You Are a Blessing, Created for God’s Glory

Did your parents have something that they said to you every time you left the house? I’ve noticed that what we say, in addition to “love you” and “have fun” and “tell so-and-so hello” has come to include: Be safe, be aware of your surroundings, make good choices. Rev. Sarah Are Speed’s dad repeated his 4 reminders about “love, responsibility, our choices, and God’s care for us” so much that he would just hold up 4 fingers as they left the house. A parent’s reminders don’t start when the teenager starts picking up the keys and heading out the door, though. They begin as we swaddle our newborn and hold them close as we rock and whisper, “I love you.”

In the same way that those last words as your teenager drives away from you and those first words that you whispered into their ear as you drew them close are the words that shaped your children, God’s messages to us are reminders for the whole journey of our lives. They are messages that we need to hear again and again. They are the words that ground us, that remind us who we are and whose we are, and give us courage and direction for moving in the world. From now through Epiphany, we will explore some of those messages.

The first is the message God sends to God’s people in exile through the prophet Isaiah and to Mary in Nazareth, and to you: “You are a blessing.” “Blessed” then had a different connotation than it does now, remember from our study of the Beatitudes? We tend to think of blessings as pleasant outcomes, “I’ve been blessed” we might say when asked about our successes or achievements. But when Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor,” he didn’t mean that being poor is a reward, to be blessed meant to be worthy of praise.

God’s messenger, Gabriel, was sent to find a girl named Mary in Nazareth, and when he arrived this is how he addressed her:
“Greetings, God has bestowed grace on you! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women.” God’s messenger, Gabriel, greets Mary and says, “You are a blessing, worthy of praise.”

Mary is skeptical, hesitant. What kind of greeting is this? What is she about to be asked to do?

The messenger responds with the message that God has whispered to all of God’s children and hollered at us as we grabbed the keys and headed “out” and away from God’s presence. It’s the same message that the prophet Isaiah spoke while God’s people were in exile that Charlie read this morning. They are the message that God wants us to remember every time we head out into the world:
1. I created you. To Mary, Gabriel says, “God has bestowed grace on you.” Isaiah says, “The one speaking is God who created you for God’s own glory, who formed you.”
2. Do not fear. Do not be afraid.
3. I know you, and your mistakes, and your longing to slam the door and how you roll your eyes at the reminders as you drive away. To Mary, Gabriel says, “You have found favor with God.” Isaiah says, “I have redeemed you.” I have made compensation for your faults.
4. I love you. To Mary, Gabriel says, “You are highly favored.” Isaiah says, “I have summoned you by name. You are mine.”

This message is for you, too. God speaks these same words to you.
1. I created you. You are a unique, unrepeatable miracle of God. You were knit together in your mother’s womb, and God created your inmost being, the essence of your personality, who you are. You are a blessing, worthy of praise.
2. Do not be afraid. You have nothing to fear in God’s presence.
3. I know you. God knows you completely and loves you. God is for you, and never against you. God has redeemed you and compensated for your faults.
4. I love you. You are loved. You are highly favored; God is “for” you. God calls you by name. You are God’s own beloved child.

The message is an invitation – an invitation to relationship, to be loved and to love.

The Israelites are not promised that all will go smoothly for them if they accept God’s invitation. They will again go through floods that threaten to drown and fire that threatens to consume. And so will you. But because of the 4, you can know with confidence that God is with you, in deep waters and blazing fires, seeing you through what otherwise would destroy you. Mary is not promised material wealth and comfort, either, or even that her heart won’t be broken. And yet, she said yes. Rev. Dr. Laurie Lyter Bright says of Mary’s “yes”:
“That might be the most radical thing of all in this string of extraordinary ideas: Mary consents. If she had been saying yes out of ignorance, or given no agency in the matter, that would reveal a God who colonizes the body of a woman, a God fixated on exerting power. This God, however, announces a series of promises and in the pause that follows, Mary affirms her desire to participate in this miracle. She says yes. Yes, knowing the shape of things to come. Yes to the risk of loving someone you know will live an extraordinary and harrowing and beautiful and heartbreaking life. Yes to the audacious and amazing grace of agreeing to give birth to the one she will eventually watch die on the cross. Whether she knew the precise details is irrelevant. In those simple words, “Let it be…” and with all that follows, Mary is giving all who would follow a better glimpse of who God is.”

We glimpse through Mary that God’s deep desire is a relationship of mutuality. God wants to work through people, and through you, to partner with you in creating God’s vision for this world. God could have sent a messenger into the world to lead and teach. God could have come as an adult, ready to lead and teach. Nothing is impossible with God.
God could have come to us without partnering with Mary.
Instead, God chose to be glorified through the faithfulness of a person.
Instead, God chose a young girl in a patriarchal culture.
Instead, God chose someone from Nazareth in Galilee, a sleepy little town in the north country when everyone knew to look to the south, where Jerusalem was for the work of God.
Instead, God chose someone ordinary, without power, without prestige, without special training or special skills, to do the extraordinary.
God even chooses you.
Mary said yes. What about you?