Advent 4 A: Greetings, Favored Ones!
Dear Partner in Preaching,
I will confess that until I read Cameron Howard’s beautiful reflection on this week’s biblical story, I’d never noticed that Mary is perplexed by Gabriel’s greeting, not his presence. And… that has stayed with me all week.
Most of us, I would imagine, would find the presence of the heavenly being enough to strike terror into our hearts, kind of like the guards at the resurrection in Matthew’s account or the people of Israel shaking in fear at the thunder and lightning of the Lord’s presence at Sinai. But no, Luke specifies that after Gabriel greets her with pretty magnanimous words – “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you” – Mary “was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.”
What kind of greeting, indeed? Was he kidding? Was he mocking her? Was the angel setting her up? We don’t know all the reasons she may have been perplexed, but the moment you stop to think about, you realize the possibilities are legion. From her circumstances to her socio-economic level, and from her gender and age to her life experience thus far, there are so many reasons to doubt the sincerity of the angel’s greeting and perhaps not to understand it at all. And perhaps the one possibility that doesn’t even occur to Mary until Gabriel continues is that he’s serious: she is favored by God and God is with her.
And here’s the thing: I don’t think Mary is the only one who struggles to believe she is favored and that God is with her. Particularly after the year we have had, a whole lot of people would scoff in disbelief or shake their heads in doubt, perplexed by this greeting. Which may make this a particularly important time to remind people that at the heart of the carols and celebrations and prayers and readings of Christmas is precisely the promise that God comes to us in love to tell us that we are loved and to send us out to love others always equipped by the life-giving power of God’s love. We are, in fact, both favored and accompanied by God. Always.
What difference might it make for your folks to hear that word just a week shy of the most different and in some ways dismal Christmas any of us can remember. Economic hardship, political strife, attempts to undermine the very foundation of our democracy, a new and sharper awareness of longstanding racial injustice, the promise of a vaccine even as hospitalizations and deaths surge to new and devastating highs…. The list goes on and all of it contributes to having a hard time believing the announcement of the angel and the promise of Christmas.
But even absent the challenges of this particular season of our lives, Dear Partner, I think it is peculiarly and painfully difficult for us to believe that God favors us and is with us. And the results of that difficulty are as common as they are tragic. I think of a woman I know who has spent most of her adult life confusing sex with intimacy and who lives in the quiet fear that voicing any need, hope, or desire to her partner risks disappointment or desertion. Or the middle-aged executive who is the picture of success in every possible way… except for the addiction he is too ashamed to admit or address. Or the gay teen who has confessed to thinking about suicide nearly daily for years because she has never felt accepted for who she is. Or the African American parent who simultaneously welcomes and doubts promises of police reform after he has been pulled over too many times and asked a question I have never been asked – “Is this your car?” – and so will teach his son how to behave when pulled over by the police, a lesson it never even occurred to me to offer my son.
Different scenarios, different levels of opportunity, challenge, and privilege, for sure. Yet the same struggle to believe that we are favored, have value and dignity simply for who we are, and that God is with us and for us. So much in life suggests that this isn’t true, can’t be true, will never be true, and that perplexity and doubt colors our view of ourselves and those around us.
Countless interpreters over the centuries have commented with admiration on Mary’s quiet and profound faith, expressed so simply in her words, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” And there is good reason for that admiration. But it only occurred to me this week that perhaps that profound statement of faith was not just prompted, but actually made possible, by Gabriel’s initially perplexing but ultimately life-giving promise: “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you.” Which makes me also wonder just what our folks might do – what we all might do and be and accomplish – if we also could imagine those words addressed to us: “Greetings, favored ones. The Lord is with you.”
We get to offer that word and promise this week, Dear Partner and, indeed, each and every week. But it will be a particularly timely word just now, and I am grateful for your willingness to share it. As you do, and as you perhaps wonder if the words you speak and the recorded worship services you offer really make a difference, keep in mind the other promise of the angel, spoken both to Mary and to all of us, “Nothing is impossible with God!”
Blessed Advent and Christmas, Dear Partner!
Yours in Christ,
David
PS: In my note to you all about Keeping Christmas amid the Coronavirus, I forgot to mention that you are welcome to share and/or use that letter and anything else on the site. Thanks to those who wrote to ask and remind me. 🙂
What might happen if we all turned to the person close to us and said the greeting Gabriel spoke to Mary–Greetings, favored onel The Lord is with you.?”