“Fear Not”, Part 2

Luke 1: 26-56

Pastor Deb Troester, STHPC, Dec. 8, 2024

We are all familiar with the story of the “The Annunciation.” The angel Gabriel appears to the virgin Mary and tells her that she will bear a son and will name him Jesus, the Son of God, and that this will happened by miraculous means, without human intervention. Most of the paintings of the Annunciation show Mary dressed in gold-embroidered cloth, seated in beautiful surroundings, such as a garden, or  among the graceful pillars of an Italian marble portico, with a splendid golden halo the size of a large dinner plate behind her head. She receives the angel’s news with a humble, submissive look, sometimes a meek expression of “Who, me?” as she demurely crosses her arms over her breast as if already cradling the child. Of course, in these old European masters, she is European, which Mary certainly was not.

         These portrayals, although lovely to look at, are far from the truth. She probably looked like most Middle-Easterners today. While Mary wasn’t African either, the girl in the painting on our bulletin cover –

poor, living in a small village, cooking over a fire – is closer to Mary’s reality. Mary was poor, maybe desperately poor, perhaps living from day to day, without always knowing where her next meal would come from. Income inequality was a given in the Roman Empire, with only a few powerful people holding most of the wealth. For the rest of the population, grinding poverty was the norm. Even when crops were good, taxes had to be paid, debts that accrued during leaner times were owed with interest. People just hoped to survive, much less “get ahead.” According to the U.N. about 25% of the world’s population, or some 2 billion people, still live in this reality, as subsistence farmers, mostly in Africa, Latin America, and Asia – better than the 98% of people during Jesus’ day, but it is still a hard life.

         Set in this context, Mary’s song, “The Magnificat,” which we read this morning as our Psalm, make much more sense:

“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.”

Just as a reminder: we are the rich, which always makes me think twice  when I read these verses – I’ve never gone without a meal in my life, unless I was late for dinner or purposely fasting.

But back to Mary. She may be poor, but she has faith. For when the angel tells her the astounding news – that she, a virgin, will be the teen-age mother of the Savior – she simply replies, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Her answer reminds me of Jesus’ teaching his disciples that “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” Mary is not a little child, but she has an almost child-like faith that whatever God says will be done. As her cousin Elizabeth observes, when Mary visits her, “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” Instead of letting the angel’s news fill her heart with fear, Mary responded in faith.

Luke is a master of irony, juxtaposing the story of the venerable old priest Zechariah that we discussed last week, and the innocent young maiden, Mary.

Zechariah, for all his wisdom and age, is skeptical of the angel’s announcement that he and his wife Elizabeth would bear a son – John the Baptist. Maybe it’s because of his wisdom and age that he knows this is impossible, and he scoffs at the angel’s prophecy. We older folks often use phrases like, “That could never happen.” “We’ve tried that before and it didn’t work.” “We’ve never done it that way,”– and our life experiences have sometimes borne this out. We need the innocent faith of the young. A friend of mine told me that as he returned home after a hard day’s work, his young son leapt from the top of the porch steps into his arms. Fortunately he caught him – even though the act was unexpected. His son never doubted that his Dad would catch him. God will always catch us – as we grow older we tend to forget this. I love Psalm 37.24: “Though we stumble, we shall not fall headlong, for the Lord holds us by the hand.” Of course, we can refuse to hold God’s hand – God will not insist. Yet when we fall, God is always there to pick us up again, if we will but turn to Him.

So faith is often the opposite of fear. Mary had much to be afraid of – not only the normal fears and health concerns of pregnancy, but also the fears of an unmarried pregnant woman who risked not only village gossip, but even stoning for adultery. Her pregnancy could have ended her relationship with her fiancé, Joseph, who could easily have called off the wedding. What would her parents think? Some of this explains why she quickly went to visit her relative Elizabeth; maybe originally she planned to stay with her until the baby was born, but somehow this visit encouraged her to come to terms with this unexpected, and, though wonderful, somewhat terrifying turn of events in her life.

That brings me to a second point about fear: it is more easily faced together with a friend, or even a group of friends. Mary instinctively went to the one person she trusted would understand: the elderly Elizabeth, unexpectedly pregnant herself with John the Baptist. They were probably cousins, but with Elizabeth being so much older than Mary, she was like an “Auntie” to her.

It’s not surprising that Mary, a young teen, would confide in an older female relative, rather than her mother. It’s important for teens to have caring adults in their lives other than their parents. It wasn’t any different back then. When we’re afraid, it helps to have someone to share our fears with. That is one reason our society’s epidemic of loneliness is so alarming – when we have no one to share our fears, they can easily consume us. So many suicides happen during the holidays; so many people feel especially alone. One of the gifts of the church is that of community. Our task is to try to get to know one another well enough that we can share our fears and burdens – even just praying together can ease some of the load. The Book of Proverbs says a “friend loves at all times,” and “a real friend sticks closer than a brother.” Our North American culture has idolized the independent loner, who depends on no one but himself, but the truth is, we need each other. Mary leans on Elizabeth for support. Together, their faith combats all fear. Mary sings:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
…for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
    and holy is his name;”

Music, praising God, singing, and rejoicing can do much to combat our fears as well. We can get tired of Christmas music, but many carols are a great source of encouragement, if we take time to listen to the words: “Joy to the world! The Lord is come! Let earth receive her king!”  “Hark! The herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn king. Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!” “Go, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go, tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born!” Many old hymns and modern worship songs alike have encouraging words and joyful melodies that can strengthen our faith and give us hope just when we need it.

Praising God and sharing our fears with others can strengthen our faith. Mary does both in this first chapter of Luke, and in doing so sets a good example for us of what to do when we are perplexed and afraid.

Hope and faith serve us well when we are worried and anxious for our own lives and the lives of those we love. But there is another kind of fear – fear of others who are different from us.  

Pastor Erin Wathen says, “So many of the things that harm our neighbors [and ourselves] are the result of harmful systems that are built out of fear: fear of strangers, fear of the unknown, fear of scarcity.” We fear that there is not enough for everyone and someone else, who doesn’t deserve it, will take it all. Remember when Jesus fed the 5000 with only a few loaves and fishes? Some think the miracle was that everyone decided to share what they had brought with their neighbor. God’s kingdom is one of abundance, not scarcity.

If we get to know people who are different from us, we will understand them better, and in understanding, we might learn to love. Remember “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear;” (1 John 4:18). Karen Gonzalez, the child of Guatemalan immigrants, writes about her father, “a bright, college-educated man nicknamed ‘Socrates’ in his university days, [who when he came to the U.S.] could only get work doing maintenance at a hotel near Disneyland. His first task of the day was to pick up garbage with a stick on the hotel grounds…

Did the tourists staying at the hotel even suspect that they were walking past a man who read Marx, Plato, and Dostoyevsky? Did they acknowledge him at all?” If we got to know the people we fear or deplore, we would find that there is much more to them than what we see on the outside. Maybe that person isn’t a “Socrates” like Gonzalez’s father, but maybe she is a painter, or sews beautiful native costumes. Maybe he plays the guitar or cooks a very mean chili or BBQ. We are all beloved of God. We are all important to God. Erin Wathen, in her book Calling All Angels, adds: The best hope for our violent, warring world, then, is deep knowledge—not in the bookish sense but in the human sense: knowledge of another’s experience, compassion for another’s journey, empathy for another’s pain. If God’s people were to make that kind of deep knowing the goal of our living, then we could live God’s kingdom into reality in our time.” Wathen challenges us, “Let the season of Advent be a seed-planting time – when God’s people go about the work of sowing the beginnings of the world we long for, which reveals the kingdom of God in our midst.”

This Advent let us sow seeds of faith, seeds of friendship, seeds of community, seeds of joy, seeds of love. Let’s root out the weeds of hatred and fear, of poverty and injustice, so that the good seeds of God’s kingdom can grow. May we, too, sing with Mary, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!” Amen.

References:

Gonzalez, Karen. The God Who Sees: Immigrants, the Bible, and the Journey to Belong. Herald Press. Kindle Edition.
Wathen, Erin. Calling All Angels: An Advent Study of Fearlessness and Strength. Presbyterian Publishing. Kindle Edition.

©Deborah Troester, 2024