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2 Samuel 7.1-11, 16
+ it starts off talking about the king, which gives us caution. Kings in general did not work out well for Israel.
+ David starts to get nervous that he has built himself a nice house, but the Ark of the Lord is just in a tent out back. That probably doesn’t look too good. So he tells Nathan the prophet that he is going to build a fancy house for the Ark, for God. God tells Nathan to tell David that God doesn’t want a big house, that God is fine with the tent.
+ note that the piety of vs1-3 is sincere but misguided. One writer says “We are secure in our power and lifestyle, we are feeling thankful and pious about the good things that we presently experience, and in light of this we wish to so something for God.”
+ to me it means that we don’t have to take care of God; God can take care of God’s own self.
+ Does it mean that God is more comfortable, or just somehow “is more” in the forest or meadow or among the people than in any specific location or building? Where do you experience God – in elegant buildings? Among the common people? Out in nature? Or maybe the better question is – what of God do you experience in each of these settings?
+ God goes on that instead of David making a house for God, God will make a “house” for David. Of course the house God is speaking about is David’s descendants. The issue here is that David, a tribal chieftain, now becomes the head of a dynasty. Israel will have a permanent monarchy, instead of periodic “choosings” or “elections”. How does this resonate for us today? As we try to assimilate this – could we understand that it is the “Davidic idea” (ie, that God is involved for good in our history and life) which is permanent, not the literal descendants of one person.
+ and God will appoint/provide a place for these folks to live where they will not be bothered and evildoers will not be able to get at them. Of course there is a problem that we always seem to have evildoers in our midst already!
+ From Texts for Preaching – “God is a free, mobile, dynamic God who sojourns, bivouacs, and comes and goes, but never settles and becomes confined in one place” Or in one faith?
Luke 1.26-38 The Annunciation (a big word meaning that the angel Gabriel came and told Mary she was chosen to be the mother of Jesus.)
+ in the sixth month – which “sixth month”? It’s got to be March if Jesus is going to be born in December. From vs 1.24 - it’s the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy
+ Mary “was perplexed” by the angel and his words. What do you think it would be like to have an angel drop into your kitchen, bedroom, back yard? Note that the first thing angels usually say is “Don’t be afraid.”
+ I love these two women – Elizabeth “too old” to have children, Mary “too young/unmarried”. And I especially love these stories where all of creation waits quietly for a young girl to step forward and say her lines. Mary here, Moses’ sister by the Nile.
+ and this forms such a nice “compare and contrast” with the story about David. Note that Mary is a complete blank in this story. We know nothing about her at all. There is no reason for God to have chosen her. (More on this below in a couple of readings about what it means to be “virgin”.) Being high and mighty does not guarantee God’s salvation, being a nobody does not preclude it.
+ note Mary’s response – first “I am the handmaid/servant/slave of God” – acknowledging that this is God’s doing, and God is going to do what God will do regardless of what we say; and then “Let it be” – willing acceptance even though she cannot even begin to know or understand what that means.
+ “Young woman” from the Hebrew gets translated into “virgin” in English, with all of the baggage that previous cultures and our culture puts on it.
+ a piece from Walter Burghardt (he was a Catholic writer and preacher) You must be men and women of the present, you must live this moment – really live it, not just endure it – because this very moment, for all its imperfections and frustration, because of its imperfections and frustration, is pregnant with all sorts of possibilities, is pregnant with the future, is pregnant with love, is pregnant with Christ.
Luke 1.46b-55 The Magnificat (another big word to describe Mary’s song about how God had been and would be good to her, and about how God is.)
+ and I know, this is offered as psalm for this Sunday, and so liturgically would come before the Annunciation, but that always seems confusing to me. If we are going to follow the story, why not read it in chronological order.
+ again, a nice contrast with the David story – helps us understand what the “Davidic idea” might be.
Now here are thoughts from two writers that I got out of a book Watch for the Light – it’s a book of readings for Advent by a variety of people, published by The Plough Publishing House. I found them really meaningful – I wish I could share them in their entirety.
+ the first is from Kathleen Norris and her book Amazing Grace -
1) I once heard a Benedictine friend who is an Assiniboine Indian preach on the Annunciation to an Indian congregation – “The first thing Gabriel does when he encounters Mary is to give her a new name: Most Favored One. It’s a naming ceremony.” Norris goes on to remember James Wright’s poem Trouble and the wonder of his pregnant mill town girl – The butt of jokes, the taunt of gossips, she is amazed to carry such power within herself.
Sixteen years and
all that time, she thought she was nothing
but skin and bones.
Told all her life that she is nothing, the girl discovers in herself another, deeper reality. A mystery, something holy, with a potential for salvation. The poem has challenged me for years to wonder what such a radically new sense of oneself would entail. Could it be a form of virgin birth?
2) and then later on in the reading she notes that when Gabriel announces to Zechariah that he and Elizabeth will have a child, he responds “How will I know this is so?” - asking for proof, for a sign, for information. But Mary responds “How can this be?” acknowledging the mystery and wonder. She notes that Zechariah is struck dumb until John is born, but Mary finds her voice – “Here am I’. Norris goes on “There is no arrogance, but only holy fear and wonder. Mary proceeds – as we must do in life - making her commitment without knowing much about what it will entail or where it will lead...When the mystery of God’s love breaks through into my consciousness, do I run from it? Do I ask from it what it cannot answer? Or am I virgin enough to respond from my deepest, truest self, and say something new, a “yes” that will change me forever?
+ The second is from someone named Loretta Ross-Gotta and a book Letters from the Holy Ground. She starts off talking about how being “virgin” means in some way to be on your own in new and uncharted, “virgin”, territory, open to all kinds of new possibilities. She writes - Jesus observed, “Without me you can do nothing.” Yet we act, for the most part, as though without us God can do nothing. We think we have to make Christmas come, which is to say we think we have to bring about the redemption of the universe on our own. When all God needs is a willing womb, a place of safety, nourishment, and love...God asks us to give away everything of ourselves. The gift of greatest efficacy and power that we can offer God and Creation is not our skills, gifts, abilities, and possessions. The wise men had their gold, frankincense, and myrrh, Paul and Peter had their preaching. Mary offered only space, love, belief. What is it that delivers Christ into the world – preaching, art, writing, scholarship, social justice? Those are all gifts well worth sharing. But preachers lose their charisma, scholarship grows pedantic, social justice alone cannot save us. In the end, when all other human gifts have met their inevitable limitations, it is the recollected one, the bold virgin with a heart in love with God who makes a sanctuary of her life, who delivers Christ who then delivers us.
and finally, if you are still with me you deserve a medal of some sort for your chest or an ornament to hang on your tree, here’s a piece I wrote for Christmas 1984 that I still enjoy it. I hope you do as well -
The smooth-talking stranger spun out a line that was pure silk. “Hail, O favored one” he began, and then went on to talk of happiness, fulfillment, and peace. But she had heard it all before. And she knew what it meant – it meant children. And children meant changing diapers, walking the floor at midnight, three o’clock feedings. And where would this joker be while all this was going on? Gone – that’s where.
Still – still there was something different about it all. Perhaps it was her feeling that she could reach out and put her hand right through him. Perhaps it was her feeling that when he looked out he could see right through her. Or perhaps it was the words themselves, and the way they seemed to come right from heaven and echo through her heart. “Maybe this is for real,” she thought. “What the heck, why not give it a try?” She took a deep breath. She said, “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be for me just as you have said it.”
And Behold, it was. All that and even more.
And so now it is Christmas. And that means cards, and gifts, and trees, and shopping, and parties, and services. And everywhere we turn some joker is singing “Peace on Earth” and “Joy to the World” and “God rest ye merry, guys and dolls”. And we have heard it all before. And we know what it means. It means feeding the hungry, housing the poor, taking care of those who can’t or won’t take care of themselves. And where will they (the singers) be when it comes time to start pounding those swords and spears and bombs and tanks into plowshares and pruninghooks and planters and strollers? Gone, most likely, that’s where.
Still – still there is something about a holiday that can get all those people singing about loving each other, even if only some of them really mean it. And there is something about a holiday that gets folks to give all those gifts away, even if some are hoping to get something more valuable back. There is something about the words themselves, the way they seem to come almost from heaven and echo through our hearts. “What the heck,” we say, “maybe this is for real. Why not give it a chance?” We take a deep breath. “Behold,” we say, “we are servants of the Lord. Let it be for us, all of us, even “them”, just as you have said it.”
And behold…..
That’s it. Happy Christmas
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