“Theotokoi… Oh Christopheroi!”
Mar 26, 2010
Bishop Tegatenga
"Theotokoi... Oh Christopheroi!"
(Luke 1:26-38)
Feast of the Annunciation
Sermon at Seminary of the Southwest
25th March 2010
Some days I wake up feeling on top of the world and other days I do not want to wake up at all. I would rather not talk about the bad days. Let's talk about the good days when I feel on top of the world. The problem is that the good days are, more often than not, fantasy, some so surreal that they are so ridiculous when I share them with others. Yet others are so . . . Well, I am so full of myself that I am not sure they are real at all. These are the days when I think I can save the world, humanity and the church! The knight in shining armour... Zoro may be! If not save the world, then that significant person without whom some great cosmic plan will not happen! Wishes and reality merge and fantasy writ large! Of course it all just turns to nothing but the musings of a middle aged man still trying and hoping to be somebody when he grows up!
Then there are those days when nothing special is afoot. The day is just plodding along in its ordinary mundane form. Somehow it is in those mundane moments that God seems to blindside me. The ordinary suddenly blossoms into a fecundity that one would not even imagine. Possibility, promise and even a peek into the salvation that God has planned for his people! It comes without notice. Surprises you as you recognize the surreality of it all! It happens not so much as a sparks and thunder not even as the still small voice but in just so ordinary a way that you almost dismiss it. In fact one only accepts the reality of it after some persuasion. Something like, "well if you put it that way... OK." Only well after the event, does one realize or even see and understand the meaning of it all. We will come back to this later.
One thing I learnt in seminary was that angels generally do not have wings and that more often than not they are so anthropomorphic that they pass for ordinary humans. Let's follow the Gospel passage again. I don't think that Mary saw something out of the ordinary when the angel Gabriel spoke to her. What seems to be out of the ordinary is the greeting and not so much the person who greets. This ordinary guy on an ordinary day speaking to a young woman says some startling things to her. The greeting seems to assume things about Mary that are not what she is. She is an ordinary girl not worthy of a greeting reserved the high and mighty. As if that was not enough the angel goes on to say some outrageous staff about being pregnant without having sex and being mother of "the Saviour". I am not sure Mary really follows what's being said to her. The angel then tells her about Elizabeth. Somehow that seems to make sense to her and she says, "Well if you put it that way... I suppose it can happen to me. In fact let's just go for it "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." (v38) In fact one may say that she may have said to him, "while we are at it, I will play the game with you. Go on lets fantasize, otherwise I would call you crazy! Of course the passage does not go that far. However, I am left wondering whether Mary meant what she said or better yet, shall I say, understood what she signed up for. I do not by that mean that she took it all as a game. She visited Elizabeth to prove the angel's message and even got so excited that she turned an old praise song (the Song of Miriam) into her own cover version "the Magnificat"! In fact she became pregnant as per the angel's word. But I have a sneaking feeling that it still was not enough. The perplexity did not go away! The Gospels tell us that she, too, wondered about her son's behavior just like the disciples and Jewish leaders did. When things happened both miraculous and painful "she pondered these things in her mind"? Something like "what did I give birth to?" So ordinary and yet so inscrutable! I would not want to go so far as to say that she was in denial or imagined herself in some sci-fi movie or scenario. God blind-sided her on that day. We can go on imagining what it was like and change scenarios all we want but the fact remains: on that ordinary day, speaking to an ordinary bloke who talked strange she became a participant in God's cosmic plan for the salvation of humanity. She became "theotokos" and not just that ordinary poor girl who became pregnant. Surreal but true!
If that is my version of the Annunciation, what is it I am trying to say? God calls us to participate in his salvific activities when we least expect it and in ways that will surprise us. Furthermore even when we figure it out we still continue to ponder and wonder what it all means. We do not have to know what it all means for us to accept his call. We may even have to say, "If you put it that way, Lord..." In fact I would like to say that there is no ordinary day in God's scheme. Every day is "this is the day the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it". Every day is the day the Lord says something to us that will change our whole life. We do not have to imagine miracles and special effects theophanies to become "theotokoi" or is it "christopheroi".
Realize that every moment is the moment of God's visitation; a moment of amazing grace; a moment of greater importance in God's scheme of things than you can ever imagine. If it becomes necessary, God may even give you examples of what you can be by showing you others who have experienced the same or something similar and sometimes even moments in your life when he has done something to or with you.
When my friends had spectacular exhibitions of the gift of the Holy Spirit, I used to be jealous. In fact when I complained bitterly to God about how unfair he was to me in that respect, he reminded me of my confirmation some 12 or so years back from that time. For some of us confirmation is a time when we fulfill some rite of passage as a natural and regular process of being a Christian as part of a Christian family. I know that for some it is a special moment of entering into new life with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. For me it was a non-event, notwithstanding the pomp and ceremony! I had not planned it. I was at the right place at the right time. I had attended all confirmation classes together with my friend who was going to be confirmed. It was two years before my time. I had to be twelve years old. To cut the long story short, the person who taught the class convinced the priest and the priest in turn presented me to the bishop for confirmation because he said there was no reason for me not to go ahead and be confirmed as I had learnt everything. My family took it in their stride and accepted it and so I was "done". I was 10 years old. It was when I was twenty one that I learnt of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and became "charismatic". Sometime between that time and age 24 is when I confronted God about his favouratism. (What presumption!) He spoke to me in a vision that took me back to that confirmation day and told me that that was when I was filled with the Holy Spirit, gifted with tongues and all the rest of the "goodies" that come with the "charismatic" experience. It was that day that he anointed me for his service. I did not know it then and neither did I imagine that I would be a priest one day and much less a bishop. That day when I said yes for that non-event called confirmation I became a kind of "theotokos". I did not need to be like others. I did not need to imagine myself saving the world. I did not need to have any presumptuous thoughts about myself and my place in God's scheme of things. My commitment to God and my faithfulness to God's call in me, makes me the "Christ bearer" for others. I would like to assume that it is the same for all who profess Christ as their Lord and Saviour, and have the Spirit of God in them. We do not have to know it all, in fact we may, to our surprise, even have those surreal moments when we are so close to God we can touch him and burst in songs of praise and at other times all we can do is "ponder these things in our hearts". We are God's own; called for a purpose at moments we least expect. Strange greetings from ordinary people at ordinary times may do things to you. Mary the "theotokos" is a case in point!
God wants to save the world. God would like to save the Church from itself and for his purposes. Who would be theotokoi or christopheroi? It is "Hail Mary" time! Do you hear that? The times are desperate and it is the fullness of time (Gal.4). At least so I believe. Do you have it in you to say with Mary, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." (v38)
