Greetings, Favored One!

Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of David forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

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“Greetings, favored ones! The Lord is with you.” 

When was the last time anyone talked to you that way? Let alone an angel of the Lord?

Mary was as perplexed about it as most of us would be, it sounds like. She wasn’t the type anyone would have thought to be “favored,” after all. Let alone an angel of the most high God, for crying out loud.

She was poor. And a girl. In a man’s world, and in a no man’s land somewhere in the middle of Galilee, from some place called Nazareth.

When we read that she “pondered what sort of greeting this might be…” in my head, that means she “wondered what in the heck this was all about?,” and “who does this guy think he is?,” and, even more, “who does he think I am?”

And after a little explaining … something about the Holy Spirit coming upon her … something about being over-shadowed by the power of the Most High God … something about conceiving a child, naming him Jesus … and something about how he would reign as the Son of God, forever from the same throne as David, the greatest king of all time…

After all of that – and a little something about her Aunt Elizabeth, too – somehow, Mary buys it. … or consents to it. … or resigns herself, perhaps, to whatever this is. “Here I am. The servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.”

But it all started with those words, “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you.” 

First of all, it’s a reminder about just exactly who God favors: the least among us, remember. The poor, the outsider, the outcast. The last, the lost, the lonely. The sick, the imprisoned, the hungry and thirsty. The sinner, in need of forgiveness, mercy, hope and the love of God.

“Greetings, favored ones. The Lord is with you.” But, again, who talks like that? Who believes stuff like that – about themselves, enough of the time? And about the world and the people around them, too?

I came across an old devotional this week that my Dad wrote several years ago about a time he noticed a lonely stranger in the New Palestine McDonald’s. It seemed clear this guy was counting the change in his pockets to see if he had enough to afford, even a Senior Coffee, which isn’t something that happens often in our small town. So my dad bought him a meal, too, and sat down to eat breakfast with him, and listened to his story – things about a divorce, some estranged children, a lost job. It was all a gift and a blessing for this stranger, I’m sure. Not the coffee and the pancakes, but the conversation and someone who cared enough to engage it. The man thanked my dad and told he had sat there some days actually praying for someone to talk with. “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you.”

It made me think of a story Oprah Winfrey tells about being a poor little Black girl, in nowhere Mississippi, back in the deep – and deeply racist – South, of the 1960’s. I think it was the wife of the Governor at the time, who came to Oprah’s school or church for some assembly or event. (It’s been awhile since I’ve heard the story.) But the point is, that from among a sea of other little Black boys and little Black girls, this wealthy, powerful, well-dressed white lady bent down, looked little Oprah in the eye and told her what a beautiful girl she was.

For a poor little Black girl who thought that her nose was too wide, that her lips were too big, that her skin was too dark, and who knows what else … it mattered that someone like that thought someone like her was beautiful – and went out of her way to say so. “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you.”

I remember visiting Trinity Lutheran Seminary, across the street from Capital University, when I was just an undergrad – a long-haired, mullet-sporting, probably hungover or on-my-way-to-the-next-party kind of undergrad – when the Seminary President, Dennis Anderson, asked me – without a hint of irony, or sarcasm, or good-humor – when I thought I was going to come across the street and start studying there. I was perplexed. I laughed it off. But he suspected that the Seminary and I might be good for each other. Who knew? “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you.” 

Some of you have heard me talk about Angels around here before – especially during the seasons of Advent and Christmas. And I like to remind myself – and whoever will listen – that angels don’t always have wings or wear halos or sing on key or glow like the sun. “Angel” just means “messenger,” remember, nothing more and nothing less. Someone with good news to share, like that someone who showed up for Mary, way back when.

And, I guess what I’m getting at is, I hope you can think of an angel or two in your own life who has called you “favored,” and encouraged you in a meaningful way… and empowered you to do something greater than you thought you could… or loved you in ways that were surprising and made you feel worthy and worthwhile, even if you didn’t believe that yourself or know you needed it at the time.

And if you haven’t heard or felt or believed that before, hear it now: “Greetings favored one. The Lord is with you.”

You are beautiful. And loved. And called by God to be beautiful and to love the world in return for what has already been poured out for you in the gift of Jesus Christ that is on the way.

Later this afternoon, I will baptize Holden Michael Hagerty – the son of Brandi and Brady Hagerty, Grandson to Tony and Kelley Holden. We’re doing it in a small, safe, socially distanced, invitation-only kind of way because of the virus, of course. But, I want you to know about it, because baptism is our way of saying – to the world around us, as a community of believers – “Greetings favored one! The Lord is with you!” It is something that has been declared on behalf of everyone who has been baptized. And it is said, too, for those who have yet to make it to the water.

“Greetings, favored ones! The Lord is with you.” It is the message and gift and blessing and the promise of Christmas for the sake of the world.

The Lord has always been, the Lord is, and the Lord will always be on the way to find you and forgive you and encourage you and walk with you and welcome you into the good graces of the Most High God, by whom you are favored – each and every one of you, in spite of yourself, in spite of your sins, in spite of what the world has to say about it. And you are destined … each of us is destined … if we will let God’s will have God’s way with us … for eternal things on this side of heaven and beyond … because nothing is impossible with God.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Complain Less, Confess More

Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God.

As it is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah: “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way. The voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were coming out to be baptized by John, in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

Now, John wore clothing of camels’ hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

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This weekend, my son Jackson and I found ourselves binging a Netflix show called “The Confession Tapes.” It’s a series of one-hour, crime documentaries about cases where men and women (and children, too) seem to have falsely confessed to some pretty heinous crimes.

I’ll spare you most of those details, because it is Sunday morning, but suffice it to say, through poor – and often criminal – detective work, corrupt interrogation tactics, a desire to close cases at all costs, and an inability for the average bear to withstand all of the above when it’s stacked against them in just the right way after hours and hours and hours of questioning, the show tells of mothers who confess to crimes against their own daughters; fathers who confess to crimes against their own wives and children; young men who confess to committing crimes with and against complete strangers. And it tells, too, about how ready and willing a jury of one’s peers is to believe such a confession in spite of tangible evidence and common sense that seem to prove otherwise.

(According to the Innocence Project, of all criminal convictions that have been overturned and exonerated thanks to DNA evidence, 30% of them involved false confessions as part of their initial investigation. But I digress.)

Of course, what John the Baptizer is calling people to, down at the river, is entirely different from all of that, but it got me thinking. First of all, John’s invitation to repentance is for sins, actually committed. Maybe not arson or murder or anything that would make its way to Netfix for most of us, – but maybe some of that, too. Who knows? Whatever the case, these confessions he was calling for were to be made, rightly, with the goal of true repentance and real redemption, in the end.

Which means these confessions and this repentance John was calling for were invited, not coerced. These confessions and this repentance were to be made with hope and trust in God’s grace and mercy, not out of fear for God’s judgment and wrath. And these confession and this repentance led to new life and second-chances, not life behind bars or some kind of eternal shame and punishment.

And this was a new way to understand God those coming to John back in the day. John was promising something new and better and different in the Jesus who was coming after him. See, John was in tune with what God was about to do in and through this Messiah who was on the way. John seemed to know what others didn't: that Jesus was the Son of God, that Jesus had been born to save the world, not to condemn it, and that Jesus' ministry of peace, love, and justice, of healing and hope and mercy was about to begin in a big, beautiful, world-changing sort of way.

And John the Baptizer wanted others to be in on it. So, for John, “preparing the way” was about getting people to acknowledge how badly they needed this new kind of savior. John was speaking to Jewish people who knew what it was to be enslaved. He was preaching to Jewish people who knew about being in exile. And, like the prophet Isaiah before him, John wasn’t screwing around. He was reminding whoever would listen to him about their history – banished from a garden called Eden, captive in Egypt and set free to wander the wilderness, so often pushed, pulled, and persecuted and at the mercy of the world around them.

And, the hard holy truth of this, is that this is our story, too… still… as God’s people on the planet. If the events of the past year have taught us anything, it’s that we are at the mercy of so much that feels beyond our control – banished in our own way; wandering, lost sometimes, in our own kind of wilderness.

We are a law-abiding people who pay our taxes (I hope) and obey the speed limit (most of the time), but who are at the mercy of social and political systems that seem broken in so many ways.

We are a people feeling exiled from our church buildings, from our work and schools, from our friends, neighbors, and families, even.

We are a people wringing our hands and clenching our fists with more anxiety and fear, more frustration and sadness, more uncertainty and so much that we can’t possibly know about what’s coming next. And to be honest, I can’t help but wonder if all of this, for the likes of most of us listening to me, anyway, is just a taste of how most of the world lives, more of the time than people like me have been willing to see or understand.

Which means John the Baptist’s warnings and wishes and welcome to the river are for all of us – me, included – in still new ways this time around, if we’ll let them be.

What I mean is, I’m trying to recognize in all of this pandemic fear and frustration, that this is nothing new for a lot of people. So many in the world are worried about their health and their healthcare – and that of their loved ones – like this, every day, all of the time.

I’m trying to recognize that so many nations around the globe live constantly, year after year, with the kind of social-political tension we’ve been wrestling with in our own country, lately.

I’m trying to recognize that the day-to-day frustrations and uncertainties we’re feeling about work or school or worship, are ways of life for more people, more of the time out there in the world – and I, like many of you, I think, am just getting a taste of it in a way I never expected.

And I’m embarrassed by that. Ashamed, even, sometimes when the fullness of it hits me. And all of it makes me want to break out my camel-hair coat and my leather belt, too, and, like John the Baptist, call us all to task like some carnival barking, street-preacher out there in the wilderness.

I mean, I want to say, what if we complained less and confessed more?

What if we stopped complaining about how inconvenient all of this is and confessed, instead, our greed and selfishness and entitled living?

What if we stopped complaining about everyone with whom we disagree and confessed, instead, our own impatience and lack of understanding and pettiness, too?

What if we stopped complaining about all we don’t have or can’t do and confessed, instead, our ingratitude, our despair, and our lapses in judgment?

What if we stopped complaining about how much has changed for us these days and confessed, instead, our pride and our indifference and our denial of the suffering that was and is and will remain for so many others, when things go back to the “normal” we long for?

What if we confessed our Sin, people – Sin with a capital S – and what if we meant it; and repented to the point that we were changed to the degree that we found ourselves in solidarity with the world around us in a new way?

That’s something like what John the Baptist was calling people toward, out there in the wilderness, so many generations ago. And it’s what, I believe, he would say to us now as we wait and long and hope for Jesus.

Because if people like us can apparently be coerced or scared or tricked into making false confessions to things we’ve never done, might we not be invited and loved into faithful confession, too – real contrition, true humility, sincere repentance that leads to change – by a God who promises our forgiveness at all costs?

We would be transformed by that and we could change the world, because of it, too. We would experience the Kingdom alive and well and here and now. We would see love and justice and mercy “on earth as it is in heaven.” We would prepare the way and be prepared, ourselves, for God’s grace to be born – for our sake and for the sake of the world.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.