Sermon on Luke 1.26-38

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews

St. Joseph-St. John Episcopal Church, Lakewood

December 24, 2017

Advent 4, B

Luke 1.26-38

This Advent we have trampolined

            through the gospels.

Jesus told us in Mark

            to keep awake because he would be coming back,

            and it would be the end of the world.

I said we don’t come to church to feel good,

            but to be empowered to change the world.

We come to church because

the world has been changed in Christ’s coming.

Breaking bread and pouring wine

            change the world.

John the Baptizer told us in Mark,

            “Repent!”

I offered us the grace that

            we repent because we can never do enough

                        but we keep trying anyway.

There is grace

            because even though we’ll fail over and over again

            God loves and forgive us

                        and we try to do better next time.

We keep doing the work we’ve been given to do.

We keep breaking bread, pouring wine,

            and trying to change the world.

Last week in John,

            John the Baptizer came to testify to Jesus the Light

                        and to echo Isaiah’s cry,

                                    “Make straight the way of the Lord.”

I told you about a very long text I got

            and why when my preaching involves the outside world,

                        I’m trying to testify to the Light.

Unlike Mark starting with repentance

            or John with the beginning, the Word, and the Light,  

Luke gives us background.

Luke gives us a story.

Luke stirs up our awareness of God’s power

            as God has come among us in the person of Jesus

                        who will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Today in Luke,

            Gabriel tells Mary —

                        a poor girl, likely a teenager,

living in a country controlled by outsiders with a stronger military —

                                    that God has found favor with her

                        and wants her to bear God’s son.

“Hail, Mary! Full of grace!

The Lord is with you!”

I like how the NRSV translates Mary’s reaction:

            being perplexed.

This poor devout Jewish girl

            is shocked at being greeted

1)     by an angel

2)     as favored.

Only when Mary asks

            “How can this be?

How can I mother

the Son of the Most High? …

How can this be, since I’m a virgin?”

Only then does Gabriel tell her

            that the Holy Spirit will come

                        and Jesus, the Son of God,

                                    will be borne of her womb.

That’s when the rubber hits the road.

Throughout Advent

I’ve pointed us toward the necessity

            of our faith impacting the world around us.

I’ve said over and over again

            that breaking bread

and pouring wine

changes the world.

I’m up here to preach the gospel of Jesus the Christ

                        who lived among us as a human,

borne of Mary in all that fleshy, fluid,

            incarnate reality…

Reality changed because of his birth.

After Gabriel explains that that Holy Spirit will come

                        the rubber hits the road when Mary says,

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord;

let it be with me according to your word.”

Here am I, the servant of the Lord;

let it be with me according to your word.

After Mary says yes,    

            says that she will be the mother of Jesus,

God’s anointed, God’s chosen, God’s messiah

            she goes to visit her sister Elizabeth.

Not long after she gets to Elizabeth

            she sings how she envisions

the salvation her to-be-born son will bring.

This poor girl living in an occupied territory

            doesn't envision a military leader

                        coming to over throw the oppressors

with violence or military might.

She expects a messiah who didn’t call a rich Jewish woman

or the wife of a religious leader to be his mother,

            but elevated a poor girl from the sticks.

The savior growing in Mary’s tummy

            lifts up the lowly,

sends the rich away empty

and fills the hungry with good things.

The savior that Mary will nurse

            doesn't change the world

by overthrowing the government with an army.

The savior that causes Mary’s labor pains

            changes the world

by giving up the ultimate power of the divine

            and binding himself with human skin and bones.

Jesus changes the world

            in his ultimate vulnerability:

coming as a child, reliant on someone else.

We’ve been singing a paraphrase of

Mary’s vision, Mary’s prophesy Mary’s song

all advent.

Please reread it  in the silence following the sermon.

My favorite paraphrase of the Magnificat is called

            “The Canticle of the Turning.”

The images of the Mary’s vision

            are punctuated with a refrain

                        sung by a pregnant woman

                                    who will give birth to the savior of creation.

“My heart shall sing of the day you bring,

let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,

            and the world is about to turn.”

The world is about to turn.

We start celebrating the turning tonight.

As we know the world’s turning, the world’s changing

I hope we’ll be brave

enough to be like Mary and say

            “Here am I, the servant of the Lord;

let it be with me according to your word.”

Then break bread,

            pour wine,

                        and change the world.