Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Advent, 2020

In the middle of last week, it looked like my pastor might not be able to be with us on Sunday, so he asked me if I would handle the service.  I said sure; I knew that I wouldn't have a problem preaching on the Advent 4 texts.  When my pastor was able to do the service, he asked if I would still preach the sermon.  Perhaps he thought I had been working hours on it and didn't want my efforts to be for naught or perhaps he didn't have time for his regular sermon prep by the time he knew he would be with us--whatever the case, I said yes.

I started my sermon on Sunday in that spot--the familiarity with the Advent texts, which means we forget how strange they really are.  Many of us probably think in ancient times the angels dropped in on humans all the time--we get so many stories of angel visitations in the early chapters of 2 Gospels.  And then I reminded people of the improbability of the good news of impending birth that the angels deliver:  Mary who is a virgin and Elizabeth who is very old--not just a year or two past menopause but very old.  

I suggested ways that we might change the Advent texts so that we heard them in a new way.  I told the congregation about my pastor friend in North Carolina who is writing a reverse liturgy for her reverse Advent wreath.  She lit 4 candles on the first Sunday in Advent and has been extinguishing them week by week.  I talked a bit about the anti-dark language we would be hearing during Christmas week and suggested that we try rewriting it, as we kept in mind what good things can happen in the dark, like gestation, and Christ's resurrection, which happened as he was in a very dark tomb.

Then I pivoted to the next part of my sermon, that the problem with the Advent texts is how ancient they are.  We assume that angels showed up a lot in ancient times, but we're resistant to the idea that God is still at work in the world.  We assume that Mary was special, but that we are not.  

I talked about Gabriel's message to Mary:  "Nothing will be impossible with God."  How would we act if we really believed that?

I said that God routinely issues invitations to us today--and that if we feel like it's too late, that we turned down God's invitation and God moved along, that it's not too late.  I referenced the Dean of Southern Seminary who spoke to our 2019 Synod Assembly to tell us that there's no expiration date on a call from God.

I closed by asking us to listen for God's invitation, accept God's invitation, while also remembering the words of John the Baptist, who said, "I am not the Messiah."  Mary doesn't have to do these things on her own.  God is with her.  Likewise for us.

To hear the whole service, go to this post on my church's Facebook page.  My sermon starts at minute 16, although there's a minute of me getting settled.  It's strange, preaching in the back acreage of the church, perched on a stool, with a music stand in front of me and the wind blowing my page of notes.