First Sunday of Advent
November 30, 2008
 
 
  Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 21, 2008
 

First Sunday After Christmas
December 28, 2008
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Instructions for Advent Monologues
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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December 7, 2008—Second Sunday of Advent

Lectionary Texts: Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8

Sermon Text: Luke 1:26-56

Mary: Ordinary Woman, Extraordinary God

Are there people in your life that you try to avoid? We all have them, right? We all know someone we would rather not run into at the grocery store--what would we say? What would we do? If you are like me, I think about these people in my life and I wonder--what would I say? This is embarrassing but, I practice it in my mind. I come up with clever ideas, plans to break away, ways to keep them at a distance, means to hold them at arms length.

The problem is when I see them all of that practice doesn’t pay off. I’m real tough at home in front of the mirror when I am telling them like it is. I might have had a smart remark for them, but I back down. I might have had a good excuse to get away, but I linger. The more I want to avoid someone it seems like I can’t. In reality, that’s probably a good thing. It isn’t Christian to keep enemies. Do we have enemies? Yes, but they shouldn’t be enemies because of us, it should be their choice. As Christians, people shouldn’t be at arms length from us, they should be brought in closer and closer. We should be drawing them closer, even if they push us away. The more we get to know them and the more they get to know us, things can change and hearts can be softened.

As we approach Christmas and as I have been pondering how we as a community of faith can celebrate Christmas I came to a startling and saddening realization. I have been keeping someone very important at arms length. I have been ignoring, putting aside, fearing a certain person that I really need to get to know. When I realized this about myself I felt checked in my spirit by the Lord and I decided I needed to right that wrong. I needed to deal with whatever it was that was keeping me from knowing her more. Instead of holding Mary out here (gesture with hands out), I needed to get to know Mary in a deeper way (bring hands in toward heart).

As Protestants we are a little bit afraid of Mary. We don’t want to be accused of getting too close to her and in so doing place her in a position of power and deity where she does not belong. What a waste and a loss we experience when we allow that extreme view keep us away from this wonderful woman of God.

I want to know Mary more, don’t you? When you consider that she is a main character in the story of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, it seems she should be closer. To put it in the language of our society--she is a star. For a culture that loves stars, Mary should be easy to get too know.

What you will find, however, if you try to get to know Mary better is that there really isn’t a lot to know. If she is a star in this story she sure doesn’t have many lines, not very much “screen time,” so to speak. We find that there are many other people we can study in the Bible, people with more verses dedicated to them, characters that seem to matter a whole lot more in the greater scheme of things. If Mary really is a “star” she would have had more things to say and do in the Scriptures. If Mary is so important, there would be a lot more action surrounding her.

Certainly there was much action going on as the angel visited her and then she went to tell her mother what had happened. I am sure there was a flurry in that house--some hollering, some crying, great disappointment. Of course, when your daughter comes to tell you that she is pregnant and not yet married that causes some action to take place. It would make a great scene in a film.

Imagine it with me. The mother and daughter come into the room from the kitchen, dad is sitting in his chair with the game on. The mother clears her throat and says, “Honey, we need to talk.” The husband knows what that means. What’s coming next, he wonders. He turns and says, “What do we need to talk about.” The wife says, “The game needs to be off.” The father can tell something is up, his little girl has been crying. Off goes the TV, down sit the women and out spills this crazy story about an angel, the Holy Spirit, a coming baby. Dad puts his head in his hands and says in a not very nice voice, “I can’t believe you got yourself into this mess! What are we going to do with you? Get out of my sight.” The mother tries to calm the dad, the daughter runs off to her room crying. I can see it, can’t you? Maybe you have seen it in your own life. It is not a pretty picture, not an easy situation, not anything anyone would wish for.

But we don’t hear any of that part of the story in the Bible. The angel comes to Mary. The news is given. She accepts it. It is a really short scene. We don’t get to know her very well at all. We don’t get any good shots of what she looks like or what she is wearing. We know that Joseph hears and we will find out more about his role next week. We don’t hear, however, how mom and dad took it; we don’t know what their responses were. We aren’t privy to the conversations at the well, the talk at the loom, or the gossip while grinding the wheat. This starring character really gets very little screen time. Her voice is hardly heard and the voices of those around her that fill in the story aren’t heard from at all. She briefly talks to the angel: a short but powerful monologue.

As I have wanted to know Mary more, I have looked for her words so I could understand her. As I have started on this “quest” to befriend Mary, the mother of Jesus, I have hunted through the Bible to find her good words, her activities, her likes and dislikes. But they are not there. Of course she drew water from the well--women did that in Jesus’ day. She wasn’t allowed to go to the synagogue to learn, but her father would have taught her--that was the custom. She had no real choice in her marriage partner, her father chose Joseph for her--that was life. She probably sewed, baked bread, kept house, worked with animals, helped raise her brothers and sisters.

All of those things were typical life tasks, the woman’s work.

It is good to know those things and it would be really nice to know if Mary especially liked walking to the well with the sun on her back down the dusty road with her jar. It would be intriguing to know if she hummed a favorite tune as she walked. But we don’t get any of that. The closer I want to bring Mary to myself the farther away she seems. We just don’t know enough about Mary to satisfy me. There is no autobiography she wrote, no journals left behind, no family history book to speak of, she isn’t on the cover of a magazine with all the “dirt.”

I want to know this Mary more. But it seems like she is illusive. The more I want to know about her the more disappointed I am because there just isn’t much. But sometimes the main characters with few lines and appearances can tell us a lot more than we might think they can. I believe that if we cut Mary’s part down, took out some of the few lines she has, and gave her but one line we would know enough to stop keeping her out here and pull her in close to know her more.

“May it be to me as you have said.” If you weren’t listening you might miss it. In the grand and epic drama that is unfolding in the Gospel of Luke this little line could be passed over in an instant and yet, it is the most important part of the story so far. It reveals everything we need to know about Mary: “May it be to me as you have said.”

We need to live looking for ways to speak those words. We shouldn’t be looking to hold people at arms length, we shouldn’t be looking for the latest greatest star, we should be speaking like Mary, “May it be to me as you have said.” If we could just say that a little more, I think our lives would be radically different. You know when my life and your life are different something amazing happens--the world also becomes different. The light that shone on Mary that day is the light that longs to shine on each of us from our heavenly Father everyday. It isn’t just a one-time occurrence kind of thing--it is a life-light. The only way to live in the life-light of God is to say, “May it be to me as you have said.”

Mary didn’t negotiate with the angel for more money or better circumstances. She didn’t go on strike or send her agent over to get what she wanted. We don’t read about her latest shopping excursion where she dropped a cool 5k on clothing and accessories. We don’t get a tour of her home with all of its lavish furnishings. We don’t know her favorite foods, her feuds with her friends, her favorite designer. No, she doesn’t have “star” power. We don’t even know if she had charisma. What we know is so much more powerful. She was willingly obedient to do whatever God asked of her. “May it be to me as you have said.” A light dawned that day. A beam from heaven shown down on her.

Was it because Mary was a totally different, amazing person that deserved this kind of blessing? If we look at the scope of Scripture we will see that God works with the regular, ordinary folk all the time. He chooses the smallest, the underdog, the failure, the outcast, the ordinary to do His extraordinary work. The only thing that matters is that my heart and your hearts. Our ordinary hearts are open and ready to say with Mary: “May it be to me as you have said.” Whatever comes my way, “May it be to me as you have said.” When I am in the valley, “May it be to me as you have said.” When I am on the mountaintop, “May it be to me as you have said.” Those ordinary words become extraordinary when we speak them to our God.

You might not feel like you have anything special to offer. Just remember that God chose ordinary Mary. He can and will choose ordinary you and me also. Today a light is dawning wherever a heart is completely submitting to God’s great plan. That light can shine on each of us as we, with ordinary Mary, say, “May it be to me as you have said.” The light still shines on the lives of those who love God.

Let’s get to know Mary a little bit better this morning:

The Second Sunday of Advent

Mary’s Monologue

Mary: I have followed Yahweh God my whole life. I have heard the stories of all our great heroes: Abraham, Moses, David. I have heard read the prophecies from long ago about God’s desire for His people to follow Him, to love Him alone. I have felt a longing within me that the Messiah would come, the Savior would arrive, that our lives would be changed, power would be given to us, God’s people. I have seen the light of God shining in my life many times but never like it shone that day. People called me crazy, some thought I was a liar trying to cover my sin, some thought I was a foolish child. But I couldn’t get away from that light and the words that I heard; of course I couldn’t get away from being pregnant! You can’t miss that.

I was going about my everyday activities, helping my mother and sisters--gathering water, starting a fire, cooking meals, doing the wash, straightening up our home. It was an ordinary day. The sun rose on the morning in the same way it had dawned the day before and the day before that. Little did I know that I would never be the same. It was a hot day in the sixth month and sweat was beading up on my brow as I worked. I remember using the back of my hand to brush my hair back from my sticky brow when something caught my eye. There before me stood a man I had never seen before. When he saw me look up he said something I could not believe.

“Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” I was alarmed at his words and did not know what to say or what to do. This was not a typical greeting; I knew that something was very different about this man and this conversation. He must have seen the uncertainty and fear in my eyes because he quickly said to me, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.” I wondered how he knew my name, I wondered what he meant about my finding favor with God. He continued talking and I was becoming more astonished and confused. “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

I can’t tell you how excited I was to hear that my child would be a great leader, that He might be the one we were waiting for, the Messiah, the Light this dark world needed. But, I knew that there was something wrong with this message. How could I have a baby? I wasn’t married yet, I had never slept with a man. Of course I knew how babies were born I had been around my sisters and mother when they gave birth. I knew that I was not pregnant. I asked the only question I knew to ask, “How will this be since I am a virgin?” The angel said to me, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.”

It was as though a warm light was creeping over me. It was as though I had nothing to fear. In reality I should have been afraid. As I look back, I wonder at the courage I had. Everyone would talk, and they had the right to stone me for being pregnant before I was married. I had everything to lose. But I could feel it. I could sense the Light that Isaiah the prophet had talked about beginning to dawn: “A people walking in darkness have seen a great light, on those who lived in the valley of darkness a light has dawned.” I knew it was happening and I knew that somehow it was happening through me.

What more could I say but what I said? People have asked me how I could be so trusting, but I didn’t want to miss what God was doing. I said to the angel, “May it be to me as you have said.” When the sun went down that night I still felt as though there was light, some sort of God-light in me, around me, through me. The darkness of this world was going to be transformed and God had invited me to be a part of it. A light was dawning. I knew that the road would not be easy. I knew that challenges of epic proportions were headed my way. I knew that the light of God was with me--regular, old, ordinary me!

Mary Narrator Sings: Breath of Heaven

The Second Sunday of Advent--Candle Lighting and Nativity Set Up

Reader One: Today we place Mary, the Mother of God, in the Nativity scene.

Reader Two: We are thankful for her willingness to do what God called her to do even if it meant people would make fun of her,

Reader Three: even if it meant she could experience great pain,

Reader One: even if it meant she could die.

Reader Two: May we all, like Mary, be close to God so He can use us for His good will.

Reader Three: May we all, like Mary, say “yes” to God’s great plan.

Reader One: And may we all, like Mary, let the Light of God shine on us.

Reader Two: Today we place Mary, the Mother of God, in the Nativity scene. (Nativity helper places the figure of Mary in the Nativity.)

Reader Three: Today we light the second candle as a reminder of the Light of Christ that was lit inside of Mary and can be lit in our hearts today. (Candle Lighter lights the first and second candle while these lines is being read).

Congregational Singing: Shine on Us