Receiving as giving up control - Canterbury United Methodist Church

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Canterbury United Methodist Church
New Traditions
December 14, 2014
Text:
Luke 1: 26-38
Focus: The passage describing Gabriel’s message to Mary shows God’s miraculous way of
changing the world through the birth of children. Like the story of the birth of John the
Baptist, Jesus’ birth through Mary involves a pregnancy that was not supposed to happen, in
an unexpected way, to an unsuspecting person.
Function: We have become more focused on how to give than on how to receive. And
with the emphasis on giving have come obligation and guilt and dread. Mary’s example of
receiving involves giving up control of her life and accepting God’s gift to her. Mary
receives this gift with her palms open. Can we learn to receive in the same way?
Prayer: Great and gracious God, the joy of Christmas is so close that we can barely stand it.
The decorations are up, the menus are planned, and we are in full swing of buying gifts for
everyone on our lists. Yet in all the planning and buying and doing, we have allowed our joy
and anticipation to be replaced with feelings of obligation and checklists and sometimes even
guilt and dread…because we have forgotten how to receive gifts well. Grant us wisdom to
understand that giving well first requires that we learn how to receive well. May we learn to
receive as Mary did…and let it be with us according to your word. In the name of your son
Jesus, who entered the world in a most unexpected way…amen.
On Giving and Receiving
1) We were taught early on that it is more blessed to give than to receive
a) Children are a great model for receiving gifts….sometimes the box and
the wrapping paper get more attention than the present inside.
b) At first, gifts are received with innocence and joy…but somewhere along
the way, the joy and innocence turns to greed and the focus is on getting
more.
c) Story of three year old Wilson and the wrapping paper…”I want more,
more, MORE!!”
d) So we try to shift the focus for our children to the virtues of giving…we
teach them that it is better to give than to receive.
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2) Giving that becomes guilt and obligation
a) By the time we become adults, the giving message is in full swing…were
you anywhere near the Summit yesterday?
b) The idea of having the right gifts, in the right quantities, for everyone
that you think should receive a gift for you becomes a task, a thing on a
list that you strive to check off…
c) And if you behind in checking off your list, this is the time of year when
you start to get panicky, and that sense of dread and guilt start building
up in the bottom of your stomach…
d) I saw this is the blog of one of the national writers I follow just the other
day…I haven’t bought one gift yet!!
e) Somewhere along the way we have let the joy of giving get replaced by
the guilt of buying…
3) Focus on text: Let it be with me, according to your word…
a) Familiar story of angel telling Mary that she will become Jesus’ mom
b) Shows again that God changes the world through the birth of children
c) Pattern of God working through the birth of children to mothers who
thought they couldn’t be mothers
d) One thing that really stands out to me about this passage of scripture is
that God is choosing to act in ways unexpected by the world:
i) Mary is poor instead of rich
ii) Mary is female in a male-dominated world
iii) Mary lives in backwater Nazareth instead of center of the world
Jerusalem where the power is
e) Second thing is the way that Mary receives the message…she gives us
control of her life and says, “Let it be with me according to your word.”
f) It makes me think that we need to work on learning how to receive
again.
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4) Receiving as giving up control
a) We say that we want to “Follow Jesus, Serve Others.” Seems to me that
the act of following means learning how to give up control.
b) When Wilson and his brothers were old enough to be in Boy Scouts, we
did a lot of backpacking on trails in some beautiful parts of our country.
c) Somehow, I always found myself at the very back of the
column…backpackers call it the sweep because part of your role back
there is to make sure none of the scouts wander off where they
shouldn’t along the way.
d) If you hike in the sweep, you pretty much give up control…control over
where you are going…control over how fast you go…control over what
terrain you go over…someone up at the front of the line is making all
those decisions for you.
e) It seems to me that following and receiving have something important in
common…they both involve learning how to give up control, as Mary
did with the angel.
5) Holding your gifts in the palms of your hands….
a) I think this message of giving up control in order to follow someone
else’s lead is pretty hard for us to hear.
b) We want to be in control…we want to get things done…we want to
change the outcome of events to what we want it to be…we want our
families to have the best Christmas ever….we think we owe it to
them…we want our children to be happy…we want, we want, we want.
c) All those “we wants” are us imposing our will on someone
else…sometimes in love and for good…but sometimes with guilt and
obligation and dread.
d) I want to ask all of you to focus instead on how you receive this
Christmas.
e) Think about how you receive…do you receive your gifts and clutch
them with your fingers? Or do you receive your gifts with your hands
open (like you do in communion) and hold them in the palms of your
hands? Do you receive with gratitude? Or with possessiveness?
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f) Mary was called “theotokos”…the God bearer. We think of her as the
mother of God.
g) The good news today is that we all carry the image of God within
us…the question is how we, like Mary, will carry that image to others.
h) Like Mary, may we receive our gifts with open hands and say let it be
with us according to your word….
i) Amen and amen.
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