Favored

Scripture:  Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11,  Psalm 126

        I Thessalonians 5:16-24,  Luke 1:26-38

Last week, we were out in the desert with John the Baptist, listening to him tell of the one coming who was more powerful than he, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.  Today and next week, we’ll be with Mary, the mother of Jesus, who may be more agreeable company – John the Baptist could get pretty cranky.  Today we see Mary as she learns she is favored by God – and begins to learn the blessings and costs that come with being the recipient of God’s favor.

Luke’s gospel begins, not with the birth of Jesus, but with the birth of John the Baptist.  The setting is Jerusalem.  We’re told that Zechariah, a priest, and his wife Elizabeth were faithful but childless – which their neighbors would have seen as a sign of God’s disfavor - and getting on in years.  And if this sounds a little like the setup in Genesis for the birth of Abraham, you’d be right – the two stories are very similar, and tell us that the baby to be born is going to be used by God for some special purpose.  Zechariah was in the Temple, offering incense to the Lord – a once in a lifetime honor for most priests – when the angel Gabriel told him that his wife was to bear a son, whom he would name John.  Zechariah made the obvious objection to Gabriel – “My wife is long past childbearing years, and I’m no spring chicken myself” – and the power of speech was taken from him until the baby would be born.  And we’re told that Elizabeth did indeed conceive and, as Elizabeth said, “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.

It is at this point, six months into Elizabeth’s pregnancy, that our Gospel reading picks up.  The focus shifts from Jerusalem to Nazareth, a tiny village roughly 65 miles north of Jerusalem as the crow flies.  We’re told that the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph.  According to the marriage customs of the time – and people married very young in those days, in their early teens - Mary and Joseph were technically married in the sense that the financial details between Mary’s and Joseph’s families – payment of the bride price – would have been completed, but Mary would have continued to live with her parents for another year until the marriage was consummated and became official. 

Into this situation comes Gabriel with his greeting, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you!”  Mary is understandably startled and wondering where this was all going to lead.  The angels tells her “Do not be afraid” – and almost any time there’s an encounter in Scripture between humans and God’s messengers, those words are heard, “Do not be afraid”.  The angel tells Mary a second time that she has found favor with God, and that she would conceive a son, whom she was to name Jesus.  And this son would be great, would be called the Son of the Most High, and would reign over the house of Jacob forever.  Like Zechariah earlier in Luke’s gospel, Mary makes the obvious objection: “I have not been with a man.”  Mary knew perfectly well where babies came from, and she knew that she had not been intimate with her fiancé Joseph or with any other man.  Unlike Zechariah, Mary was not chastised or struck dumb; the angel was more patient with Mary.  After explaining that her child would be holy, the angel also told her, “Oh, by the way, your relative Elizabeth, who was thought to be unable to have children, is pregnant and six months along.  For nothing will be impossible with God.”  Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  And the angel departed.

“Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”  “You have found favor with God.”  What does it mean to find favor with God?   There are many preachers who will tell us that wealth is a sign of God’s favor.  From Oral Roberts to Jim Bakker to Creflo Dollar and any number of other TV preachers, along with any number of megachurch pastors, you’ll be told that God wants his followers to be wealthy.  The Word of Faith movement tells its followers that you can speak into existence anything consistent with the word of God, that you can confess new blessings of prosperity into your life just by speaking them in faith – kind of like God said, “Let there be light and there was light,” these preachers will tell us that we can say “Let there be money” and if it’s God’s will, there will be money.  And, of course, many of these prosperity preachers ask their followers to send them money, with promises that anything they sow into the ministry will return to them sevenfold.  And beyond the specifics of prosperity theology and the Word of Faith movement, I think many in the church have a sort of general sense that wealth and God’s favor are connected.  To quote from the satirical words of the prophet Janis Joplin: “O Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz; my friends all drive Porches, I must make amends.  Worked hard all my life time, no help from my friends.  O Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz….”

Somehow Mary didn’t get that memo.  Being favored by God didn’t get Mary a Mercedez Benz.  To the contrary, being favored by God, being the servant of the Lord, brought enormous complications into Mary’s life.  Of course, there was the scandal of Mary being pregnant with a child that wasn’t from her fiancé, a scandal that would follow her all her days.  Today the phrase “born of the Virgin Mary” rolls off our tongues every week when we say the Apostles Creed, but Mary’s neighbors in Nazareth would have used much harsher language to describe the mother of this child for whom nobody could identify the father.  She and Joseph were uprooted from Nazareth to give birth in Bethlehem, and then had to flee for a time to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod.  Her fiancé and later husband Joseph was a carpenter, certainly not someone of position or influence.  Jesus ran out into the wilderness to get dunked in the Jordan River by his weirdo relative John the Baptist.  Then Jesus abandoned his father’s business to run all over everywhere talking about God.  Once Jesus began his ministry, his travels took him far from Mary’s side, and in at least one story in the 3^rd chapter of Mark’s gospel Jesus left Mary and her other children standing outside a house where Jesus was teaching, literally leaving them standing out in the cold you might say, while Jesus told his listeners inside the house, “You’re my family now”.  And, of course, Mary was present at the crucifixion, watching the life drain from her son.  As the aged Simeon would later tell Mary when she presented Jesus at the Temple, “a sword would pierce her soul too.”  Had Mary known all that awaited her, she may very well have told the angel Gabriel to go bless someone else and leave her alone.

What does it mean to be favored by God?  It means to have the privilege of being part of God’s work in the world, of being available to God for God’s purposes.  I remember when I was a little kid, and my dad was making something out in his shop, I’d watch him and say, “I want to help”.  And, often, there really wasn’t much of anything I could do to help; at age 6 or 7, I wasn’t strong enough to lift much and my aim with a hammer was pretty scary.  But sometimes he’d find something small that I could do, and it just felt good that I could do something to help my dad – even though in reality he probably could have gotten it done faster without me.   But it was important for him that I try to learn, and it was important to me that I try to help.  And for me, that’s sort of like what it feels like to be of service to God – that God loves us enough to allow us to be a part of his work in the world.  God doesn’t actually need our help.  But for God’s own reasons, God graciously chooses to include us in his work in the world.

And so our struggles are not a sign that God has abandoned us.    Just as struggle and misunderstanding came as a result of God’s favor in Mary’s life – they came with the territory – struggle and misunderstanding may also come into our lives if we seek to be faithful. Indeed, our struggles may mean that we are in exactly the place where we can be of use to God. We may be exactly in the place where God can use us to help others.  The question is, are we willing?  Are we willing to listen to the still small voice of God in our lives?  Are we willing to follow where God leads – even if it means inconvenience, losing sleep, losing friends, living with insecurity, living with danger?  Are we willing to say yes to God?  Are we willing to say, with Mary, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.”

To say yes to God almost certainly won’t make us wealthy or popular.  To say yes to God likely won’t make us powerful in a worldly sense, and in fact may surround us with powerful opposition.  Indeed, saying yes to God can get us into trouble.  But it will put us in a place where our lives have meaning, where our lives matter, where the action is, where others will be better off for our having passed their way.

“Greetings, favored ones.  The Lord is with you.  Do not be afraid.”  May all our lives be a “yes” to God, that we may enjoy the cost and joy of God’s favor, and may God use our lives to bring God’s favor to the lives of others.