JOINING GOD IN THE IMPOSSIBLE!

(Preached on Sunday, December 18, 2005)

“For nothing will be impossible with God.”  Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  Then the angel departed from her.                                                   -Luke 1:37-38

 

Angels are rather pushy creatures.  They burst into human lives and make their pronouncements, present their messages, and then are gone.

Gabriel is not really consulting with Mary, is not really asking her if she wants to be involved.  No, Gabriel just appears and announces, telling her what God is doing through her. That’s the way angels work because that’s the way God works.  God initiates, and expects us to join in.  When God called Abraham to leave his homeland it was not so much an invitation as command.  When God called Moses from that burning bush there were not too many “pretty pleases” offered.

It was not a polite request the call to Esther to save her people from extermination.  When God calls, the plan is already formulated, and God is only looking for partners to carry it out.

 

Of course, we human beings, still have a decision to make.

We still have a choice.  We can say yes or no.

At least we think we do and we behave as though we do.

And Mary’s initial response to the angel’s news is just that, so marvelously human.  Gabriel has told her that she will have a son, but not just any son.  No, this will be “the Son of the Most High,” suggesting his divinity.  Her son will sit on the throne of David, who has been dead for a thousand years and whose throne must have seemed like a long-ago memory to a conquered and occupied people.

He will rule over Judah, which at the time was just one province belonging to the vast Roman Empire; and his kingdom will never end, which must have sounded like pie in the sky given that the Jews’ latest experience of independence (the Maccabean revolt and Hasmonean dynasty) lasted little more than a century.

It is a fabulous picture, full of broad strokes and big promises. 

Yet Mary’s concern rewinds all the way back to the most tiny and initial matter: “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

 

How often do we doubt the big thing God might do because of some little fact about ourselves, about our condition, about our limitations?

That was surely Moses’ objection at the burning bush, as well as Isaiah’s hesitation in the temple, and Jeremiah when he was called as a youth.  And so we scratch around for an objection, or we raise a meaningless question, or we just try to ignore the beckoning, dropping our eyes and refusing to look up until we know the angel has left the room.  Then we smooth our hair and go back to our spinning, or reading, or whatever it was we were doing, and we pretend that nothing has happened.  But we forget, this choice is never a real choice, for the action is always God’s choice, God’s activity in the world, and when we do get that rare glimpse behind the curtain to see and understand what it happening in our lives and in the world, it is always a revelation, whether we like it or not.

The preposterousness of Mary’s question, of course, can be found in hypothetically changing her condition.

Would the plan of God articulated by the angel suddenly become so much more plausible if Mary were not a virgin?

Would it be so very much easier to believe that she would give birth to the Son of the Most High, who would resurrect David’s throne and reign over Judah forever, if only she had had sexual intercourse?

 

Of course not.

For the true mystery, the truly astonishing idea, is that God would choose to become present in the world through a human being.

Not an agent or servant of the divine will, but a human who in himself would be God’s offspring.  Yet God does not choose to put this holy child on the next cloud bound for earth and land him in the midst of the Jewish people.  No, this holy one is conceived in a woman’s womb.  There the fetus grows and matures until, after the usual nine months, the holy once comes forth as any human infant does. 

However the conception occurs, it produces the natural results expected in any pregnancy.  Because, wonder of wonders, this child, fully human, is fully manifesting the presence of God in human flesh.

And yes, that seems totally impossible!

 

But this is the God of the impossible.

This is the God for whom nothing is impossible.

Is it any more possible to actually imagine the Creator and Ruler of all the Universe would actually take time out to tap one little Semitic man, Abraham, already nearly withered up and beyond the season of parenthood to begin a journey of faith, a relationship with God, and become the Father of a people, the Jews, through whom God had decided to bless all the earth? 

Is it any more possible to actually imagine this God to continue working through these Jews, saving them from slavery in Egypt; traveling with them through the Sinai desert for 40 years; forming them, over 300 years, into a nation that slowly conquers a rocky land and builds a culture and a faith; remains faithful to this people even when they prove faithless; does not abandon them even when they are taken into exile in a distant land; or when their land is overrun and eventually destroyed by mighty empires; and still watches over them and walks with them through two thousand years of dispersion throughout the earth so that they maintain their identity even without a homeland?

Is it any more possible to actually imagine this God caring enough about a Jewish peasant who walked the land teaching about God’s love and care for all people, especially those the world usually ignored, the poor, the widows and orphans, the outcasts, the sick, the prisoners, the blind and lame, so that God does not abandon him even when all his friends and followers do, even when his religion fails him, even when the state hammers him to death; but God affirms his life and his teaching and does not leave him to death?

Is it any more possible to believe that this God would care to inspire that peasant’s followers with Spirit power so that they could continue to spread that message throughout the known world, even though most of the world did not care?

Is it any more possible to believe that this God would care enough about a small group of people that over the years seem to bicker among themselves, constantly looking for something to take issue with so that someone is always looking to leave in a snit, even though they have been blessed with a beautiful garden setting for their common life, yet somehow God desires their witness to continue as a place of welcome and safety where all manner of hurting, searching and confused people can find refuge, even if only for a short while?

 

For me, what is most amazing is that God would choose a young man who never quite felt at home with his family; who always felt like an outsider at home and at school; who never quite felt that he measured up or was really part of the group; who never desired the spotlight; who also knew too well his own weaknesses and rebelliousness, for alcohol, sexual pleasures, and always thinking he was right.  Yet God wanted that young man in seminary, in the ministry, to work through him to build communities of acceptance and welcome where anyone and everyone can feel at home and part of the group.  I would never have chosen this life for myself and most of my friends from high school will tell you they were as shocked as I was that God tapped me for this life.  But the truth is, as my life unfolded, and as I have been able to say “Here am I, the servant of the Lord.  Let it be with me according to your word.” that is exactly what God has done.  And I know that I have been in exactly the right place.

 

Deciding to say “yes” to God’s call in one’s life is never easy.

It was not easy for Mary, and it carried great risk for her.

It always carries great risk for us, too.

It always seems impossible.