifice, he reached out to everyone. And I mean everyone. Lepers. Prostitutes. Beggars. Even a bitter little man perched up in a sycamore tree. So reaching out is not just a good example. It is nothing less the mechanism that God that employs to bestow redemption. Yes, life can be hard. Paul knew this. “We would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” But Paul goes on. “So we must make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.” And this means reaching out. “I feel so lost now. What am I going to do?” asked my grieving classmate. I told him that his coach had already showed him what to do. I told him to reach out. Amen.
Jesus was always one to bring the party. All he had to do was show up, and lots of others showed up too -- eager for engagement, eager for excitement, eager for something new. It was little wonder. Here at last was someone who had something to say. Something different. Something provocative. Something truthful. Jesus had a way of uttering truths that had never been uttered before, but at the same time, were strangely recognizable. And it was happening once again. Once again, Jesus had brought the party. He showed up at the house of Mary and Martha, and suddenly the place was filled with men who immediately took their place at his feet. This gesture was an indicator that they were ready and willing disciples. They wanted him to teach them. And so he began to teach. That was Martha’s cue. She sprang into action. After Jesus’ teaching, it would be fellowship hour, and as we all know, fellowship hour is predicated upon food. And in ancient times, you couldn’t rely on your reserves from Costco. Feeding a room full of men was labor intensive. Animals had to be slaughtered and dressed. Bread had to be baked. Water had to hauled. Martha went directly to work, expecting Mary to fall in place behind her. But what did Mary do? She went and sat at Jesus’ feet with the men -- shirking her role, defying expectations, and leaving Martha to shoulder the burden alone. I can imagine Martha’s frustration. I can imagine her passive aggressive attempts to get Mary back in the kitchen. Staring daggers at her from the threshold. Uttering loud sighs as indicators of her strain. Dropping pottery on the floor to startle Mary to awareness. But Mary took no notice. None whatsoever. Martha should have counted to ten. How much strife could be averted if we could all just remember to count to ten, or perhaps twenty. Martha for her part shot like a rocket from outrage to outburst. “I’m doing all the work in here Jesus, while Mary has yet to raise a finger. It’s hardly fair. And have you even noticed? Do you even care?” And there was doubtless more to it than the fact that Martha had to provide all the hospitality on her own. There too was the fact of what Mary was doing. She not day dreaming or singing idly out the window. She was sitting at Jesus’ feet. She was in there with the men. Martha was doubtless chagrined and embarrassed that Mary did not know her place. It certainly did not reflect well on the family. But Jesus did not vindicate Martha. Jesus chastised her, “Martha, Martha,” (and when someone says your name twice, wait for some kind of a correction to follow) “Why are you so distracted and stressed and scattered? Let it go. Mary’s right where she should be.” We’re left to wonder how Martha felt at that point. I bet she wasn’t happy. She simply didn’t get it or she would not have reacted that way in the first place. Now normally this text is interpreted as a caution against busyness. Martha with all her busyness is a prototype that we should avoid. Not that productivity is a bad thing. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop after all. But there’s a certain kind of busyness that’s not good. It’s when we become enmeshed with worldly or personal concerns and address them with obsessive application – application that mixes with pride, competition, insecurity. It becomes a kind of self-perpetuating force. And it causes us to lose all perspective. It causes us to become disoriented. We forget that we’re supposed to be at Jesus’ feet – his disciples, listening to him. And this is a fair enough interpretation, but I think there’s something else here. An elephant in the living room. Mary was right where she should be. She was at Jesus’ feet, his disciple, listening to him. But Mary was, obviously, a woman. Women did not seat themselves at the feet of rabbis. Women were not disciples. All they needed to know was taught to them by their mothers. Women did not sit side by side with men learning. It was unheard of. It was forbidden. And yet Jesus told Martha that Mary was right where she should be. Her place was with the men. Really Jesus? A woman’s place is with the men? Really Jesus? In first century Judaism? Jesus was a revolutionary and a radical, and don’t ever forget it. All down through history and even to this day there has an unspoken and inviolable code. It could be expressed as a variant of a line from the wedding ceremony. What society has divided, let no one unite. And Jesus was saying the polar opposite. A women’s place is with the men. Think about what this means by extension. Women, your place is with the men. Men, your place is with the women. Whites, your place is with blacks. Blacks your place is with whites. The wealthy, your place is with the poor, and the poor, your place is with the wealthy. The powerful, your place is with the powerless. The powerless, your place is with the powerful. The old, your place is with the young. The young, your place is with the old. Jesus was smashing down all dividing walls. His disciples are to be completely and utterly integrated. This is simply too radical, simply too revolutionary. But that’s who Jesus was. This is why he brought the party. It’s because he spoke God’s truth. Disciples are to be completely and utterly integrated, and this in service to humankind that is to be completely and utterly integrated. That all should be one. But this is so radical and revolutionary that it is very seldom approximated. It’s too hard. But is it really? Is it really that hard to forge the way? Is it really that hard to reach out? Is it really that hard to cross the aisle? To be vulnerable? To be risky? To be open? To be accepting? To be understanding? One thing’s for sure. It’s a lot easier than hanging on a cross in faith it could be so. Amen.
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