Sermon: The Annunciation

We began this season with Jesus telling us to stay awake. Larry [my co-pastor] has previously spoken about the Stay Woke Advent meme. Stay Woke is in the Urban Dictionary already. Deriving from "stay awake," to stay woke is to keep informed of the shitstorm going on around you in times of turmoil and conflict, specifically on occasions when the media is being heavily filtered- such as the events in Ferguson Missouri in August 2014.

Since Ferguson more cops have avoided incitement for killing unarmed black men. And I have been alarmed at how many people are asleep about systemic injustice. People I have spoken to and read are so incredibly blinded by the US myth of individualism they still think these are isolated incidents. They focus on individual cops’ racism. They can’t understand that these events are the straws that broke the camel’s back. It is years and years of a racist legal system, a racist prison system, a racist education system, and so on that is really fueling the protests and the (remarkably fewer) riots.

And since we last met details of the US sanctioned torture program have become available. Back in 2002 when the President said that the Geneva convention didn’t apply to terrorists I was aghast. But everyone I tried to talk to about it was still so traumatized by 9/11 they didn’t want to hear it. The mere mention of terrorism but them into a fear induced sleep. I honestly had a little bit of intolerance with those caught in the post 9/11 terrorism scare. Had no one else watched any European movies from the 1970s? Did they really think terrorism was a new thing?

But all this time later I’m reading all these defenses of torture still! And by Christian leaders no less! And honestly debates about whether torture works or not is irrelevant! The moment we engaged in torture we became war criminals. If we really need to torture in order to "save lives" then maybe we don't deserve to live.

And honestly I find that this self-destructive despair is the price of staying woke. I have been overwhelmed by feeling angry, impotent and alienated. Feeling angry and impotent about social injustice is nothing new. The alienation, while not entirely new, has been the most profound of late. Who the hell are these people that seem even more asleep than me? Frankly, I know I don’t see half of what goes on, and yet there seem to be incredible numbers of people who are totally clueless. Or at least I pray they are clueless. If they really do know how horribly immoral and cruel their arguments are, I couldn’t stand it. Even in their cluelessness though I find myself profoundly estranged from what seems to be a majority here in this country.

Of course the experience of estrangement is a large part of why the order was formed.  For many reasons and from many different places, we in the order and many of those we serve have found ourselves on the outside of what once was. Reconciliation is, for us, the only way forward.

Staying woke in part is being aware of our estrangements from the Body of Christ as there are seemingly endless reasons for one to be estranged from another.  Even as reconciled we find ourselves then also estranged from God. Even so we have come together to entrust ourselves to the Reconciling work of God in Jesus Christ.

We in the order have given ourselves over to the reality of God’s Reconciliation.  We proclaim reconciliation in the face of continued estrangement, division and animosity. We proclaim peace, and we offer ourselves and invite any who are called to offer themselves to this asceticism of reconciliation.

One reason a person takes vows is to commit to a way of life that they embrace in their more inspired moments. Because those inspire moments don’t last. And lately I’ve been a little cranky about following a reconciling messiah. I want the other messiah. I want Barabbas, the murdering rebel. Because in my limited human reasoning, I can’t see how anything will change unless the empire is overthrown.

The US is the Roman Empire of today. We here are the Romans. And as we look at today’s scriptures, keep in mind that Mary and Jesus to the Roman Empire would be about the equivalent of Puerto Ricans, or the Inuit, or the Chamorro people of Guam to us today.

And what would a Chamorro woman today make of the words, “You have found favor with God. You will bear a son, and he will be great, called the Son of the Most High, and God will give to a throne and his kingdom will have no end." Might she not say, “How can this be?”

I mentioned feeling impotent in the face of social injustice before. And while I did not mean that in a sexual way, Gabriel answers Mary by telling her of her barren cousin’s success at reproducing. “For nothing will be impossible with God." And certainly if I look hard enough I can find examples of progress in social justice, despite my anger at all that still needs to be addressed.

The Magnificat, which we sang today, is what Mary says to her cousin when she visits her after hearing this news. She says that God has looked with favor on her, low as she is in the world of the Roman Empire. She says that all generations will call me blessed, even though she risked divorce and disgrace as a sexual transgressor. That in the act of blessing the lowest of the low he has scattered the proud, brought down the powerful, filled the hungry and sent the rich away empty.

This for me is what is so inspiring about Mary. That she sees the transforming work of God in her pregnancy, which while it has its remarkable aspect to be sure, and is a holy and cosmically significant pregnancy. Still, pregnancies are not in and of themselves unusual. The incarnation is at the same time ultimately profound and incredibly mundane.

And so Mary’s words are ones to sit with while we stay woke. That while the shitstorm is going on around us in times of turmoil and conflict, and we may long for great upheaval, God’s world shaking actions are carried out in everyday human matters.

And so I end with humbly quoting the mother of my Lord and God, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word."