Dec 21, 2008 Not What the Country Can Do, But What Can Make of You

This week waiting outside the Montessori Nursery School an older brother was heard complaining to his mother, “But why should we go to the Mall to see a Store Santa, when we could go upstairs to the Church and tell God what we want, and God could tell the Real Santa for us?” Our traditions and customs fulfill what we want to do, and occasionally point up what God might being doing with and trough us.

Forty-eight years ago, in January 1961 a young President-elect was sworn into office promising the end of one era and the beginning of a new, pledging renewal and change. He ended that Inaugural Address, with the immortal charge “Think Not what the country can do for you, but what you can do.” Rereading these words, half a century later, we cannot ignore the planting of seeds of the Cold-War, and those of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Hopes for a United Nations and for the end of All war. In so many ways, that time resonates with our own, as well as with the time centuries before, when David sat on the throne of Israel, an era at the end of many bloody wars and terrorist acts, when the nation had known affluence and dared dream of something more. Different in the time of King David and Mary and JFK from our own, there once was a parity, an intrinsic bond between the individual and Nation, the individual and all humanity. As Mary receives the gift and responsibility of being the Mother to God, she does not dwell on what she will accomplish, how she will be immortalized, but on what God is using her to do for all humanity.

Recorded in 2nd Samuel is a Bold statement of Covenant Commitment.
To Abraham and Sarah, God had pledged that IF they were faithful, God would provide them a land, a name and future generations. To Moses, God had committed that IF the people would keep God's Commandments, God would continue to save and to protect. Consistently, there was this IF/THEN clause; and God's covenant had been to each as individuals. Suddenly with David there is a change, a commitment still awaited to this day, that NEVERTHELESS God would be faithful, humanity would sin and God would rebuke but the IF/THEN is changed to a never-ending statement that God would be present. The first word to Mary from the Angel is FEAR NOT GOD IS WITH YOU.

Faith is not the guarantee of a life without pain and suffering. Faith is not permission that you will always be forgiven, as if sin and harm we do did not matter. Faith is the covenant that NO MATTER what we do, no matter where we go, we are never alone, God is with us. We cannot pray that Grandma's hip will miraculously heal, that would be magic or at least wish fulfillment. Too often people have heaped guilt on themselves and one another, that if only they had believed more or better, or been part of the right church, they could change the outcome. We cannot pray that our Mother will never die. But we can believe that even when hips are broken, when strokes occur, our loved ones, are not alone, and neither are those who sit in the hospital and wait.

There are times when our celebrations and traditions are misappropriated. This weekend, we celebrated two weddings. In the one a teen-aged granddaughter left the reception and came into the Sanctuary quietly crying. She described that she felt more comfortable dressed as a man, acting like a man, than as a woman. Yet hearing these vows of marriage, in her grandmother's second marriage, she wondered if she would ever find anyone, if she were to be all alone. Why had God made her like this?

In the other wedding, a Bridesmaid sought me out afterward to confess that while only married three years, she and her husband were in the midst of divorce, and hearing the vows was painful.

More even than a statement of commitment, the passages we read this morning are sacred vows, that God will USE us for God's purposes. What a different orientation that would be for us.
As described in the Call to Prayer, instead of Reacting: It is time for this, do it. Instead of following directions and being assured of the outcome.
Instead of searching for what we want, or what will please others.
If we prayed for an absence of distraction, not needing to please authorities or our own desires. Rather than questioning what do you want for Christmas, what would make you happy, how much will it cost, even the noble prayer that what we want for Christmas is Peace on Earth, what if God were to re-orient our lives to What are we doing to bring peace on earth? the question How is God using you? How can we work to fulfill God's design? What are you being transformed to be?

What if, instead of questioning What we wanted the Government to do for us, what we wanted bailed out, or what we wanted to do; if we questioned, how is God using us?

There is a beautiful symmetry to the Annunciation of Mary and her singing the Magnificat, to all that has gone before in Scripture. Elizabeth and Mary are unlikely mothers, one beyond the age, and one far too young. Pregnant at the same time, the infants within them are like twins, reminiscent of an earlier set of twins in the Old Testament. But instead of wrestling in the womb for dominance, this elder one leaps for joy at the coming of the younger.

Different from philosophies or theories of the reason for our existence, Christianity is historically bound in the life and death and resurrection of a very real family. This is not a set of laws to follow, or beliefs to memorize, even to understand. This is an historic reality. That God demonstrated for us a Complete Revelation, throughout one human life, of what it is to live as we believe, to live our commitments, to struggle to follow the covenant.