304 S. Elam Ave.
Greensboro, NC

Phone: 336.272.2196
Fax: 336.275.7800

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Greensboro, NC

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December 24, 2006: Fourth Sunday of Advent

Luke 1:46-55
Living the Vision

The wise old pastor told us pastor wanna be's when Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday it's the only time when I wish I was a Lutheran or a Presbyterian pastor—you know belonging to one of those denominations that just have one Christmas Eve service. When December 24 th falls on a Sunday, they just have their usual Sunday morning services, break for lunch and come back for just one more worship service. But we Moravians? The ushers, the deiners, the choir and coffee makers, the organist and church secretary they all earn their keep when Christmas Eve falls on Sunday. Of course, most of these folks don't have any keep to earn. Unlike the pastor who gets a paycheck on the 20 th of every month, these volunteers faithfully serve out of love alone.

And of course for the fun of it too. I will bet you all are like every other Moravian congregation I know, and all afternoon I'll be hearing you reminisce about lovefeasts past: Remember when we put a big piece of country ham in the pastor's lovefeast bun? What about the time he talked so long our candles burned down to the red trim? Or the time so and so almost dropped a full tray of coffee? Remember when their daughter came to dein wearing a mini skirt? 

And after we've held our candles up high for the last time on the last verse of Christ the Lord, the Lord most glorious, after the last crumbs are vacuumed up and the last coffee cup washed, after we turn off the lights and head for home -- ah! Nothing could be sweeter.

December is the month of the year when First Moravian most lives into our vision of United in Christ, reaching out with love, changing lives. Between candle tea, and the Christmas Eve lovefeasts, hundreds of folks in our community get a taste of what we are fortunate to experience all year long—being a part of a caring community united in God's love and reaching out to others with that love.

Our congregational vision statement is a word picture about both who we are, and who we are becoming. Or said another way, by reflecting on your past experiences of what you have embodied from time to time, you were able to see through a mirror dimly and envision the kind of faith family you both are and more fully want be as you continue ministry to one another and the larger world.

The glad song that Mary sings to her cousin Elizabeth in today's gospel is a similar kind of vision—telling us what God has done, is doing and will do. Virtually every line of her song echoes the Hebrew scriptures that were her spiritual DNA. Her song draws heavily from Hannah's song in first Samuel with other Old Testament phrases and illusions woven into her vision. Mary's song is totally faithful to the Hebrew vision of who God is and what God does—consistent and ever to be trusted. In fact, Mary's trust in this good and gracious God is all she has. She can give no proof that the child she is carrying is from “the overshadowing” of the Holy Spirit. All she has is her willingness to believe that God who has chosen her will be a part of what happens next, and this apparently is enough for her to burst into song. “The Mighty One has done great things for me,” Mary sings, but her baby hasn't even been born yet. God has filled the hungry already, she implies, but millions of children woke up hungry this morning with no food to be found.

Such is the nature of a vision—seeing what is and how that vision can shape the future—seeing what is possible in the future based on what is present now.

Mary trusts that in the child she is carrying in her womb, God will move again among God's chosen people. —But who are these people? And where do we find them? They are not the mighty, nor the proud. They are not the big and powerful, the rich and the successful by the world's standards. They are the poor, the lowly, the insignificant folk living in the backwaters of the ancient near east. And a lowly woman—not a man, a young, unmarried Galilean not Judean—a peasant not an aristocrat will be the bearer of this vision. Mary sings of a world where the hungry are filled with good things and the rich, who have foolishly filled up on so much that does not satisfy, are emptied so they can have their real hungers satisfied at last. Her heart overflows with joyous praise, and her song describes a vision of not only the world that will be—but the world that already is, if like Mary we have eyes to see it.

Mary's song tells us that God has already accomplished what is to be—we need only recognize it and begin to live our lives accordingly. Just as you all recognized in your vision statement who you are as a family of faith, and then began to live purposefully more fully into that vision.

This song of Mary is also Luke's prelude to telling us about Jesus' life. From this song we now know from the very beginning of Luke's gospel that God in Jesus is radically invested in this real world and real life struggles of flesh and blood people. So invested, in fact, that divinity takes on our humanity and is born naked on a stable floor. God is here with us—active here—invested here, involved here, committed here. God is able to create new possibilities out of what appear to be impossibilities, just as you all have with your vision of Being United in Christ, reaching out with love, changing lives.

In our first congregational gathering in the interim, one of you wrote movingly about your first Operation Inasmuch experience, being blessed by the privilege of driving nails into a roof, and being a small part of setting the world right again, at least for one family in our community, making possible for them the impossible.

For we are blessed when we can envision, as Mary did, the possibility of transformation for our often loveless and cruel world, and then act on the basis of that vision. We will be blessed as we continue to live into our vision, moving from visioning to doing, trusting God and joyfully changing lives as we continue to reach out in love.