Greetings Favored One

When the angel first spoke to Mary, “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,' she jumped and fell out her chair, landing with a thud. Blinking and rubbing her eyes, she stared with disbelief at the figure hovering over her. It wasn't that she had never heard of angels or the stories of their sudden bright shining sun appearing. These were the stories with which her mother had put her to bed. The three angels walking out of the hot desert shimmer to find Abraham who thought he they were a mirage, a symptom of the heat. But they were real and they came to announce that he and Sarah, both close to 100 years of age, would have a son named Isaac. An angel appeared to Hagar, Abaraham's servant girl and mother to his first son Ishmael. She too wandered in the desert because Abraham and Sarah no longer wanted her or her son in their home. Overcome by exhaustion, seeking shelter from the noon-day sun, lips chapped from thirst and dehydration, she fell to the sand like a camel with a fractured leg, too weak to even care about the scalding heat of the ground. Then an angel appeared and guided her to water. She new that an angel appeared to Moses in a burning bush commanding him to leave his desert hiding place and return to Egypt, where he was wanted for murder, to face Pharoah and free his people. And when Elijah had had enough of life and wanted to die, God sent an angel to feed him, give him water, and to take Elijah to a meeting with God, face to face, but not through dying. God was coming to meet him and to send him on his way to a new life mission. When God sent angels, lives changed, Mary new. Abraham became a father, Moses became a freedom fighter, Hagar found a home, Elijah his life's purpose...

And Mary wondered what message the angel would bring.

Because her people had not heard from angels in years, centuries even.
At first they waited expectantly. Some would-be prophets wandered the near-by deserts waiting for an angel to fall from the clouds or materialize out of the sand. Priests would wait expectantly in the Temple for something; a voice, a clap of thunder, a sudden great light, a burst of flame. Women would pray earnestly form some sign that God was still here, there, anywhere close by, listening, paying attention, coming down to change their lives...

Lives marked by oppression and poverty. All of Israel waited for angels, but all they seemed to find were demons. Not necessarily supernatural phenomena demon's. Everyday demons like; Roman tax collectors who could and would take everything. Just the other day they had taken the last goat from Mary's neighbor. It was a source of milk and cheese, some food, some nutrition, but now that was gone. Everyday demons like malnutrition. The street that lead to the market would lined by beggars. Some were scarred and disfigured, bearing the marks of crossing the Roman centurions. Others were diseased, covered in dusty rags, covered in sores. Some were children, frail, skeleton thin children whose family couldn't afford to feed them. Israel was infested with these demons, and waited for the day when an angel would appear to drive out the demons and change Israel's life forever.

But the angels hadn't appeared for a long, long time.
And slowly people gone on with their angel-less life.
Some started working for the Romans. The money was good. They could feed their families. Their neighbors wouldn't speak to them, in-laws wouldn't come to holiday dinners. But they were surviving as best they could.
Some joined the rebellion. If God wouldn't send angels with flaming swords, they would have to pick up their own. So instead of waiting for angels, their time was spent in secret meeting, smuggling weapons, hoarding food, spying on their roman oppressors.

Some, like the pharisees, stopped waiting for angels, and devoted themselves to purity. They shunned Romans, beggars, the sick, the sinful, hoping that religious piety would entice God to come to rescue them. They poured their attention into the word of God. But they stopped looking for angels
And some, like Mary, just got on with life as best they could.
She found a kind and gentle man to marry, Joseph. And her thoughts were consumed by their wedding. She and her mother sat by lamp-light piecing together her wedding gown. Hours were spent, while cooking and cleaning, dreaming of their life together; the children they would have, the home they would buy. Joseph was lucky enough to have a job. So she planned how she would make the perfect home for her beloved.
No one looked for angels anymore, not even mary.

Isn't that the way with us. Life is full of hope and promise when we are young. We believe the stories of Santa Claus and the Easter bunny; that there is good out there, hope. Like Mary we have plans for life and we believe in our own plans and the courage to carry them out.
Then life comes along; terrible and wonderful. But life as we plan it doesn't always work out. Life bring a few surprises some good; a baby, a promotion, a raise. Some not so good; we get laid off, divorced, we get ill or a loved one gets sick. Life comes at us, sometimes great, sometimes sad, and when sad, like all of Mary we discover that there isn't always an Easter Bunny around the corner, with welcome and unexpected gifts. And sometimes life Mary (at least, as I imagine Mary) we stop believing in angels and are left to our own devices, our own plans and skills, our own strength and hope. For some that is enough. Others find it comes up short and we have little left to lean on. The story of Mary, the story of Israel, isn't so far from our own, believing in a savior, knocked around by life, feeling left on our own.

Which is why at first Mary didn't understand his words; you have found favor with God. God's favor was like angels, something from stories, a fantasy, ancient history.

But the angel continues. Probably calmly and slowly, but this couldn't be real, Mary thought and so she felt caught in a whirlwind of promises that just couldn't be true;
Luke 1:31
You will be with child and give birth to a son
Luke 1:31-32
give him the name Jesus.
Luke 1:32
The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David
Luke 1:33
and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

A baby?
named Jesus?
He will be king? Not Herod, Not Caesar?
He will be like David? We will be free and safe and secure?
People will work for themselves, and eat,
no more sickness, no more tax-collectors, no more begging, no more death?
Forever?

All that she had dreamed of and given up dreaming of... could it somehow happen?
Dare we believe that God could make something good out life's struggles
Dare we believe that God could bring light to our darkness?

How can this be? She asks

Because as good as it sounds, much will change.
All that she has pinned her hopes on will change?
Will Joseph keep her if she pregnant?
What will her parents think
what will the neighbors say or do?

Will she give up her simple hopes for something better from God?
Will she believe that God could do the impossible, the unexpected, that which she has given-up-on?
Will she replace the life she had planned for the life God is offering;
with its promise and its pressure
with its joys and its sorrows?

Angels appear before us almost every day.
A hungry child
A cold family
A crying widow
a frightened daughter
An ailing parent
A little girl without a coat
an elderly man who can't get out on his own

Angels appear before us almost every day
a new job opportunity or a layoff
an engagement or a divorce
a clean bill of health or a frightening diagnosis.

Angels all, everyday angels...
that offer us the choice to keep our head down and go on with life as we have known it
or to look up and say with Mary, I am the Lord's servant
In good times and in bad, God is there with hope and strength
with a purpose for our living and a mission for our existance.
Each moment expected or unexpected
a celebration or a catastrophe is a chance to give birth to Christ
a chance to heed the angels
to be an angel
to believe that nothing is impossible with God

Its a hard thing to live with, this hope in angels, this belief that God is near
Its difficult to hold onto the belief that God is all things
that Jesus could be born in us, at any time, in any place.

The question is, will we say yes as did Mary?

Will we choose to be considered a bit foolish by some of our friends, no better than poker players or lottery ticket scratchers hoping in something rarely seen. A daredevil, a testpilot (Barbara Brown Taylor) calls us. We believe in something that can't be proven in a laboratory. Angels can't be recreated, recorded, studied or saved on Tevo. Will we take that chance?

Meister Eckhart once asked
What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to a Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and in my culture.

If you dare to say yes then the angels words are not only for Mary, but also for you
Greetings favored ones, the Lord is with You, The son of the Most High is in You
Do not be afraid, for nothing is impossible with God.