Promise

“Greetings, favored one!” “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah…” We’re being addressed. Well, not us, per se. After all, the first one addressed is Mary; we’ll get back to her in a moment. And then there is a whole people of a community called Bethlehem of Ephrathah, and we’ll get back to them in a moment. So, we’re not being addressed—except we are. We are the ones being called out, being included, being invited. The us is humanity. It’s us; we’re here in these texts. We are present or represented or recognized or however you want to understand being read into this story. There is an invitation this week—an ongoing invitation to the party that is the kin-dom of God, the celebration to be of the Realm of God. What is clear in our texts this week is the incredible news that God has chosen to include us in this process.

Now we could question the wisdom of this prerogative from the Divine mind if we would dare to do such a thing. We could wonder why God wouldn’t simply snap the divine fingers and make kingdom happen. We could wonder why there wasn’t an inevitable, assembly-line process toward kin-dom that we might be invited to watch unfold. We could wonder why the Holy One didn’t just start here with completion already in place. Oh, wait. We could wonder. And that’s another of the gifts we have been given: the capacity to question the way things are.

The tragedy of this capacity to question is the unfortunate possibility of missing the invitation. We might think the invitation doesn’t include us, but others more directly involved. Or we might think these are ancient stories and therefore not really directed toward us except as something to remember and appreciate.

“Greetings, favored one.” There’s an angel in our living room, a shining presence inviting us to acknowledge that God has chosen to use us in this kin-dom-building exercise called incarnation. Please, we don’t diminish Mary when we do this. We stand with her in wonder and awe. “How can this be,” we wonder. We aren’t equipped; we aren’t resourced; we aren’t prepared to bring to life this Christ-presence in our world today. We are too fallible, too uncertain, too busy with our own lives.

Mary asked the question too. It was all too much for this young woman, betrothed to be married. She knew that as things usually worked, she was not prepared to be a mother to a savior. And frankly, the angel wasn’t much help. The instructions were frighteningly vague: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” —before rushing on to talk – with some relief on the angel’s part, it seems – about the child to be born. The invitation seems to be about being the center and not the center of this event; to be the means of grace incarnating in the world, but it is not about you in the end. Overshadow? That seems to be the antithesis of self-actualization and self-centeredness that this world seems to want to focus on. It is both an elevation and a diminution of the person. It is both a blessing and a burden.

And it all hinges on the acceptance of this overwhelmed young girl trembling before an angel in her living room. What an amazing thing when you think about it! I wonder if Gabriel was just as nervous as Mary on that day—nervous that she had more power, more agency than he was used to dealing with. God chooses to invite and not force. God chooses to wait for our willingness and doesn’t bend our will with power beyond our resistance.

“Why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” (Luke 1:43) Yes, OK, here’s the real passage for this Year C. It is about Elizabeth. Except, Elizabeth wouldn’t say so. She redirects; she looks beyond. She has her role in the drama but is willing to move from center stage so that another might stand in the promise of which they are both a part. Now Mary hears another greeting. This one is a bit more human. And yet there is a taste of the divine in it. There is a promise in the greeting and the question that follows. Elizabeth, glowing from her own miracle, points the light on Mary֫—on the One she carries, the hope of the world, the promise to which the people of God had clung for centuries.

“Blessed is she who believed” (Luke 1:45), Elizabeth says at the end of her welcome to Mary. But who is “she”? Mary, of course, Mary believed. But then didn’t Elizabeth believe as well? Or if she did not believe ahead of time, didn’t she believe in process? How else could she now come to greet Mary with such conviction and certainty? Elizabeth is living the promise. She is a sign, like Mary is a sign, that God is with them. She who believed includes Elizabeth. And? Who else is included in the affirmation of faith, this creedal greeting at the door of Elizabeth’s house?

“And you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah.” What about this village? Where is their agency? What does prophecy mean, in the end? Inevitable? No matter what? Perhaps. But this prophecy is coming true, says Luke, through the agency of a young woman. Fulfillment is a choice, an invitation, a participation in the working out of the workings of God. We are citizens of Bethlehem of Ephrathah; we are Mary standing before the angelic messenger. We are part of what God is doing and continuing to do in our midst. The invitation here is to respond like Mary, “Here I am, let it be to me.” Here we are, let it be to us. Let us be the ongoing incarnation of God at work among us.

Is this the promise of this fourth Sunday of Advent? That we promise to be God-bearers as we work and walk as disciples of Jesus Christ in the world and in our communities? That would be a powerful expression of our faith as we worship together. It would be a glorious entry into a Christmas observance. In the end, we are saying that there is room for the Savior to be born among us. We will make room. We will be the room. We will be the sign that God is present; Emmanuel is the expression of this God we worship.

That is the real promise here. Our response is vital, God claims. Our work is integral to the working out of the kin-dom. But the promise is that we do not do this alone. The Savior will stand and feed the flock, says Micah; the Savior will be with us. “Greetings, favored one,” says the angel in Luke’s Gospel, “the Lord is with you.” Even the initial response is supported by God’s presence. We call that prevenient grace. The promise we celebrate, the promise we live into is that God will be, God has been, God is with us. Let us move into the Christmas season embracing this promise and seeing God at work in us and around us. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Derek Weber, Director of Preaching Ministries, served churches in Indiana and Arkansas and the British Methodist Church. His PhD is from University of Edinburgh in preaching and media. He has taught preaching in seminary and conference settings for more than 20 years.