Then came the kids. And suddenly yes becomes foolhardy, especially around things like playing near power outlets, beating up your kid sister, jumping off of roofs, and strapping rockets to your back to try to fly. Just for starters. And like in many families, Mom ends up being the Mean Baddy while Dad too often opts for “Fun Daddy.”
I don’t want to spoil the movie. Let’s just say that the family bonds through the experience, even when things go wrong. There are some challenges, and in the end the kids learn that sometimes yes comes from a place of love, and no comes from a place of love.
But it got me thinking. We live in a strange time—one in which we supposedly have a plethora of choices, but in which we feel ever more powerless to change the most important things about our lives. We have fifty-seven different kinds of laundry detergent, but if we want to have better roads without potholes or cleaner water or our children to be able to go to school and feel safe, we are often told it can’t be done.
We DO live in a time when “No” too often takes precedence over “yes.” Too often cynicism takes precedence over hope. We are told we are powerless, we are told to hate anyone different from us, we are told to look out for ourselves no matter how much that might hurt others. Too often, “no” is a substitute for not having to try, for not challenging ourselves, for not having faith in ourselves and each other and our collective power if we work together.
Our Gospel today opens with the Archangel Gabriel appearing in Galilee to a virgin named Mary. This scene is beautifully depicted in numerous pieces of art throughout the centuries, and they all usually share certain images and symbols. There’s a lily, symbol of purity somewhere near the young woman. She is often shown with a book of devotions or of Isaiah’s prophecies. The Holy Spirit, depicted as a dove, hovers just above them on the edge of the picture, awaiting the young woman’s answer, waiting for welcome. It’s a beautiful and imaginative depiction of the ways that Mary has inspired artists, poets, and musicians for centuries.
In reality, Luke’s gospel makes it clear that Mary is not a person of high position—far from it. She is a teenaged peasant girl in an obscure, dusty corner of a mighty empire. She is a person that in every way is hemmed in by “no.” She has no power, no position, no wealth. Her marriage to Joseph has probably been arranged by her parents and his parents. Everything she has ever done has been without her consent. She is a young woman in an occupied country under the thumb of a despotic empire. No one takes any account of her.
Yet suddenly one day, an angel of God appears before her and treats her like-- somebody. Gabriel greets her as “O favored one,” and says that the Lord is with her. When Mary was declared to be God’s “favored one” one wonders if she did not have to fight off the urge to look behind her to see if the angel was talking to someone else.
In the face of this messenger from God, she’s not afraid, but rather is perplexed and puzzled. Prophecies are then made about the child she is going to have, with even more amazing titles being used to describe the child. Mary responds, “How can this be?” and Gabriel explains to her the miraculous things in store for her.
She could have run. Heck, she SHOULD have run. But instead, the beginning of our clue that she is tougher than she appears begins right here.
She considers. And she says yes.
This is an important point. Mary agrees to bear this child of God of her own volition. Mary had the freedom to say “No,” but the courage and the faith to say “Yes.”
Mary had the freedom to say “No,” but models for us the courage and the faith to say “Yes.”
And her yes has consequences that she herself witnesses—she is the only person in scripture to be present at Jesus’s birth, obviously, as well as at his crucifixion (John 19:25), and on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 1:15). In her Magnificat we hear her thunder with a prophetic voice a very specific vision of the justice and economy of God’s kingdom—a vision that undoubtedly resonates with the message her son himself will embody.
God’s call to Mary is an invitation, not a command. It seems impossible. And yet, “Nothing is impossible with God” Gabriel reminds her—and us. As crazy as this all sounds, Mary ponders… and says “Yes,” even though her entire world will be changed in unimaginable ways. In giving her assent, with faith, hope, and heart, Mary is one of the most astounding examples of human free will joyfully and humbly collaborating with God.
What would it be like if WE decided to say yes to God? Because saying yes to God may be the only thing that will ever change the world for the better. Saying no sure doesn’t seem to have worked, you know? God doesn’t call us to sit on the sidelines. God calls us to believe—to believe in God, and more immediately to believe in each other—in the power of good in the face of evil. What if we said yes to acting in the power of love, to allow that power to change and empower us, even when it is risky. Maybe especially if it is risky.
Can we share in Mary’s courage and faith? Can we say yes to God, and allow God to work through us to transform us each and every day, and therefore to transform and restore the world?
Can we say yes to bearing Jesus within our very selves, to making ourselves a home in which Christ can dwell? Can we say yes to acting as Christ’s hands and feet into the world in ways great and small?
Can we say yes to Christ’s enduring gifts to us- faith, hope, and charity- and receive them abundantly?
Can we say yes to testifying to who Jesus is in our lives, to the thousand ways he is present to us and alive in us today, in faces both beloved and unknown to us?
Can we say yes, and let that yes change us?
To remember that in working with us and through us, Christ’s healing power helps gather up the shattered places within ourselves and repairs them so that we can have new life and hope, living lives of purpose and meaning far beyond our imaginations?
To remember that God became human so that humans could know and embody the healing love of the Holy One of God?
God became human so that humans could know and ourselves embody the healing love of the Holy One of God.
Even now, at this moment before Christmas comes, God invites us to carry Christ out into the world, every day. Mary is a model to all of us who seek to follow in the Way of Jesus. Her story reminds us that we all have the choice as to whether we will bear Christ into the world—or not.
It's important to remember that the full name for Christmas Day is “The Feast of the Incarnation.” This is the season we remember that God became human and lived among us. That’s what Incarnation means. with all its rich meaning for us in the holy way we are called to live our lives is why I hope you make a point of worshiping at either the 505 on Saturday or on Sunday at 10:30. The gospel text for Advent 4 contains one of the most awe-inspiring encounters in the gospels: the Annunciation of Gabriel to Mary, followed by Mary’s stirring song of faith and praise known as the Magnificat. It’s fitting that the season of Advent this year reminds us that Jesus, as revolutionary as he was, was his mother’s son. As God in human flesh, Jesus came by his faithfulness, and his boldness naturally.
Why is this important? Because, as Jesus reminds us repeatedly throughout the gospels, Jesus does not come to live among us solely to be worshipped, but rather, and more importantly to be the exemplar of how we are called to live and act. Jesus lives among us as fully human and fully God to open to each of us the way to live a God-centered life. And God is alongside us, to help us, as we affirm in our baptismal covenant’s promises.
The Incarnation reminds us: We are not called to be spectators. We are called to be participants in God’s divine plan for human flourishing. That’s true worship—a way of living that changes the world, with God’s help.
That’s why Mary is asked, rather than commanded, to participate in her role as the Mother of God. Her own Magnificat is a full-throated celebration of how she sees God’s dream for the human family, and how her participation is a blessing. This is why it is so useful to pray the O Antiphons in the week leading up to Christmas Eve, by the way.
The Incarnation is the counterpoint to the death-dealing systems that spring forth whenever humanity forgets that it is called into partnership with God, starting from being made in the image of God and through the yearly celebration of God coming to live among us as one of us so that we may be inspired to join in God’s saving work on earth.
Mary’s courage can be our own. This year, may we all live so that our souls proclaim the greatness of the Lord, and our spirits rejoice in God, our Savior, who has looked with favor on us, his lowly servants. May we say "Yes" to God, and be blessed.
Amen.
Readings:
Preached at the 505 on December 23 and the 10:30 am Holy Eucharist on December 24 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.
