When it comes to fear, Halloween is sort of an amazing holiday when we look at it from a 30,000 foot level, because what we do is to turn on lights and invite all the gremlins and goblins to come into the light and then rather than shrieking in fear, we instead ooh and awe over their costumes and tell them how great they look, maybe even how scary they look, and then give them candy and send them off to be bathed in someone else’s light. How great is that? What if the world acted like that all the time? Because normally we shrink in fear, we turn off our lights and lock the door to the gremlins of the world, or those who are different, those who don’t meet the standards we want them to have. We keep them at arms distance and away from us and we fear them. But a holiday that is in some ways to celebrate the fear in actuality works to overcome it, which was part of the purpose. And Christmas is working to try and do the same as well, because the refrain we continually hear from the angels in their proclamation about the coming of Jesus the messiah is do not be afraid, and so that is our theme for this Advent season of learning how not to be afraid.
And so last week we heard the story of the announcement to Zechariah that his wife would become pregnant in her old age and give birth to a son who would become John the Baptist. And even though he has been praying for this to happen, it doesn’t seem he actually believed it would happen because he questions Gabriel about the reality of it. And because of that questioning he is struck silent, unable to speak for the nine month pregnancy of his wife Elizabeth. But the other piece of his story is that we are told that when he sees the angel Gabriel as Zechariah is serving in the Temple that he is terrified. And Gabriel’s response? “Do not be afraid.” And so then let’s compare that against today’s passages.
There are actually two parts of the story that we heard
today. The first part is known as the annunciation, which is Gabriel appearing
to Mary, and then there is a brief interchange between them that we didn’t hear
today, although it was read last week as we added Mary to the nativity, and
then Mary goes off to see Elizabeth, who is now six months pregnant with her
and Zechariah’s child, and then we have Mary’s song of celebration which has
become known as the Magnificat, based on the first word in the passage when it
is translated into Latin. That song, one of three of significance in Luke,
including one from Zechariah, has become a musical standard and set to music by
Bach, Purcell, Vivaldi, Mozart and Schubert, to name just a few. And we’ll come
back to that in a moment, and instead focus on the annunciation which at least
on its face is fairly similar to that of Zechariah, and yet there are some
significant differences. The first is the fact that although Gabriel tells Mary
not to be afraid, we are not actually told that she is afraid. Instead we are
told that she was perplexed by Gabriel’s greeting. Other than Joseph, Mary is
the only other one we are not told is afraid, and part of the reason why, I
think, is because of, as we talked about last week, expectation.
Now perhaps Mary should be afraid of this appearance but
she’s not, I think, partly because she is so perplexed and puzzled by what’s
happening, and Gabriel’s announcement makes no sense to her. I can image her
saying to Gabriel, and several different points, “surely you can’t be serious,”
and of course his response is “I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley.” But
more importantly, last week I said that Max Lucado says that “fear, at its
center, is about a perceived loss of control.” And if that is true, then
Zechariah’s fear makes sense. Because, in addition to being a man, he is a
Temple priest with a long important lineage, and so when Gabriel appears to him
and announces what’s happening, Zechariah is losing enormous amounts of
control, including even the naming of his son. He is losing control over the
events in his life and even the story he tells about his life. God is taking
control and Zechariah is not willing to simply let go and trust God. Instead he
doubts what Gabriel says will happen, even though it is what he has been asking
and praying for. He should be expecting these things and yet he doesn’t because
he thinks he’s in control of things, or at the very least wants to be in
control of things. Now compare that to Mary. What does she have control over in
her life? Very, very little. She is a young girl, in a backwater village. She
probably even had no say in her betrothal to Joseph. And so she doesn’t have
control to lose to be afraid of losing with the announcement. And even though
she has questions for Gabriel, pretty practical ones by the way, she is not
rebuked or punished for them because she has not been asking for the things
that she is being told she is going to get, as Zechariah has. And I think this
is confirmed by looking at the details of her song.
I am always struck by that first line that her soul
magnifies the Lord, and wonder what that looks like, and more importantly if my
soul is magnifying the Lord. I don’t think it does the way that Mary is, or at
least not most of the time. And then she says that God has looked with favor on
the lowliness of her as God’s servant. Do servants how much control over their
lives? Not really. And then moving on she has the things that God is doing as juxtapositions
of power and control and authority over those who don’t. “God has scattered the
proud in the thoughts of their hearts. God has brought down the powerful from
their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with
good things, and sent the rich away empty.” The proud, the powerful, the
rich are all people who think they have control over their lives, and can use
power and money to exert control over others and keep control. But, Mary is
saying, God is reversing that and they will lose control, and so they are
rightly to be afraid, as Zechariah is. But for Mary she has had to learn to
trust God and follow God because she doesn’t have that power or control. She is
not rich, she is not powerful, and what does she have to be proud about as far
as the world is concerned. She has no control to lose in order to be afraid,
she has had to trust God in her life to protect and provide and so when she is
presented with this most unusual message it’s no wonder that she’s not afraid,
because trust and fear don’t go together. And Mary also seeks out Elizabeth to
help her through this time.
Now I should mention that there is nothing wrong with fear
in and of itself. Fear is healthy and important. If we didn’t have fear we, or
our ancestors, would have wound up dead. Fear keeps us away from and out of bad
situations. There are times in which we should be afraid, but it’s a matter of
what we are going to do with that fear. Is it going to paralyze us? Is it going
to keep us always doing the safe thing? Is it going to keep us from trying new
things? Is it going to keep us from taking risks? Is it going to keep us from
risking faith itself? Both Elizabeth and
Mary should be terrified, but they are not because they trust God. And Mary
seeks Elizabeth out which points to a crucial point that one of the ways to move
beyond fear is to be in community. It’s much easier to be afraid when we are
alone, but, as we say, there is strength in numbers. That’s not to say that
there isn’t fear in groups, because there is as we have seen lately with people
breaking into their own individual tribes, and the echo chambers that that
creates actually causes further extremism and so can increase fear of those
outside that tribe. I’m talking about the fact that walking at night in the
forest can be scary by yourself, but having another person can help enormously.
The same that Mary being around another woman, also pregnant at the same time,
had to have helped alleviate many of her fears about what she was going through
and what she faced.
And the other leap of faith here is Mary’s response to
Gabriel’s announcement. There is a legend that I find enlightening that says
that Mary was not the first one that Gabriel came to with this announcement,
but she was the first one to say yes. How many others had told Gabriel that he
was out of his mind? That they were not willing to overcome their natural fear
of this request and trust God. And in the interchange we didn’t hear, after
asking some questions, Mary says, “Here am I,” which is a phrase we hear often
in scripture of those who are called to serve God, like the prophets, and
choose to follow. Because I do think that Mary has a choice here. God is not
forcing this upon her, and quite honestly she should be terrified about taking
this task on. But she doesn’t hesitate. Would you be willing to do the same? I
can honestly say that I’m not sure I could. I mean it took me more than four
years from the time I received my calling to the ministry to the time I finally
walked into a Methodist church and said “what do I have to do?” That’s a long
time, but God was patient, because God is not working by coercion but by grace
and trust. Fear uses coercion, and
coercion uses fear, but love works by invitation. That’s God’s call to move
beyond fear, especially the fear of punishment.
A.W. Tozer said, “The greatness of God rouses fear within in
us,” and that fear is from the sense of awe, “but [God’s] goodness encourage us
not to be afraid of God… – that is the paradox of faith.” And so Mary stands in
awe of God and knows God’s mercy and grace not in general but God’s mercy and
grace for her. She has already learned to let go and now she is having to learn
to trust God even more than she already did. And she has to know that this is
not going to be an easy journey. After all, just being pregnant outside of
marriage is punishable to stoning, and yet she leans into God’s grace and
trusts God all the more and sees herself as being blessed even in the midst of
the unknown. And she and Elizabeth will both see their sons, these blessings
given by God, killed by the powers and principalities of their world. And why?
Because they threaten their control. But
Mary has no control and so she has already learned to put her utter confidence
and trust in God. And compare that against Zechariah’s doubt even though he has
been asking, perhaps begging God to give him a child, and there’s the rub for
us.
Trust is hard. I don’t think trust falls are as common as
they used to be in team building exercises, but one of the reasons they worked,
and why they were also hard to do, is because you had to have utter trust that
the others would catch you. And then you think, well what if they don’t? What
if they’re not strong enough? Then what happens? Will I be hurt when I hit the
floor? And that then causes us to question and to clench up our muscles, which
actually increases our chances of being hurt. In studies of why cats can
survive falls from great heights is because they relax all their muscles before
they hit the ground. They relax themselves and let go, and so they survive,
ironic since they have such trouble letting go in relationships. But that is
what God is calling for us to do and to be. I really wish I could give you a
five point step here, perhaps with some great acronym of how to live a faith
without fear, but I can’t other than to say you have to let go and learn to
trust. We have to learn to trust in God and God’s promises and the only way to
learn to do that is just simply doing it.
I was having a conversation with a gentleman here in Los
Alamos who is currently fostering several children that they are also in the
process of adopting, children whose lives have taught them that adults are not
safe and that intimate relationships are not safe. They have lived in fear and
so act out of fear. But, he said there are those moments when they’ll open up
for a moment and they’ll see a glimmer, before they quickly shut back down
again because they are afraid of trusting because of what has happened in the
past. But, it’s a process and every day is a little better, and someday they
will learn to be open, to let go and to trust. And that’s what relationship
with God can be like, of learning to let go of control and open ourselves up.
And perhaps then it comes back to that issue of knowing that we are not alone. Perhaps Mary was comforted by the fact that not only did she have Elizabeth, although they don’t have any interactions that we are told of after this moment, but she had God and she trusted that God be with there for her, and her child, through thick and thin. And maybe she even remembered that passage of promise from Isaiah that the Messiah would be called Emmanuel, which means God is with us. And what we also here God say in Isaiah, and in revelation, is “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.” God is with us. and so perhaps as Jesus says that those who humble themselves will be exalted and those who exalt themselves will be humbled, that we might also say that those who think they have control will lose it, and those who lose control for Christ’s sake will be blessed and know that the Lord is with us when we too are willing to say “Here am I, a servant of the Lord, use me.” And may we live in awe of God, trusting in God’s promises and trusting in God’s presence with us and amongst us for all time, so that we too may life a life unafraid. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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