Luke 1:26-38
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ 29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He 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. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ 34Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ 35The 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. 36And 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. 37For nothing will be impossible with God.’ 38Then 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.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
be acceptable to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
You can’t always get what you want.
You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you’ll find you get what you need.
Popular songwriters have a certain genius, at least from time to time. Mick Jagger is no exception. This probably isn’t the last time I’ll quote him in a sermon.
You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you’ll find you get what you need.
Theologically, of course, it’s a problematic statement. Just like a lot of popular and oft-quoted statements. Even our hymnody and our Christian education materials are packed full of problematic statements, but often they can point to something that can help reveal the nature of God.
And I think Jagger does that for us today.
During Avent, we’ve looked at the greater design of creation, we’ve considered John the Baptist as model of both the weirdness and the humility of heeding the call of God’s Spirit, and now we’re considering Mary and her own observation about the predicament in which she finds herself.
And it’s quite the predicament.
Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.
…
And also with you?
What do you think was going through Mary’s head?
I know y’all are going to get tired of me trying to put us in the shoes of the characters in the story. Sorry. It might be my best means of getting into the narrative. And personally, I don’t think it’s a method that can get old.
Mary is likely a teenage girl, maybe just getting to the age of being married, which is, you know, fourteen or fifteen. She has all the horomonal craziness associated with that going on in her body. What was going through Mary’s head?
Who is this person?
What is this person?
Who’s favored?
Crap, did the Lord just see me doing that?
I don’t know. One thing I’ve never been is a teenage girl. And I’m thankful. We put teenage girls through their own version of hell in our culture. It may or may not be better than what teenage girls went through in the ancient Near East. But it’s definitely different. The torture and expectations are less blatant, more subtle, and quite possibly more damaging.
Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.
Yeah, of course she was perplexed! But the angel told her:
Chill, yo. Fear not. God thinks you’re pretty awesome.
Do y’all tell your children that every day? I recommend it. That and “I love you”.
God favors you.
And you’re going to get pregnant with a little boy. Call him Ieshua.
Jesus.
And he’ll rock. And his name will be Son of the Most High.
Wait, wasn’t his name Jesus?
And God’s going to give him David’s throne, because, Mary, you know your lineage, right?
Oh, and his reign won’t ever end.
And Mary said:
…
I… I can’t… I haven’t… I mean… I’ve never… I’m not…
Dude, Mary, we’ve got that covered.
The Holy Spirit will come upon you…
the power of the Most High will overshadow you…
Now, let me tell you, I either preach this with boldness or I leave that verse out. But I’m going to leave the interpretation to your imagination. We do not doubt who the Father of Jesus is. And the angel is perfectly clear about it.
And Mary said:
Well, okay then.
You can’t always get what you want.
You can’t make this not scandalous.
You can’t just have little baby Jesus swaddled and warm on a Bethlehem night. You’ve got to have the forty-ish weeks of Mary’s body doing exactly what a body does when the foreign body of a human baby is trying to grow inside her. You have to have all the ways her body counteracts the instinctive need to reject it.
You have to have the mess and pain of the birth. You have to have Joseph wondering what God has gotten him into.
You have to have the full scope of history converging on this one moment when God and creation collide in their entirety.
All the mess and glory. You have to have it all.
And Mary may not have realized that right off. But I think that slowly, she did. And she got a glimpse that day, and her spirit burst into song:
My soul gives glory to my God.
My heart pours out its praise.
God lifted up my lowliness in many marvelous ways.
My God has done great things for me:
yes, holy is this name.
All people will declare me blessed, and blessings they shall claim.
From age to age, to all who fear,
such mercy love imparts,
dispensing justice far and near, dismissing selfish hearts.
Love casts the mighty from their thrones,
promotes the insecure,
leaves hungry spirits satisfied, the rich seem suddenly poor.
Praise God, whose loving covenant
supports those in distress,
remembering past promises with present faithfulness.
In humble Mary, God turns the world upside down.
Our leaders look down from lofty places of power.
God chooses to dwell with us.
In this world, we look to the wealthy and powerful for role models.
God is always on the side of the poor and oppressed.
We value experience and knowledge.
God chooses the Blessed Virgin Mary.
What’s that say to you?
You can’t always get what you want, but if you look sometimes, you’ll find God gives what you need.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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