Lifted Up!

Sermon Luke 1:39-55 December 23, 2018 Advent 4C

Lifted Up!

Listening to the words from Mary they resonated over and over again…’lifted up’…lifted up kept singing high above all the other words…and then I realized a song from many years ago…

Alan Jackson came to the US in 1890 to New York. He wrote over 9000 published hymns and tune beginning in 1896. This is one of his hymns that was sung in the tiny Christian church I attended as a youth. It’s strange how some things stick with you. It’s strange how words from old bubble their way back into our memory. It’s not really the verses but the refrain that got stuck in my brain…

I was sinking deep in sin
Far from the peaceful shore
Very deeply stained within
Sinking to rise no more
But the Master of the sea
Heard my despairing cry
From the waters lifted me
Now safe am I

Love lifted me, love lifted me
When nothing else could help
Love lifted me
Love lifted me, love lifted me
When nothing else could help
Love lifted me

All my heart to Him I give
Ever to Him I’ll cling
In His blessed presence live
Ever His praises sing
Love so mighty and so true
Merits my soul’s best songs
Faithful, loving service too, to Him belongs

Love lifted me, love lifted me
When nothing…

In these days of Advent these words have been rolling around in my head with the song of the Magnificat…yes, love lifted them…and so love lifts me too. 

Today is a day to be lifted up!

As I was reading the story of Mary and Elizabeth it occurred to me that their lives intersected at a moment when they realized their lives would never be the same again. It’s not every day that someone is visited by an angel and given a prophecy. It is not everyday that someone who has felt disgraced among her people can feel lifted up among her people.

This fourth Sunday of Advent is a reminder of our very present opportunity to live the promise of Christmas in the present moment.

It is on this Sunday when we can be drawn into the power of the love of God with us in our waiting and with us in our hopes for the future.

This is the Sunday that we witness the lowly lifted up and the women who have been cast aside praised above all and called blessed.

Shame and disgrace no longer hold a place in God’s world. Those who would be disgraced by society, God has declared them blessed for today and for future generations!

So, this beautiful story of two women coming together in the waiting-the advent of something new-of the new birth of their babies, provide us a window into the waiting world.

Most of us know what its like to live in anticipation. We have experienced interviewing for a new job in the hopes of getting it. In our waiting for the answer we begin to actually live as if we have received the job. We make plans for a move and for what life will be like with the new experience. We begin living in the present the hope of the future.

That’s what Advent is about-we live today the truth of tomorrow.

Mary and Elizabeth had a choice of living in the disgrace of the world around them or living in the present truth of the glory of God to come through their sons.

How are we still bending to the world around us?

How are we allowing the words of the world claim over who we are?

How are we succumbing to the shouts of the crowds to subdue the truths we possess within us?

Mary and Elizabeth are perhaps the finest example of living out the truths God had placed within them. They had the strength and the fortitude to live with faith even though they knew the world was about to turn upside down.

In this season of Advent are we able to find the strength and the fortitude to live with faith knowing the world will turn upside down?

Our world as we know it today, maybe not yours, but mine; maybe not mine, but yours, is about to change forever.

How does that look in the face of God?

How does that look in the face of my neighbor?

How does that look in the face of the person sitting next to me in the pew?

You see when we witness the birth of Jesus again this year-the world will turn upside down-or so we hope-so we believe-so we live.

We believe the words Mary sings as if they are as true today as they were yesterday and 2000 years ago.

If we don’t believe them to be as disturbing as they were then, we have lost our hope and faith in Jesus to bring about the upturning of our world.

We need the song Mary sings to lift us up!

We need to be lifted up because we too have suffered.

We need to be lifted up because we too have been lowly and disgraced.

We need to be lifted up because we too are living from one fear, one breath, one moment to the next.

We need to be lifted up because we too know that our lives are about to change.

Mary sings the Magnificat because she chooses faith in the present and begins to live the promise of God’s Incarnation as if it has already happened.

Perhaps, today’s message is for us to live the promised blessings now. Perhaps, each moment we breath can be our moment of song.

Let us begin with the words of Mary-My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior…

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and it will be too late to choose how Christmas will arrive for us. 

The plan of Advent every year is to walk each day of it as if Christmas has already come.

Be lifted up, 

friends, 

God rejoices in you, 

let us rejoice in God. Amen.

Light of Love

Sermon Luke 1:26-38 December 24, 2017 Advent 4

Light of Love

Last Sunday we spent our worship experience focused on the story of the birth of Jesus through the Christmas program. The children and the choir shared the news words and music. Our hope was renewed as we witnessed our children participating in the promise of God. It was truly a light of joy.

Today on the fourth Sunday of Advent we spend time reflecting on the words of Mary as she encounters the angel Gabriel. I find myself pondering on the moment of discovery for Mary.

What is it like for us in those moments of surprise?

When the unexpected comes to us?

When the derailment of our plans and our dreams occurs, what is our response?

When we are left vulnerable to our family’s opinions, cultural expectations, and the views of the world, how do we react?

Are we aware of the presence of holiness when it appears?

There is quite a lot for us to ponder on this fourth Sunday of Advent.

God does enter into ordinary lives in ordinary ways. The angel called Mary highly favored. There was nothing in Mary’s life that would have been considered as something to be highly favored. She was poor. She lived in a town that people said nothing good comes from Nazareth. She was engaged to be married to a carpenter not a statesman or a wealthy, famous person.

God does enter into a real place in time and space. 

God breaks from heaven and begins dwelling among us in the most vulnerable way. 

Life and death hang in the balance for many a mother and child. 

Pregnancy and child birth are still to this day challenging. To conceive for some is without a thought and for others a time of great disappointment, despair, and grief. 

There are so many women who have suffered in silence as one pregnancy after another is lost and the hoped for infant returns to heaven. 

Women in childbirth are still at risk even with the best doctors and equipment available. There were safer ways for God to come to us to be among us than through this risky means.

And yet, in a little town, in a little house, with a young girl, we witness something new, something that changes our lives forever.

Mary heard the words of the angel and knew that God had come to her. Holiness had invaded her space. Holiness had come.

She asked the angel Gabriel, “How can this be?” We don’t have the opportunity for tone or inflection so we have to guess. We wonder if she is afraid, or if she was incensed, or confused, or just pondering the logic of what the angel is telling her. 

She talks with the messenger of God! She is not a silent bystander. She gets involved with the work of God within her. She becomes a partner with God in this process of redemption.

 Her response to the angel is so amazing. “May it be as you say, here am I the servant of the Lord,” is not a passive resignation for God or anyone else to do what they want with us. But, it is a response of commitment and participation with the work of God in this world.

Imagine if we too heard the word of God through the angels who visit us. Imagine if we too took a stand with God and said, “May it be as you say, here am I”.

Mary as we read further in Scripture sang a song which we now call the Magnificat. 

It was a song of liberation, a song of reversals, a song of resistance and even rebellion. 

Mary took her role as the mother of God in strength and in resilience. 

She had the resolve to follow through with whatever was to come. She had the ability to stand with a task that was contrary to the current culture. She stood firm in her faith as she faced the possibility of death. She stood firm in her faith when her son grew and took the risk of death upon himself. She stood firm in her faith as she sat at the foot of the cross and watched her son die. She stood firm in her faith even as she was cared for by others in her old age.

It is so hard for us as people of faith to figure out what God is calling us to do. 

We agonize over the call God has placed on us. We wonder if we are really doing what God has asked us to do. We agonize wondering if God really loves us. Are we worthy?

 Are we doing the right thing?

And then once again the story of Mary reminds us that God has not abandoned us. 

God chose to enter the human race by means of the human race. 

God’s creation so destroyed and distorted by acts of violence upon the earth, the creatures and each other could have been destroyed in the same breath by which it was created. But, somehow God looked upon everything there and burst forth in love. 

The Light of Love chose to push through all the depravity, sin, corruption, and discord to wash it all pure again beginning with waters of the womb. Our being drawn to the Light of Love is a rebirth in the same way.

God has sent angel messengers to us to announce that we too have received the power of God through his son born to us today. Let us say yes, let it be as you say, here am I your servant. Amen. 

Poured Out Love

Sermon John 12:1-8 March 13, 2016 Lent 5C

Poured Out Love

When the word generosity enters my thoughts I’m humbled and even silenced. When I reflect on the many ways generosity has been poured upon and about me I find myself unable to grasp the fullness of it all.

Generosity is powerful.

Generosity breeds generosity.

And kindness breeds kindness.

And love breeds love.

Mary’s love poured out on Jesus’ feet is an act of worship.

Her act was a gesture of love.

It was one small thing she could do to offer all she had to the one she loved.  

Love poured out can only be from the heart.

Imagine giving someone you love every ounce of what you have in life to offer?

What would it look like?

Mary’s ability to act in love for her Lord in the midst of a feast with many gathered around demonstrates the power that love gives to discipleship. Pure love and tenderness wrapped in the package of pure audacity and boldness.

Gail O’Day comments that the anointing shows what it means to be one of Jesus’ own. Mary gives boldly of herself in love to Jesus at his hour just as Jesus will give boldly of himself in love at his hour.

The fullness of love is hard to pin down to one word or phrase.

Is it the sloppy kiss or the diamond ring?

Is it the sunset shared with a friend or the fancy new clothes?

It is the thousand simple actions that open our eyes and our hearts to the goodness and truth of love that surrounds us. We’ve seen this gift in some marriages and desire that love in our own lives. We’ve seen in parent to child. In brothers and sisters, and even neighbor to neighbor.

In his book ‘The Four Loves’ C.S. Lewis states, affection is humbled love. He doubts we ever catch love at the beginning of it. To become aware of it, he says, is to become aware that it has already been going on for some time.’ Affection opens our eyes to goodness we could not have seen.

Mother Teresa shared that not all of us can do great things.

But we can do small things with great love.

Part of our ability to begin to offer gestures of love is also to know how to receive them.

We have difficulty receiving small gestures of love and as CS Lewis said we might miss the beginning of it and not even be aware that it is happening to us.

How many of us brush off a compliment?

When someone offers us a kind word can we hear it?

If someone tells you how much they appreciate you can you accept their words or do you deny them the gift of sharing them with you?

When someone tells you they like your dress or your tie or your hair or your speech or your presentation or your tidy office do you say thank you?

 Or like so many of us do you say, “Oh this dress or tie is so old, my speech and presentation were just ok and pulled together from old stuff, my desk is just like this today, you should have seen it yesterday.”

This way of receiving a simple outreach of affection, of a compliment, of a blessing denies the giver of being a blessing to you.

Our acceptance of generosity blesses the giver and together we are able to pass on the blessing to others.

Jesus offers us in this moment with Mary a window into the world of poured out love.

We know from the story of the raising of Lazarus that Mary loves and believes in Jesus. We know she was there and witnessed his return to life. We know that she was beyond grateful for this miracle of love and reuniting of her family. Her act of pouring out a pound of perfume on Jesus’ feet and them wiping them with her hair was not just a, ‘Gee, thanks Jesus, your such swell guy’, kind of act.

The act of Mary in this scene was intentional.

It was planned.

It was anticipatory.

This act anticipated future events.

Mary anoints Jesus’ feet before Jesus is buried in the tomb. Mary wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair before Jesus washes and wipes the disciples’ feet, telling them to go and do likewise.

She is the bold prophet.

She fulfills the love commandment (as Gail O’Day states) before it is taught.

Mary gives boldly of herself in love to Jesus at his hour

just as Jesus will give boldly of himself in love at his hour.

~~

And then,

Judas tries to derail everything she has just done.

He throws suspicion and doubt at Mary.

He disrupts the holy moment

to speak of morality and justice.

Only a Judas would question the gift.

Only a Judas would place suspicion on the reasons for offering all of oneself to another.
Only a Judas would steal the love behind the gift by comparing it to what others need or the concerns of the world, or the church budget, or the strings attached or …

Judas is the thief that wants to steal the power of the gift

and he wants to control the very gift.

We too can get caught up in controlling gifts we give or receive.

We put strings to them.

We’ve seen it in church and college and hospital budgets

where the power of the gift of a love gesture

is snuffed away as suspicion surrounds even the giver about motives.

Judas is the hypocrite that criticizes the gift of Mary and the power of love in its offering by telling Jesus it should have been given to the poor.

And that’s where we find ourselves so often stuck without a response or an answer to gestures of generosity.

We could feed the world with all the food and the funds we have on earth now.

And we should.

And we should find ways to do that.

We should already be doing that.

We should be offering our gifts towards issues of justice and mercy all the time.

It’s something we are supposed to do.

Judas makes the action of Mary an either/or rather than a both/and.

We should be going out and doing what we have been called to do in the world.

Because if we are not already doing these things then perhaps what we are doing is hoarding the gifts that are meant to be shared (Feasting on the Word).

Jesus rebukes the attempt of subversion by a self-centered Judas.

Jesus refuses to allow Judas to disrupt or destroy the community of faith.

Jesus’ words about the poor were not words to dismiss the Biblical responsibility that the community of faith has to care for them and to always lift them up,

but it was an anger that Judas would compare an act of worship

to a responsibility of living out true love.

Jesus will not allow the truth to be twisted by greed or subversion or any other act that is contrary to his love for God’s children!!

There are a lot of people today who are skilled at taking our attention away from the things that matter most.

There are a lot of people who are skilled at twisting words

and turning our heads to see things that appear to be about justice and mercy

and yet are really inciting hate and anger and violence.

Be careful of the Judases that still surround us!

And especially the Judases that live within our own hearts!

This story today is about Mary and just like the world lives,

the story seems to draw back to Judas

and he gets all the attention.

Our faith is stronger than that!!

Mary’s gift is where Jesus wants us.

Whether the gift of poured out love is oil from an alabaster jar or

an anthem sung by the choir or a

Sunday school lesson or an

arrangement of flowers or a

home baked pie or a

bar of chocolate,

these open our eyes

and our hearts

to the goodness and truth of love that surrounds us and make a lasting lifetime impact.

When the word generosity enters my thoughts I’m humbled and even silenced.

I find myself unable to grasp the fullness of it all.

Generosity is powerful.

Generosity breeds generosity.

And kindness breeds kindness.

And love breeds love.

Let the love of Christ be poured out upon you. Amen.

~~~~

After a challenging moment after Sunday's sermon-I added this addendum:

Perhaps I was wrong in my sermon yesterday.

Perhaps there are times
when no amount of generosity, kindness, or love
will breed generosity, kindness, and love.

And it is in those times we remain vigilant in the faith that sustains us.
In those times we hold on to the promise that in the end God wins.
God always wins.
And that is when God's love prevails.
Isn't that what the cross and Easter are all about anyway? 

Resources: Gayle O’Day notes from Gospel of John workshop; C.S. Lewis Four Loves; Feasting on the Word Lent 5C.