Advent 4, Year B Text: Mary said, “Here am I…”
OT Reading: 2 Samuel 7.1-11, 16, NT Reading: Romans 16.25-end, Gospel : Luke 1.26-38
Hello … yes, yes, it’s me … I’m on the 5.15 … that’s right, see you at the station then. We’ve all made or at least overheard conversations like that. We are in constant communication with one another, and trivial as those communications often are, the very fact of communication, and the dialogue which communication supports, is central to our relationships. The fact that we can say “Yes, it’s me” already implies that the person on the other end of the call recognises our voice and knows who we are.
It’s me. Here am I. Mary’s response to the angel is on one level as simple and even banal as our own conversations, but the words she uses, and the response which is conveyed by them, encapsulate that relationship between God and his people which has allowed the narrative of our salvation to unfold. Our God is fundamentally a God who speaks, who communicates. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1.1). At key moments in the story, we encounter men and women who respond as Mary would respond: Here am I. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses at the burning bush, the child Samuel in the temple, Isaiah and Jeremiah, they all respond with these same words. And of course their response is not just an acknowledgment of their presence, a tick against the register at the start of the school day, it is a considered, attentive response, implying that willingness to listen to God’s word, and to act on it, to live by it, which Mary goes on to make explicit as she adds: Be it unto me according to thy will.
You may have noticed that Mary only makes the response – Here am I – at the end of her dialogue with the angel. This is typical of such exchanges throughout the Bible. Obedience to God’s call is a costly commitment, and those who make it are often very understandably reluctant. More often than not, they try to duck out. Like Jonah, they may even try to run away. Please, leave me alone, they say. I don’t want to speak to you. I’m not worthy. I can’t do it. Isaiah fears he is not good enough – woe is me! I am lost for I am a man of unclean lips. Jeremiah protests that he is far too young to be a prophet. Moses protests that he won’t know what to say, the people won’t accept his credentials, he won’t be able to convince anyone because he is no good at public speaking. Even Mary has some questions to ask. But in the end, with much patient reassurance, each of them is left ready to respond: Here am I.
It sounds as if we are battered into submission. Our reluctance, like that of the prophets, is overcome by such glimpses of God’s majesty, such signs of his power, as will suffice to give us the confidence to speak or do whatever it is we are called to. In the passage we read from his letter to the Romans, Paul declares that the purpose of the gospel, the proclamation of Jesus Christ, the disclosure of the mystery that has been kept secret for so long, is precisely to bring about the obedience of faith. Like Moses and the prophets, when we are brought face to face with the truth about God, finally revealed as it is in the life and teachings of Jesus, we too will fall silent. We will see how lame our excuses are. We will learn to say with Mary: Here am I.
But this picture of a God who calls, ever more insistently, and will not take no for an answer, is misleading, if it suggests that our dialogue with God is one-sided. Our Old Testament reading contains a fascinating example of a conversation which confirms that we are right to speak of dialogue, with all that implies about a two-way discussion rather than simply a channel for top-down communication. David himself takes the initiative in his conversation with Nathan the prophet. Here he is living in a fine house of cedar, whilst the symbols of God’s presence are still kept in a tent. Surely it must be right to build for God a worthy temple – and Nathan is initially supportive. It sounds like a good and generous plan. But as he thinks about it overnight, Nathan is shown by God that it’s not such a good idea after all. God is comfortable in a tent because he needs to be free and unconfined. If we build a beautiful temple for God, or a beautiful church come to that, there is a risk that we will tend to think of God as belonging in that one special place, where we can visit him now and then to pay our respects. But that won’t do. The God we worship in church on Sunday is a God who wants to be out and about, sharing our lives, influencing our decisions, not placed on a pedestal in a shrine where he can be kept safely shut away for the rest of the week
So Nathan has to come back to King David and tell him that God doesn’t really want a temple, thank you very much. But the dialogue doesn’t end there. He loves David and respects his good intentions, so He responds to them. No, he doesn’t want a house of cedar. On the contrary, if we’re talking houses, it is not David who will build a house for God, but God who will build a house for David, in the sense that his house – his descendants – will reign over Israel for ever. In the event, David’s successors are not worthy of him, and the kingdom falls apart, but God finds a new and better way to keep his promise as Jesus in born into the house of David. Moreover, the promise of an everlasting kingdom is still not the end of God’s conversation with David, for he will allow David’s son to build him a temple, and David himself will have the satisfaction of making some of the preparations during his own lifetime.
This is by no means a unique example of God allowing himself to be persuaded to change his mind. One thinks of Abraham pleading in a lengthy negotiation for the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah to be spared if first 50, then 40, 30, 20, even just ten good men should be found there (Gen 18.23-33). One thinks of the dialogue with Moses at the burning bush, which causes God to appoint Aaron alongside him as a more forthright spokesman (Exodus 3.1 – 4.17). When God created man in his own image, he was not looking for puppets on a string, but for partners, men and women with whom he could enter into a loving relationship. As we all know from our own experience, it is characteristic of such relationships that there should be give and take. Within the context of a truly loving relationship, neither party seeks to exercise total control. We respect one another’s good intentions. We find ways to work with them for love’s sake, even when we have serious reservations about how it will work out. .
The wonder is that God exercises the same patience and forbearance with us as we at our best exercise with one another. That being said, the Biblical model we are called to follow, for love’s sake, is that set by those who – like Mary – listened attentively to the word from God, questioned it, tested it, negotiated it, perhaps even resisted it, raged against it, but finally came around to saying, with a humble and a willing heart: Here am I.
May God bless us all this Christmas as we humbly, quietly, welcome him into our hearts and lives. Here am I.