READY, WILLING AND AVAILABLE FOR A MIRACLE
A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

During our Christmas greens sale my wife Eyleen suggested I take home a paperwhite. As you may know, paperwhites are popular indoor plants in the winter. Helping them grow is as easy, they say, as putting a bulb in water and waiting. I was told their fragrant flowers would bloom in a few weeks.

So, I bought one, brought it home, and the next day, I took a good look at it. A single, unassuming bulb, sitting on some rocks, in a tall glass. Now I need to tell you that my thumb is not very green. No big deal, I thought. If I over-or- under-water it, if it never blooms, I won’t get disappointed. I gave it some water, just up to the bottom of the bulb, as recommended. I waited, and I watched.

Weeks passed. My disbelief grew. I ignored it for days at a time, barely remembering to water it when needed. Then, one day, I walked into the living room where my paperwhite sat on the coffee table, and voila! A white flower had emerged overnight. Two days later, there was another flower. Yesterday when I awoke, my paperwhite was bloomin’ away, now reaching almost two feet tall, no longer top-heavy and falling over as it had often been, but standing up straight, its green stems now becoming hands and arms outstretched, reaching for the sky – with a fragrance that was almost knocking me over.

This little miracle of a plant makes me think of those words we just heard from Romans about a “revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed” (16:25). And it reminds me of some words from Sister Joan Chittister: “Mystery, the notion that something wonderful can happen at any time if we only allow space for it, takes us into a whole new awareness of the immanence of God in time. God comes, we learn, when we least expect it. Maybe most likely of all when we least expect it. For the most part,” Chittister continues, “we have learned to deny the right of the unexpected, the mysterious, to invade our neatly scheduled lives at all. Too risky that, in a world that lives precariously balanced on tight schedules and in the light of menacing deadlines. But oh, in age,” says this now-seventy-year-old, “mystery comes alive. Nothing is very sure any more. Everything speaks of maybe and perhaps, might and possibly. I might still be here. And I might not. Like children, we learn to wonder again. We learn that getting up every day can be fun, can be wonder-full. Something will surely happen. What will it be?” (The Gift of Years).

Yes, that mysterious, wonderful something can be as simple as a paperwhite…or, as profound as the Annunciation by an angel named Gabriel to a teen-ager called Mary. For God’s people of faith, miracles, as they say, happen. Butdo you believe in miracles? And if you do, are you ready for one?

We need a miracle on this, the fourth Sunday of Advent, the first official day of winter. As cold weather bears down on the world, as we live through the year’s shortest day and longest night, amidst the greatest economic darkness most of us have ever known – it may seem all we can see right now are bulbs and rocks. And yet, in the midst of this darkness, we are getting ready for the light of the world to come, for new life to bloom – right there, in front of us.

Years ago, someone wrote that if we are not ready for Christmas, if we are not ready for the birth of the Christ child, then we can relax, because Mary wasn’t ready either (Phoebe Griswold)! I wonder: Was Mary ready? What was she doing when Gabriel arrived? Was she getting ready for something else? Some quality time with friends, perhaps, or some time alone with her beloved Joseph? Was Mary making wedding preparations? Whatever her state of mind and heart, Mary certainly wasn’t ready to be greeted by the likes of Gabriel.

These two parts of Luke’s gospel we have just heard, these passages from the first chapter have come to be called the Annunciation and the Magnificat. And they are the very core of Mary’s spiritual development. They tell the story of a girl who comes to carry within her own body a miracle of everlasting light. In these verses we see Mary’s miracle in stages, movements in her paperwhite-like growth, from bulblike faith into an instrument of God’s favor and grace.

Those stages can be described in Mary’s own words. First, there is her question, “How can this be?” What an understatement! Luke describes Mary as “perplexed” and “pondering.” How would we be, I wonder? (I might be paralyzed and panicking!) Gabriel begins his announcement with “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” Mary hears that angelic explanation, but she is still confused. “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” How, indeed. How do paperwhites grow? How does anything come to life from just a bulb or a seed? How does light arise from darkness, every day? How?

The how, Gabriel says, is about God. Gabriel explains it’s not just about what will happen to Mary. It’s about the miraculous pregnancy that has already happened, the pregnancy of her relative Elizabeth, now six months with child, one who will become the man called John the Baptist. “Nothing,” Gabriel says, “will be impossible with God.” Years ago I heard a sermon about the difference between ability and availability. The point was this: God does not need or rely on our ability. God is infinitely able. What God wants to know, the preacher said, what God was asking Mary, what God is asking us today is not, “Are you able?” Rather, God is always asking, “Are you available for the impossible?”

How available are we to God for the impossible? How ready and willing are we to be available? To be available for a miracle? Are we true believers? Or are we functional atheists? Do we say we believe in the God of miracles but act as if we are the miracle workers – in charge of our own lives and (dare we admit it?) thinking we are in charge of and in control of the lives of others?

Mary knew she was not in control, not in charge of her life, not anymore. If she said yes, she would lose control. She would turn her life over to the One whom members of Alcoholics Anonymous call “the God of our understanding.” Thanks to Gabriel, Mary understood God differently now. It caused her to say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Let it be. That’s an attitude adjustment. Something happened inside this young girl, soon to become an unwed mother. It was something called a miracle – a mysterious paperwhite miracle, already beginning to bloom in Mary.

And so, as Luke tells us in verses we didn’t hear today, an excited Mary hurried off to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth, whose baby John, when he heard Mary approaching, leapt with joy in his mother’s womb. And the other mother, Elizabeth, was in that moment filled with God’s Spirit, declaring Mary most blessed by God among all women. In that joyous moment, Mary cannot keep from singing, telling the world in so many words, “It’s not about me.”

No, it’s all about our magnificent God! It’s all about the miracles, small and large, that God is making in Mary’s life. Mary is singing, just like Miriam and Deborah and Hannah and all her sisters-in-faith sang before her. Mary joins their ancient song of liberation and modulates the key. Mary sings of a blessing bestowed upon the oppressed, whether oppression comes from being under-privileged or over-privileged. Virgin and mother, young and ancient, mystical and practical, resting in prayer and working for justice. Mary gives voice to it all, as she sings her miraculous life, which has come from her magnificent God.

And us? Can we move with Mary through “How can this be?” to “Let it be; it’s not about me!”? Dare we believe that wealth no longer has the power we once thought it had? Dare we help God lift up the lowly and be uplifted along the way? Dare we empty ourselves so we can fill up the hungry? Dare we believe once more in the mystery and the miracle of the incarnation, God with us, even God within us?

Dare we? If we dare, how might God be calling you and me to a life like Mary’s, a song like Mary’s, a song with hands and arms outstretched, reaching for the sky? While Mary sings the new life within her, are we available to join an angel chorus? Are we ready, willing and available to sing that song with her?

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
    for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant….

Dear friends in Christ, it’s always, all about God. Dare we believe that God has come to our help, that God has remembered that ancient, divine promise of justice and mercy? It’s all about the promise God made to our forebears: to Abraham and Sarah; to Isaac and Rebekah; to Jacob, Leah and Rachel. And it’s about the special promise God made to Joseph and Mary, through their child, our Savior Jesus; and to all humankind, today and for ever.

Dare we believe? Dare we believe our God is just plain magnificent? Are we ready, willing and available for a miracle?

The Rev. Thomas A. Momberg, All Saints’ Episcopal Church,
Frederick, Maryland, December 21, 2008