SCRIPTURE: Luke 1:26-38
TEXT: 28And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” THEME: God favors us to carry the Holy within us. INTRODUCTION Very early on as a preacher, I ran out of things to say about Christmas. There are not too many passages on it and although it is an amazing story of love, God, and incarnation, once you’ve preached an account of the birth of Christ there isn’t much more about it. I tried to be creative, to see some insight that I have might not see before, but my Mom told me what people come to hear, is the Christmas story again. So, don’t try to be creative just preach the same story of Jesus’ birth. Of course, she is right, but…. I cannot help to see new things in this passage, even after 30 years and find different ways of telling the birth story. So, like the willful child, I have another creative perspective for our consideration. SCRIPTURE Mary’s human experience with God, is our story with God. Mary is as sinless as humanly possible. But her favored status is not based on how perfect or sinless she is, because the gift that she bears, is for us too, as imperfect and sinful as we are. As God finds favor with her, God is also finding favor with us. So, for no other reason than God’s loving her, does she (and we) find favor with God. As impossible as that may sound, Mary is carrying the Son of God inside of her. This also is our story too, as what God does for Mary, God also does for us by our being able to carry the Holy Spirit of God inside of us. The angel Gabriel is the messenger who tells Mary that she will become a God Carrier. Jesus is the messenger who tells us that we will become a God Carrier. The Archbishop Desmond Tutu in his interview with Krista Tippett says that we are special to God. He talked about a woman in his parish in South African, her white employer said African names were too difficult and called most of the women employees “Annie”. He exhorted her, “When they ask who are you, you say, Me? I’m a God-carrier. I’m God’s partner, I’m created in the image of God.” The favored greeting of the angel was not just for Mary, but is also for us, “Greetings favored one, you have found favor with God.” Her emotions move from being perplexed and pondering about what sort of greeting this may be, to Fear of having an angel in your living room, to Wonder, of how is this could be possible, to resolve, as whatever this is all about, she will do her best to participate in this movement of God. What does it mean to find favor with God? Mary’s life has a new trajectory. APPLICATION Sermon Brainwave commentator Courtney V. Bragg calls Gabriel’s announcement a Holy Interruption. Mary’s life will never be the same. Finding favor with God gives us cause to Reimagine our future, what is possible, who we are, and what we can be doing. The annunciation is an announcement about our lives. We have also been found to have favor with God. What does finding favor with God mean for us? How is the trajectory of our lives changed? Taking the outline of this passage we can measure our response towards God’s favor of us. Perplexed and Pondering. The God of the universe, who causes the rise and fall of nations, announces to us, that we have found favor with God. From the time of Creation, God has always loved us. Nothing can separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus. As I re-read that passage in Romans a verse of a song began to play in my head. ♫ Amazing Love, How can it be, that thou my God shouldn’t have love for me. ♫ Singing is in our trajectory. Fear. “Phenomenal Comic power in an itty-bitty living space” The thought of housing God in our bodies is fearful. The Holy Spirit in us is just like the Genie in Aladdin, this power was always used to enable the Genie to serve others. The Phenomenal Cosmic Power of the Holy Spirit in us, is for the purpose for us to participate in ministries to help others. We don’t have to be afraid of it, just do good. That nail gets hit a lot as we think about the Wailuku Mission Housing. We are not working on this for ourselves, but we are building this project, being stewards of the gift that God has given us (the 2.8-acre Mission Ground), in the way that God would want it used, for the favor of others. Wonder. How is this possible? Faith, vision, combined with expertise, open minds, adaptations, discernment, humble flexibility, letting God define the project and 30 years’ worth of time. I’m talking about Mary with Jesus here, not the Wailuku Mission Housing. But there are similarities in participating in what seems to be impossible, because we have a sense that this is what God is doing, and God’s call of us to join in. Proof. Elizabeth is the proof that what God is doing now, God has already done a similar thing somewhere else. Just as Edward Bailey holding on as the sole member of this church for 10 years to call Rowland Dodge as its pastor was dynamite, The Soda Booth Concession at the County Fair has been a constant source of answered prayer, the Fixing of the stained-glass windows, the purchase of the New Organ at our 150th, the re-roofing of Sanderson and Ritter Hall and now the Wailuku Mission House are poof of what God has done something similar in the past to shore us up for the future. Resolve. For nothing is impossible with God. Mary moved all of her chips in on her bet on God’s favor. This is a defining moment of her life that will bring hardship, trial, scrutiny, disdain, joy, love, life and salvation. I attended a webinar sponsored by the UCC on “What the New Church Will Look Like” The link was prefaced with this quote, “Churches that love their models more than their mission will die.” Carey Nieuwhof. I signed up right away. The Webinar used what new church starts in the UCC look like, as a lens as to what the churches will look like in the future. There will be far less Brick-and-Mortar buildings and more “churches” that will meet in bars, conference rooms, coffee houses, not every week, and not even on Sundays. Their leaders will not be seminary trained which mean we need to have things like ETCL and PSR’s CTEL programs to provide some kind of training. Otherwise, their thinking and theology will become insulated. They will gather around interests like eating raw foods, yoga or exercise. These are not self-sufficient models of churches. Many of these churches ask for subsidies to support them beyond their members for leadership compensations, rents and materials. This is where, if our Wailuku Mission House takes off, and we find ourselves with more money than we need to support ourselves, Wailuku Union Church may be in coffee houses, bars, conference rooms and diners because of the partnerships and relationships we form with these expressions of the church. Our being favored is moving us into a new future, with a different trajectory. CONCLUSION Something new to consider this Christmas, “What is possible for Mary is possible for us too.” The Favor she has found in God, is the same favor that we experience with Jesus. The indwelling of the Holy conceived in her, is like the indwelling of the Holy Spirit gifted to us at Pentecost. The pattern of perplexed and pondering, fear, wonder, proof and resolve in Mary’s life are the same for us, as we go through these rounds of emotions, stages in contemplation, and find our lives in a new trajectory with God, as God carriers, in our World.
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