Mary: The Story of
Vocation
Dr. Larry Thorson
May 2, 2010
Luke 1:46-55
46 And Mary said: "My
soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has been
mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will
call me blessed, 49
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name. 50 His mercy extends to those who fear him, from
generation to generation. 51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has
scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. 52 He has brought
down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things but has
sent the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his
servant Israel, remembering to be merciful 55 to Abraham
and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors."
Today’s New
International Version Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society
What’s the point of this
sermon?
We
can find energy to love God and others when we exchange our grumbling (about
what we can’t do or what we have to do) for gratefulness by seeing that even
our daily, menial tasks are God’s genuine, specific, ordained ministry for us
right now.
How does the point relate
to the sermon series theme?
Our current sermon series theme is the
Jesus Creed which says 'Hear, O Israel:
The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your
strength.' 31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Luke
12. One way we love God and our
neighbor is by joyfully doing the tasks we have before us. Jesus
taught that our primary calling is to love God with all our being and our
neighbors as our self.
Summarize
the biblical text for this sermon:
Luke 1:46-55 is a song by Mary, the
mother of Jesus before his birth which she sings after her cousin Elizabeth,
pregnant with John the Baptist visits her and praises her for her faith. The song has come to be know over the years
as the “Magnificat”.
Introduction
Why do I have to do this? You've probably asked that question a few
times in your life. Think about the most
menial tasks you have to do. Maybe it's
cleaning the toilets or picking up dog mess in the yard. Yuk.
Why do I have to do that?
Now replace the word “have” with the
word “get”. Why do I get to do
this? Does it sound a little
preposterous? As some of you know my mother
is 91 years old and she's been staying with us since February. Her balance and her energy are not real good
anymore but when she was younger she worked so hard to keep the house clean and
cook the best foods. She tells me now
that when she was younger she used to tell herself that someday she wouldn't be
able to work so she better make the best of it while she can.
I like that attitude. We can
actually find energy to love God and others when we exchange our grumbling
(about what we can’t do or what we have to do) for gratefulness by seeing that
even our daily, menial tasks are God’s genuine, specific, ordained ministry for
us right now. That will be the point
of this sermon. As followers of Christ
we have to see that if God wanted us somewhere else doing something else those
doors would open. If you've tried the
door knob over and over and it doesn't turn it's not your turn to enter
yet. Or if you stepped through a door
and you found yourself in what appeared to be the wrong place, relax, God knows
what he's doing.
Mary's
Song
Our case study today to model that
concept is going to be none other than Mary, the mother of Jesus. Here are a few things that we know about
Mary: she was an Anawim which means pious poor.
These were people who loved God greatly but they were always financially
poor. Despite suffering because they were poor, they rarely failed to
express their hope in God by gathering at the temple in Jerusalem where they
would pray to God for justice, the end of oppression and the coming of the
Messiah.
All of this comes out in this little
song Mary wrote and sang for her cousin Elizabeth who came to see her when
Elizabeth was pregnant with her son, the future John the Baptist. Verses 51-53 of the song especially has those
Anawim themes of justice and the end of oppression. 51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has
scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. 52 He has brought
down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things but has
sent the rich away empty.
We also know that Mary and her husband
Joseph were fairly poor because at Jesus' dedication they were only able to
present to the temple assistants two birds for their offering instead of a full
lamb. Two birds made up the approved
offering prescribed in the Torah or the Law for those who could not afford a
lamb.
So Mary came out of a low income
background to become engaged to Joseph, one of the tsadiq men of that religious
community. Last time we looked at what a
tsadiq man was. They were men who were
totally observant of the Torah. This
would have made Joseph and Mary at least a good spiritual match because her
people, the Anawim, were devout followers of God and few in those days could
top the obedience to the law of the tsadiq.
Her future was looking pretty good until a certain angel showed up.
The
Angel's Message
Last week I talked about how Joseph got
the message via a dream that his girlfriend/fiance was pregnant. But Mary got the same message, not from a
dream, but from an actual angel. Mary
Ellen Van Ostenbridge, our music director asked me after last week's sermon why
only one of them had a dream while the other got an actual angel
visitation. That's an interesting
question. It doesn't matter what method
God uses to deliver a message to us, what matters is that we get the message
and even more importantly that we obey it. That was true then, it's still true
today.
The message to both Joseph and Mary is
that she was already pregnant with the Son of God. Now there would have been two major problems
with that message for a low income girl.
To begin with who's going to believe a poor, powerless girl from the
wrong side of the tracks? So it probably
meant that she was going to be labeled in her community as a “na-ap” which
means adulteress. An adulteress could
end up getting married but probably outside of her community and definitely not
to a tsadiq like Joseph. That's the
first major problem she had with the angel's message.
The second major problem she would have
had with the angel's message is that it was an angel's message and there was
only one place angels came from and that was from God. Which also means the angel wasn't lying; she
was going to be the mother of the Messiah.
That's huge. Think about it,
there's no precedent for mothering the Messiah.
There was plenty of precedent for teenagers getting pregnant before
marriage even in those days but no precedent for mothering the Son of God. That's a big and a scary responsibility with
no manual to guide you.
But Mary had some choices here. She could have expressed anger toward God,
shaken her fist at heaven and screamed “It's all your fault.” “Why did you let this happen?”
Or Mary could have turned anger inward
and said “Oh my, oh my, my life is ruined.”
“Everything always turns into a mess.”
“Just when I think things are going to get better, the shoe falls.” Indeed, with her engagement to Joseph, it
looked like things were going to get better.
It looked like God had heard her prayers. But now this.
Instead Mary took another approach and
we read in v.46: And Mary said:
"My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 for he has been
mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will
call me blessed, 49
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name.
It's all how one looks at the situation.
Our situation in life is either half full or half empty. Being the mother of the Savior may not have
been something she wanted to be but she loved God and when you love God you
know that God will never put you in a place where he won't be there with
you. If you've ever spent a day in your
life where you knew God wasn't with you, you know that it's not a place where
you want to go again, at least I don't.
So you take your situation where you are
now, just as Mary did, but you ask yourself “how did I get here?” Maybe you got to this place in life through
some good decisions, or somebody blessed you or something worked out. But maybe you're not in an emotional happy
place right now and you got here because of someone else's greed or selfishness
or lies. The important point to remember
is that you're here.
It doesn't matter where you are or your
place in life. Jesus says what matters
is that you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your
neighbor as yourself. That's the Jesus
Creed and that's what matters. Where you
are in life, health wise, emotional wise, employment wise, it doesn't matter
because if you love God you are exactly where God wants you to be.
Art
Linkletter – Turning Tragedy into a Meaningful Mission
Church member Frank Greco loaned me Art
Linkletter's autobiography Hobo on the Way to Heaven which I recently
began reading. Those of you too young to
remember Art Linkletter, he was a popular television host in the 60's and 70's
and one of the original big promoters of the Sierra Dawn mobile home park in
Hemet.
In 1969 Linkletter's 19 year old
daughter Dianne committed suicide by jumping off a balcony after, he believes,
she had a flashback from an earlier experiment with the LSD drug. Deeply grieved Linkletter sought counsel from
the Rev. Robert Schuller who later became the television pastor at the Crystal
Cathedral in Garden Grove. This was
Schuller's response: “Art you have the ability to handle an audience in any
number of ways. You can entertain,
instruct, or challenge people intellectually, but now, although you may not yet
know it, you have something else.” “You have suddenly acquired a God-given
dimension to reach deep into people's hearts and souls. You can feel for them and leave them
inspired. That is a priceless gift.”[1]
In response Linkletter writes “”Suddenly
life took on a new significance for me.
Thirty-five years of fun and games were suddenly transformed into a meaningful
mission. Instead of giving away
refrigerators and cars, I began trying to give of myself to bear a personal
Christian witness to people This
involved an access to my most inner feelings concerning God's role in all our
lives, an access that would have been impossible, I fear, had not that great
tragedy struck at my very perception of myself.”[2]
Application
My hope for you and this church is that
your years of fun and games or pain and sorrow or anything in between can be
transformed into a meaningful mission.
My prayer is that you will see each day as a chance to go to work
bringing people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. So tomorrow get up in the morning, look in
the mirror, force a smile on your face if you have to and say “This is the day
that the Lord has made, I will rejoice in it.”
And then add this little prayer; “thank you God that I am where I am
today and that we can be together.”
Amen.
Small Group
Ice Breaker Questions
1. What is the worst
job you've ever had to do?
2. What is the best job you've ever
had to do?
Recite the Jesus Creed as a Group
Discussion Questions
1.
Identify together what you think God made you
(uniquely) to be and to do.
2.
What's the difference between a job and a
vocation?
3.
Identify the various vocations given by God to
various women
a.
Elizabeth – (Luke 1:5-7; 11-13; 23-24; 39-45; 57-61)
b.
The prophetess Anna (Luke 2:36-38)
c. Mary
and Martha (Luke 10:38-42)
d.
Martha (John 11)
e.
Mary (John 12:1-8)
f. The
Anawim widow who pleaded for justice (Luke 18:1-8)
g. The women at the tomb as first witnesses
(Luke 24:1-12)
4. Read Colossians 3:23-24 What do these verses
say regarding our
attitude
toward our tasks?
***How can or how is your life being lived as a meaningful mission?