When the angel calls Mary God’s favored one, she’s rightfully confused and afraid about what this greeting will mean for the life she has known. With Mary, we must decide: will we throw up our defenses when we feel uncertain, or will we stay open to God?

Vicar Jessica Christy
The Second Sunday of Advent, year B
Texts: Luke 1:26-38; Luke 1:46b-55

She had a plan for her life. Whether or not Mary was excited about her path, she knew what it was going to be. She was about to be married, with children soon to follow, just like generations of mothers before her, and generations of mothers to come. It wasn’t going to be anything special – she calls herself lowly, this world rarely lets lowly people live extraordinary lives – but at least it was a familiar story.

But then the angel tells this ordinary woman that she is God’s favored one, and her familiar world spins off its axis. Is there anything so terrifying as hearing that you have found God’s favor? God’s favor might sound nice in theory, but most of us just want to live in quiet control of our lives, making our humble contributions to our world. How many of us want to be swept up in something greater than ourselves, something vast and wild and overwhelming? Because that’s what God’s favor really is. As Mary’s people had long known, God’s favor isn’t innocuous. You can’t passively receive it, then go on your way. God’s favor makes terrible and wonderful demands of God’s chosen servants. God’s favor kept Noah and his family safe in the ark while the world flooded around them. God’s favor carried Joseph from his home to a prison cell to a king’s right hand. God’s favor raised up Moses to lead his people out of Egypt and into a new land, a new law, a new way of being. God’s favor never lets people stay put.

And so when Mary hears the angel call her favored, we read that she is much perplexed. That’s the nice way of putting it. We could also translate that word, “perplexed,” as troubled, agitated, distressed. She’s worried, deeply worried about what this greeting is going to do to her life. She’s conflicted about what it means to hear God calling her. And it’s not because she’s a coward, or weak in faith. It’s because she knows her people’s story, and she knows her God. She knows that God’s favor means that nothing is ever going to be the same. What is God’s favor going to demand of her? Where is it going to take her, and how is it going to change her? Gabriel’s encouragement not to be afraid isn’t coming out of nowhere – the angel knows that he bears unsettling news. God wants to overturn everything that Mary has ever expected from the world. Her entire story could be rewritten. That would be enough to worry anyone.

When we have our understanding of our place in the world challenged, our instinct is to defend ourselves. We naturally pull back and close ourselves off to the threat. That’s why it’s so difficult for us to talk meaningfully with people who hold opposing views, why it’s so much easier for us to shout at each other than it is to listen. It’s hard for us to take in information that challenges our worldview, and so easy to discount different perspectives as falsehoods. We don’t want to consider the possibility that we could be wrong. We don’t like to change our minds, and we definitely don’t like to change our plans. When we’re unsure and nervous, we often just want to retreat to a place of certainty and safety. We throw up our walls to protect what we know and love.

And that’s just the effect that other people have on us. If we seek safety and certainty in our human relationships, then how much more do we long for those things from God! We want to be certain about how God is acting in our lives, to point to the clear and confident movement of the spirit through history. We want God’s plan to be transparent. But that’s not how God works. God’s story brings us down long and dangerous paths through the wilderness before we see the Promised Land. We encounter God’s grace in turmoil and overturning, in difficult transformations and times of trial. In the Magnificat, Mary sings that God’s promises are kept when God upends the world, casting down the proud and mighty and lifting up the weak. When the spirit collides with history, it shakes things up. It shakes us up. Salvation is not serene, and it’s not safe. We say we want God in our lives, but we can be quick to shut ourselves off to the work of the spirit, because God wants to change us, and we rarely want to be changed.

I confess I have felt this in my own life in recent weeks. I know what it means to celebrate the movement of the Magnificat – to rejoice at the casting down of the mighty – until it suddenly hits too close to home. When the comic Louis CK was taken down by allegations of sexual misconduct, I cheered. I’d seen the rumors online for years, so when all those whispers grew into a shout that could topple a giant, it felt like such a victory. I thought of all those stories in scripture that tell of God rising up to create justice where it looked like justice was impossible, and it felt like I was watching one of those amazing moments where God was breaking into history to set things right. When the same thing happened to Al Franken, I cried. It was so confusing, and so sad, to watch this movement I believed in turn its wrath on a person I admired. And as I watched other people on the political left also go through this confusion, I saw their defenses fly up. People who had days before proclaimed, “believe women,” were now calling Franken’s accusers lying right-wing operatives…and other, far worse insults. They were happy to see powerful men being taken down, so long as it didn’t make them lose anyone they cherished. When I read and heard these kinds of comments, I was sickened their hypocrisy – but there was a part of me that also found them satisfying. I wanted to believe that they were right. They opened the tempting possibility that nothing about my world would have to change, that God’s unsettling of history would only touch other people. When the world felt fearful and perplexing, there was something in me that just wanted to retreat to the safety of the way things used to be.

But Mary, she stays open. When the angel greets her and calls her favored, she’s confused. She’s scared. She’s not sure she’s ready for whatever God is going to ask of her. But she keeps listening. She pushes back, asks questions, but she doesn’t close herself off to God’s possibilities. She doesn’t retreat, and she doesn’t shut down. And in the end, in spite of her perplexity and fear, Mary says yes. She wants to be a part of God’s plan because she knows that, whatever turmoil she is going to experience, whatever pain and loss and fear, whatever uncertainty about what God is doing – God has something better in store on the other side. God’s favor is going to take her from her ordinary life to the foot of the cross where she will watch her son die in agony, but that same favor will bring her to the empty tomb, and to a place of glory among the saints. God’s path for her and her son leads through fear and hurt and despair, but in the end, it saves us all. Mary doesn’t know what’s in store for her, but she is certain in the faith that God is transforming the world, and her, for the better.

What awaits us on the other side of our fears is better than anything we could build on our own. The world that God wants for us is more wonderful than the world we have, more wonderful than even the world we could imagine. Life in the resurrection is fuller than the life we could make for ourselves. God peace is more complete than the peace this world offers – but the uneasy compromises that we call peace must be shaken up for the peace of Christ to break through. It’s hard to let go of the things we know, so that we might live into the things that God has planned for us. Until our new world takes shape, we will be perplexed, much perplexed about where God is. We’ll question if and how God plans are possible. We will fearfully wonder at our place in God’s work. But with Mary, we can hold all these things in our heart, and still say, “Here am I, a servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” And in that moment, Christ will grow within us, and nothing will ever be the same.

Amen.

 

Joy to the world: we are anointed, Christ-ed, for grace to those in pain, we are light for those in darkness, and we get all this from God, so it’s not ours alone.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday of Advent, year B
Texts: John 1:6-8, 19-28; Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

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

In Hebrew, “Messiah.” In Greek, “Christ.” In English, “Anointed.”

They’re all the same thing. They’re the title we give to Jesus, sent from God, who is God’s face for us, who died and rose from the dead. Our Savior. Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed.

So we’re not surprised that at his first sermon in his hometown Jesus claimed Isaiah’s words for himself: “The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,” he said, “because the LORD has anointed me (“messiahed” me); God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.” Today this is fulfilled in your hearing, Jesus said. (Luke 4:16-21) And it was.

Because of course the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One will do these things. It’s what we long for and expect, amidst all the pain in the world. “He comes the prisoners to release,” we sang today. “He comes the broken heart to bind, the bleeding soul to cure, the humble poor to enrich with treasures of grace.”

Now, John the Baptizer was sent to prepare the coming of this Christ.

To testify to the Light of the world that Jesus the Christ, the Anointed, the Messiah, was. A light no darkness can overcome.

But we heard something interesting about John today: “He was not the light;” we heard, “he came to testify to the light.” John was asked directly: “Are you the Messiah?” (Are you the Christ? The Anointed of God?) “I am not the Messiah,” John said. John claimed his job was to make the way ready for the Anointed of God, to straighten Christ’s highway. To point to the Light that is come.

But John was clear: he didn’t consider himself worthy to untie Messiah’s sandals, let alone be called Christ.

In Hebrew, “Messiah.” In Greek, “Christ.” In English, “Anointed.”

They’re all the same thing. But they never applied to only one person. To be anointed, or in Hebrew, to be “messiahed”, was to be set apart for God’s holy work in the world. So Israel’s kings were all anointed, messiahed, Christed, to be God’s holy workers.

But today we hear the prophet himself claim this anointing, just as Jesus did hundreds of years later. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, has anointed me, Isaiah says. To do all these wondrous things. In fact, in the Hebrew Scriptures, the whole nation of God’s chosen were called the anointed.

And this is true for we who are baptized into Christ. In Scripture and in liturgy we are called the anointed of God. We have anointing oil placed on our foreheads like rulers of old as we are set apart through the waters of Baptism to be God’s holy ones for the healing of the world.

John might have been clear about what he wasn’t. But let’s be just as clear about what we are.

In Hebrew, “Messiah.” In Greek, “Christ.” In English, “Anointed.”

They’re all the same thing. And, wonder of wonders, this is your title as a baptized child of God. You are Christ in the world. Messiah. The one God has anointed to bring healing and hope into the world.

You are also the light of the world. Jesus, the true Light, declared it: “You are the light of the world,” he said. “. . . let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14, 16) In our baptismal liturgy we both anoint God’s child and proclaim this one the light of the world. It’s our truth.

Like John, we testify to the true Light, we point to the Anointed One who died and rose and gives life to the world. But in the wonder and mystery of our baptism, we also are the Light. And the Christ. Or, the Messiah, the Anointed. The Spirit of God is upon us, and has anointed us.

It’s no mystery why Christ Jesus would make us this.

There is far too much darkness and pain in the world for one person to handle, even the Son of God. We know this so well in these days.

And don’t we sing with joy at the Great Vigil of Easter this wonder: that light, when it is divided and borrowed, only gets stronger? The light of Christ no darkness can overcome gets more powerful when it’s divided, when each child of God is light in the darkness, over the whole world, over centuries. With such light, what chance does darkness have?

God’s Spirit is upon us, and has anointed us, and made us light. So God’s healing could spread to all nations and peoples, in all times and places.

So what Jesus claimed from Isaiah is ours to claim, too, as God’s anointed.

And we need Isaiah’s words very much. The darkness that covers this world is manifested in so many difficult and complex and intractable ways. We’ve talked about this a lot. We know the list. We know the things that cause so much suffering, and make our hearts heavy. As we become more aware of our complicity, more aware of the depth of the darkness, the more daunting it is to consider what we can do. What can God’s Anointed, if that’s what we are, do to heal such systemic suffering? What can God’s Light, if that’s what we are, do to dispel such darkness? Haven’t we already shown we’re not up to this?

But a wise rabbi has said, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work. Neither are you free to abandon it.” ^[1] And that’s what Isaiah says, too.

Isaiah shows a path we can actually envision. Not to solve all things or complete the work. But not to abandon it in despair, either. Like Jesus, we can claim this as our calling:

To bring good news to the oppressed. To bind up the brokenhearted. To proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners.

There is no day where we lack this opportunity.

There’s no day when we don’t meet someone oppressed. By unjust systems, by other people, by depression, by the pain of the world, by many things. When you meet that one, can you, God’s Christ, God’s Light, be good news to them? You maybe aren’t able to remove all that oppresses them. But can you be God’s love for this child of God?

There’s no day when we don’t encounter someone brokenhearted. Over suffering, over loss, over grief, over fear, over betrayal, over many things. When you meet that one, can you, God’s Messiah, God’s Light, somehow bind them up? Be God’s bandage and wrap their pain? You aren’t always able to remove it. But can you be God’s healing for this child of God?

There’s no day when we don’t meet someone captive. To addiction, to fear, to mental illness, to many things. When you meet that one, can you, God’s Anointed, God’s Light, bring release to them? You aren’t able to fix it all, perhaps. But can you be God’s light for this child of God?

The bigger, deeper, intractable things, the structures and systems, those we work on together as God’s community of Christs. That’s how the greater darkness goes away.

But you, and I, we can be Christ and Light every day. The Spirit has anointed you for this. So, dear friends, you already are Christ. You already are Light. God has said so. God has made it so.

So rejoice always, Paul says. And by all means don’t quench the Spirit.

The Spirit of God is upon you and me, anoints us and makes us light. We can do this healing. This lighting. This work of the Anointed. Because God is faithful, Paul says, and will give us what we need to do it. And forgive and restore us when we fail, so we begin again.

Jesus said that first generation wouldn’t pass away without seeing the coming of Christ. Little did we realize he was talking about them. About us. We are the coming we’ve been waiting for.

Messiah, Christ, Anointed. Light. That is what we are, broken and flawed, graced and forgiven, constantly sent out as the coming of God’s Christ and God’s light in the world. And nothing will ever be the same, now that we know this.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.

[1] Rabbi Rami Shapiro, paraphrase and trope on Rabbi Tarfon in Wisdom of the Jewish Sages: A Modern Reading of Pirke Avot (New York: Harmony/Bell Tower [div. of Crown/Random House], © 1993), p. 41

 

Like the prophet Isaiah, we proclaim that God is coming to change our world, but all manner of valleys and mountains block our vision of God’s glory. How can we be certain that God really is near? And how do we prepare for something we cannot see?

Vicar Jessica Christy
The Second Sunday of Advent, year B
Texts: Isaiah 40:1-11; Mark 1:1-8

The year was 539 BCE, and the story should have been over. The nation of Judah had been conquered by the mighty Babylonian empire. The holy city of Jerusalem was destroyed, its temple lay in ruins, and its exiled leaders wept tears of helpless despair by the waters of Babylon. Like the lost tribes of Israel before them, the people of Judah and Benjamin had every reason to expect that violence, displacement, and forced assimilation were about to erase them from history. But then, history miraculously shifted around them. That mighty, brutal empire collapsed, and the exiles suddenly had hope that they could return home. And so an exiled prophet heard the voice of God saying, “Comfort, O comfort my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term.” Isaiah learned that God was approaching through the wilderness to bring the chosen people home. The story wasn’t over after all.

But even though the prophet knows that God is coming near, not everyone can see that. He hears the promise: “Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low, and then the glory of the Lord will be revealed.” Even at this amazing moment in history, there are hills and valleys that stand between the people and God, blocking their vision of God’s glory. So Isaiah is telling them to prepare for something they can’t fully see, and don’t yet understand. They have to take his word that God really is coming to meet them in a new way. God’s presence still isn’t clear.

That feels very true for us today, as we prepare once again to greet God’s arrival. 2500 years later, there are many things that still block our view of God. Valleys trap us, and mountains limit our line of sight. Many of those barriers are external to us. The world erects all sorts of obstacles that can get in the way of encountering God. For some people, like Isaiah’s own community, those obstacles can be painfully obvious. Violence, displacement, and injustice all make it hard to see that God is near. Too many of God’s children are still hemmed in by poverty, persecution, and war.

But there are more subtle barriers that also limit our vision. Our world puts up all manner of obstacles, idols, and distractions that get between us and God. For instance, as this congregation has been exploring in recent weeks, our economy is very good at setting itself up as a false God. It’s hard for us to search out God’s will when our minds and bodies are so subject to the idols of the market. We might say we worship the Triune God, but when push comes to shove, our decisions are usually dictated not by God, but by what makes good economic sense according to the rules of the system. It’s very hard for us to look over this barrier and even imagine that the world could be governed by a different set of rules, or set afire by a different set of dreams.

Or there are the sinful hierarchies that teach us that some humans are valuable, while others are disposable. Structures of inequality make us believe that certain people are less deserving of belonging, love, or even life itself, and so keep us from seeing the fullness of the body of Christ. We can keep looking for God as much as we want, but we can’t hope to see God when we refuse to see and love each other. But the world makes it hard for us to embrace all our neighbors as the image of God, so we keep on searching.

Or, in these past months, the news cycle has grown into quite the mountain range. It’s important to keep on top of what’s happening around us, but the obsessive onslaught of this past year has been something different. I can’t speak for you, but I know I’ve become fretful and distracted. I’m constantly checking the headlines, needing to know what disaster or humiliation or tragedy we’re going to be talking about this week. I can’t look away, and it drains me. And I wonder how much closer to God I’d feel if I spent half as much time praying as I spend refreshing my phone. But the distractions are everywhere, and it’s so easy to give in to them – and so God feels far away.

And then, in addition to all those external barriers, there are the internal barriers that make it hard for us to see God. Each of us must struggle through our own inner mountain ranges, where sin and anxiety cloud our vision. Ego tells us that we don’t need God, even as sin and self-doubt tell us that we’re not worthy of God’s love. Illness and addiction drag us down into valleys of despair. Impatience festers into resentment when God doesn’t show up on our terms, and our lack of faith whispers that we’re wasting our time waiting for God to arrive at all. It takes time and energy to find our way through this rocky terrain, but at this hectic time of year, it’s hard to even give ourselves space to breathe, and look around us, and see what God is doing in our lives. We can get so wrapped up in all that we need to do that we start to see each day as an obstacle to be overcome, not as a gift to be lived in the presence of God and one another. All our worries and commitments take God’s place at the center of our lives – and so our mountains grow taller, and our valleys deeper.

All of these barriers are real. Whether they’re mental or physical, whether they’re internal or external, whether they’re walls or chasms, there are serious obstacles that separate us from God and from each other. There are problems that are too big for us to overcome on our own – but these problems aren’t bigger than God. In the face of all these overwhelming peaks and valleys that fill our landscape, Isaiah says, Comfort, comfort my people. Comfort one another with the knowledge that God’s power is greater than any mountain, and God’s love runs deeper than any valley. Comfort each other with the sacred story that teaches us that there is no obstacle, no distance, no army, and no sin that can keep God away from us. Comfort each other with the proclamation that God is close at hand. “The uneven ground shall become level,” Isaiah proclaims, “The rough places shall become a plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together.” Those seemingly insurmountable mountains and valleys that stood between us and God will vanish into nothing, and God’s awesome presence will be revealed. The prophet says that one day, all our barriers to God will melt away, and all humanity will see God together. Notice – God’s work does not end when just we catch a glimpse of God among us – God will keep coming again and again until every single person is united in the vision of glory. Isaiah claims it and we dare to believe him, because we believe that God’s love is greater than human ignorance, fear, and pride.

So how do we prepare for God’s approach? How do we help one another see God’s glory, when we haven’t fully seen it ourselves? We step out into the wilderness of this hurting world to chip away at those mountains of injustice that block our vision of God’s reign. We extend a hand to pull each other out of our valleys of despair. We comfort each other with the knowledge that our barriers to seeing God will not stand forever, and, secure in that knowledge, we get to work tearing them down. It’s what John the Baptist did. He went out into the desert and told his people that it was time for the world to change, and for them to change with it. He listened to their sins, he met them in their deepest inner valleys, then dared to tell them that they were forgiven, because God was near. And when he did that, the people who came to him got to see God in a new way. When he proclaimed God’s love and forgiveness, he brought God closer to his people.

John the Baptist did this work, and Isaiah before him, and now it’s our turn to look down that road in the wilderness and say that God is coming. And here’s the good news: we don’t do this alone. We don’t yet see the fullness of God’s reign, but in Christ, we know its presence. Yes, we are working and waiting and hoping for God’s glory to be revealed, but that very word, “revealed,” tells us that God is already here, just waiting to shine forth among us. God who makes a way in the wilderness is here. God who melts mountains is here. That will always be true, no matter what. But when we proclaim that truth, when we strive to reveal it to each other, then we see past our valleys and mountains, and touch that glory that will one day unite us all.

Amen.