Scriptures: 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8-12, 14, 16; Romans 16:25-27;
Luke 1:26-38
A man relates a simple story: “One spring afternoon,” he
says, “my five-year-old son, David, and I were planting raspberry bushes along
the side of the garage. A neighbor
joined us for a few moments. Just then
David pointed to the ground. ‘Look, Daddy! What’s that?’ he asked. I stopped talking with my neighbor and looked
down. ‘A beetle,’ I said. David was
impressed and pleased with the discovery of this fancy, colorful creature. Then my neighbor lifted his foot and stepped
on the insect giving his shoe an extra twist in the dirt. ‘That ought to do it,’ he laughed. David looked up at me, waiting for an
explanation a reason. That night, just
before I turned off the light in his bedroom, David whispered, ‘I liked that
beetle, Daddy.’ ‘I did too,” I whispered back.”
The man concluded his story by saying.
“We have the power to choose.”
In today’s first reading, King David decides that the time
has come for the God of Israel to have a fitting house to dwell in among the
people. After all, here is David living
in a cedar house and the Lord’s ark is still in a tent. But the response back from God was, “seriously?” “Should you build me a house to dwell in?” (2
Sm 7:5) The message seems very clear,
that no temple built with human hands could be a suitable dwelling place for
God. Rather, it is God who will build
David’s “house” — that is, God will establish David’s lineage and his heir
shall inherit a throne that will last forever.[1]
Enter the Archangel Gabriel — the messenger of life. Sent to Mary to announce she will give birth
to a son, who is the rightful heir to “the throne of David his father … and of
his kingdom there will be no end.” (Lk 1:32-33)
The picture you see on the screen is a painting by Henry
Ossawa Tanner that hangs in the Philadelphia Museum of Art called, “The
Annunciation”. It shows Mary as a young
girl sitting on her disheveled bed, and there is this light in front of
her. It must be right after the angel
has spoken to her, as Mary is just sitting there, looking at the light with her
mouth open, dumbfounded. The look on her
face says, “seriously!?”
This is quite a different portrait of Mary that we may be
more accustomed too. You know the
gorgeous Annunciation paintings of a serene Mary, robed in Renaissance attire,
glowing with a halo and accompanied by cherubs in a resplendent room whose
windows show a Tuscan landscape. The
reality is quite the opposite. What God
is asking is incomprehensible!
Especially in a village where everyone knows everyone else, and they can
count to nine! Mary has just experienced
the truth: that it’s a fearful and messy thing to be encountered by God, to be
confronted with a call to mission, and to stand at the crossroads of a choice. We have the power to choose.
As a Jew, Mary knew well the ancient stories of how Moses
tried to duck his calling by saying he was not an eloquent speaker and tried to
pass the calling off on Aaron, how Isaiah protested his call to be a prophet by
saying he’d be a lousy one, and Jonah ran the other way when told to go to
Nineveh. They all wanted to be close to
God but not that close. We have the
power to choose.
So Mary, sitting on her disheveled bed with hair undone
trying to recover from what was like a slap in the face, realizing fully what
is meant to say yes to God and fearful of the consequences. She knew what it wound up costing Moses,
Isaiah, and Jonah. She knows what is may
cost her and her husband to be with child out of wedlock, which makes her ‘yes’
all the more generous and heroic. This
is a Mary Moment to contemplate.
The Mary Moment is one we all know: that sudden
stop-in-your-tracks experience. It may
be the sudden loss of a loved one or friend, a flash of self-disgust as we
repeat that same sin that we just confessed, a close call accident, or just one
of those fleeting moments when we realize that life is more than the “Real
Housewives”, facebook, fashion, and sports.
Mary Moments confront us with such opportunities to choose,
to realize that we can be better persons.
Moments to recognize there are people who live on the edge, are poor and
suffering who need our concern and care.
There are bad habits we need to deal with, an addiction that calls for
attention, a relationship that needs healing.
We need to embrace the holiness we secretly desire, no matter how much
others make fun of us.
Can we say yes? It’s
not easy. There will be a cost—Mary knew
it, hence her fear—yet there will be indescribable peace and joy.
Perhaps this week, in light of this familiar Gospel, seen
with fresh eyes, we can reconsider, perhaps even ask Mary to intercede for
us—that perplexed and fearful as we sit on the edge of our beds, we too may
find courage to say “yes” to surrender to:
Live simply,
Give generously,
Care deeply,
Speak kindly,
To walk by faith and not by sight,
To utter fearfully but firmly, “Be it done unto me according
to your word.”[2]
(Lk 1:38)
