Time Collapse

Foundry UMC

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC, December 24, 2017, the fourth Sunday of Advent (and Christmas Eve).

Texts: Luke 1:46b-55, Luke 1:26-38

Time is a funny thing. I remember the feeling as a child that summer break or even a week at my grandparent’s home was such a long stretch of time…And having to wait for something for a month? Well, that was an eternity! Somewhere along the line, I heard older folks talk about how, with every passing year, time seemed to fly by faster and faster. As I’ve aged, I’ve learned I’m not a fan of flying time. My equilibrium goes haywire when I realize that something I think happened last year actually occurred three years ago! How can that be?! Time seems to fold in on itself, to dissolve, to collapse. At some point, I hope I have the time to read more about the experience of time at different ages and stages of human development. My guess is that with so many responsibilities and distractions as we age, the minutes get so filled up that they seem smaller—less space in them to linger and breathe…

In preparation for today, I took at stab at reading about the science of time—the space-time continuum, relativity, and the like. Maybe it’s just because it’s the end of such a challenging year, but I didn’t get very far. My sense is that there’s something about how all time and space are somehow always “there” at different points on a kind of existence continuum. Instead of time moving in a forward trajectory, all time exists in some sort of circle of eternal “now.” Or something. Maybe? I know there are profound spiritual insights to be had from physics on this topic. Maybe I’ll have time in the next year to glean them more adeptly. For today, what I know is that we’re experiencing another kind of “time collapse.” The fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve exist in this time and space, in this “now.” This doesn’t happen often and, for me, it feels a bit like we’ve been cheated out of our last week of preparation. Normally, we’d have at least some days between lighting the fourth candle on our Advent Wreath and the big event. But not today. It’s all happening at once. It’s all happening today.

But maybe it’s not really a cheat, but instead a gift, an appropriate illustration and ending to our Anacrusis series here at Foundry. We’ve been exploring the Christian understanding of time throughout the season of Advent using Anacrusis as our creative metaphor. Anacrusis is a musical term describing the notes preceding the first full measure of a composition; it’s the beginning, the entry point. Advent may be the metaphorical “opening notes” to the Christian year, but the stories and spiritual preparation that mark the season are infused with both the past and the future. Our vision of God’s intended future is informed by what God has done and revealed in the past. The future vision is carried upon the wings of Spirit who nudges us in the present moment toward God and God’s way of love. We breathe in the vision and it gives us life, it gives us guidance, it gives us energy to respond in concrete ways, to scatter seeds of God’s Kin-dom NOW. You see, even though Advent is known as a time of waiting, a season when we are more aware of time than most others, using daily Advent calendars and weekly lighting of candles on the Advent Wreath, this season is really one in which time collapses—God’s promises and prophecies of generations past burst into the present, into the NOW with Jesus’ birth; and the way of life and love revealed in the flesh-and-blood Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s future.

In today’s familiar story, we hear echoes of past, present, and future in the words of God’s messenger to Mary. “Now you will conceive,” Gabriel says. The child will—in the future—be great, be called the Son of the Most High, will sit on the throne of his ancestor David without end—eternally. References to the “house of Jacob” and the “ancestor David” point back in time and history, energizing Gabriel’s visit with stirring memories of God’s activity and presence in the past. This is a moment when time collapses or—perhaps better and more theologically stated—when time becomes full. The past, present, and future fold in and exist powerfully in one place and heart—in this case, in the heart of a young woman named Mary.

Every time this story comes up in our annual cycle, I stand amazed before Mary. What was her experience of time and space and reality? I can only imagine the way that time must have stood still when this word came to her from God. We don’t know about Mary’s past, her life prior to this moment. But we do know a bit about Mary’s response. Perhaps we’ve heard this story so many times that we don’t even think about the possibility that Mary could have said “NO.” I mean, Mary was not like Elizabeth or other women in the Bible who had been praying and longing for a child. Mary wasn’t even married yet. However, when given the news by Gabriel, Mary—claiming her own voice, freedom, and agency—says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Mary couldn’t have known all that would transpire in the future; though she surely must have imagined that her acceptance of this baby would mean losing Joseph, her betrothed, and that saying “Yes” to this pregnancy would mean being shunned from her community. And even though tradition tells us that Joseph went through with the marriage and cared for the child they named Jesus, we would do well to remember that receiving this new life from God meant hardship for Mary for the rest of her life.

But even in the midst of all the potential hardship and heartache, Mary’s response in the moment is full of courage, joy, gratitude, and deep faith. Luke records Mary’s song of praise and prophecy—a song we call the “Magnificat.” She sings: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed…” (Luke 1:46-55)

Mary’s song acknowledges that God is doing something new in and through her life. But in many ways, what God is doing is nothing new. History shows that God has a habit of doing extraordinary things through unlikely people. King David wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth and wasn’t the obvious choice for that role—he was the youngest of his brothers and a shepherd. God tends to do the unexpected, to turn things upside down and around so that the world might see things in a new way, so that we might begin to see and understand that what is most powerful just might be the small thing, the simple thing, the least expected… Mary’s song and story highlights the way God works: the powerful are brought down and the lowly are lifted up. Those who are hungry and seeking are filled—and the rich, comfortable folk with full bellies are sent away empty because they already have enough. (if I had more time this morning, I might elaborate on the point that God’s economy doesn’t include fattening up the rich so that more crumbs might fall from their table to the poor…)

God, the creator of the universe, the Word without whom no thing was made, begins life as a human creature in the womb of a young woman of no standing or account according to the world. What we learn today is that our God, historically, has chosen to work in the world among lowly handmaids and barren women. God sees those the world ignores; God knows and God sees gifts and strength and wisdom and power others miss. It seems this has been true across time, eternally true. God delights to turn things around and to see the world surprised by the gifts of those who respond and bear the vision of love and justice into the world.

So, while much has changed in our world since the time of Mary, the way God comes into the world likely remains pretty much the same. In a culture that values strength and control and wealth and confidence, in a culture that prizes “having it all together” and nearly constant activity, consider this: that God works in the world not through that part of us that swaggers and struts through life, confident and self-sufficient, but rather that God is most present in those empty places that need to be filled, in the quiet places that can’t find the words. Perhaps part of the message for all of us is that God has a habit of coming to us in ways and places that we don’t expect—in the broken places, the fragmented places, the places that are weak and insecure and vulnerable to intrusions of the Spirit… Recently, our nation has experienced the power of women and some men giving voice to the truth of their lives from places of deep pain and fear, naming the pervasive reality of harassment and abuse. This brave truth-telling, saying “Here I am!” is powerful and has the capacity to turn some things around. Rich and powerful men who think they can touch anyone and are, themselves, untouchable are thinking twice today—because through the prophetic witness of the abused, “God has shown strength with his arm/ God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts./ God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,/and lifted up the lowly.” (Lk 1:51-52)

So in the place that feels like a weakness in your life, how is God trying to do a new thing? What are you being asked to learn, to receive, to offer? In the broken places in your life, how can your faithful, loving response bring about healing or new life for someone in the world? How is God trying to use what is or has been difficult for you as a resource or a gift for those around you? Do you have something to teach? To share? How might your own experience of vulnerability or need be directed by the Spirit toward a new ministry or relationship?

Mary was vulnerable in many ways. She was, after all, just an ordinary human being, just a woman preparing to be a mother for the first time. But in her vulnerability, she became strong. Because she was open to God—she received God—who recognized her strength and her grace and came to her when she least expected such a visit. She was open and allowed herself to be filled. Mary’s “Here am I” resounds through the ages, across all time: Here am I. I’m just me, but here I am.

We, like Mary, are called to be bearers of God’s new life in the world. I don’t know what this might mean for each of you. But I trust that God’s messengers will visit you to help you figure it out in the fullness of time. What I can say now is that, because of brave, faithful women like Mary, we are assured that we, in all our imperfection and insecurity, are worthy and probable participants in God’s wild and wonderful work in the world. Because of Mary, we know that God chooses to use ordinary folks to make things new. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.