November 19, 2006

The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost

1 Samuel 2.1-10; Mark 13.1-8

The Reverend Jennifer K. Morrow

 

Something is about to happen.

 

I believe this, with everything I have, even when I can’t feel it.  I believe that something is about to happen.  If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be standing here.  The conviction that something is about to happen is all I have to stand on when I stand here.  It’s really the only thing any of us who are sitting here have.  Why?  Because if what we know, what we see and experience, what we read in the papers and what we watch on the news…if that’s the end of the story then we faithful are either the least informed, least interested, or least sane people around. 

 

But we are informed, we are interested.  It is we who beg to differ.  Today’s reality is not the world as it should be, nor as it could be.  And we say, defiantly, something is about to happen.  This is our protest.  This is what should be written on all of our posters, on all of our buttons and bumper stickers.  This is our claim; and we’ve been staking it for centuries, for millennia.

 

Take Hannah.  The woman who first sang the song Bob read for us this morning.  Hannah was an Israelite.  She was married, but according to the preceding chapter, was unable to have children.  Most of us are trained by now, that when we hear of a barren woman in an ancient culture, we know her future was at best tenuous.  And while this was usually and sadly the case, it was not so for Hannah.  The text tells us that her husband loved her, and was especially devoted to her. And yet, while her future was secure, her heart was broken.  She could not have a child, and other women teased her for it.  Tormented.  Belittled and broken.  In the story, she calls out to God, pours out her heart and desire for a child.  God hears her. She becomes pregnant. And Hannah sings:

 

"My heart exults in the LORD; my strength is exalted in my God. "There is no Holy One like the LORD, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God…The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn… The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world.”  (1 Samuel 2, selections)

 

Can you hear it?  Hannah has taken what God is doing in her and seen the deepest of truths: if God has rescued me from barrenness, then anything is possible.  Might and power will no longer count for everything.  The rich will be brought low.  The hungry will eat their fill.  Something is about to happen.

 

Does the situation sound familiar to any of you?  Fast-forward 6 centuries or so.  Can you think of another woman, just pregnant who couldn’t have been?  She would visit her cousin, also pregnant, before she and her betrothed would make the long trek to be counted for an impending census.  While she’s with her cousin, she too would sing a song.  We’ll actually read it here, in just a few weeks once Advent has begun.  Today I want to give you just a taste of what we’ll hear: 

 

"My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name…He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”  (Luke 1.46-53, selections)

 

We don’t know if Mary ever sang this song again, but sometimes I like to imagine it as a lullaby.  Cradling her son, watching him twitch in his sleep, whispering to herself as much as to him, “Something is about to happen.”

 

Fast-forward thirty-some years.  That baby is now a man, gathered with his fellow travelers, who are marveling at the splendor of the Jerusalem Temple.  It was a majestic place, white marble, gold and bronze.  What they were looking at we can hardly imagine.  “It doesn’t have much longer.  This tower of strength, this symbol of glory will fall.”  The words at the time landed somewhere between the blasphemous and the impossible, but his mother had taught him well.  So Jesus took his closest friends to a high place to explain:

 

“When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come.  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.”  (Mark 13.7-8)  Something is about to happen.

 

Fast-forward 2,000 years or so.  A group of Middle School students and their parents have an idea.  Let’s have a tag sale, only let’s not put tags on anything.  Let’s collect as many clothes, toys and household goods that we can and fill our auditorium.  Then let’s ask people to help us invite those in our community who need these basic necessities the most.  Then let’s find the best way we can to say, “We want you to have these.  We got these for you.”

 

That’s exactly what happened here yesterday, for about 15 of our Middle School students, their parents, and over 40 local families who came and shopped at the “Un-tag Sale.”  In our own way, we added our voices to the centuries-long chorus: something is about to happen.  Something big.   Things are changing.  A day will come when the only sorrowful part of yesterday will change: a day when it won’t be so easy to tell the “Un-tag Sale” volunteers from the customers.  All we volunteers were white.  None of the customers were.

 

Now hear me, please, hear me on two eternally important things: what happened yesterday was beautiful.  And what happened yesterday was only the beginning.  “The beginning of the birthpangs.”  A new day will be born.   A day on which it will no longer be “us” “helping” “them,” but when all of us will be working together.  A day when it will be impossible to separate people into the “haves” and “the have-nots.”  A day when, as Hannah said, “The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.”  Or as Mary proclaimed, “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;”

And make no mistake, it is not a coincidence both Mary and Hannah were pregnant when they believed enough to sing these words.  Bringing this new day into being will require the work of a woman laboring to bring new life into the world.  It will exhaust us.  It will scare us.  We may say we want it to stop.  It will hurt like hell.  It will make us sweat and cry.  It will require more of ourselves than we have ever given.  It will feel impossible.  But, oh, the beauty on the other side.  The unsurpassing joy. It cannot be contained, it cannot really be described.  It can only be experienced.

 

So why all this talk?  Fast-forward three weeks.  We’ll conclude our stewardship campaign by declaring our pledges, our intentions for the work of this church in this place.  “Oh, come on, that’s cheap.  Don’t make this about money.”  But I’m not.  All I’m saying is that it’s just like yesterday’s “Un-tag Sale.”  It’s one more chance to say, “Something is about to happen.”  It’s not about making a church budget.  It’s not about assuaging guilt.  It’s not about “doing the right thing.”  Something is about to happen, and either we’re in this, or we’re not.  Either we’re ready to be a part of it, or we’re not.  Either we’re content with things as they are, or we’re not.

 

Do what Hannah did.  Take a moment just to look at what God has done in you.  What strength you have found.  What courage you have mustered.  What trials you have overcome.  What corners you have turned.  What difference you have made.  Look at that the way Hannah looked at her growing belly.  Look around you and see a roomful of just as much hope, just as much possibility, and believe.  Believe.  Imagine.  Fast-forward six months, six years, or sixty…

 

Something is about to happen.