Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
December 21, 2008 – 3rd Sunday in Advent
Luke 1:26-56

Divine Interruptions

After nine months, the time is drawing near and is nearly here. Those of us who have experienced the late stages of pregnancy can sympathize with Mary: Awaiting relief from the heaviness of the pregnancy. Joyful with the anticipation of the baby. Trepidation and fear for the pain of the birthing.

And now, the awkwardness of riding on this donkey as her womb prepares itself to deliver. What was she thinking? How had she let this happen? Youth in all its righteousness! The divine interruption has come to this....

The first two chapters in Luke’s gospel contain five prayers, two of them in the passage that we just heard. The first, the “Annunciation of the Birth of Jesus,” is when the angel Gabriel is sent by God to a young Galilean woman in the village of Nazareth to announce to her that she has been chosen to bear a holy child to save God’s people. This, in the midst of occupation by the Roman Empire – with armies on the march, homeless families making beds in garages and cattle stalls, refugees fleeing and looking for a place to hide.

The second prayer is Mary’s song of praise which we know as the “Magnificat,” probably the most revolutionary text in the entire Bible.

This morning, I’m going to reflect primarily on the Annunciation – in what appears to me to be a divine interruption.

Now, if you have a cell phone, you know all about interruptions. If you have young children, you know about interruptions, too, especially when you’re on your cell phone. In fact, to have a child is synonymous with interruption for at least the next 18 years – if not for the rest of your life.

But, what about divine interruptions? Last Christmas, Kim and I were able to get tickets to Gibson’s play, “The Butterfingers Angel” which was staged at the Second Story Theater in Warren. With the full title, “The Butterfingers Angel, Mary & Joseph, Herod the Nut & The Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree,” one would expect it to be slapstick – but it was actually a quite serious examination of the impact of the Virgin Birth on a very human Mary and Joseph.

The bumbling Angel, Gabriel’s delegate, is trying desperately to do a good job in spite of his clumsiness. He has lost touch with the presence of God, and he constantly questions his ability to do his job. When he approaches Mary while she is washing laundry in the river and announces what God has in store for her, she initially responds with such disclaimers as, “No Way!” “Absolutely not!” “This is crazy!” “You can’t be serious!”

Life goes on as usual, and then, and then, out of nowhere.... A divine interruption.

Something happens that is not according to plan – that no one could have predicted – an interruption in the natural order of things – an extraordinary challenge – often misunderstood – and, for those who are willing, like Mary, to say, “Here I am...; let it be with me according to your word.” Life will never be the same again. This is what happened to a young girl in Galilee, and her response turned the world upside down.
What about you and me? Have you ever experienced a divine interruption? Or do we relegate such happenings to ancient, mythic times.... I wonder why we tend to do that? Aren’t we the denomination that proclaims, “God is still speaking?”

I thought about that a lot this week. Where are the divine interruptions in our lives? Where and how is God still speaking to us today? I can’t speak for you, but I can put my finger on several things that I believe are divine interruptions in my life – although I had never thought about them this way before.

The first was the summer between high school and college. I was counseling Junior Highs at Camp Aldersgate, up Snake Hill Road from Irons Homestead. One of the Conference leaders offered me the opportunity to go to West Virginia Wesleyan. He could make a phone call, he said. I don’t remember much of the conversation, but I had the impression that he was proposing that I study for the ministry. However, I was already enrolled at URI to study nursing; everything was all set for me to go. It was disconcerting, to say the least. I didn’t know what to do. I spent time on my knees asking for an answer. But the idea was so preposterous, I didn’t even tell my parents. And I went to URI and became a nurse. Looking back, I would have made a better teacher (or a minister) than a nurse, but I had made my bed and I was going to lie on it. A divine interruption – and I said, “No.”

What about you? When have you experienced a divine interruption? What did you say? Yes? No?

The second is not quite so personal and a little more public. It was Thanksgiving 2002. Four members of the clergy were arrested at the State House for refusing to leave until the Governor was willing to address the lack of affordable housing. Some of us decided that every week, another round of clergy types should “sit in” at the State House to draw public attention to the increasing housing crisis.

I went the second week. I found someone to stay with my mother in case I was booked and held overnight. We rehearsed what might happen and prayed together. Justice advocates and folk singers came and sat with us. We sang and told stories. I was prepared to be arrested. As it grew late, those-in-the-know urged everyone who wanted to leave to do so soon. We held our ground and, on the stroke of midnight, the Capitol Police in their big hats and shiny boots picked us up by the elbows, carried us out, and slammed the door. The Governor had been embarrassed enough.

But that was only the beginning – a prelude to what would come next....

Several weeks later, on January 14th, it turned cold and bitter. Crossroads’ community room was filled to overflowing. Their President Anne Nolan was afraid people would freeze to death and called the Providence Intown Churches Association to see if some of the downtown churches might open up for the homeless. Beneficent’s senior minister Rick Taylor took the call and then handed the phone to me. “Here, Betsy, you’d better take this.”

After a few nights, we had 40 people.... Who could have anticipated this divine interruption? This was not in my job description! But this time I – and a whole lot of Beneficent folks – said “Yes!” The Biblical tradition calls the faithful to welcome the stranger.

In the Magnificat, Mary’s prayer links the divine interruption with God’s concern for the plight of the poor, and the means of God’s salvation. “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:52-53). It was a divine interruption not only for me but also for Beneficent – a downtown church with a big old building and a dwindling membership that needed to recreate itself.

And now back to me. A long time had gone by in my life since I received my call. I married and divorced. I ran the Volunteer Center for 20 years. I raised two children and put them through college. Eventually, just because I had always wanted to go to seminary, I went to Harvard Divinity School and in 1990 earned a Master of Divinity degree. After I left the Volunteer Center in 1995, I supported myself as a consultant, primarily working in the religious sector.

My life was all about work and spending some time with my grandchildren. I had done some interesting things, nationally as well as locally. But, basically, I thought my life was over. I had done what I was going to do.

And then I met my partner Kim – at Beneficent Church – in the summer of 2004. This was not according to plan. I could not have predicted that, at the age most people are thinking about retiring, I would fall in love and marry again. Let alone to Kim!

An interruption in the natural order of things. A new life. A new beginning. Who would have thought it? Not me! Over the breakfast table earlier this week, I put down my spoon of oatmeal and said to Kim, out-of-the-blue, “You are a divine interruption in my life!” And this time I had said, “yes!” We grow wiser as we grow older, I hear.

What about you? Have you experienced a divine interruption? Will you know one when it comes? Will you say “Yes?” or “No?”

The fourth time when I experienced a divine interruption – because God doesn’t always take “no” for an answer – was when Conference Minister Chuck Barnes asked me a little over a year ago if I had ever considered the ordained ministry. He knew I had a seminary education and that I was on the staff at Beneficent. What he didn’t know was that I had experienced a “call” 50 years earlier. This time I said, “Yes,” and the rest is history.

Writing in The Christian Century this month, Lauren Winner writes,

When we speak of the source of our salvation, we usually say something like “the cross” or “Jesus Christ.” Perhaps, this week, we may name the means of our salvation slightly differently: we are saved by Mary’s willingness to be interrupted. And the next time someone wishes us a Merry Christmas, perhaps we can hear in that wish a question: Are you, like Mary, willing to be interrupted by God?

May it be so!

Amen.

Lauren Winner, “Living the Word,” The Christian Century, December 16, 2008, p.20.

SERMON IN A SACK: Santa story.