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Humble & Obedient

Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who abides in which of us. Amen

For the past couple of weeks, we have heard how John accepted God’s call for his ministry and how John said the world was to prepare for the unbelievable event of God entering the world, literally in human form. If you remember, John said, to prepare for God’s coming into the world that the world needed to repent and be baptized. Now, John said this was necessary, be as we also heard, Isaiah had also announced that God had instructed his people to "Prepare his way! Because whether the world was ready or not, God was coming!"

So with all of that said, here we sit, the last Sunday in the Season of Advent, and many of us are wondering, “so, if I repent, what would a repentant life look like?” Well, Luke offers us that answer in his telling of the story of Mary. Luke is the only Gospel writer to give us Mary’s story. In Mark, the first Gospel to be written, Mark mentions her in Chapter 3, but only says that she and her other sons came to find Jesus because people were saying Jesus was “out of his mind” (3:21). Matthew doesn’t say much about her either, except she is at the tomb, and in the Gospel of John, he never even mentions her by name.

But in Luke’s Gospel, Mary is prominent and he offers her to the community as a model of Christian life. Over the centuries, the church has exalted Mary in many ways. In some traditions, specifically the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox traditions, Mary is revered as sinless and beyond reproach. In other traditions, Mary’s role in our salvation history is virtually ignored, but regardless of how each various Christian tradition identifies Mary’s role, thanks to Luke, all of us remember her this time of year as we prepare to remember and celebrate the birth of Christ.

In his telling of the Gospel of Jesus, Luke identifies Mary as the most Christ-like human being in the story. Unlike any other character in the story, but, just like her son will do in his life, when told of God’s will for her life, Mary responds to the Angel of God by saying, " Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). At the end of his life, Jesus will say, " Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done" (Luke 22:42). In both cases, the ideal response to God is presented as a combination of humble trust and obedient service.

Being humble and obedient are not words, or personal characteristics, that are really thought of very highly in our society, though. They weren’t human characteristics that were thought of very highly in Jesus’ day either. If someone is humble, we usually portray them as having low self-esteem, soft-spoken, little power, under-privileged, meek… You get the point. We much prefer to be identified as proud, bold, courageous, … Although, I personally don’t believe that being humble excludes one from be bold or courageous, for the most part the world does and that is not a label or characteristic most of us seek to have.

And obedient, no one wants to be known as one who is obedient. Dogs are obedient. Children are to be obedient. But we adults, particularly adults that are strong leaders, we are not obedient. We tend to see people who are obedient as subservient, compliant, and even docile. I am often asked by people to supply letters of recommendations and when I do, I would never use words like humble or obedient to describe them, because the truth of the matter is, if one is seen as humble and obedient, we tend to immediately think they are weak and unable to get things done.

Yet, the one who we are called to follow, the one who we are called to emulate in this life, is one who humbled himself before the world and was obedient to his Father’s will even to death. And today, we are reminded that although this is hard to do in this world, as wait in this world for the best that is yet to come, we should respond to God as Mary did, as humble and obedient servants.

Please keep in mind I am not saying that we are to allow others in this world to walk all over us. We are not called to be obedient to people who attempt to abuse us or use us for their personal gain, I am talking about being humble before God and obedient to God’s ways. Yes, Jesus humbled himself before the world as he allowed himself to be placed on the cross, but he was never subservient to the ways of the religious authorities of his days, or to Caesar and his ways. In being humble and obedient to God’s ways, ways that were extremely powerful, Jesus stood up to those authorities, and through his peaceful means, he turned their worlds upside down. He created unrest and challenged people to change their ways, not by inciting riots, but by encouraging people to be different. He did this by encouraging people to change themselves, not others.

Mary is he ideal Christian, not because she bore Jesus in her womb. In fact, in using today’s politically correct language, being Jesus’ “birth mother” has nothing to do with her greatness. I know this because of something Jesus will say later in Luke’s Gospel. In Chapter 11, as Jesus continues to teach his followers a woman comes to Jesus and says of Mary, "Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!"

This woman thinks it would be wonderful to be Jesus' mother because Jesus is a great man. And in that society, much like today, the worth of women is often determined by the quality of sons they produce. But Jesus completely rejects this notion and declares, "Blessed rather are those who hear God's word and obey it!"

Our greatness will not be determined by whether we are labeled a Christian or not. Our greatness will not be determined by whether we are strong invincible leaders. Our greatness will not be determined by the measurements of this world. No, Jesus says, if you want to be great, then humble yourself before God and be obedient to his ways, for great is the one who hears the world of God and obeys it.

Brothers and sisters, in just three days, we will gather and celebrate the fact that God has entered this world in human form. Emmanuel, God with us, is a reality and as great as that is, God has only just begun. The best has not, yet, come, but as we await his coming again, we are challenged to be like Mary and respond to God’s call for our lives in humble and obedient ways. We are challenged today to not succumb to the ways of this world. We are challenged to turn from Satan and all his temptations for our lives and we are called to hear God’s word and obey it.

In this world, this is an almost impossible task, but, if a 14 year-old girl could respond in such a humble and obedient way in a culture that literally had the right to stone her to death, most certainly we too, can respond to God’s call for our lives by saying, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Amen.

Tags: Sermons