Advent 4 B

What is it about Mary that so grabs our imaginations?
She said "Yes."

4 Advent B

Given at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church

12/22/96

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Luke 1:26-38

            What is it about Mary that so grabs our imaginations?  There is an article about her in this week’s TIME magazine that traces her ups and downs in popularity during the 2000 years since that fateful day when she said “yes” to God. What is there about this young woman? Why is her story so powerful, so moving?

            I think people are touched because her story is the story of self-surrender, which is the highest form of discipleship. She personifies the ones who have offered themselves, their egos, their separateness, to God. She embodies what Jesus referred to as the “least of the kingdom,” the ones who humbly offer themselves to God.

            She was nobody special, trying to live a good normal life, and an angel appeared announcing a miracle - she will give birth, even though she is a virgin. Now looking back on this we can call her blessed, but for her, what a difficult thing was being asked. She was betrothed to marry, if she got pregnant what would happen to that. Even worse, when the town’s people discovered that she conceived before marrying Joseph, she could be stoned. Surely she could expect to be excluded, looked down upon, whispered about. Who would want to go through that kind of experience? I certainly wouldn’t, would you?

Yet, when she hears what the angel has to say, she consents. She says “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” In today’s English, she might have said, “Okay, whatever you want.”

            To be able to say, “Okay God, whatever you want with my life,” is not an easy thing to do. How difficult it is for each of us. We all have plans, expectations, and images of ourselves. We don’t like it when God’s plans contradict our own. When we find we have lost a job for no fault of our own, do we get angry, get depressed, or can we say, “Okay God, whatever you want. Perhaps there is something else here for me to learn or do.” Are we able to trust that the God who sends us difficult tasks, will also be the God that sees to it that our real needs are taken care of?

            Buckminster Fuller, the genius best known for his geodesic dome buildings, struggled with the meaning of life when he was in his twenties. Faced with unremitting failure and the need to support a wife and newborn child, he walked to the shores of Lake Michigan, determined to either find the meaning and purpose of his life, or, failing that, to drown himself that very day.

            After some hours of intense meditation, the realization came to him that the universe is the product of a higher mind that is striving to create order out of disorder. If there were ever to be such a things as a “meaningful life” surely it would be found in trying to serve this higher mind in any available capacity. This is what he resolved to do. In other words, he surrendered his life to God.

            His second realization was just as critical as the first; he realized that as long as he was doing his best to serve this calling, then the higher power would naturally reciprocate by supporting him in his earthly existence in whatever way it deemed necessary. His livelihood, in other words, was no longer his problem. By becoming wholly dependent upon God, he had become God’s charge. Buckminster Fuller never again undertook a project with the aim of earning money. And although he went through many periods where money was in short supply, the basic needs of himself and his family were always taken care of.

            “Ok, God, whatever you want.” To trust that if we surrender to God’s loving will for us, God will also take care of our needs. To really surrender - to really trust God. That is what Mary did. That is why she is so special to us, because we all in some way want to be able to surrender, want to be able to trust God, but we all find that difficult. To have a symbol of such surrender, in Mary, is one of the gifts she has given to all of us. To read Mary’s story reminds us of the power of surrender.

            When we let go of our fear (remember the angel said to Mary “Do not be afraid.”), when we let go of our need to feel that we are in control of our lives, our destinies, when we let go of anger when things don’t go the way we think they should, when we let go of our need to plan our futures, when we empty ourselves of our ego needs, then we become fertile ground in which God can implant the light of Christ, so that we may become pregnant with God’s love and birth Christ’s love into the world.

            Surrender, letting go, and trusting God. That’s what discipleship is all about. Surrender, letting go, and trusting God, that is what giving birth is all about. Surrender, letting go, and trusting God IS how we prepare for the birth of Christ, in our hearts, in our lives and in the world.

4 Advent B

Mary said, "Yes" and that made all the difference.

4 Advent B

Transcribed from a sermon given on

December 20, 2009

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Arroyo Grande, California

By Rev. Valerie A. Hart

From the beginning of creation God had it planned.  God had a plan and an intention that led up to a particular moment that led up to a decision of a woman. Everything beforehand was leading up to that moment. It had been predicted by the prophets. It was in the Psalms. A child would be born to a virgin and born in Bethlehem, a child of Jesse’s lineage from Nazareth.  It was all planned and ready for that moment that changed everything; that moment when Mary said, “Yes”.  And when Mary said, “Yes”, the angels rejoiced and God smiled and things could move forward. 

But it wasn’t a given that she’d say, “Yes.”  She had a choice.  Julian of Norwich talks about God as being a Gracious Lord.  God doesn’t force God’s self on anyone.  We have to say, “Yes.”  And Mary, that young woman, said “Yes,” said yes to something that was unknown, said yes to something she knew would be difficult, said yes in faith and trust and simplicity and that has made all the difference in the world, in all of creation.  I think instead of BC and AD, it should be BY, before the yes and after the yes, because everything changed at that moment.

And what Mary said “Yes” to was that Christ could come into her heart and into her being and grow in her and be born and made part of the incarnation through her.  God’s intention was to come to earth and he needed the form to do it.  He needed a human being to birth Him, and Mary said, “Yes”.  And God comes to us and wants to come into us and to grow within us and be born into the world through us.  We’re invited to say “Yes”. 

But we have lots of excuses.  Mary was simple and she said, “I will be the servant, the handmaid of the Lord.”  And we’re asked to say “Yes,” to be God’s servant.  Well we have lots of reasons not to say yes.  First of all, we’re afraid.  Well, Mary was afraid.  The first thing that the angel said to Mary was, “Don’t be afraid.”  We are afraid when God asks us to say, “Yes,” because we don’t know what’s going to happen.  We are afraid because it means giving up control.  We are afraid because we like to believe that we have some control over what happens in our lives, but that’s an illusion, of course.

We never know what’s going to happen, but we like to think we’re in charge. We like to think that we’re the one that makes the decision.  We don’t want to be the servant, the one who says, “Yes” and does whatever we’re told.  So, of course we’re afraid.  And Mary was afraid.  And we’re afraid of, “Gee, if I say ‘Yes’ to God, what’s going to happen to my reputation?  If I start telling people about Jesus Christ, oh my gosh, what would they think at work?” and “My family would be embarrassed and what would my husband or my wife say if I follow Christ. If I did then my kids would look at me like I’d become some kind of fanatic” or “My parents would not want me to act that way” or “What would the neighbors say?”  We have lots of reasons for not saying “Yes” to God. 

Mary could be pretty sure that if she said “Yes” the neighbors were not going to approve.  In fact, it was quite likely that she might get stoned and killed if she really became pregnant. We can imagine after she visits Elizabeth and spends several months there.  She’s left town.  She comes back and she is obviously pregnant.  Can you imagine what it was like in that village?  Can you imagine what the other women were saying to one another?  Can you imagine how hard it would have been for Mary to go to the well when all of the other women were there?  But she said, “Yes.”  She’s a servant of the Lord. 

And we might have difficulty saying “Yes” to God because we don’t know what’s going to happen.  We don’t know whether it’s going to work or not.  We don’t know whether we’ll get a positive response.  We don’t know whether it is actually right or not.  “My goodness, what if I say ‘Yes’ to God and I lose all my money and everything is destroyed and I don’t have anything?  What if I say ‘Yes’ to God and it doesn’t work out?”  Saying “Yes” to God does not guarantee that your life is going to be easy.  In contrast to what some people say on TV, saying “Yes” to God does not guarantee you’re going to have enough money or that you’re going to have a new car or that everything’s going to go well. 

Saying “Yes” to God means that we trust God.  Look what happened to Mary.  Yes, we celebrate her as being the Mother of God, but she had a son who ended up leaving home and wandering around teaching. She and her other children thought he was crazy.  He abandoned her.  And then, what was the gift that Mary got for having said “Yes” to God?  She got to stand on Calvary and watch her son die.  No, there is no guarantee when we say “Yes” to God that things will be easy.  We do have the guarantee that there can be joy, that it can be joyous, because there is that wonderful Magnificat that we read today where Mary magnifies the Lord. 

Here she is, a young virgin who is pregnant and she is rejoicing in the Lord and she is filled with joy, not happiness.  Saying “Yes” to God does not guarantee that we’ll be happy.  Happy is the sort of thing that happens when you go to Disneyland.  Happy is the sort of thing you feel when you get a new car.  Joy - joyousness is that welling up from inside that has nothing to do with the outside world, but in which we feel full and whole and alive and just want to sing and if we can’t sing, we just want to smile.  That’s joy.  That’s what Mary had.  That’s why Mary rejoiced because she felt God’s love growing within her.  When we say “Yes” to God, there’s no guarantee that we’ll be happy.  But we are offered the peace that passes understanding.  We are offered joy. 

One of the reasons we say “No” to God is “Well, after all, I’m nobody special.  God couldn’t possibly be asking me to do something.”  Well, you know, Mary was just a young woman; nobody special, humble.  “Not me, God, no.  No, angel, I’m not worthy.  Go somewhere else.”  But God knows.  God lifted up the humble.  God used the weak.  And the Magnificat says that everything is turned upside down with the coming of Christ.  She doesn’t use the future tense.  She uses the present tense.  Not the hungry will be fed and the rich sent away empty.  The hungry are fed.  The rich are sent away empty.  The proud are cast down and the humble are lifted up.  Everything is shifted around.  The revolution has begun because she said “Yes” and Christ is growing inside of her.

What we are asked by God is to say, “Yes”.  To say yes to Christ coming within us, to letting Christ come into our hearts and our minds and our spirits and grow in there so that we can become God’s instruments in the world.  The spiritual practice that I do twice a day called Centering Prayer is also called the Prayer of Consent.  It’s a contemplative prayer of sitting quietly and opening oneself to God.  Thomas Keating describes it as the Prayer of Consent because what we do is sit and consent to God’s presence and action within.  It’s a time twice a day that I try to just be open to God.  And, of course, my mind thinks about everything else and I have to keep going back to remembering that intention and that’s what the whole practice is about, constantly going back to that intention.  That’s what saying “Yes” is.  It’s saying yes to God’s presence and action within.  Yes to God transforming us so that we can be Christ’s hands and feet and eyes and voice and heart in the world. 

It’s different than saying that Jesus Christ is your personal Lord and Savior.  That’s a fine thing.  That’s a first step; it is when you say, “You are my Savior.”  Saying “Yes” to God is saying, “I am your servant.  It’s not about me, it’s about you.  It’s not about my salvation; it’s about serving you regardless of what happens.”  It’s an offering of ourselves.  From the beginning of creation God has been longing to hear your “Yes”.  And when any one of us says “Yes” to God and opens our heart, God rejoices and the angels rejoice with Him and everything changes because we become an instrument of God.  And whatever God’s intention for us and for the universe, now it can be fulfilled and God can rejoice and Christ is made known.

I invite you to say “Yes” to God and invite the newborn Christ into your heart.  Amen. 

Sermon - 4 Advent B

Saying "Yes" to God is not an easy thing. Two thousand years ago Mary said "Yes." We honor her to this day because she is a model of total surrender to God.

Sermon

4 Advent B

Given at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church

12/22/96

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Luke 1:26-38

         What is it about Mary that so grabs our imaginations?  There is an article about her in this week’s TIME magazine that traces her ups and downs in popularity during the 2000 years since that fateful day when she said “yes” to God. What is there about this young woman, why is her story so powerful, so moving?

         I think people are touched because her story is the story of self-surrender, which is the highest form of discipleship. She personifies the ones who have offered themselves, their egos, their separateness, to God. She embodies what Jesus referred to as the “least of the kingdom,” the ones who humbly offer themselves to God.

         She was nobody special, trying to live a good normal life, and an angel appears announcing a miracle - she will give birth, even though she is a virgin. Now looking back on this we can call her blessed, but for her, what a difficult thing was being asked. She was betrothed to marry, if she got pregnant what would happen to that. Even worse, when the town’s people discovered that she conceived before marrying Joseph, she could be stoned. Surely she could expect to be excluded, looked down upon, whispered about. Who would want to go through that kind of experience? I certainly wouldn’t, would you? Yet, when she hears what the angel has to say, she consents. She says “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” In today’s English, she might have said, “Ok, whatever you want.”

         To be able to say, “OK God, whatever you want with my life,” is not an easy thing to do. How difficult it is for each of us. We all have plans, expectations, and images of ourselves. We don’t like it when God’s plans contradict our own. When we find we have lost a job for no fault of our own, do we get angry, get depressed, or can we say, “OK God, whatever you want.” Perhaps there is something else here for me to learn or do. Are we able to trust that the God who sends us difficult tasks, will also be the God that sees to it that our real needs are taken care of?

         Buckminster Fuller, the genius best known for his geodesic dome buildings, struggled with the meaning of life when he was in his twenties. Faced with unremitting failure and the need to support a wife and newborn child, he walked to the shores of Lake Michigan, determined to either find the meaning and purpose of his life, or, failing that, to drown himself that very day.

         After some hours of intense meditation, the realization came to him that the universe is the product of a higher mind that is striving to create order out of disorder. If there were ever to be such a things as a “meaningful life” surely it would be found in trying to serve this higher mind in any available capacity. And this is what he resolved to do. In other words he surrendered his life to God.

         His second realization was just as critical as the first; he realized that as long as he was doing his best to serve this calling, then the higher power would naturally reciprocate by supporting him in his earthly existence in whatever way it deemed necessary. His livelihood, in other words, was no longer his problem. By becoming wholly dependent upon God, he had become God’s charge. Buckminster Fuller never again undertook a project with the aim of earning money. And although he went through many periods where money was in short supply, the basic needs of himself and his family were always taken care of.

         “Ok, God, whatever you want.” To trust that if we surrender to God’s loving will for us, God will also take care of our needs. To really surrender - to really trust God. That is what Mary did. That is why she is so special to us, because we all in some way want to be able to surrender, want to be able to trust God, but we all find that difficult. To have a symbol of such surrender, in Mary, is one of the gifts she has given to all of us. To read Mary’s story reminds us of the power of surrender.

         When we let go of our fear (remember the angel says to Mary “Do not be afraid.”), when we let go of our need to feel that we are in control of our lives, our destinies, when we let go of anger when things don’t go the way we think they should, when we let go of our need to plan our futures, when we empty ourselves of our ego needs, then we become fertile ground in which God can implant the light of Christ, so that we may become pregnant with God’s love and birth Christ’s love into the world.

         Surrender, letting go, and trusting God. That’s what discipleship is all about. Surrender, letting go, and trusting God, that is what giving birth is all about. Surrender, letting go, and trusting God IS how we prepare for the birth of Christ, in our hearts, in our lives and in the world.