“The Lord is with you”: words that will change your life, and change the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fourth Sunday of Advent, year B
Texts: Luke 1:26-38, 46b-55 (the latter verses, the Magnificat, are appointed as today’s psalm)

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Gabriel’s greeting “greatly agitated” Mary, Luke says.

It doesn’t look so alarming. “Hi,” the angel literally said, using a common, everyday word of greeting. True, you aren’t called “most favored one” every day. But then Gabriel gave another common greeting: “The Lord is with you.” Or, as we might say, “The Lord be with you.”

“The Lord be with you.” We greet each other with that all the time. “And also with you,” we reply. Are you ever greatly agitated by this, and so led to ponder what sort of a greeting it might be, as Mary did?

We blithely say, “God is with you,” as if that were something simple, something normal, something common. Mary, not yet aware of the reason for Gabriel’s visit, sensed that it was the opposite of simple, normal, common. What might this greeting mean for me? she pondered, all stirred up.

She was right to be agitated. Everything would change in that moment.

If she said yes, she would be impregnated by the Holy Spirit, begin the arduous and joyful process of growing, bearing, rearing a child, sending that child into the world. Her life would be turned upside down.

But this simple girl also learned something about God while pondering. If this child is who Gabriel says, Mary thought, God is doing something astonishing to this world, not just to me.

So Mary sang: God’s favor on me, God’s being with me, terrifying and agitating at first, has taught me something. God is turning the world upside down. Born from a poor woman of no status, this child will cast down the mighty from their thrones for God, overturn those who are proud and full of themselves, and lift up all those who are low. Born into poverty and need, this child will fill those who hunger with good things, on God’s behalf, and send away those who are satiated and full, with empty hands.

“The Lord is with you”? Mary says that changes everything.

Do you feel her agitation yet? If I said to you right now, “The Lord be with you,” would you be concerned?

You should ponder Mary as your forebear in all this. Because when this not-yet-conceived child grew to be an adult and preached, healed, loved, died, and rose, all who met him had their lives turned upside down. Some because they rejected him. But some because they saw God in this simple rabbi, and followed him, women and men, and were forever changed. We put the name “Saint” in front of all their names now – Mary of Magdala, Peter, Susanna, Andrew, the whole lot of them – but they were all like you once. Ordinary people.

Then someone said, “God is with you,” and they believed it. Trusted it. And through them, God started turning the world upside down.

Maybe we’ve become too comfortable with “the Lord be with you.” It’s too familiar.

Maybe it doesn’t agitate you anymore. And though Magnificat is beautiful to sing, maybe we’re not ready for the transformation Mary promises there, at least at the cost to us it might mean.

But Mary knew what she meant when she sang it. She carried God inside her when she sang it. She went from greatly agitated to overwhelmed with joy that she was a part of God’s turning the world upside down.

Because, make no mistake, Mary knew that “God is with you” is not a greeting to be taken lightly. Mary says, if God is with you, then everything will change. For you, and for the world.

And that will be the hope for this world, as it turns out. A hope we actually do long to see fulfilled.

God is with you. That’s your greeting today.

Are you willing to have the Holy Spirit plant God’s new life in you today? Will you carry that life inside you until you painfully bear Christ into the world? Will you then nurture that Christ in your life, your actions, your love, until in time you come to fully grasp the letting go of yourself that the Triune God models in Jesus, the Christ? ^[1]

Because, beloved ones of God, if you all are possible Marys, if God really is with each of you, the world truly can and will change. Everything that grieves you, harms others, oppresses, destroys, tramples down, will have no ability to withstand millions and millions of Marys bearing God’s life into the world.

It’s worth some pondering. It’s deep mystery, that God is with you. Maybe even a little agitating.

But do say yes to God, to God’s transformation. Sing with Mary your joy and hope of God’s restoring this world into the new creation of life and hope God always wanted to see here.

The Lord be with you.  Amen

^[1] Inspired by Ronald Rolheiser’s reflection on Mary: “Our task too is to give birth to Christ. Mary is the paradigm for doing that. From her we get the pattern: Let the word of God take root and make you pregnant; gestate that by giving it the nourishing sustenance of your own life; submit to the pain that is demanded for it to be born to the outside; then spend years coaxing it from infancy to adulthood; and finally, during and after all of this, do some pondering, accept the pain of not understanding and of letting go.” Ronald Rolheiser, O.M.I., “Mary as a Model of Faith,” reflection on Luke 11:27–28 (December 7, 2003). http://ronrolheiser.com/mary-as-a-model-of-faith/

Rejoice! for God is working in the dirt and our seeds are beginning to spout.

Vicar Andrea Bonneville
The Third Sunday of Advent, year B
Texts: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126; 1 Thess 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall exult in my God; For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations (Isaiah 61:10-11).

The prophet Isaiah proclaims the promise that God will cause sprouts of goodness and joy. This is exactly the hope that we need in this bleak midwinter.

We are together in our waiting and anticipation asking when God’s transformation will happen and wondering how it will take root. Transformation that will alter our personal lives and the world we live in.

This transformation makes me think of a poem that is accredited to Saint Oscar Romero. The poem says:

This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water the seeds already planted knowing that they hold future promise.[1]

Being patient gardeners is what we are about. Tending soil and anticipating growth. It may be hard to imagine yourself as a gardener, especially in December, but you have already planted seeds.

As we heard in our Psalm for today, those who go out weeping [bear] seeds for sowing (Psalm 126:6).

Through our laments and through our crying out against injustice, we have planted seeds. Maybe it was last week, or a month ago, six months ago, ten months ago. We have planted seeds of prayer, action, and hope.

We have been tending to the seeds. Watering. Watching. Waiting. Aside from providing the seeds with care and comfort, the growing of the seeds has been practically out of our control.

We don’t know what is happening in the soil. For our seeds have been planted in God’s garden.

What do we know about the Triune God’s garden?  That the Holy Spirit is at work in the dirt and the soil is rich in nutrients of healing, justice, and peace.

And now Beloved, God’s garden is doing what it is created to do. It is doing what it has done for many generations. God’s garden is beginning to sprout again.

The seeds that have been growing under the soil for some time now are beginning to reveal themselves to us.  A sign that even in our waiting, God has been tending to the soil transforming our seeds into sprouts of joy.

Can you see them?

It is okay if you are having a hard time seeing them.

I must admit that I tend to have a hard time seeing sprouts of joy. When I look at a garden, I often think more about the seeds that have not sprouted, or focus too much on the weeds, or don’t know how to discern between a weed and a sprout. At times, I need the community of Christ to show me where sprouts of joy can be found.

The community has led me to Rejoice!

As creation has been healing. Many countries are reporting cleaner air, there is now a new plastic-eating super-enzyme that breaks down plastic in a matter of days rather than hundreds of years, and many near extinct species are making a comeback, such as the endangered blue whale.

Rejoice!

as work is being done to create temporary shelters and support is being given to encampments around the city through mutual aid and more and more affordable and attainable housing is becoming available in our communities.

Rejoice!

as we learn the COVID vaccine is about to arrive in MN and that the first priority groups will receive a vaccine before the end of the year, and that conversations are happening about how to build up our communities again in new and creative ways.

Rejoice!

As leaders from minority communities are appointed to local and national leadership and bring their voice to places that never listened to them before. Leading and guiding to make change to some or our most destructive systems.

Rejoice! God is doing great things! 

Like John in our Gospel reading for today, we must witness and testify. We must witness and testify to the sprouts of joy. Proclaiming that once the first seeds sprout, more seeds are going to sprout. And the sprouts are going to grow into plants. And by God’s grace and mercy, the plants will eventually produce a harvest.

We must not be disheartened that our sprouts are not producing a harvest yet. Of course, we would like to see the fullness of the harvest of God’s reconciliation and healing for all of creation. But we must put our trust in God who will bring forth a harvest greater than any of us can imagine.

As the poem attributed to Saint Oscar Romero reminds us,

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the [gardener]. We are [gardeners], not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own.[2]

We may never see the harvest of the seeds that have been planted, but God’s promise to us is that God will cause sprouts of righteousness and praise to spring up!

So let’s grab our gardening tools and get back to watering, waiting, and watching. For Paul reminds us that God who calls [us] is faithful and God will do this (1 Thessalonians 5:24). 

Amen.

[1] https://www.bread.org/blog/prayer-oscar-romero
[2] https://www.bread.org/blog/prayer-oscar-romero