This week at St. Peter Lutheran Church we had the Sunday School Christmas program as the sermon and bulk of the worship service on Sunday.
You can watch a clip from the Christmas program here on our Facebook page.
No worries, though, there was still a sermon on Saturday night. Rather than reading the Advent 3 lectionary texts, we read the story of Mary’s call, the Annunciation and Magnificat, from Luke 1:26-55.
I gave an abbreviated version of this sermon again on Sunday afternoon at Valley View care center.
Do you ever wonder if God is calling you to do something? How do you tell? As you may or may not know, before you can become a pastor in the Lutheran church, there’s a whole process you go through called candidacy.
The point of candidacy is first to prepare you to be a pastor, and second, to determine if you really are called to this ministry. It’s a long, often intimidating process, because how do you tell if you have a call from God?
The way we do it in the church is first you have an interview with a pastor and talk about why you think you might be called. Then, you write a lengthy paper for the committee explaining your life story and how you see God working through you. Then, you have an interview with the candidacy committee where they can ask you questions. Then you meet with a psychologist so someone can vouch for your sanity and fitness for ministry.
After all that, you’re officially entered into the candidacy process and can go to seminary. Over the next four years, there are two more interviews where you talk about how your understanding of your calling has shifted and grown, and the committee affirms that yes, they still believe you’re called to be a pastor.
It’s a long, arduous process, and the reason it’s so challenging is because there’s no good way to prove you have a calling from God. Well, there’s almost no way.
For Mary, it was a bit simpler. Or if not exactly simple, at least it was obvious.
We don’t know anything about Mary before this story, but we know she’s a young woman, a virgin, engaged to be married. Likely she’s quite young, perhaps 14 or so, and she lives in the town of Nazareth. An angel comes to her, and says, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”
And I absolutely love the way Luke describes her reaction. He writes, “She was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.”
I don’t know if the angel Gabriel had wings like in the paintings, or if he looked like a normal person, but either way, I think perplexed is a great way to describe her reaction.
Gabriel, seeing she’s perplexed, backs up a little, and says what angels nearly always say, “Do not be afraid.” I suspect that’s easier said than done when an angel appears and starts talking to you. Gabriel tells her to not be afraid, and then repeats that she has found favor with God, and he goes ahead and outlines this plan, that she’s going to give birth to the Son of God.
Mary might be young, but she knows a few things, and she has a rather important question. How exactly is this going to work? She knows certain things need to happen before she can give birth, and there are some pretty important details not specified. Nevertheless, after Gabriel explains a little bit more, that it’s the work of the Holy Spirit, Mary says those classic words, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Mary says yes to God.
The question is, could she have said no? I think she could have. I think she could have said thank you very much, but you’ve got the wrong person. I’m a virgin engaged to be married. Getting pregnant is not in my plans right now. There has to be someone more qualified, someone better to call. There must be someone who knows what they’re doing!
Here’s a question for you: What if Mary wasn’t the first person who was asked? That’s complete speculation, but I think it’s a fair question. What if there were others who said no to God?
The reason we remember and celebrate Mary today is because she said yes to God. Whether or not anyone else was asked, the reality is Mary said yes. She agreed to allow God to work through her. Maybe it was easier for her because it was clear that the calling was from God, and it was a pretty visible, obvious thing. On the other hand, she also knew what was coming. She knew she would be subject to public humiliation, that she’d have to tell her family, to somehow explain it to her fiancé, Joseph.
Martin Luther, talking about Mary, said that yes, it is a miracle that Mary’s child would be both God and human, a miracle that God would come to live with us, but it is just as surprising of a miracle that Mary believed the angel and accepted God’s call. What kind of faith does it take to believe God is calling you to give birth to the Messiah?
Mary’s faith is an example to us. I think I can safely guarantee you’re not being called to give birth to the son of God, but I do believe God is calling you. God is calling you to believe this miracle of Christmas, the miracle that God has come to us. Even more, God is calling you to believe that this baby born in Bethlehem, this king who died on a cross, this ordinary looking Jewish Rabbi, makes a difference today, for you.
After Mary hears the news from the angel, she goes to see her cousin Elizabeth. I don’t know if she’s running away, I don’t know if her parents sent her off to a relative in the country during her pregnancy, but I do know that “In those days, Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country.”
Sometimes, the hardest part of a call story is believing that God could be calling you, not someone else with greater faith, not someone else who has it all together, but you.
To quote Luther again, “The word of the prophet Isaiah is ‘Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.’ (Isaiah 9:6) This is for us the hardest part, no so much to believe that he is the son of the Virgin and God himself, as to believe that this son of God is ours.”
Mary goes away for three months, and I think it’s to let it all sink in. She needs time to process what’s happening. She needs the support of her cousin, Elizabeth, who’s dealing with her own miraculous calling. God’s call is not easy. Saying yes doesn’t necessarily make her task easier.
We’re going to sing the hymn It Came Upon the Midnight Clear in a minute, and I invite you to pay attention to the word, particularly in verse 3. The first verse is about the Christmas story, the angels proclaiming Jesus’ birth to the shepherds. But then the song goes on to say that this story, this good news, is still relevant to us today. The angels still come to us, bringing these glad tidings.
In whatever it is God is calling you to do, will you say yes? Will you have the faith to accept that God loves you, that God is calling you, through baptism, as part of this church, as a child of God?
As Mary sings in the Magnificat, that’s the kind of faith that will turn the world upside down. That’s the kind of faith God can work through.
Mary remained with Elizabeth about three months, and then returned to her home. We’ll pick up this story on Christmas Eve.