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Hope, for Mary and for Us

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“Hope, for Mary and for Us”

Luke 1:26-45 (1:38) – November 30, 2025

            I have a secret confession to make. I am greatly thankful that I have never had to take a job in retail. As I said to my husband this past weekend, I would have quit after the first day, simply because of the constant, cheesy, sometimes saccharin-sweet Christmas music that is piped in over the PA system at every retail store I go into. This is done for about two months before Christmas. And, that’s a long, long time to hear Christmas carols and songs, non-stop.

            And yet – and yet, as we consider this alternative Advent Bible reading from Luke chapter 1 today, I invite you to come with me back in time, to a time before there even was a Christmas. We are not only going to time-travel, but we are going to ocean-hop, too. Let us go to the modest home of a teenager named Mary, living with her parents in Palestine, around the beginning of the first century of the Common (or, Christian) Era.

            This teenaged girl – really, young woman, as she was in that time and place – had an angel visitation. We even find out the Angel’s name, Gabriel. The few times that the angel Gabriel appears in the Bible (that we know of), are times of great importance. Especially this appearance, when Gabriel heralds the birth of the coming Messiah! But, we haven’t gotten there yet. Mary is in her parents’ home when the angel suddenly arrives, about to upend everything concerning Mary and her life as she knows it.  

            Another very important fact: the country where Mary is living, and her people, the Jews, are under Roman rule. Palestine is an occupied country, like so many other regions and nations under the boot of Rome and the powerful Roman army. Palestine doesn’t sound much like a “Silent Night, Holy Night,” where “all is calm, all is bright.” Does it?

            Our mighty God does not wait until everything is perfect, or everything is calm and placid, to work wonders and miracles. God sent the angel Gabriel to a teenager in a modest house, in a country under military occupation. Not to the ruling classes, not to the king’s family in his luxurious palace, but to an unlikely young woman in a backwater town.

            Let us shift gears and move our focus to the modern day. Here in the United States, we have a great deal of internal struggle! Things today are certainly not perfect, or calm or placid. As we mark the first Sunday in Advent, the first candle on the Advent wreath is called the candle of Hope. Can you and I possibly find hope in an atmosphere of anxiety? Of uncertainty? Overwhelmed by pervasive negativity, with the American people’s attitudes filled with division, derision and defensiveness?

            Let’s return to Mary and the angel. How does Gabriel lead off in this conversation from Luke chapter 1? 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Admittedly, Mary wonders what on earth is going on! Dr. Luke tells us, Mary “was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.” I dare say you and I would be greatly troubled, too, if we were to encounter an angel!

            Sure enough, Gabriel announces to Mary that she is highly favored, and that “you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

Mary probably knew her place in society of her time, as a female, as a second-class citizen. Mary “is common, ordinary, of little account in her world and definitely not the stuff of legends…and she knows it. Only after expressing her wonder and dismay, and then hearing again Gabriel’s affirmation and promise, does she manage to summon the courage to believe that God has indeed favoring her by working in her and through her for the health of the world.” [1] What was Mary’s response to the angel? 38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”

We all know very well that our teenaged Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit, and gave birth to the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. We are well used to seeing Mary as a sweet, calm, quiet, almost docile follower of God’s will for her life. However, I would like to suggest that Mary was also a prophet! As a prophet, she would also be a bringer of hope to the world!

This prophetic role, this insight is a new way of looking at Mary for me. New for me, and I hope enlightening to you, too. As we consider the call of the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures, and consider the call of Mary by the angel Gabriel, we see all the familiar, classic steps: we see God’s initial call, God’s task, the prophet’s objection, God’s reassurance, and the prophet’s acceptance of call. [2]

 I will say more about this next week, when we take a look at the Canticle that Mary sings, but I want to bring before us the earth-shattering idea that “Luke portrays her in a startling role: one that shakes up the way we’ve been brought up to think of her and invites us to stop observing her and start imitating her.” [3]

 I know that the Christmas carol “Once in Royal David’s City” calls mother Mary “mild,” and the typical portrayal of her on Christmas cards is calm, placid and docile. But, how can this mild depiction of Mary cause our hearts to be hopeful, today? Especially when it seems that the whole world is uncertain, the current political situation is contentious, and our society in the United States is fractured and broken?

            While Mary’s specific task is specific to her, the prophetic call remains open to everyone. God can call each one of us to a prophetic role, especially at this time of Advent, at this grateful and expectant time of year when people are looking up, looking outward, looking for hope. We can all be like Mary, the prophet, bearing good news to everyone.

            Alleluia, amen.

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!

[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/favored-ones

[2] http://www.patheos.com/progressive-christian/mary-reluctant-prophet-alyce-mckenzie-12-17-2012.html

[3] Ibid.

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A Time for New Things

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“A Time for New Things”

Ecclesiastes 3:1-14 (3:11) – January 1, 2023

            Today is a fresh new year, a brand new calendar, new experiences each and every day. What bright opportunities are ahead of each of us! Just imagine – today is a time for new things, just as our Scripture reading this morning states.

            Today’s Scripture reading from Ecclesiastes talks a great deal about time. All different kinds of time, and lots of ways of marking time, too. “Time feels different to children who have known so little of it. For them years last forever. They are just beginning to sort out the difference between how long a time period feels and the fact that an hour is always 60 minutes long no matter how it feels.” [1]  

            Yet, many of us here have seen the passage of time, and many years go by on the calendar. Many people know that days, months and years can slip by oh, so quickly. When a child is 5 or 6 years old, it can seem like forever before the Christmas holiday finally arrives! But, when someone turns 75 or 86 years of age, the Christmases and the holidays seem to come faster and faster. Time surrounds each of us, here in this world, in this place and time.

            As we reflect upon this Scripture reading for today, we can also reflect upon what exactly the author of Ecclesiastes meant. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…” That can mean we ought to be serious and anxious about each little factor, or each tiny decision each of us makes.

Sure, some can go too far, and have a totally fatalistic point of view of life. That is the way some Bible scholars view the author of Ecclesiastes, who often says that everything is absolutely fated and predetermined. Many scholars view the author of Ecclesiastes as the aged King Solomon, and the writing in Ecclesiastes is mostly jaded, disheartened and questioning. Nothing is worth doing, no innovation, no creativity; no one can change anything ever. What a hopeless, helpless point of view. This view takes away free will, human decision, and the possibility of change. Why do anything, ever again?

            But, that way of serious, somber thinking can be really negative. Seconds turn into minutes, hours, days and months. Before we know it, sometimes we can look back at the passage of many days, many existences with sadness and regret.

            As we look through this clear choice each of us has on the New Year’s Day, we can certainly wonder about our personal choices. And, these choices sound like this Scripture reading, too. “A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”  

            We can add “a time to be positive, and a time to be negative, a time to look forward, and a time to look back over our shoulders.” These additions are fully in keeping with the author’s intent, I think. Yet, each of us must think about what each of us is going to do with these words, choices and intentions. Each individual needs to weigh this decision in their own mind. And, what is the Godly decision?

            Another way to reflect upon this fresh, new decision is to consider what has happened to each of us in the past twelve months, and find within an eagerness, looking forward to the future. Again, we can view this new year as a new path in the pristine snow, ready for each of us to walk upon. We can track a fresh path where none has been before!

            Bible commentator Christine Valters Painter tells us that “the human desire [is] for renewal and new beginnings. St. Benedict in his Rule for monasteries writes ‘always we begin again.’  This impulse is the heart of what makes anticipation of the New Year kindle all of our longings for a richer way of being in the world.  There is something so very hopeful to me in this fundamental impulse.” [2]

            Remember, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer tells us repeatedly, we are Christians, together. A congregation is a group of believers gathered together for friendship, fellowship, and most of all, to worship together. We all come together to worship as a group of believers. We all come together to find commonality in this renewal and new beginning each January 1st. And, we all can find comfort, camaraderie and fellowship in the common coming-together as a family of faith.

             Yes, this new calendar page is an opportunity to begin again as individuals. Plus, January 1st is another opportunity to come together as a congregation and find a more hopeful, a richer way of being in the world.

            Just as the concept of time is foundational to each one of us, with this concentration of time so central, so this Scripture reading tells us that God has set eternity in humanity’s heart. Verses 11 and 12: “yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.”

            What a sentiment! And, what a wonderful way to decide to look at life. As we all begin again this first day of 2023, let us listen to the writer of Ecclesiastes. God has set a foundational sense of time in our human hearts, and God has set for us a task. There is nothing better for us than to be happy and to do good while we live. God has given us this precious gift: a God-given gift of time, and a God-given gift of being happy.

So go – do that. Be well, and be happy.

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!

[1] http://worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.com/2013/11/new-years-day-years-b-c.html

[2] http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/New-Year-New-Beginnings