Fourth Sunday of Advent, cycle B

Luke 1:26-38

I visit with a man now and then who had a massive stroke at the age of 55. He can barely walk, can't use one arm, and can't really take care of himself. His mind was not affected. He's a man of faith, and even though he's in an assisted living facility, He has organized a bible study and rolls around on his wheel chair visiting the other people in the place. If you talk to him long enough, he'll tell you that he sees his situation as a blessing. He believes that God loves him, and put him in this situation, in these circumstances, for a reason. And if that is what God wants, that's what he wants.

Whenever we Catholics say the Hail Mary, we repeat the words the angel speaks to her in this gospel story – of course the original story was in Greek, so whether we hear the words differently in the gospel just read or in the Hail Mary isn't important. They are just translations.

But we call Mary blessed. The angel calls her “favored one”. Sort of the same thing. And most of us would see a relationship between being blessed and having good things happen to us, or at least avoiding bad things. But I wonder how blessed Mary felt when she learned that God was going to overshadow her and bring about a pregnancy; a child conceived out of wedlock. What would Joseph think. What would the people of the little village think? What would happen to her? And I wonder how blessed she felt when she saw her son crucified like a common criminal. And you could probably think of other times Mary wondered whether being God's favorite was worth it? I think that's something to take to our own prayers. For Mary and for you and I, there is no obvious relationship between good fortune and being one of God's favored ones.

So what does being favored mean? We can go back in salvation history and look at the favored ones. There was Abraham, whose life God upended – Abraham who was told to leave his country and wander in foreign lands. Abraham who seemed destined never to have children and then when God finally brought that about, he was told to sacrifice that child. Abraham who died with no sign that God was keeping his promise that he would become a great nation. Or Moses, whom God called from his life as a herdsman raising a family in Moab, to confront the Pharoah of Egypt. Moses who was given the task of leading a people through the desert and who cried out for God to take his life because the people he was trying to lead kept rebelling. Moses who after all those years was denied actually entering into the land God had reserved for the Israelites. Or think of Jonah, who tried to run away when God told him to preach repentance to the Ninevites, and ended up getting swallowed by a whale. Being favored or blessed does not mean getting good things. But it does mean that God is giving you a role in his grand plan; he lets us human beings participate in his ongoing creation.

I've heard it said many times that Mary was asked to be the mother of Jesus. Saint Bernard preached a famous sermon along these lines. What might have happened if she'd said no? But when you read this gospel carefully, you don't hear the angel asking. He's telling Mary what is going to happen. During Mary's time, there were all kinds of stories about gods who impregnated mortal women after seduction and sometimes rape. Mary probably had heard the stories of the Roman, Greek and Egyptian gods. I wonder if that was the point of her question, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” And then the angel goes into detail about what will happen, and how the child she will bear will inherit David's throne, will be the very Son of God. Never does the angel say “how about it, Mary? Will you do it?” It seems to me that Mary is told that God is going to radically change her life, and there's nothing she can do about it.

I think that's the fate of everyone. Every one of us can recall moments when our own lives were radically changed, without our consent. We all know people who through genetics or accident or disease were physically or mentally changed so that they don't enjoy what most of us take for granted. Can we say they are favored as well? I think so, because if we believe God loves each of us and wants us to be partners with him in building up his kingdom, then he must be offering his favor, his blessing, to everyone.

And that is where Mary's freedom comes in. Mary might not have had a choice about bringing Jesus into the world, with all the pain and sorrow that it would entail, but she did have a choice about how she was going to proceed forward. She would not be like Abraham who rather than wait on God decided to have a child by his wife's slave; she would not be like Moses who told God that he couldn't speak that well, maybe Aaron his brother? She wouldn't be like Jonah, who tried to sail away from his fate and later became angry with God for not destroying the city of Nineveh.

No, Mary when told what God had in store for her cried out with joy, “Do it to me, do what you said you would do!” Because Mary, free from any stain of sin, knew that the best thing a human being could do was the will of God. Nothing else mattered.

And that's the lesson of the Annunciation, the story we've just heard. Each of us is given moments when we are invited into God's plan. Very often it's not something we would choose if we had our way. Sometimes it's painful, sometimes it appears to be a great loss. Sometimes we are invited to accompany Jesus on the road to Calvary. And that's the challenge. Can we embrace God's will for us? Can we be like Mary and say, “Do it to me, do what you said you would do?”