Every once in a while I wish that I could show you pictures while I preach. You know – a projection of slides or video clips. Today the pictures would be photos of the vast upper church at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, where the walls are adorned with large mosaics representing Mary, the mother of Jesus, the mother of God, the Queen of Heaven. The art came from all over the world: from Thailand, from China, from Australia, Ghana, South Africa, Greece, Spain, Germany, from Mexico, from the US. I’m sorry that I didn’t count how many countries are represented when I was there. The depiction of Mary from the US is a futuristic-looking dark skinned woman with a silver foil head scarf and dress against a fiery background. The piece is three-dimensional – it pops out of the wall. It’s shocking and fantastic – scandalous in its audacity. The sculptor, Charles Madden, describes Mary as hovering “at the dawn of our sacred and cosmic destiny.” The wonderous thing about that to me is that dawn is continuous and world-wide. Every moment is dawn somewhere. It is always the dawn of our sacred and cosmic destiny.

What I love most about the mosaic gallery is that in it Mary, the God bearer, is Japanese, she is African, she is Irish, she is Korean, and Mexican, and Vietnamese and Latina. And in case that doesn’t sink in, in Nazareth of Galilee, you can travel 120 kilometers south to Ein Kerem, to the Church of the Visitation, in the hill country of Judea, where behind a larger-than-life-sized sculpture of pregnant Mary greeting pregnant Elizabeth – there is a wall with the glorious words of the Magnificat in at least 50 different languages. The Song of Mary was the Song of Hannah before her. Mary was singing a familiar hymn that was true a thousand years before Mary and it’s true two thousand years after: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant” Fifty different versions of lifting up the lowly and filling the hungry with good things. Fifty different versions of scattering the proud and bringing down the powerful from their thrones.

The Song of Hannah is one of the prime role models in Judaism for prayer. To my ears, it’s most true when it is chanted in a minor key. That’s because it’s a song of salvation history – about the greatness of God working through nobodies, born in unimpressive places, in unlikely and even scandalous circumstances. It’s a song of God’s ability to bless, to overturn wrong, and to set things right. And here’s the thing. Before Mary sings it and makes it her own, before she travels to visit Elizabeth, what Mary says is, “Here I am.” I don’t want you to miss that. It’s at the end of our Gospel portion for today. Here am I – Here I am.
In Biblical literature, this is the disclosure of divine availability – of presence and promise. Abraham says it. Jacob says it. Moses and Joshua say it. Samuel and Isaiah and Jeremiah say it. And most of all, God says it. God says it in the revelation to Moses in the burning bush and throughout the books of the prophets. Here I am. To say, “here I am,” is to pause to make a statement of radical and intense availability for whatever impossible situation might come next. It’s deep calling to deep, as the Psalmist says.

My grandmother, Florine Mang Werntz, lived 89 years – a full and mostly healthy life. She was one of the most practical, down to earth, no-nonsense people I’ve ever met. When she was diagnosed with cancer, she got into bed and announced that the best thing she could think of to do would be to die within the next seven to ten days. And that is what she did.

She taught us, during her last week, the best way to die if one is lucky enough to have anything to say about it (and she felt very lucky). I know some of you have heard me tell about this: she put a sign on her door of her health center room that said, “Do not disturb.” And then she called the people that she wanted to see and told us to ignore the sign. She gave away all of her modest possessions. She sent her daughter on endless (and annoying) errands to buy stamps, to empty the safe deposit box, to make photocopies. She wrote checks to fully pay her stewardship pledges for the three different churches she supported, because, she told us, churches budget annual expenses based on pledges.

She wrote checks to the grandchildren and great-grandchildren for the birthdays which had not happened yet in the year (so it would be fair). It was August, so my daughter Laura’s December 29th birthday was still months away. I put the $5 check from her great-grandmother in her baby book – there was no way I would have cashed it! (Yet I know that that would have driven my grandmother crazy because the check never cleared her account.) She met with the pastor to plan her funeral, and ordered and paid for the food for the reception in advance. She distributed her clothing, which several of us wore at her funeral. She explained each decision as she made it, giving us her rationale. I could go on and on.

But the thing that I remembered as I was reflecting on this Sunday’s lessons was that in the middle of my grandmother’s week of instructed and managed dying, she had a dream that she wanted to tell me about. In it, she was her 89 year old dying self and she was pregnant. In the dream, she wondered how it could be. Who would care for this baby? What would become of this child? As we talked about the dream, she reflected on how she knew that on one level, her family and friends would care for what she was having to leave behind. On a deeper level, she reflected on how she was giving birth to herself – she was about to be born into something entirely new, and her sense of assurance and courage grew. I think there was even a glimmer of excitement. The last time I saw her alive, I leaned over her bed to kiss her goodbye and said, “I’ll see you in a few days.” Her eyes twinkled and she said, “or not.” I sagged. She said, “I don’t mean to upset you. dear. I just don’t think I’m going to be here in a few days.” She was right.

You know, I said a couple of weeks ago that Advent calls for repentance – for turning around and heading in a new direction -- the calls for repentance go out to a people, not to a person. What I don’t want you to miss in this story of Mary, in this story of “here I am,” this story of dying, of pregnancy in impossible situations, is that it’s not about any one person being alone or going alone. It’s not just about Mary of Nazareth 2000 years ago or my grandmother 18 years ago. It’s about you.

Perhaps you know David Whyte’s poem, “Everything is Waiting for You.”(1) I’m going to read it for you.

It seems to me that that God is calling on you, on me, on Emmanuel, to give birth to something entirely new in an impossible situation. None of us is alone. And everything is waiting for us to say yes.