Advent 4: Summoned and Sent
December 21, 2008
Jane H. Peifer
Blossom Hill Mennonite Church

Text: Luke 1:26-38; Luke 1:47-55

Last Sunday we sang a new song - at least it was new for me. It is number 11 in Sing the Story , our purple spiral book . It is John Bell's text entitled , ``No wind at the window . '' He describes in new language the story of Mary's visit from the angel.

No wind at the window , no knock on the door;
No light from the lamp stand, no foot on the floor;
No dream born of tiredness , no ghost raised by fear;
Just an angel and a woman and a voice in her ear.

``O Mary, O Mary, don't hide from my face.
Be glad that you're favored and filled with God's grace.
The time for redeeming the world has begun
And you are requested to mother God's son.''

``This child must be born that the kingdom might come
Salvation for many, destruction for some;
Both end and beginning , both message and sign
Both victor and victim , both yours and divine.''

No payment was promised , no promises made;
No wedding was dated, no blueprint displayed.
Yet Mary, consenting to what none could guess
R eplied with conviction , ``Tell God I say, ` Yes. ' ''

Tell God I say ``Yes.''

I'm remembering the days when I was considering the call this congregation gave me t o be come their pastor. I wrestled long and hard because you see, I had decided some things beforehand t hat I had to let go of in order to say ``yes . ''

I had said often during my 8 years as a co-pastor working closely with a partner in ministry - t hat I would never want to be a solo pastor . I n fact, I was sure I couldn't be a solo pastor. And s o , with this call , I had to let go of what I was so sure about in order to say ``yes . ''

A nd, I was sure that to become part of a conference that didn't ordain women w as not a place where I wanted to go. And so , again , I had to let go of what I was so sure about in order to say ``yes .''

And , Daryl and I had decided that if we moved to this area again, we would live in the city and hopefully be able to walk to church . A s uburban church was not what we were looking for , and so I had to let go of what we were so sure about in order to say ``yes . ''

I'll never forget the feeling inside when I gingerly said , ``Tell God I say , ` Yes .' '' I don't know how to describe it , but I could feel walls come down inside of me as I spoke those words of surrender.

We hold out this calling of Mary as one of the greatest callings of all time . O ne writer compared it to the calling of Abraham and Sarah , the one s through whom God formed a covenant with humanity. ``Like Abraham (and Sarah) , Mary's great faith result ed in the birth of a new covenant and a new people.'' ( ``A Summons and Sending'' by Michaela Bruzzese; Sojourners magazine , Dec 08, pg 57 )

So yes, Mary's calling is unique and historic , but the reality is , God is calling people all the time . God's angels are calling . The question is , do we hear them and are WE able to say, like Mary , ``Tell God I say, ` yes ' ''?

There is nothing about Mary before her ``yes '' t hat suggests that she was a logical choice to be the bearer of a new covenant . She was not ready to be a mother , first of all . She was very young , especially by our modern and western standards . She wasn't married ; she hadn't even been with a man yet. She was not a logical choice she was not ready .

She was just an ordinary peasant girl . She had not been raised in the ways of royal families , a nd as the prophets said , this `` messiah child '' was to be a descendent of King David . She was n ot ready. She was not prepared to be the bearer of the new covenant. From all things obvious, she was a strange choice indeed.

But notice her response to the surprise visit of the angel. Her response tells us something about the inside of Mary. The angel said , `` Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you. '' Favored one? F avored one? S he pondered what sort of greeting this might be . The angel continued:
Do not be afraid, Mary for you have found favor with God. And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great a nd will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

Then , notice Mary's question. She said ``Wait a minute. HOW can this be?'' She didn't say ``Whoa This can't be! Not me, I'm not going there!'' Or , `` Wait a minute , IF this is true then something has gone very wrong , because I can't possibly do this . '' Or ``What! Why in God's name would you be coming to me with such a request . There's no way I am going to take this on , believe me ! Mothering the son of the Most High! ''

No Mary just asked ``How can this be?'' She received the message as truth . S he trusted her hearing , she trusted her intuition , her center , she trusted her knowing and beyond all of that , s he trusted God . And yet she was perplexed, and so asked `` So, h ow will this happen?''

And the angel said, `` The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most High will overshadow you. ''
And somehow this young, vulnerable peasant woman was able to surrender t o whatever it was that God was going to do through her. Somehow she knew that this really wasn't about her , b ut it was about God. She didn't argue that ``NO you must have the wrong person, Gabriel . You see, I'm not worthy of this kind of job . There's no way I can let the power of the most High overshadow me. I will be lost. I won't know what to do. I won't. I can't , No! ''

Not Mary . Somehow this unprepared young woman had within her a receptacle for God s o large that she was able to listen way beyond herself

And now the angel said something really important. Gabriel said:
Your relative, Elizabeth in her old age h as also conceived a son and this is the 6 ^th month for her (who was said to be barren . ) Mary , y ou see nothing will be impossible with God .
And then Mary said ,
Here I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word. '' Tell God I say ``yes''

As Kari Jo Verhulst writes ,
Mary risked so much in saying yes to God. Dire social consequences, to be sure: the end of her [engagement] The shame of her family quite possibly death by stoning. I imagine these threats struck her immediately upon hearing the angel's announcement and lodged in her stomach.

And to that the prospect of bearing a child whose future was so entirely out of her hands. Her dreams and plans, her visions of motherhood, all threatened. Then there was the weight that her baby would carry. So tiny, so fragile, born to carry the hopes and fears of all the years. How would he know? Would she be the one to tell the little guy a nd what would it mean for him?

Kari asks, (in light of all these things we imagine might have been going on in Mary's head),
What calmed her fears what eased her soul enough so that she would feel and hear
and trust the ``yes'' now rising from her belly?
Kari writes,
I imagine it was [the angel's] report of Elizabeth, now miraculously with child, that assured Mary she was not alone , a nd sent her, running, to her elder relative and friend. ( ``Risking Shame'' by Kari Jo Verhulst, , Preaching the Word, Dec 21, 2008 )

This is the ot her thing we must notice about Mary , h er impulse to go and be with one whom she co uld be assured would understand. These two women , one very young and one very old , hung together , held onto each other , and waited together , thus deepening in each other their faith in God a nd the reality that indeed with God obviously, nothing is impossible.

Mary's going to Elizabeth illustrates for us the necessity of hanging together . We cannot live this new life - keep covenant with God - alone. We cannot carry the call of God alone. And it seems that God does not want us to do it in isolation . How clever for God to have miraculously made two women pregnant with the news of the new covenant two women who already knew each other!
Indeed , the angels ' words really did have teeth in them when Gabriel said , `` The Lord is with you, Mary . Do not be afraid.'' Elizabeth was the flesh and b ones of God for Mary . Mary was the flesh and bones of God for Elizabeth, even as they were both carrying the flesh and bones of God's new covenant f or all people and for all time.

T he final thing I want us to notice about Mary is h er trusting openness to love gave birth to LOVE in the world.
The impossible became possible because of her openness - not because her goodness , or her abilities , or because she was prepared . The impossible became possible because she surrendered and was able to trust the proc ess without knowing the outcome, without needing to control it , without needing to know all that her ``yes'' would expose her to.

Her surrender - our surrender - to the call of God is always about much more than ourselves . What tremendous power of the Spirit is set loose in those who believe that ``with God nothing will be impossible.''
They are impregnated with prophetic vision radical courage and enduring compassion. ( Nothing Impossible , by Conrad Hoover. , Preaching the Word, Dec 21, 2008 )

Mary somehow understood that she was (in the words of Martin Buber) `` s ummoned and sent. '' She somehow knew that the angel's call was for more than her life. Revelation is never limited to our private relationship with God , b ut is a profound commitment to the world . We are to be a sign through Jesus of God's covenant with all humankind. Somehow Mary understood that , or at least was willing to carry that truth until she more fully understood.

God is calling people all the time. God is summoning and sending people all the time. Can you hear the call? A nd , like Mary , can you surrender without knowing all it will entail?

God desires people who offer their lives as spaces where good news is born. Mary's hospitality to God, [Sebastian Moore , in his book ``The Contagion of Jesus''] writes, shows thekind of surrender that leads to ``the forming of Christ in us as in her womb.'' When we surrender ourselves to God, the Holy Spirit overshadows our body and begins to form Christ's presence. Christians are weak people who make room for God. Discipleship is our unceasing struggle to welcome God into our midst, as Mary does, so that something unspeakably new and wonderful may be born in our world. With Mary, we pray: ``We are the servants of the Lord. Be it done to us according to your word.''(Isaac Villegas,''Pregnant with God'' The Mennonite, Vol. 11, No. 24, December 16, 2008, pg 2)

I will close with a poem by Mary Oliver entitled ``Wild Geese . '' She invites us to imagine wild geese as the calling Spirit of God .
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair yours and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
Are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees,
The mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the cl e an blue air
Are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination,
Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
Over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

And I add :
Whoever you are , no matter how lonely , no matter how unprepared
God offers Godself to your imagination,
Calls to you as angels, harsh and exciting
Over and over announcing your place in the family and work of God in this world.

So may you, like Mary, be listening…