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When God looks with favour

Fourth Advent Sermon, by Marilyn Zehr

December 23, 2012 

Texts: Micah 5: 2 – 5, Luke 1: 39 – 55

 

Good morning, Lovers of God. That’s what Luke calls you. He was that serious young man, serious but not gloomy mind you, who came to interview me.  He wanted to hear my story – so he could tell it to you, Theophilus, lover of God.

 He was so full of questions. 

He wanted to hear about that time an angel showed up to talk with my husband Zachariah.  

He wanted to hear about what happened to me after that. I’m not sure if it was foolishness or miracle or both.

He wanted to hear about what I knew about my young cousin Mary.  But if I jump around too much you won’t know what I’m talking about.

Hmmm,  when Luke came, I invited him to sit for a bit, prepared a plate of tomato and cucumber and a bit of yogurt and bread and some strong sweet tea because I knew when I started to tell about it…. well you know, it was probably going to take a while.  So please have a bit of yogurt and tea yourselves.

When God looks upon you with favour?  Watch out.

Zachariah and I had been married a long time. 

We were pretty clear about how to follow the commandments – and did so – righteous and blameless they said.  I wouldn’t quite know about that, but the ordered life of God’s commands gave everything rhythm, clarity, a sense of purpose and control. Priestly line we were, – he from Abijah, me from Aaron.  But underneath all of that – Zachariah and I lived a sadness and longing we didn’t say much about.  What do you say when the blessing of children simply doesn’t happen.  We lived the disgrace of it silently. Not much compassion for that in my day. But who were we to complain in that time of Herod.  He was a raging murderer, he was and so the blessing of children sometimes led to unspeakable sorrow of another kind.  Our sorrow and longing seemed to us pale in comparison, so we kept quiet, except in prayer.  Then the year that Zachariah drew the lot to offer the annual incense in the Holy of Holies – how do I tell you?

He couldn’t even speak of it at first – at least not til the baby came.

The glory, the terror, the answer to prayer, the disbelief – God told him through a messenger, a vision, an angel – that we were favoured – that a son would be born to us.  His name would be John, he would be filled with the Holy Spirit.  He would be given the role of preparation.  With the Spirit and power of Elijah, he would turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of righteousness, to make ready a people prepared for the arrival of the long-awaited Son of the most High.

It was too much.  Joy, foolishness, miracle – this favour of God.  Before long I was pregnant and immediately I went into seclusion for five months – a precious time, waiting.  Zachariah couldn’t speak, and at first I simply didn’t either.  It was so overwhelming, but when my tongue came back, I was really glad that all Zachariah was able to do was listen.  I had a lot to tell him about what it was like to be favoured instead of disgraced.  

And then at the sixth month – Mary showed up, my young cousin Mary.  The boy in my womb set up a dance that made me catch my breath.  Full of this dancing Spirit, I knew that this young woman was favoured too.  Truly blessed she was to be carrying the one who was to be given the throne of his ancestor David. But why me, why her?  Really?  I remembered her, a little girl, full of laughter, sometimes mischief, always running about creating fun and inciting others to join in.  I think the only time she sat still was in the synagogue when the Stories of the scroll were read. She loved stories – to listen and tell them. I remember once when she re-told to me the one about Hannah and her son Samuel.  She loved the part where Hannah’s prayer for a son was answered and Mary’s eyes sparkled when she told me about little boy Samuel who hearing his name called in the middle of the night learned eventually to say, “speak for your servant is listening.”  I suspect she also knows something about listening and answering. 

Oh favoured one.  

Those days in the hill country, when we were both expecting, were full of story and hope and love and song.  As we did the chores together, went to synagogue, and compared our disappearing waistlines it became clear to me that Mary grew beyond the Samuel part of the story and along with me sang Hannah’s song of joy.  She made up some of her own words but the hope and joy in the song she sang – still echoes in my heart.  Let me see if I can still remember it…

My soul is filled with joy as I sing to God my savior; you have looked upon your servant, you have visited your people

and holy is your name through all generations! Ever lasting is your mercy to the people you have chosen, and holy is your name.

I am lowly as a child, but I know from this day forward that my name will be remembered, for all will call me blessed.

and holy is your name through all generations! Everlasting is your mercy to the people you have chosen, and holy is your name.

I proclaim the power of God; you to marvels for your servants; though you scatter the proud hearted and destroy the might of princes.

and holy is your name through all generations! Ever lasting in your mercy to the people you have chosen, and holy is your name.

To the hungry you give food, send the rich away empty.  In your mercy you are mindful of the people you have chosen.

and holy is your name through all generations! Everlasting Is your mercy to the people you have chosen, and holy is your name.

In your love you now fulfill what you promised to your people.  I will praise you, Lord, My savior, everlasting is your mercy.

And holy is your name through all generations! Ever lasting is your mercy to the people you have chosen, and holy is your name.

That’s it.  That’s the song she sang. I’m so glad you were familiar with it.

She was something else, that Mary – those days of hope and love and song in the hill country of Judea – near Bethlehem.  Precious days they were.

Our sons were born eventually and they lived strange and beautiful lives.

The Holy Spirit and Glory that surrounded them, sustained them, and emanated from them — lingers still.  

When God looks with favour –  so much joy, so much pain, so much love, so much messing with the world – this Holy One.  Angels show up, miracles happen, foolishness erupts, impossibilities become possibilities, 

but you know, John and Jesus and the angel armies didn’t fix things quite the way we thought they would. God’s favour in our son’s lives led them places we dared not imagine when we gave birth to them.  

Ah but as I said there are things that linger still.

We’re a long way from that time.  I wandered the hills near Bethlehem recently – or tried to.  More houses than there used to be.  I see there are settlements on the hills.  Those were ruggedly beautiful hills once.  There’s a massive wall too.  It’s all very strange.  I really don’t understand about the wall.  It makes me wonder about that song, the one Hannah sang more than a thousand years before Jesus, the one that was recreated in Mary’s life.  It’s been a couple more millennia now.  What if God again chooses to look upon God’s servant and visit God’s people, Holy be the Name?  What if God again shows God’s favour? What kind of messing up of things will happen then?  

My John prepared people to tur
n towards God, he was a voice crying out for people to make a way in the wilderness for God.  I’ve heard that now there is a man named Zoughbi, Zoughbi in that wilderness full of settlements surrounding Bethlehem calling out to people to make a way for the Prince of Peace.  Makes me wonder what his mother thinks.

Sorry, that’s an aside, but I’m one mother who knows the risks that prophets take when they point out injustice and ask people to change their minds, or change their ways or change their hearts.  The world doesn’t respond well to that kind of truth. Think about some of the ones more current to your time and place and space

 think your Martin Luther King Jr., or Gandhi or Teresa Spence…..

The call to truth and justice so often bumps up against strange resistance – almost inevitably.  And it is then that we realize the power of the forces in the world that are death dealing instead of life-giving.  In Zoughbi, Zoughbi’s case it is the death dealing forces of separation – caused by that wall, separation caused by laws that apply differently to people of different ethnicity and origin, oppression caused by separating people from the land of their fathers and mothers and from essential sources of water – as scarce as that water is in those hills anyway.

 

And then there’s Mary’s Jesus.   What would he do?  He would call for justice and have mercy on all who are separated by that wall.  The profound love and longing of our Saviour is for everyone – kind of like the mother or grandmother whose table is always open.

Speaking of which have some more yogurt, more tea too surely.

Okay – according to Mary’s song – God’s favour raises up the lowly and brings down the powerful – sure but not without cost – usually the most significant cost to prophets and our Saviour.  The highest cost ultimately was to the one whose love cost him his life.

What phenomenal patience the Holy One has had with all of us.

Through generation after generation – everlasting is that mercy and Holy is The Name.  Did we, do we deserve it?  Only in that we – all of us – are welcome to gather round the salvation feast served at the table of God regardless.  God created us as God’s beloved deserving ones and continues to be the One who just keeps making us into the deserving ones – not actually something we did.  

And apparently it takes a while.

From experience this salvation business that God’s in requires the long view.  

Reminds me of my mother’s mother – whose own table was always open, I think I referred to her just a moment ago.  People knew there would be more than enough food at that table for whoever happened along.  My grandmother served food to stray people the way some people feed stray cats.  And she didn’t assume that one meal would be sufficient to fill people up – she served her meals to hungry folks every day because they were hungry every day. Again, I digress, but you look hungry too.

We’re all hungry for this salvation that seems so long in coming but here’s the thing, maybe this salvation that God is providing is more like feeding us every day – As you know – since the world did not end on December 21st as the Mayan calendar predicted it might, we’re still here and we’re still hungry.

And God is still finding favour, with person after person, 

and providing meal after meal, 

day after day, 

year after year, 

generation after generation, messing things up, creating foolishness and miracles and making impossible things possible.  

This is how our God works to save us.

Holy is your Name.