Our
Savior’s Lutheran Church
Camdenton,
MO
Commemoration
of Mary, Mother of our Lord,
August
15, 2010
“What
will I be when I grow up?”
relative when you were a child? You were told to “be quiet and mind your manners...because uncle or aunt is older...and you must be respectful!”? A) I think that kind of setup took all the joy out of the time for both the elderly and the children. There was no time to be “playful”...everything was so droll and serious! And often...the older person in as much discomfort and a sense of awkwardness as the child would blurt out that crazy question: “Well....what do you want to be when you grow up?” B) Then, they would nod knowingly as we children came up with the stock answers we thought were expected: “a nurse; a doctor; a fireman; a cop; a teacher”.....and sometimes, if the relative was more demonstrative...one would get a pat on the head: “That’s good; that’s good!”... and that was about the end of any meaningful communication as the rest of us went off the the backyard to dig worms while the adults visited. II. “ What will you be when you grow up?” Have you noticed they have brought back the question in a new commercial that portrays not children...but seniors dreaming aloud about what “the rest of the story” of their lives will be: “I want to work with kids”...”I want to start my own restaurant”; “I think I’ll start a band!” 2) A) That is also the theme question for today....for Mary of Nazareth...for Jesus, her son....and for us who today name the name of Jesus. B) It all starts with a strange visitation. Martin Luther had a comic take on the meeting of Mary with the archangel, Gabriel which I love to work into my Luther portrayals: “Now we might imagine Mary, one of the least of a downtrodden people...a daughter of a plain family in a plain town.. In the village of Nazareth she appeared as a mere servant...tending the livestock and the house....no more esteemed than some maid among us who performs her daily chores. Her age was probably between 13 and 15 years.... Now, angels prefer to come to people when they are about their daily work or discharging their office... imagine Mary, sweeping the floor of the house....when a young man... the angel appears to her: ‘Hail Mary....full of Grace...the Lord is with thee!’ Now, this may be fine Latin...but I ask you... is it good German? (or English?) Would any ordinary person say this? Your person on the street knows what a purse full of gold is... but, what about a ‘ girl full of grace?’....If I were to write really good lines here, I would rather say: ‘God bless you, dear Mary...liebe Maria...for this word, liebe, comes right from the heart! God bless you, dear Mary, for you have a gracious and loving God! No woman on earth has been shown this favor....you shall conceive a son... and he shall be great.... the son of the most high!” 3) III. There was not too much speculation here on the part of Gabriel, God’s messenger, on what Mary would be when she grew up! In those days...and in those places we would assume that someone like Mary would have few prospects...being linked as a woman to the household of her father...and then her husband...her destiny to serve that household and make sure the lineage continued in children. That was about it for her prospects. A) And then....the miraculous.... God in the angel is proposing that she step outside of that box...I mean WAY outside of that box! B) Her family was in the process of arranging a marriage for her. She shows up pregnant by a man not her betrothed....shame on her... shame on the family...and an instant death sentence to remove that shame. The most logical thing to assume here is that she was only thirteen or so and didn’t fully understand what was happening and all of its implications. That may be so...but that demeans her: “She’s only a woman; she’s only a child; she is a nobody”; why would anything be going on in her life worth paying attention to? IV. That’s logical thinking...it makes sense in its day and age... but it is not thinking outside the box....and that is often where God acts! Remember the prophet’s words: “My ways are not your ways, says the Lord!” A) I remember a kid I went to school with. He was the most cocky, self- involved person I think I knew in school. He seemed to have little heart for anyone but himself. We were all surprised when he did not try to avoid the draft later, but joined up and 4) found himself stationed in Viet Nam. Most of us thought he would never have gotten there... his attitude alone was something that should have marked him in boot camp as someone really dangerous in combat...both to himself and others. We fully expected that he would make every effort to save his own skin when the chips were down. B) But, something happened, indeed. That man came home from the war...he had some nerve damage in his face from some shrapnel...but otherwise, he was physically sound. News didn’t reach us through him, but soon there was a report of his bronze star and two field promotions. He himself said nothing....we had to read it in the papers.... How he pulled four other men out of danger in a firefight after they had been cut off and wounded... Somehow, master sergeant Jones (that’s what I’ll call him)....who seemed like he had waded in over his head...proved to be the right person in the right place.....who could have guessed it... that the high school pain in the rear would turn out to be a hero? V. Mary grew up fast...and she became the agent of God’s great plan to redeem all of humanity....pretty surprising when you think of her in the kitchen with that broom! A) What would Jesus, the child, be when he grew up? Strangely enough, Jesus became not only what God created him to be...but what his human family molded him to be: 1) Devout and observant of the faith....formed by humility and service and worship. 2) Open to God’s unique leading: (Mary believed the angel...Joseph trusted the word of the angel in his dream.)...outside of convention. 5) 3) Submissive to the will of God....protecting Jesus in infancy...releasing him to follow his own mission...patient in suffering....and resolved even in death. B) Mary is not the young girl who stumbles into God’s plan...but throughout her life...the one who affirms.. “I am God’s servant; may it be with me as you have said!” 1) She is the mother who is rebuffed by Jesus at the wedding in Cana and who is again rebuffed when she comes with the family to bring him home from Capernaum. 2) She is the one who probably behind the scenes provided what help she could to the traveling disciples. She is the one who stood at the foot of the cross and saw the dream of her youth “die”. 3) She is the one who cradled the lifeless body of her son as she had lovingly cradled it for the first time in the cattle pen some thirty years before. What would Mary be when she grew up? Just what her son grew up to be, a faithful, suffering servant. VI. And now...the question comes down to us who name the name of Jesus: “What will we be when we grow up?... when we grow up into the stature of the Lord Jesus? We have so many examples of people...even ones who seemed to be off the path...or those who came to it later in life....and some who just carefully plodded along the way their whole lives. A) A man in one of my parishes was retiring from the insurance industry. He was from a farming community, kept a “weekend farm” and restored 6) John Deere tractors and other farm implements....(no red tractors, thank you!) Strangely enough, as he anticipated what he was now going to do when he “grew up”, he came to me and asked if there was anything in the church he could do? I didn’t have to miss a beat....I had seen him in action. He had the skills and the heart to be part of the Mission Builders program where skilled craftsmen travel to locations to help churches and other church agencies put up or finish their buildings. That fit so well, he and his wife traveled in their motor home with the tool trailer for about 10 years. And now, I hear that that experience put them in the forefront of leadership for Lutherans who went in to rebuild in New Orleans...and besides this, he still works with Habitat for Humanity. He has big scrapbooks of pictures of every building, every cleanup, every restoration they have done in fifteen years. He sure “grew up” into the man God created him to be! B) Luther said: “When God calls someone...he calls him to come and die”.....to die to self so that God may call out the true self who will serve God in faithfulness forever. What will we be when we grow up? Listen as Mary did for the angel voice... it will guide you. Do not be afraid....you are favored... you are God’s children...still in training...always becoming....still marked for good things! Step out....dare to be different.... Blessed are you! AMEN.
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