Fourth Sunday of Advent
Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
This is the time of year when many pastors and religious types love to complain about overly elaborate Christmas decorations, criticize the shallowness of most people’s festivities, and bemoan the lack of truly faithful preparation for the birth of Jesus. ‘People should have a right heart,’ they say, ‘so they can celebrate the true meaning of the season and truly receive Christ when he comes.’
What, then, is a right heart? What does it look like to have a right heart? I am going to look at two of our Bible readings this morning for an answer.
Our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures tells us about King David at the peak of his power. He has built himself a fine palace in the capitol city Jerusalem. Resting there in his splendid palace, he has the idea that maybe God should have a nice place, too. Up until now, God’s presence rested on the ark of the covenant, a mobile altar in a tent. How about building a house for God, a temple?
God has other plans, though. God is perfectly happy with the ark for now. However, God promises to build a house for David, a dynasty. In Hebrew, this is a play on words: ‘house’ and ‘dynasty’ are the same word. God promises David that there will always be a descendant from his line on the throne of Judah.
Why would God do this for David? Was it because David was so wonderful? Hardly! There are lots of stories in the Bible that reveal David’s flawed character. His famous adultery with Bathsheba, for example, or his inability to deal with his sons, which costs three of them their lives. No, David was not a wholesome character.
Why then did God make such an amazing promise to David? Because God chose to. That’s all there is to it. God chose David. In spite of all his imperfections, God chose David and loved David and blessed David with divine promise.
David, in turn, trusted God’s love and promise. After each sin, David comes to God and asks for forgiveness; he repents and fasts and says sorry. God forgives him and restores their relationship, and David can continue to live in God’s grace.
In this, David shows us one aspect of what a right heart is: Knowing that we are imperfect people prone to sinning; being honest about our sins and asking God for forgiveness; trusting God’s love and promises; rejoicing in the relationship we have with God.
God chose us just like he chose King David. In Baptism, God adopted us as children forever, not because we were so great, but because God’s love is so great that he loves us in spite of our shortcomings. Today, God is choosing Skylar and Walton; God calls them in love and begins a relationship with them that will last throughout their lives and into eternal life.
Living in a relationship with God in which we trust God’s love so much that we can admit our sins and receive God’s forgiveness, value our covenant with God and rejoice in being God’s chosen child – that creates a right heart in us.
Let’s switch to our gospel reading and look at Mary. Again, God chooses an unlikely person to receive his love and promise. This time, it is a young, seemingly insignificant woman in a small town of little importance in the backwaters of Judah. The angel Gabriel appears to her out of the blue and announces that she would be pregnant with the Son of God. Wow! That came out of nowhere!
Mary does have a choice in the matter. She could say no. She is free to choose. In her freedom, she responds to God’s plan by choosing to submit to God’s will. Mary is able to trust her relationship with God and believe in the promise. She answers the angel, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Not until Mary has agreed to her role in God’s salvation story does the angel depart from her – probably breathing a sigh of relief.
God is asking an awful lot of Mary. To her neighbors, she will look like an unwed mother; she risks being ostracized. She risks losing her fiancé Joseph. And then, after the birth, she will have to raise the Messiah. Raising normal children is hard enough; can you imagine being entrusted with raising the Son of God?! This young woman has her work cut out for her.
As the angel is speaking to her, Mary must have some idea as to how tough this call is going to be. And still, she willingly submits to God’s plan for her life. “Here I am, the servant of the Lord.” That is her right heart speaking. Mary knows it will be hard, but she also knows that this is God’s will, and that God will help her through it, and so she accepts what God is asking of her.
I admire Mary for submitting to God’s will like that. That’s a challenge, isn’t it? When God asks us to participate in his kingdom’s work and his salvation story, we usually are a lot more hesitant to agree.
When we are asked to serve on council or to lead a ministry team into a future with God, we rarely say, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord.” We are much more likely to ask, “What will I have to do? How many meetings does this involve? How long would my term last? Can’t you find someone else?”
When we are asked to become part of one of our committees or teams or groups, we usually don’t bow our heads and submit to the request. We are more likely to say, “Oh, I am not so good with kids. I don’t know how to talk to teenagers. I can’t read music. I don’t know how to cook or swing a hammer. I am not sure I have the time. Can’t you find someone else?”
When burdens are placed on our shoulders, when we are called to care for elderly parents or special needs children, when we lose a job or are overwhelmed by the job we have, when we are stricken by illness or suffer the pains and indignities of ageing, we have a hard time accepting the situation quietly and humbly. Instead, we whine and complain and ask God, “Why me? Can’t you find someone else?”
Mary never asks God to find someone else. She accepts what God wants her to do, no matter what trouble it might cause her. She has a right heart. And as a result of having a right heart, of being guided in her choice of actions by her right heart, Mary gets to see the promise fulfilled. She gets to hear the angels sing. She gets to hold the Messiah in her arms. She gets to witness all kinds of people, shepherds and wise men and more, being united by the love Christ brings into the world. She gets to witness and feel and experience the miracle of Christmas.
That’s where a right heart leads: To fully witnessing and experiencing the miracle of Christmas.
The story of David shows us that having a right heart means trusting the love of God that chose us, trusting in it so much that through confession and forgiveness we can live in a close relationship with God.
The story of Mary shows us that having a right heart means trusting in God’s promises so much that we can choose God’s will for our lives.
There is one more thing both of these stories teach us: God is on the move. You never know where God will show up next and what God will do tomorrow.
King David wants to build God a house, but God prefers the mobile ark. God wants to roam freely among the people.
Mary experiences what it can look like when God roams freely: suddenly God’s angel shows up and changes her life forever.
Both Mary and David thought they knew exactly what their lives were going to be. David was going to enjoy being a successful and powerful king, and eventually hand the reign over to one of his sons. Mary was going to marry Joseph, have a few kids, and keep the house. Their lives were all mapped out.
Then, boom!, God enters in amazing ways and changes everything.
God still does that kind of thing. We think we know the way our life is going to go; we are settled into our routines; we have everything planned and mapped out. And then, boom!, God steps in and changes everything.
When I entered seminary in Germany over 30 years ago, I thought I knew the course my life would take: I would graduate and become a pastor somewhere in Germany’s northernmost state and settle into the routines of parish life close to home. Then, boom!, God stepped in and called me to come to the US. Quite a shock. I did follow the call (obviously), and it was tough at times, but the journey has blessed me in countless ways, and I now couldn’t imagine my life any other way.
We are baptizing Skylar and Walton today. All of us who are parents probably remember how we imagined parenthood to be. We would cherish our beautiful, smart, well-behaved children and spend lovely times together. Then, boom!, reality hits and the chaos of small kids enters our lives. It’s not at all what we expected, and yet, we wouldn’t change it for the world.
God is still roaming. Who knows what God might do next, in your life, in my life, in the life of this congregation? We don’t know. What we do know is this: With a right heart in us, we will be able to go with God’s plan, and at the end, we will be blessed beyond expectation.
In this holy season, let us ponder our right heart. From David, let us learn that we are chosen and forgiven. From Mary, let us learn how to submit to God’s will and participate in God’s salvation story. Let us prepare a right heart within us so we can fully embrace and experience and be uplifted by the miracle of Christmas. Amen.