Step Up!

I can still remember as it was yesterday when God made it clear to me that I had a call to ministry. I was 25, in my final year of college, completing a degree in mass communication. I had plans to be a journalist beginning in newspapers and going from there. Television and radio were possibilities, but I had experience writing for newspapers and I loved it.

That all changed when I became aware God was calling me to ministry. I protested. “What am I going to do in ministry with a degree in communication?” The Lord responded to me almost immediately, “You are going to communicate the Gospel.”

And so it began. What I wound up doing was not what I had planned to do.

We like to think we are in control of our destinies. We like to map out well thought-out plans, and boldly do so without much regard for the changes and chances life throws in our way. If we are believers we like to think (sometimes kid ourselves) that God is somehow directing our planning processes.

Then life happens. A crisis occurs that altars the course of life, changes everything forever. Or, the kingdom intrudes with demands and expectations on us that we did not foresee when mapping out the perfect career.

We wind up doing something entirely different from what we had planned.

That happened to Mary, the peasant girl from Nazareth. She was in her betrothal year. That means, she was contracted to be married and in the time of preparation before the final ceremony and moving in with her husband.

Mary was betrothed to a young man with an interesting claim. He was directly descended from King David and, but for the Roman occupation, would be king of Israel. Interesting for conversation, but of little practical value to him. He was a carpenter in Nazareth, making a good living from building homes.

They no doubt, like most engaged couples, laid out careful plans for a happy life. In the betrothal year he was preparing, too. Building their home, establishing a means of caring for his bride, planning for children.

But one day an angel of the Lord, identified to us as Gabriel, appeared to her.

“Rejoice, favored one! The Lord is with you!” She was troubled by that, and rightly so.

He went on to describe how she would conceive and bear a son, and that she would call him Jesus. The child would be great, called the Son of the Most High, assuming the throne of David.

Sounded great except for one thing. She was not yet married. It was physically impossible.

Beyond that, there were the personal and social implications. She was betrothed. To come up pregnant would mean she had been unfaithful to her husband, and destroyed here fond dreams and careful plans. She would be branded an adulteress in the community and eschewed at best, possibly stoned. It would be scandalous and she would never live it down.

I would say that the kingdom intruded. Yet young Mary decided to step up to the intrusion and accept it as God’s plan for her. Matthew, in telling Joseph’s side of the story, describes how Joseph stepped up to the challenge, too, and joined Mary in the scandalous situation. When he agreed to take her as wife, he publicly admitted he was the one, and thus legally adopted Jesus as his son.

Needless to say their lives took a huge turn, their plans were laid aside. They wound up doing something entirely different from what they had planned to do.

The favor the angel made over in Mary was actually the grace of God in her life. She was highly favored, meaning that God has granted a huge amount of grace to take on the task at hand. Grace means we are bestowed with power through the Holy Spirit to accomplish things we never imagined we could or would do. Grace would infuse her by the Holy Spirit and she would conceive as a virgin to have this child. We call it immaculate conception.

When God approaches us with life-changing demands that reroute everything he also provides the grace to do it, even when, as with Mary, it seems completely impossible. In fact, I think God likes to challenge us with impossible tasks so that we are forced to rely on him and his grace. Our job is to accept the challenge, to step up. Grace is the power to step up. Grace is the power to abandon cherished plans to do what God calls us to do. After all, what we wind up doing is not what we planned to do.

What does that mean to us? My role calls me to speak in two contexts.

As a congregation, I believe God is calling us to a new direction, a new approach that will change, again, carefully laid plans in the not-so-distant past. The kingdom has intruded and we have been troubled, but it has been a divine intervention. God will lead us to great things if we will abandon our agendas and listen to him. Obey him. Follow him.

As individuals, I want to remind us that we all face life-changing crises and situations. Life happens. God calls. We cannot stop it. Realize that the grace of God is in play and embrace the challenge, step up to the opportunities. Clinging to the past and crying over change will only lead to disobedience and subsequent decline. Do not go there.

In either situation step up. Embrace the challenge. Seek out the opportunities. Because what we wind up doing is not what we planned to do.

Luke 1:26-38 (4 Advent B)