Sermon for 4th Sunday of Advent. What is that? (Pianist plays part of a waltz) Even those of us who are not gifted with an ear for music -- or to be blunt, those of us with a tin ear --- can recognize the signature sounds of a waltz. What gives a waltz its characteristic lilt and lift is the number of musical beats it contains in each measure of music. That most well-known of waltz beats is "3/4 time" -- it has three beats to a measure.
Let us listen again to the ¾ time waltz. …. You may have also noticed during the second time that the first of the three beats is usually the accented beat, the second two beats softer and unaccented. Thank you Mark.
From what I have read, the waltz can be traced back to the late 1500's. With roots in simple folk dances, the music reached it height in popularity during the 19th century under the waltz King Johann Strauss. Now nearly a hundred and fifty years later, the waltz continues and can be found in "Tejano" and other genres of music but it has lost a great deal of popularity.
So why is it no longer as popular? Dancing tastes have changed for one thing but in my opinion … what makes a waltz a waltz also makes a waltz an easily ignored piece of music. Its devotion to that 3/4 beat and the waltz dance step that accompanied it -- step, two, three; step, two, three --- seems to go on and on as if it were some perpetual motion machine --- always in harmony, always predictable, and for that reason it can seem dull and boring.
What do you think … am I right? Well the reason I bring it up is … is that have you ever noticed that despite our human tendency to blame God for everything bad and hard that happens in our lives and would, we rarely find a reason to accuse God of being predictable or boring? Earthquakes, famine, flood, disease, tragic school shootings and death in general --- or more regularly the everyday tragedies that mar our lives --- bounced checks, burnt dinners, bad relationships, bossy coworkers, broken promises and brawling kids -- are all somehow blamed on God. When people and problems in our lives get too difficult, too big, too messy, too overwhelming, that is when we feel God has abandoned us to the forces of fate, or evil or despair.
Yet, it is exactly because we have a steady God that we can live through those difficult moments --- it is exactly during our most hectic, harried, hardest moments in life that God's constant presence hovers nearest to us. In other words we have "stable times."
For Christians, "stable" moments are not those few days when calm seemingly and briefly descends on our world we call Christmas, rather stable times are when we look around and see that as unpredictable, unmanageable and unimaginable as our mess is, God is present.
If you don't believe me look again at today's events in the Bible. Both Elizabeth and Mary find they are in the center of their own "stable times." At the same time that life has gone completely haywire, God is present and active.
First look at Elizabeth. She is far beyond child-bearing age, yet she finds herself pregnant with a child, a story told before our lesson today. Imagine her overwhelming feelings of joy and anxiety. At last a child to love and … care for! Yet in her old age Elizabeth was going to be expected to take on all the exhilarating but exhausting duties of motherhood. Could she do it? How would she manage? Was she up to it? Her anxiety must have been running high. But the mental state of her young relative Mary must have been even more disheveled.
Like Elizabeth, Mary, too, was unexpectedly pregnant, also told before today's words. Her betrothed, but not quite yet husband Joseph was understandably confused and upset. Mary also was young and poor and we can assume she had been utterly average in the expectations she had for her life. She had been more than likely anticipating setting up a household with a carpenter ---Joseph. She saw herself establishing a role as wife, and then, hopefully, becoming a mother.
Instead, Mary has to cope with the astounding visit of an angelic messenger, the shocking realization that she was indeed pregnant, and the stunning news about the identity of this baby she carried.
Yet both Elizabeth and Mary respond to the revelations and situations these "stable times" present in their lives by fully opening themselves to the divine presence. When these two women come together in today's gospel text, the result is an outpouring of joy and praise for God's startling dull, boring, stable presence in their lives at the same moment when the world is completely turning upside down. Elizabeth feels the vigorous movement of her baby, the "quickening," and is overwhelmed with an insight into Mary's condition that is revealed to her.
Mary responds to Elizabeth's greeting by delivering one of the most beautiful prayers of praise we have in all of Scripture. The "Magnificat," as Mary's hymn is usually termed --- that we read in between our first and second lesson -- is an astonishing example of unexpected beauty and inspiration emerging when the unpredictable rhythm of a "stable time" washes over her. God takes a simple, humble, young woman and looks "with favor on the lowliness of his servant," transforming and exalting her. Mary becomes "blessed ... among women" --- because she refuses to panic and instead responds to this moment in her life with faith and trust in God's stable care. This is a prediction of the same message we will see on Christmas: There is no stable, no place in our world or in our lives that is too poor, too remote, too outcast, too wild or crazy, or too messy, that a "stable" God cannot be found.
We see in Elizabeth and Mary models and examples of how not to be during times of stress that is fooled into thinking that God cannot draw close to our lives; that all our messiness and the messiness of the world is a sign that God must be absent or irrational. Instead as Mary and Elizabeth point out that is exactly the time that boring old God is most present. It is exactly in those times that we are to pen up to, exalt in, and be willing to let the boring "3/4 time" Spirit of God "do great things" for us.
How can we see stable God in these tumultuous times? Let us briefly turn back to Mary as a teacher. First, Mary modeled humility in answering God's call without doubt or debate. She didn't suggest an alternative, someone else, nor did she say she was not good enough; she humbly accepted this amazing event. And second, Mary modeled a faith in God's wisdom, even though it was not in her plans or according to any plans she had ever heard of. This does not mean that she did not as the Bible says …"ponder" these events "in her heart" which is a tasteful way of saying having a lot of questions, doubts and concerns. Rather in humility and faithfulness she detected God's stable presence and love in her thread of life. She and Elizabeth heard and felt the "waltz" of God in their wombs.
Christmas will be soon upon us. Mary can, in this most difficult of times, sing a song that can be our song in this Advent season as well. As we have prepared for the coming of the Christ Child, now we too can sing in thanksgiving, in celebration, in remembrance, and in proclamation of the baptismal promise made to us that God has come to us. We to can dance to God's "stable" beat. Like Mary, and Elizabeth this is the time for us to indulge in celebratory joy in the promises that come to us in Jesus. Let us raise our voices in a great cry, magnifying our God for these "stable times." Amen.
