William H. Willimon - "The Lord Is with You" (December 19, 1999)

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-	The Gospel for this Sunday of Advent	0:12
	is always Luke story of the Annunciation to Mary.	0:15
	In the sixth month, the Angel Gabriel was sent from God	0:29
	to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,	0:32
	to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph	0:36
	of the house of David and the virgin's name was Mary.	0:41
	And he came to her and said, "Hail, oh favoured one	0:46
	"The Lord is with you.	0:51
	But she was greatly troubled at the saying	0:54
	and considered in her mind	0:56
	what sort of greeting this might be.	0:57
	And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid Mary,	1:00
	"for you have found favor with God.	1:05
	"And behold you will conceive in your womb	1:07
	"and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus,	1:10
	"He will be great and will be called	1:16
	"the Son of the Most High.	1:18
	"And the Lord God will give to him the throne	1:20
	"of his father David and He will reign	1:23
	"over the house of Jacob forever,	1:25
	"and of his kingdom there will be no end."	1:27
	And Mary said to the angel.	1:31
	"How shall this be since I have no husband?"	1:34
	The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you,	1:38
	"and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.	1:42
	"Therefore the child will be born	1:45
	"will be called Holy The Son of God."	1:48
	And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmade of the Lord.	1:54
	"Let it be to me according to your word."	2:00
	And the angel departed from her.	2:04
	This is the word of the Lord.	2:08
	We call it the Annunciation, this Sunday	2:15
	when we always read the story	2:20
	of the Angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary,	2:21
	that she was blessed among women,	2:26
	that she was going to have a baby,	2:30
	and that the baby's name would be Emmanuel, God with us.	2:32
	But you will note that the first thing	2:40
	the Angel Gabriel said to Mary was,	2:43
	the Lord is with you.	2:47
	We refer to this scene by the big Bible word Annunciation,	2:50
	but what we really mean is "call" because on that day	2:55
	Mary got called by God.	3:01
	She was told that she was blessed among women.	3:07
	Because God was calling her.	3:11
	Throughout the history of the church,	3:15
	Mary has always been known as the first disciple	3:18
	because you see, she was the first to get called by God	3:21
	to join up with the Jesus movement.	3:26
	She was the first to say, yes.	3:30
	And the Bible is just full of this sort of thing.	3:35
	Here is somebody minding his/her own business	3:38
	and then from out of nowhere, there comes this call.	3:42
	The person is often startled by God.	3:47
	Maybe that's why the angel Gabriel said to Mary,	3:52
	"Don't be afraid."	3:56
	Usually the recipient of such call ask questions.	3:59
	Mary's question was, well, how can this be?	4:05
	And who could blame her for asking?	4:10
	She's not even married, as she says, to Joseph,	4:12
	she's engaged.	4:16
	She's a young woman without,	4:18
	so far as we know any particular education	4:20
	or preparation for this call.	4:22
	How can this be?	4:25
	Of course anybody receiving a call from God,	4:28
	anybody, might well ask the same questions.	4:32
	How can this be?	4:36
	And the question, maybe in Mary's case	4:38
	is not so much one about obstetrics,	4:41
	but it's rather about how can this be	4:44
	that God would choose me?	4:48
	I never can read this text without thinking back	4:53
	to a Bible study with a group of youth	4:57
	and we were studying to the Gospel of Luke	5:00
	and we read about this Annunciation,	5:02
	and I asked the teenagers	5:05
	a question I thought I would know the answer to	5:08
	and that is what fascinates you most,	5:11
	what do you find most interesting about this story?	5:13
	I thought they would mention something	5:16
	about the virginal conception of Jesus or something.	5:17
	But one of the teenagers responded,	5:22
	"Well, what interests me is,	5:26
	"I mean, like if it's God, and if God wants to do something	5:29
	"for the world, how come God just didn't do it?	5:32
	"How come God starts out doing something for the world	5:35
	"by asking a bunch of people to do it for him?"	5:39
	That's interesting.	5:43
	That's behind every annunciation, every call.	5:48
	Mary accepts the call.	5:53
	She says, "Let it be to me according to your word."	5:56
	On another call occasion, young as Isaiah	6:01
	responded more enthusiastically to a vision in the temple.	6:05
	"Lord, Here am I send me."	6:09
	Another Annunciation, old Abraham,	6:12
	when he was told that God was gonna make out of	6:15
	a great people, he was just so sort of stupefied	6:17
	that somebody in his advanced years would be being called	6:22
	by God to do something, he didn't say anything.	6:25
	His wife Sarah began laughing, when she heard God's call.	6:28
	She was over 90 at the time.	6:32
	These calls of God	6:36
	are often astounding, perplexing.	6:41
	And yet in the story, Mary says,	6:45
	despite the perplexing qualities, Mary says, yes.	6:49
	You get these annunciations throughout the Bible.	6:56
	And you also get these annunciations today.	7:01
	That's right.	7:06
	Maybe you thought like, what happened to Mary happened once	7:07
	and only to her.	7:11
	But the Bible indicates that God	7:14
	seems to be in the call business.	7:17
	Even the day maybe, especially today.	7:21
	God seems to love to call things forth.	7:26
	The Bible story starts when God says,	7:30
	Let there be light and let there be a world	7:33
	and let there be animals and let there be people.	7:36
	God just seems to love to call forth.	7:39
	Even today I teach this course at the Divinity School	7:43
	called Introduction to The Theology	7:48
	and Practice of Ordained Leadership.	7:52
	It's for people who are at their first semester in seminary.	7:55
	People who feel called by God one day to be pastors.	8:00
	And the first thing I have them do in this class	8:05
	is to, everybody has to write a paper entitled,	8:08
	My Call To The Ordained Ministry.	8:12
	And I just simply asked them to put down on paper,	8:16
	how they got called?	8:20
	Why they think they ought to be called to to be a pastor?	8:23
	And I love reading these papers.	8:27
	Some of them are very strange.	8:30
	(congregation laughing)	8:34
	One year I noted that God seemed to call people on patios,	8:34
	for some reason.	8:39
	(congregation laughing)
	And some of the papers tell about visions,	8:43
	stunning visions from God during the night	8:46
	when they least expect it, or their lives are tossed	8:49
	and they're tormented and they don't know which way to turn	8:53
	and they finally realize they've been called	8:56
	and they summon up the courage to go to seminary	8:58
	and they say yes, here I am, send me.	9:02
	Some of them are very calm, ordered,	9:08
	not very spectacular accounts	9:12
	of a gradually growing awareness that God	9:14
	was calling them, that God had something for them to do.	9:20
	One woman said that she had been married	9:27
	to a pastor for about 15 years.	9:31
	And she was a pastor's wife.	9:35
	And one afternoon she said,	9:37
	she was sitting on the sofa in the parsonage,	9:39
	an old sofa, and she was smoking a cigarette,	9:42
	and she was drinking a beer,	9:47
	and she was reading some trashy supermarket	9:48
	checkout line sort of novel.	9:51
	And her husband walked in, this pastor,	9:54
	and he said something to her like.	9:57
	"Well, you sure don't look like a pastor's wife."	9:59
	And with that, she said, she stomped out that cigarette,	10:02
	she throw down that novel and she shouted, "Well I'm a wife	10:05
	"I'm not a pastor, God called you.	10:08
	"God didn't call me okay."	10:11
	(congregation laughing)	10:14
	And she meant it as a way of course of telling her husband	10:17
	to back off, but she said, as soon as those words	10:20
	came out of her mouth, it was like something ringing	10:23
	in her head, this voice said,	10:26
	"Well, how do you know you're not being called	10:29
	"to be a pastor?"	10:32
	She said that thing started working on her mind	10:35
	over the next few weeks.	10:37
	And after a period of struggle and surprised at the idea,	10:40
	well there she was, sitting in a class in seminary.	10:45
	I think she's gonna make a great pastor.	10:50
	One of my favorite stories about call	10:54
	that I got on these papers,	10:56
	was a student who wrote of his teenage years.	10:58
	"I was a teenager from hell.	11:01
	"I made my parents lives completely miserable.	11:04
	"I was so irresponsible that I flunked out of college	11:08
	"in six months, then I went out and I bummed around	11:12
	"and started working.	11:16
	"I met this person, we lived together a while,	11:17
	"we got married.	11:20
	"And then for some reason,	11:23
	"we started attending this little church	11:24
	"in the neighborhood where we were living.	11:27
	"And gradually, I came to the surprising conclusion	11:29
	"that God had some kind of plans for me.	11:34
	"I started thinking about going back to college	11:39
	"and going to seminary to be a preacher.	11:42
	I dreaded telling my parents" he said,	11:47
	"After all they had been through and now to come to them	11:50
	"and tell them my life had taken another weird,	11:53
	"surprising turn, I just hated to tell them about it."	11:56
	But he said he met finally with his parents.	12:01
	And he told them that he was going back to college.	12:04
	He told him about the surprising turn of events,	12:07
	the way that though his life had been one long,	12:10
	tortured series of mistakes	12:14
	and accumulated irresponsibility.	12:17
	Now, he thought that he really had some direction	12:19
	he had this claim upon his life.	12:22
	And when he was telling his parents this	12:25
	his mother suddenly broke out in tears.	12:27
	And she said, over and over again,	12:31
	"I'm just so ashamed, I can't believe this has happened.	12:33
	"I'm so ashamed."	12:36
	And he said, "What do you mean by that?"	12:38
	And she said, "I just can't believe this has happened.	12:41
	"Didn't I tell you that, before I had you,	12:45
	"I had a number of miscarriages	12:48
	"and I was just so disappointed.	12:50
	"I didn't think I would ever be able to have a child.	12:53
	"And when I became pregnant with you,	12:56
	"I prayed to God and I said God if you'll let me bring	12:58
	"this baby to term, I will dedicate him to the Lord	13:02
	"just like Hannah did back in the Old Testament.	13:06
	"And I will even name him Samuel just like Hannah did.	13:08
	"If you'll just let me have this baby,	13:11
	"he will be yours forever I promise."	13:14
	Sam said, "Why?	13:19
	"That's unbelievable.	13:23
	"How come you never told me about this?	13:25
	"You could have saved me a lot of trouble	13:27
	"if you told me that, she."	13:28
	(congregation laughing)	13:29
	She said, "We're Methodist, I didn't know	13:31
	"this kind of thing would work."	13:34
	(congregation laughing)	13:36
	"I didn't think things like I mean,	13:38
	"we don't take the Bible that literally,	13:39
	"I didn't know how was I to know it was gonna work?"	13:41
	All I'm saying is if you think the story	13:48
	about the call of Mary,	13:50
	Mary being called by this Angel Gabriel.	13:53
	If you think this is weird, think again.	13:56
	Cause stories of annunciation and call	14:00
	and vocation they,	14:03
	they tend to be kind of strange	14:08
	and they're not strange because God send some kind of angel	14:11
	to deliver the message, though God sometimes does.	14:15
	But I think they're really strange	14:20
	because the one being called is you.	14:24
	Like Mary, well you think of all the reasons,	14:30
	this thing is crazy, this doesn't make sense,	14:32
	it's not rational it's, we're not perfect people.	14:35
	We got baggage, we got these personal characteristics,	14:39
	we got these limitations, we're cowards by nature,	14:44
	we're this we're that.	14:47
	Nevertheless, in our better moments,	14:50
	we, like Mary,	14:53
	we just simply say, yes.	14:56
	I don't know how this thing is gonna be,	15:00
	I don't know where this thing is.	15:01
	Yeah, yes.	15:03
	And this appears to be the primary way God chooses	15:07
	to change the world.	15:10
	It appears God doesn't do things in the world	15:13
	through earthquake, wind and fire, but	15:15
	through ordinary people like Mary, who get called.	15:18
	Furthermore, just ordinary people who say, yes.	15:24
	Maybe you recall those beautiful Renaissance paintings	15:31
	by people like Fra Angelico, I think of the one	15:33
	by Simone Martini, the Annunciation	15:37
	in the Uffizi gallery that	15:39
	has this elegantly dressed Angel	15:41
	and speaking to this elegant Mary,	15:44
	and they always depict Mary as cowering	15:48
	as drawing back in fear.	15:52
	She must have been in fear,	15:56
	Why else would the angel Gabriel told her.	15:58
	"Don't be be in fear"	16:00
	And usually in these paintings,	16:04
	there's always a dove.	16:06
	There's a dove hovering above the scene	16:08
	just over Gabriel and Mary.	16:11
	A dove, of course, is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.	16:13
	And that dove is a reminder that this call thing	16:17
	is God's idea before it's ours.	16:22
	This whole Annunciation thing is an announcement from God	16:27
	that comes to us as if from above on the wings of a dove.	16:33
	But the story of Mary also reminds us,	16:40
	that though the action is initiated from above, from God,	16:44
	this thing is still a two way street.	16:50
	Somebody has got to receive the announcement.	16:53
	Somebody's got to say yes.	16:55
	Thus the story of Mary is a strange event	17:00
	with this Angel Gabriel sweeping into her life.	17:04
	And this thing is from God, it's from above.	17:07
	But at the same time, it's also from below.	17:12
	That is, it's a perfectly understandable believable story	17:16
	about a young woman who to her surprise and some fear,	17:22
	finds her life caught up in the loving purposes of God.	17:27
	Therefore, it's a story about very human confusion and fear.	17:34
	But it's also a story about Mary's yes.	17:41
	I don't know how all this is gonna happen.	17:45
	But use me as you will.	17:48
	Yes.	17:51
	I know, I know Mary's call was unique.	17:54
	Nobody before or since has ever been called	17:56
	to do what Mary was called to do, the mother of Jesus.	17:59
	Thus Mary is called in the Eastern Church,	18:05
	The Theotokos, The God Bearer,	18:07
	because you see, it's Mary that bears Jesus	18:11
	the Son of God into the world.	18:15
	And yet you can't hear the call of Mary	18:18
	without maybe thinking about your own.	18:23
	Our encounters with God often show much	18:27
	the same pattern is Mary's.	18:29
	There is unknowing, there is surprise,	18:32
	there is confusion, fear	18:35
	because this call comes from above.	18:37
	Not of our own devising.	18:41
	It's not something that we thought up or we planned,	18:43
	rather it's something God gives.	18:47
	And yet at the same time, like Mary,	18:51
	we do have some say so in the matter, we gotta say yes.	18:54
	Mary could have said no.	19:00
	We could say no.	19:03
	We can say, no thank you God,	19:05
	I'm quite happy in my life just the way it is,	19:08
	my life may be proceeding in some rather unimaginative,	19:10
	undemanding ruts, but at least they are my ruts.	19:14
	And I know where I'm going to be tomorrow at this same time.	19:19
	I may be living only for myself and my projects,	19:22
	but at least they are mine.	19:26
	And I'm not so sure, I want to have my life caught up	19:28
	in anything much larger or more significant than me.	19:31
	Well, you can say all of that when the call comes,	19:38
	and all that is perfectly understandable.	19:41
	But like Mary, you can also say, yes.	19:46
	And that can make all the difference.	19:52
	And when you say yes, you get to be the Theotokos.	19:54
	You get to be the God Bearer into the world.	19:59
	I work around college students.	20:06
	And a major part of my ministry here	20:09
	is sitting down with students and reflecting with them	20:12
	over what they ought to do with their lives.	20:15
	And I can tell you,	20:20
	there are a few things more sad	20:23
	than an uncalled life.	20:27
	Vocation, like the one Mary received	20:32
	is not only confusing and sometimes frightening.	20:37
	It can also be exciting, it can be invigorating.	20:42
	It can be a great gift to feel that God chose you	20:46
	for some godly purpose.	20:50
	Be a great gift to have your little life	20:53
	caught up in something more significant than your life.	20:55
	Thus Mary had faith to see that	20:59
	what the Angel Gabriel was offering her in calling her,	21:02
	wasn't only a bit disturbing and frightening.	21:07
	It was also great gift.	21:10
	That's why she said yes.	21:13
	That is why even to this day,	21:16
	we call her blessed among women.	21:17
	And that's why throughout the centuries,	21:21
	the church called Mary, the very first disciple.	21:23
	If I had time today,	21:29
	it would be fun to hear the story of your Annunciation.	21:32
	It would be fun to break you up into buzz groups,	21:37
	and you could write down on newsprint, we could have reports	21:40
	from the groups about your vocation.	21:44
	Sometimes it's related to your job.	21:48
	Sometimes it's related to what you do after your job.	21:49
	Sometimes it's related to something you do for the church.	21:53
	Most of the time it's related to something you do	21:55
	outside the church.	21:58
	As a pastor, I know plenty of people who've gotten a call.	22:01
	Now somebody else looking at your life	22:07
	might say, "Isn't that interesting, you know,	22:10
	"she could have done almost anything she wanted to do	22:12
	"with her life, but she became a nurse.	22:14
	"She decided to care for people, even though she knew,	22:18
	"it wouldn't make a lot of money."	22:22
	Or somebody else might say, "You know,	22:25
	"I find it interesting that when some people	22:27
	"spend their retirement on a golf course,	22:30
	"he spends most of his time down	22:33
	"at the community soup kitchen.	22:36
	"Now isn't that strange?	22:38
	"I wonder how he decided to do that."	22:40
	Of course, through the eyes of faith,	22:44
	for those of us in the know,	22:46
	those of us who know by heart, the story of Mary.	22:49
	we describe such circumstances	22:53
	not as something that we decided, something we chose	22:55
	but rather as a task, as an assignment	23:00
	given by Almighty God.	23:04
	An Annunciation that your little life	23:09
	is just about to count for something bigger than your life.	23:12
	The greatest gift of being called,	23:20
	of living a life summoned	23:24
	is summed up in those very first words	23:26
	the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary.	23:29
	The Lord is with you.	23:32
	You're not alone.	23:36
	The work you do is not exclusively for yourself.	23:38
	The gifts you've been given are also assignments	23:42
	for God's work in the world.	23:46
	Your little life is about to count for something.	23:48
	This is a great message of Christmas.	23:53
	The Lord	23:59
	is with you.	24:01
	Amen.	24:03
	(soft music)	24:10

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "The Lord Is with You" (December 19, 1999)

Description:

Sermon start time: 02:15. Sermon end time: 24:04.
The preacher confronts biblical concerns around ‘immoral’, ‘unspiritual’, and the supernatural narratives in the Bible, arguing that God works in historical particulars, which the Bible reflects. The preacher suggests that Christian put aside their lofty ideals, grand abstractions, and misguided piety and allow the holy into their seemingly unholy activities. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “This appears to be the primary way God chooses to change the world. It appears God doesn’t do things in the world through earthquake, wind, and fire but through ordinary people like Mary, who get called. Furthermore, just ordinary people who say, ‘Yes’.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r48p5vq60

Date:

December 19, 1999

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Advent

Biblical Book:

Luke

Chapter and Verse:

Luke 1:26-38

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0990
ref10137_kf2
uachapelsermaud
duke:321066
dcrau001634
ark:/87924/r48p5vq60
075be32f-0558-44a2-9662-bd6351c783f5

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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William H. Willimon - "The Lord Is with You" (December 19, 1999)

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1. William H. Willimon - "The Lord is With You" (December 19, 1999)

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William H. Willimon - "The Lord Is with You" (December 19, 1999)

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