December 18, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
2 Samuel 7:1-5,8-11,16 + Romans 16:2-27 + Luke 1:26-38
He was just a boy actually. The youngest with many siblings ahead of him. There was not much chance he would amount to anything. Being last in line, he did the job no one else wanted to do: tend the sheep. When the prophet came looking for the next king, the boy’s father did not even think of him. Only after parading all his sons in their finery boasting of their accomplishments and having them dismissed by the prophet did the father think of him out in the field.
She was just a young girl. She lived in Nazareth. People used to ask: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” She was a woman in a man’s world. She knew nothing of freedom or choice. Her life was set at the moment of her birth. She was told where to live and with whom, traded probably for some livestock, or maybe some lumber or furniture in a land at the edge of desert without trees. Their ancestral home was Bethlehem – the least and most insignificant of places.
David and Mary stand before us on Advent’s fourth Sunday this year. They are very much the same: unlikely candidates for anything great or significant. Yet, these are exactly the kind of people God seems to choose. Again and again, the biblical stories point to God’s preference for the simple, the humble, and the powerless. It is in the end, how God will ultimately and finally even reveal himself: simply, humbly, and as powerless as an infant.
Only those like David and Mary would find the message of the angel the least bit interesting or hopeful. “Nothing is impossible with God.” Those who believe they can do anything they want, who believe that if they can just make enough money or get the right job they can accomplish anything would find the message of the angel naïve and silly.
“So what? they think. “When I make enough money, nothing will be impossible for me either.” We are in the middle of a generation of children who think this way
and believe it to be true.
We cannot hear the message of this gospel much less embrace its truth when we live in a “me first” culture. David and Mary were not “first”, and no one in their time would have considered them “winners” or likely candidates for greatness. Yet once they opened themselves to God, allowed the Providence of God to lead them, the testaments of scripture find no one greater. David towers above all the figures of the Old Testament, and against him everyone else is measured. Even in the New Testament, his name is mentioned more times than any other Old Testament figure. Mary is the ultimate disciple, the perfect example of one who follows Christ and bears witness to the message of redemption and holiness.
As one of the most significant moments in biblical history unfolds in today’s reading with the establishment of the covenant God makes with David, God also makes it clear that his preferred dwelling is not a temple, but a tent in the midst of people. That covenant made in Second Samuel is fulfilled in Luke’s first chapter, and the mystery of which Paul speaks in Romans today is precisely this: that God still prefers to dwell in the midst of people, not just by symbol and sign; but in flesh and blood.
“Nothing is impossible with God.” is the Gospel we proclaim this season. David knew it from the moment he stepped up to huge a Philistine with a sling shot. Mary knew it, and so did old Elizabeth who is her companion today. The two of them stand before us: the young one and the old one. This angel’s message is for everyone who may think they have been left behind, too young, too old, too poor, too dumb, too late in life, or too sinful. It is not so, proclaims this Good News. But we cannot think it’s all about us or ever indulge in the self-congratulating luxury of thinking we did anything at all on our own.
At the same time with a God who can accomplish all things, there will be no excuse for anything short of greatness, holiness, or goodness. The only thing that fouls up the plan of God is fear, and the first words out of the mouth of the messenger are: Fear Not.
Courage, that great virtue of a disciple is found not in the absence of fear, but in what we do in spite of it. The glory of Christmas came about by the willingness of an ordinary person to obey God’s claim on her life. God does not favor people because of any quality within them. It is God’s nature to bestow God’s favor on the sinful, the weak, and undeserving.God grants favor to all who let the Gospel conceive new life in their hearts.