December 18 -- Jesus' Birth Announced

A young girl, maybe 14 or 15 years old.  Living in poverty.  Some have speculated, but we really don’t know anything about her family or her background.  Luke was writing this story down some 70 years later.  All we know is that she was young and poor…and her name was Mary.

Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t include this episode that we read today.  Matthew’s Gospel is really all about Joseph and his fears.  Mary is really more seen in Matthew’s Gospel almost as a virus, that could get Joseph infected with shame in his community, for she was with child, and it wasn’t his.  The angel there, talks Joseph down.  Calms him down.

But today we’re back into the Gospel of Luke.  It’s been a while.  A year of Matthew, a year of Mark...and all through the fall we’ve been in the Old Testament, even into this Advent season...but here at last in Luke (where we’ll be until Pentecost)!  And here in Luke, the angel is lifting the woman up.  “Mary, blessed are you, favored are you,” the angel says, lifting up a member of society who is a nobody.  Lifting her up by announcing God’s coming-down.  And this is the real miracle of this season: that God is choosing to dwell in a fleshy, earthy way (not just in a spiritual way), God is choosing to dwell with the poor.  Major theme in Luke (and a foretaste of powerful stories from Luke to come).

Let me put this in different terms, because I think we can either forget or romanticize what Mary’s poverty means at this time of year (where we try to keep it lavish, where there seems to be abundance everywhere, where it appears there is happiness all around in this “most wonderful time of the year”):  God is choosing to dwell with the marginalized -- the sick, the mentally unstable, the drug-addicted, the jobless, the hopeless, the immigrant, the stranger, the refugee, the rejected, the ridiculed, the voiceless…the totally forgotten.  I’m afraid we tend to think of Mary more as a porcelain white immobile doll, a cute, little Precious Moments figurine, rather than a brown-skinned immigrant girl working in a clothing factory, scratching her head constantly with lice, endlessly coughing because of the chemicals and bacteria she’s got in her lungs...and can’t afford to see a doctor.  We can’t and mustn’t romanticize or spiritualize poverty, the poverty of Mary or anyone.  The Gospel of Luke doesn’t.

But who wants “that” in their nativity scene holding the baby Jesus?  God does.

That’s the wonder and the hope and the love of God in this 4th Sunday of Advent lesson.  God’s care for this world is so great, that God chooses a poor, itchy, coughing teenager.  (Sometimes I want to throw out all my nativity scenes, and the nativity scenes that are shaping the imaginations of my children, and replace them with sets of dark-skinned outcasts and immigrants, exiles and rejects—all poor, like Mary.)

And we know what’s about to happen to Mary:  flash forward about 9 months and she’s about to do what all pregnant women love to do in their 3rd trimester:  walk 35 miles only to find there’s no vacancy at any resorts or hotels.  Even the Motel 6 did’t leave the light on for her.  35 miles—that journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem!  That’s like walking from here to the Wild Animal Park in Escondido.  Same kind of terrain too…but no cars and no Starbucks at every corner…for this no-name, no-status, nobody.  She was only a number, to be counted by the Empire, along with all the rest.

She was a nobody to this world; but to God, she was Mary, blessed and favored.
Watch for Christ to come from below, sisters and brothers, watch for Christ in the least of these, not in the greatest.  And when Christ peaks out from amongst the poor and the hurting in our lives and in our world, then together let us bear witness to that tiny Christ.

When we put ourselves into the story -- which we always must do with Scripture -- sometimes we’re the angel, bearing witness, announcing Christ among the least of these.

This final week of Advent and into this upcoming Christmas season, may we joyfully bear witness to Christ for a world that too often has not heard this Good News—that God is incarnate with pain and poverty, with grief and grasping, with desecration and destruction, with loneliness and loss.  Sometimes you are the angel, announcing, pointing, bearing witness to God even in the horrible places -- blessing young women with good news, feeding the poor, lifting up the lowly.  Sometimes you are the angel.

And, friends, if you are hurting in any way -- broken by tragedy, addiction, loneliness, or despair -- then you are Mary.  Sometimes we’re the angel in the story, blessing and lifting up others, and sometimes we’re Mary:  impoverished, overlooked, grief-stricken or even outcast ourselves.

Here’s where this all hits home:  God is not just stooping down from on high, with a pat on our poor, little heads and a kind word: “Ah, you poor little thing.”  No, God is growing inside the “poor little thing.”  Blessed are you, favored are you, God says.

“Our God becomes small,”  Martin Luther boldly proclaimed, amid a church and a state that had made God into a grand, glorious, golden idol.

You are Mary, through Christ’s death and resurrection, through the Holy Spirit’s infusion in your baptism and this Holy Meal.  You are Mary, both women and men – pregnant with the divine to share with a world in need.

(Bishop Andy was Mary for us this week, preaching the Gospel on Wednesday after his friend had suddenly died on Monday -- deep in his own grief and anger and despair, and sharing that honestly with us and preaching about a loving, present, promising, life-giving God at the very same time.)

What’s amazing is that Mary is not just a poor beggar with her hands out to receive, like us at the communion rail.  Mary, through that divine benevolence, becomes the powerful voice for the voiceless, the marginalized, the suffering.  Singing God’s praise in the midst of suffering and pain.  She becomes the witness to God’s mercy and goodness.  “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, who has lifted up the lowly!” she sings.

You are Mary too, sisters and brothers bearing Christ, lifted this day by a God whose name is love.  Named.  Marked.  Overshadowed by the grace of the Creator of the stars of night.  You are Mary, hurting, and yet filled with hope and praises to share.  You are Mary, forgiven and freed.  Opened once again, open and filled with the radical voice of God, who comes to be among us in mysterious ways.  You are Mary, pregnant with God, who is there deep in your pain, and at the same time at the center of your joy.  You are pregnant with God, through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  You are Mary too.  So hear the angels words: “Do not be afraid.”  AMEN.



Lighting the 4th candle on the Advent wreath

We praise you, O God,
for this wheel of time
that marks our days of preparation for Christ’s advent.
As we light the candles
on this wreath,
open our eyes to see
your presence in the lowly ones of this earth.
Enlighten us with your grace,
that we may sing of your advent among us
in the Word made flesh.
Grant this through
Christ our Lord,
whose coming is certain and whose day draws near.  Amen.