I Never Asked for This
2 Samuel
7:1-11,16; Luke 1:26-38
Have you ever
received a gift you didn’t ask for and didn’t particularly want? You know the
type: that neck tie that must have looked good in the store but doesn’t really
go with anything you own; that third copy of Abba’s second album; that cutesy
nick-nack that reflects something you were into last decade; the big-mouth
billy bass; the clock made out of a cow pie?
I remember one
December when Cheryl and I had cleaned out a bunch of old mugs because we had
just too many of them. Wouldn’t you know it, the first present we opened when
we got together with relatives was another mug. I believe I put my foot
squarely in my mouth with my initial reaction.
Interestingly
enough, we still have that mug. It’s covered with words of wisdom. Among those
words are these from Plautus: “Courage is the best gift of all.”
It is simply
not very polite to respond, “well, courage sure beats another mug.”
Of course, courage
is a pretty nice gift; if it could be
bestowed upon me, I’d take some. It would be nice to have the courage of one’s
convictions. I would settle for the courage to live fully the faith that I
proclaim. Actually, I’d settle for the courage to live fully the life I have
been given.
I am more
likely to get another mug for Christmas than I am to receive the gift of such courage.
And, in all honesty, I’m not sure I actually want such courage. Courage breeds
action and action breeds trouble and trouble just demands more courage.
Of course, we
do, sometimes receive gifts for which we never ask. It may be so for us these
days – and I am careful to phrase that as an observation and not as a prayerful
request. Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.
Of course, you
might also get something you’ve never asked for.
Unrequested
gifts. That’s the common thread in the passages we’ve read together this
morning. God gets promised a house. Mary gets promised a child. Nobody asked
for any of this.
Consider God’s
perspective in the story from second Samuel. King David is settled in his royal
house, and decides that a tent is not good enough for the ark of God. So David
decides to build a temple. But God almost laughingly says, “What makes you
think I would want something like that? More to the point, what makes you think
you’re the one to do it?”
It tells us
something important about God that a grand edifice is not on the Divine wish
list. It tells us something important about humankind that a grand edifice is
what we imagine brings glory and pleasure to God.
The divine
spirit is one that cannot be confined to a building. The human spirit is one
that longs to build.
But God tells
David, “I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle.” In other words,
“I’ve been moving around just fine. Why do you think I would need a house?”
Moreover, no amount of temple building will allow David to establish security
for God; on the contrary, God promises security for David, his house and his
kingdom.
Our future will
not be secured by magnificent new buildings – nor by coats of fresh paint on
old ones, no matter how beautiful and necessary. Our future will not be secured
by the work of our hands because we cannot know what the future will bring. We
can imagine the future, but nothing more than that.
Indeed, the
future we receive is rarely the one that we imagine. Sometimes it’s worse –
more terrifying, sadder, more painful than we imagined. Sometimes it’s better –
fuller, richer, more meaningful than we imagined. Often it’s a mix of better
and worse, richer and poorer, health and sickness, and a great deal of it is
simply out of our control and beyond our imagination. Every couple who has ever
tried to build a life together knows the truth of that observation. It’s why
those words are part of traditional marriage vows – not that we’d know anything
about that here!
That reality
could make a mockery of the entire season of Advent. We call this a time of
preparation, but if the future is out of our control and beyond our imagination
how do we prepare? What is it, precisely, that we imagine we are preparing for?
Too often our
preparations are like King David’s. We have a vision of the future and
well-laid plans. It all sounds good to us, and we tell ourselves that the best
of our plans honors the very best of our intentions, even the deepest of our
values. Certainly David, seeing the splendor of his own house, thought he was
honoring the Lord God in imagining a temple. But perhaps a little honest
self-reflection might reveal a few mixed motivations.
As Reinhold
Niebuhr put it, the “insinuation of the interests of the self into even the
most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of
highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable by-product of all virtuous
endeavor.”[1]
In other words,
while David indeed wishes to serve and honor the Lord, he no doubt realized
that a great temple would look good on the resume of history.
But God had
other plans, and history would unfold along a different arc.
It’s like that
old joke, “if you want to make God laugh, share your plans for the future.”
Well God has
other plans. Just ask Mary. We can’t ask about her original plans and we have
no way of knowing for certain, but I imagine her plans were pretty typical.
Marry a nice Jewish man. Settle down. Raise a family. Go to temple. Teach your
children to be honest and charitable. Nice friends. Nice neighborhood. Second
camel, if you’re lucky. Grow old gracefully in the care of an extended family
and community.
But bear God
into the world?
No. I don’t
imagine Mary planned for that. That turns everything upside down, and none of
us like to imagine a life torn loose from its moorings. None of us like to
imagine a life taking radically unexpected turns. We like to plan, and while we
can prepare for the disappointments and even disasters, we tend to imagine a
future without them. If not quite so bright that we need to wear shades, the
futures that we typically imagine and plan for include more of the richer,
healthier and better side of life than its other.
There’s nothing
wrong with such plans, nor with such a life. If such domestic tranquility were
indeed part of the imagination of Mary, I’m not sure I’d follow Niebuhr in
calling anything there “hypocritical.” On the other hand, it is plain to see
that typical plans, ones that are surely honored by the culture and perhaps
even by the religious authorities, are quite often thoroughly self-interested,
inwardly focused and circumscribed by reference to tribe and kin.
And God
laughed, because God had other plans, and Mary’s life would unfold along a
radically different arc.
What about us?
What of our plans and our imagination? Clearly, sometimes our plans, like King
David’s, are shaped by cultural expectations. Build something grand, and you
will be remembered. Build a temple to power and your future will be secure.
Other times our plans are drawn along more domestic lines, like my imagined
future for Mary. Build something secure and your children will honor you. Here
again, such plans are shaped and informed by cultural expectations and values.
But what of
God’s expectations? How are we planning and preparing for a future of God’s
imagination? Are we telling God of our plans and seeking a blessing on them, or
are we instead prayerfully seeking after the plans of God?
This is the
question of Advent. It is a question for each of our individual lives. It is a
question to ask regarding work and vocation. There is takes the form of “how
does my work honor God and reflect the deepest values of my faith?” It is a
question to ask when we chart academic plans. There it takes the form of “am I
preparing myself for a life that will honor God and reflect the deepest values
of my faith?” It is a question to ask within our families, where it takes the
form of “how do our household economics – the way we spend our money and the
way we spend our time honor God and reflect the deepest values of our faith?” It
is a question to ask in times of sickness, when our deeply held value of
compassion is so important. It is a question to ask in times of health, when
our values of community and mutuality and celebration are central. It surely is
a question to ask here, about our congregational life, where its form is
simple: how does our common life reflect the love and justice of the gospel?
These are the
questions of Advent, because as we reflect this way on all aspects of our lives
we are preparing ourselves for the future of God’s imagination.
We can catch
its contours in the story of Mary. In God’s imagination the future belongs to
those who dwell in the margins, to whom power and glory and wealth and security
are beyond expectation, to those who least expect it. But, perhaps most
importantly, the future of God’s imagining belongs to those who embrace their
part in God’s future even when it comes with the kind of fear and wonder that
Mary felt. For wonder and fearsomeness leave us in awe.
Rabbi Abraham
Joshua Heschel prefaced a collection of poetry with these words: “I did not ask
for success; I asked for wonder. And You gave it to me.”[2] Heschel
said, “Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that
things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for
something supreme. Awe is a sense for the transcendence, for the reference
everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world
intimations of the divine, … to sense the ultimate in the common and the
simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What
we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.”[3]
The future is
impervious to our analysis, but we can begin to perceive it when we stand in
awe in the face of the unexpected gifts of our lives. We stand in awe of what
we have been given.
And just what
is that? Well, in the first place, we have been given life itself.
I never asked
for this, but I have been given a future that was birthed out of chaos when God
breathed life and spirit into nothingness. Existence itself should be cause for
sheer awe and wonder.
We stand in awe
that our first identity is beloved children of God. I never asked for this, but
the heart of God longs for communion with us, and this should be cause for awe
and wonder.
We stand in awe
this advent season that God has chosen to dwell, not in a glorious temple
crafted by our hands, but rather in the temple of the human body crafted by
divine hands. I never asked for this, but the manger … the manger should be
cause for awe and wonder.
And we can
embrace these gifts – the gift of life, the gift of belovedness, the gift of
Christ in our lives – we can embrace these gifts despite not knowing what they
may bring because the angels say, “fear not.” Do not be afraid to live fully
into the wondrous gifts we have received even when we never asked. Have
courage. Be of good faith. Fear not.
Pause during
this season of awe and wonder and consider: that our hopes and fears, the
longing of our hearts, the future that we cannot imagine should be met in the
most unexpected way is awesome and wondrous.
The future of
God’s imagining begins again, here and now, even as we circle around this
ancient mystery and call it forth yet again in song.
Give yourselves
over to awe, and let us sing our way into wonder again.