"The stories of Mary and Joseph -- two seemingly ordinary people -- and their willingness to answer the call of God inspires us . . . to see our own walk upon this earth as a call to be sacred people who usher in the presence of love. It also invites us to see others as sacred, full of the potential to be messengers in our lives." -- Dr. Marcia McFee.
Based on Luke 1:26-38; Matthew 1:18-25
I love the way Luke and Matthew begin their Gospels, with the stories of two ordinary people, from an ordinary village. A young girl, probably a teenager, just beginning her adult life, soon to be married, just like other girls her age. A grown man, a carpenter, just trying to make a living, have a family, take a wife, just like other men of his village. Two ordinary people, trying to live their lives like everyone else.
But to them comes an opportunity – an opening – to take a chance and make a difference in their world. And the result is extraordinary.
But when the opportunity first presented itself it wasn’t that extraordinary. It entailed some risk, especially for Mary, but the acts Mary and Joseph were called to do were not so out of the ordinary: Mary to have a child, Joseph to take a wife. The extraordinary part of the story was taken care of by the Holy Spirit. Mary and Joseph’s part was relatively simple, well within their human ability, and through those ordinary acts God was working to change the world. Mary and Joseph just had to do their part.
It’s easy to see Mary and Joseph as “sacred people.” I mean, they’re in the Bible – and through them Jesus was born. They’re religious celebrities. If this were to happen today the media would be camped outside their house, interviewing their friends and neighbors. Their faces would be on every newspaper, magazine and tv screen. Well, the religious establishment over time as done essentially done the same thing to them by making them famous, canonizing them as “saints,” setting them apart – not your ordinary, everyday people anymore. Something special, something extraordinary.
But that’s not the story we are given – the story of special people doing special things. No, we’re given the story of ordinary people, doing ordinary things – albeit in extraordinary circumstances. And this is important, because if the whole story of the coming of Jesus is about a special baby being born to special people two thousand years ago, then we are nothing more than passive observers watching the story of God’s past supernatural activity. Interesting, and heartening, like any good news story, but what does it have to do with us?
And then, when opportunities come to us, openings for us to do something to help, issues we see need to be addressed, when the world needs to be changed in ways large or small, we continue to passively stand aside and watch – and wait for someone special to show up. We pray that God works to fix things – through someone else, some other chosen one. Because if we don’t see ourselves as “special” like Mary and Joseph, it’s not our job to worry about those problems, not our job to change the world. After all, anything we did would be small, insignificant, ordinary.
And so we miss the whole point of the story. The very ordinariness of Mary and Joseph is what makes their story so extraordinary. Because they could be us, any one of us. Because we are all like Mary and Joseph. We are all ordinary, sacred people.
Mary and Joseph didn’t become sacred people, favored ones, because they were visited by an angel, or because they said “yes” to God. They were already sacred people – the angel calls Mary “favored one” right up front, before he even tells her the deal. Right up front, the angel says, “the Lord is with you.”
God’s messengers come to us, probably most every day, presenting us with a choice to do something – something relative simple, at least to start – and trust that God will use that to do amazing things. Those messengers – the Bible calls them angels – come to us in many ways. To Mary they came in person; to Joseph, they appeared in a dream. To us they may come in the person of someone we meet on the street, or something we see on television or read in the paper, or an offer from someone at church. It may just be that nagging idea you’ve had for a while that just won’t go away.
But, too often, we think something like: I couldn’t do that; or who am I to try that, I’m no one special; or don’t bother, it won’t really help. Who are we? We are sacred people. We are all sacred people, “favored ones” to use the language of today’s scripture, and the Lord is with us.
We say it all the time: “The Lord be with you – and also with you.” But do we really believe it? Do we really believe that God is with us – each of us? Working in us, through us? Choosing us over and over to do God’s work in the world? Active in our own lives?
Walter Bruegemann says that “few of [us] imagine God to be an active character in the story of [our] lives.” It’s not that we don’t believe in God, but that on a daily basis God seems more of an a background figure. Kind of like the refrain from that Bette Midler song: “God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching us . . . from a distance.” Not actively involved in our lives, up close and personal.
But what if we really saw ourselves as sacred people? Felt that God is not just watching us, but with us, everyday? Not just in the background, but a part of our very being> Offering us opportunities, openings, everyday to act as the sacred people we are – like Mary and Joseph. Not so that we can do miracles – but so that God can do wondrous, marvelous things through us – even if our own part seems ordinary or small. Because nothing is impossible with God. And God is not working just through us, but through all of us, ordinary, sacred people; each of connected to each other, as Mary and Joseph were connected. But it’s up to us, like Mary and Joseph, to say “yes.”
For the past couple of days, the world has mourned someone who said “yes”: Nelson Mandela. Not a saint. An ordinary, if complex, man, in extraordinary circumstances who accepted a calling and remained true to it. But he didn’t do it alone. All along the way were people, some of whose names we will never know, who also helped make the miracle that was the end of apartheid and a transformed South Africa happen. In ways big and small, by their actions they changed their world.
Nelson Mandela is often talked about in South Africa as being the perfect embodiment of “unbuntu” – a Bantu word that roughly translates as “I am because we are.” Bishop Desmond Tutu explains that “ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – ubuntu – you are known for your generosity and for recognizing everything and everyone as sacred.”
Everything and everyone is sacred. Each of us is sacred, and we are a sacred people together. Nelson Mandela’s death is a great loss not just to South Africa, but to the world. But in life, and in death, he was also a messenger through whom other sacred people heard God’s call, and answered it – and continue to answer it today.
Take a moment and consider the idea that God is at work in you, or through you, or wants to be. What might that look like? Imagine one concrete place where you can make a difference between now and Christmas? Maybe you think it’s small – driving a friend to a hospital, donating bedding to Family Gateway, signing up to volunteer at a homeless shelter or greeting people on Christmas Eve at church. But if you really believe that God is working through you, that you are a sacred person, and that we, working together, are sacred people – then it’s not the size of the act that is important, just that we do it; that we act as the sacred people we are – and trust God to use our work well – even if we, ourselves, never see the results.
You are Mary. You are Joseph. That idea that came to you is your opportunity, your opening – whatever the messenger. On our Advent prayer table there are slips of paper with a message to help you remember and make that commitment – to help you say “yes.” They say: “I am favored by God. Indeed, God wants to do great things through me. One of those things may be: ______” Take one, fill it out, do it.
But maybe it would help us see ourselves as Joseph or Mary if we put ourselves in their place, make the story our own. So using Luke’s gospel as a guideline, (and with thanks to David Lose) I’m going to play the part of the angel Gabriel – I’m God’s messenger today. Put yourself in the position of Mary or Joseph by saying the words in bold:
Greetings, favored ones. The Lord is with you and intends to do great things through you.
How can this be? We are ordinary, everyday people.
Do not be afraid. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, guide you, and work through us to care for this world and its people God loves so much. For nothing is impossible with God.
Here am I, a servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.
“Let it be with me according to your word.” It’s a powerful statement. Life changing. World changing. And because nothing is impossible with God, and God is with us, we are powerful beyond measure. Each of us. Ordinary and sacred.
And if we can really believe that, of ourselves, and of each other. If we can develop in ourselves the quality of ubuntu, of seeing the sacred in everyone and everything, including ourselves, and act as the sacred people we are – then God will do great things through us. Amen.
--- Rev. Christine Ng
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