I’m kinda grumpy, just be warned. But only kinda. Out of sorts. Off track a little bit. Forced into patterns different from my norm. It is Friday and I’m working on my Bible Study. That’s not right. This is supposed to be a Saturday morning thing, that helps get me in the mood for preaching on Sunday morning. It is a journey that begins a long time ahead (September of 2011 to be precise) and then gets specific a few weeks out as we finish up one series and look ahead to the next. Then the process really heats up each week as one sermon is completed and immediately I begin to work on the next one, gathering information and images, reading, reading, reading, listening, writing, thinking, until Saturday when it all gels in my head (or is supposed to anyway) in preparation for Sunday morning. That’s the way it is supposed to work. That is the image of the perfect preparation for preaching that I carry around with me week by week.
And now we are off track, and it is unsettling. Here’s the deal, one of the legacies we inherited from La Donna’s dad, who died this past January, is a couple of season tickets for Notre Dame Women’s Basketball. Don and Beverly wanted to support Notre Dame, but were more interested in the sports that didn’t get all the attention, so they chose women’s basketball. They were attending ND games before they were good. Even before Muffet - that’s the coach, Muffet McGraw, who has taken them to the tournament and won it at least once recently. I watched them lose to Baylor on Wednesday night (again, Baylor beat them in the tournament finals last year - darn those Texas Bears anyway). So, I’m all in favor of the team, would love to attend the game. But it is Saturday. And because we don’t live in South Bend, it means losing most of the day. Traveling, parking, watching, lunching (because I’m going with Maddie, so you know we are going to eat most of the day too). No promises for a sermon that makes any kind of sense on Sunday morning, just sayin’.
It is unsettling. There are just certain ways that my life is supposed to go, and when they don’t ... well, it isn’t pretty. But you know that, don’t you. I don’t mean you know my life, I mean you know yours. Besides, this is Christmas time, we’ve all got plans. We’ve got order. We are going to make this one work out the way we envision. We are going to have just the right presents and just the right decorations, we are going to serve just the right meals at just the right time and everyone is going to have the Christmas of their lives! Right!?! This is going to be the Christmas that they talk about forever, the one they measure every other Christmas by. And, frankly, all those others are going to pale into insignificance compared to the one that we are going to put on this year! As God is my witness, I’ll never mess up Christmas again!!!
Sorry, not sure where the Gone With the Wind misquote came from there. But you get my drift, don’t you? We don’t always deal well with things that come along and upset our plans. We want things to go a certain way, we want to take charge of our lives, our plans, our events. And then stuff happens.
That would be a good title for our text for this week. Stuff happens. Remember this incident?
Luke 1:30-34 And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 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 father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end." 34 And Mary said to the angel, "How shall this be, since I have no husband?"
Just a snippet of a story this time. Just some key verses, the core of the dialogue for us to dwell on for a moment. Don’t go skipping ahead to fill in the rest of the story. Don’t be too quick to turn to the resolution, to the all’s well that ends well part of the tale. No, just sit here with Mary, in the rubble of her wedding plans whatever they might have been and wonder “what now?” with her.
What now? A question you’ve asked before, maybe recently. What now? A very human question, to be sure. One that we get thrust at us from time to time. One that comes unbidden to our lips or that echoes in the silence of our minds as we face again the news that has turned our lives upside down.
It may be something simple, a disruption in your carefully planned out patterns of behavior. It may even be something good and pleasant, something hoped for that you never thought would come, and therefore causes disruption. Or it may be an unimaginable tragedy that shakes you to the core. That angel in your living room might have news you can barely comprehend, let alone consider “good news.”
“How can this be?” seems the most benign of questions in this situation. And yet it speaks of being turned upside down, or inside out. This isn’t they way these things are supposed to work. This Christmas was supposed to be the way it looks on the cards we send. Our family was supposed to be healthy and happy. This job was supposed to be a career for my whole life. This relationship was supposed to last into our twilight years. “How can this be?” How can this be that I’m left alone? How can this be that it didn’t work out? How can this be .. this disappointment, this hurt, this humiliation, how can this be?
You have to wonder if there were moments in the weeks and months and years to come where Mary remembered the words “you have found favor with God” and had to suppress an inclination to snort with derision. If this is God’s favor - when she gazed into the confused and disappointed face of her betrothed, when she heard her beloved son say “Who is my mother?” when she came to retrieve him from his madness, when she felt the nails drive into his hands and feet and then knelt underneath him as he handed her over to another even as he died - if this is God’s favor maybe she should have said thanks but no thanks to the angel standing in her living room.
Thanks be to God, she didn’t. Though the passage ends with the question, we know how the story goes. The angel gives a less than satisfactory answer - little detail except that God is in charge - and she says yes. God knows why, but she says yes. God knows how she had enough information, enough wisdom, enough moral courage to say yes to a life of uncertainty, but she did. She does. And so do we.
Don’t we? Only every day, when we set out, plans in our mind and hope in our heart. We say yes to the presence of the Spirit who sometimes blesses our plans and sometimes doesn’t, sometimes lets us determine our paths and sometimes takes control of events. Because God knows we can’t. Control events, that is, even the events of our own lives. As much as we would like to, as much as we want to shape our lives and the lives of those around us into pleasant patterns and comfortable networks of safety and contentment, it is beyond us to do so.
When we realize that, then saying yes to God makes the most sense of all. Why not lean back into the arms of the One who loves you more than you can imagine? Why not trust that these convoluted series of unimaginable happenstance we call our lives just might have a meaning bigger than we can see in any one given moment? Why not follow the One who invites us into the greatest adventure that there is?
In the end plans do come together, they just might not be our plans. I’m willing to trust that they are plans worth keeping, however, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. So, we let go of our need to control.
And go with God.
Shalom,
Derek
And now we are off track, and it is unsettling. Here’s the deal, one of the legacies we inherited from La Donna’s dad, who died this past January, is a couple of season tickets for Notre Dame Women’s Basketball. Don and Beverly wanted to support Notre Dame, but were more interested in the sports that didn’t get all the attention, so they chose women’s basketball. They were attending ND games before they were good. Even before Muffet - that’s the coach, Muffet McGraw, who has taken them to the tournament and won it at least once recently. I watched them lose to Baylor on Wednesday night (again, Baylor beat them in the tournament finals last year - darn those Texas Bears anyway). So, I’m all in favor of the team, would love to attend the game. But it is Saturday. And because we don’t live in South Bend, it means losing most of the day. Traveling, parking, watching, lunching (because I’m going with Maddie, so you know we are going to eat most of the day too). No promises for a sermon that makes any kind of sense on Sunday morning, just sayin’.
It is unsettling. There are just certain ways that my life is supposed to go, and when they don’t ... well, it isn’t pretty. But you know that, don’t you. I don’t mean you know my life, I mean you know yours. Besides, this is Christmas time, we’ve all got plans. We’ve got order. We are going to make this one work out the way we envision. We are going to have just the right presents and just the right decorations, we are going to serve just the right meals at just the right time and everyone is going to have the Christmas of their lives! Right!?! This is going to be the Christmas that they talk about forever, the one they measure every other Christmas by. And, frankly, all those others are going to pale into insignificance compared to the one that we are going to put on this year! As God is my witness, I’ll never mess up Christmas again!!!
Sorry, not sure where the Gone With the Wind misquote came from there. But you get my drift, don’t you? We don’t always deal well with things that come along and upset our plans. We want things to go a certain way, we want to take charge of our lives, our plans, our events. And then stuff happens.
That would be a good title for our text for this week. Stuff happens. Remember this incident?
Luke 1:30-34 And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 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 father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end." 34 And Mary said to the angel, "How shall this be, since I have no husband?"
Just a snippet of a story this time. Just some key verses, the core of the dialogue for us to dwell on for a moment. Don’t go skipping ahead to fill in the rest of the story. Don’t be too quick to turn to the resolution, to the all’s well that ends well part of the tale. No, just sit here with Mary, in the rubble of her wedding plans whatever they might have been and wonder “what now?” with her.
What now? A question you’ve asked before, maybe recently. What now? A very human question, to be sure. One that we get thrust at us from time to time. One that comes unbidden to our lips or that echoes in the silence of our minds as we face again the news that has turned our lives upside down.
It may be something simple, a disruption in your carefully planned out patterns of behavior. It may even be something good and pleasant, something hoped for that you never thought would come, and therefore causes disruption. Or it may be an unimaginable tragedy that shakes you to the core. That angel in your living room might have news you can barely comprehend, let alone consider “good news.”
“How can this be?” seems the most benign of questions in this situation. And yet it speaks of being turned upside down, or inside out. This isn’t they way these things are supposed to work. This Christmas was supposed to be the way it looks on the cards we send. Our family was supposed to be healthy and happy. This job was supposed to be a career for my whole life. This relationship was supposed to last into our twilight years. “How can this be?” How can this be that I’m left alone? How can this be that it didn’t work out? How can this be .. this disappointment, this hurt, this humiliation, how can this be?
You have to wonder if there were moments in the weeks and months and years to come where Mary remembered the words “you have found favor with God” and had to suppress an inclination to snort with derision. If this is God’s favor - when she gazed into the confused and disappointed face of her betrothed, when she heard her beloved son say “Who is my mother?” when she came to retrieve him from his madness, when she felt the nails drive into his hands and feet and then knelt underneath him as he handed her over to another even as he died - if this is God’s favor maybe she should have said thanks but no thanks to the angel standing in her living room.
Thanks be to God, she didn’t. Though the passage ends with the question, we know how the story goes. The angel gives a less than satisfactory answer - little detail except that God is in charge - and she says yes. God knows why, but she says yes. God knows how she had enough information, enough wisdom, enough moral courage to say yes to a life of uncertainty, but she did. She does. And so do we.
Don’t we? Only every day, when we set out, plans in our mind and hope in our heart. We say yes to the presence of the Spirit who sometimes blesses our plans and sometimes doesn’t, sometimes lets us determine our paths and sometimes takes control of events. Because God knows we can’t. Control events, that is, even the events of our own lives. As much as we would like to, as much as we want to shape our lives and the lives of those around us into pleasant patterns and comfortable networks of safety and contentment, it is beyond us to do so.
When we realize that, then saying yes to God makes the most sense of all. Why not lean back into the arms of the One who loves you more than you can imagine? Why not trust that these convoluted series of unimaginable happenstance we call our lives just might have a meaning bigger than we can see in any one given moment? Why not follow the One who invites us into the greatest adventure that there is?
In the end plans do come together, they just might not be our plans. I’m willing to trust that they are plans worth keeping, however, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. So, we let go of our need to control.
And go with God.
Shalom,
Derek
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