"The Gift of Humility"
Luke 1:26-55
Have you ever felt as if your life doesn't amount to much?
Have you ever looked at the lives of your neighbors or relatives and thought: "I feel so small compared to you"?
Or have you ever taken a ride through a really ritzy neighborhood and wondered, "What makes them so much better than me?"
"Why can't I afford a big house like that?"
My sister Lisa has always been a hard act to follow.
She knew from an early age that she wanted to be rich.
She worked hard in school.
She persevered.
She went to Cornell, and then graduated with a Master's Degree from their very prestigious School of Business...
...as did her husband.
Today they are multi-millionaires.
Lisa is an Executive Vice President at Proctor and Gamble...
...you know...
...the company that makes Tide laundry detergent, Cascade dish detergent, Crest Toothpaste, Gillette Razors and tons of other top brands.
Her husband Jon, is the Chief Financial Officer of the Company.
He advises the President of the United States on Financial matters, Mark Zuckerburg, and regularly appears on CNBC.
They are rich, powerful and among two of the most successful business people in the world.
And they are my sister and brother-in-law.
They are also great people.
In any case, about a decade ago, I was having a conversation with my sister.
And my sister says to me: "Ken, I really respect you; you chose to serve."
(Pause)
Set aside, for a moment, what you already know about Jesus' mother and instead think about what kind of mother would have been ideal for the Messiah, God become a human being, the Savior of the world.
What kind of background would have helped her to get her Son ready to challenge the powerful forces of Rome?
Would it have helped if she were well educated?
Should she be a worldly woman with a lot of political connections?
Would it help if she were part of a royal family, if she had power and influence?
What sort of woman would be an ideal pick to give birth and bring up the Savior of the world?
If Jesus were to be born today, who would you choose?
(Pause)
Mary must have been quite young when she gave birth to Jesus.
Some estimate her to have been 13, 14 or 15 years old.
She was just a little girl in what would have REALLY BEEN a man's world.
She would have been looked upon as an impoverished nobody with nothing important to say.
She lived in a tiny village called Nazareth.
The town was so small it didn't even show up on first-century maps.
She is the last person anyone would have expected to be visited by an angel, and given a greeting as though she were a princess.
But this is how it happened.
This is who God chose to give birth to His Son.
God has always chosen the most humble people from the most humble places to do the greatest of things.
Think about it.
God chose Abraham and Sarah, in their old age, to bring forth the Chosen People.
God chose Moses, a man who stuttered and was tending sheep to be the lawgiver and deliverer of Israel.
God chose David, the shepherd boy, the youngest and least likely of Jesse's sons to be Israel's greatest king.
And God chose Mary, a dirt poor, uneducated, practically homeless, teenager to give birth to Jesus.
Legend has it that Mary wasn't the first person asked to give birth to the Messiah, but rather she was the first person to say "Yes."
She said, "Yes" to God Who wanted to dwell within her and through her.
It's been said that "No one was ever closer to God.
There was no one who ever had a greater connection to Jesus Christ."
And in many ways, I suppose that must be true.
Mary showed us that God is not just with us, but can be within us as well.
And in this sense, God's invitation to Mary is not just given to her.
But every one of us have been given an invitation to help give birth to the Kingdom of God.
All of us are called to be "bearers of the Good News," "bearers of the Word," if you will.
All of us are invited to humbly say, "Yes" to God's call on our life.
The "angel Gabriel" came to Mary and said, "Rejoice, favored one!
The Lord is with you...
...Don't be afraid...
...Nothing is impossible for God.'
Then Mary said, 'Let it be with me just as you have said.'"
What would you say?
What would you do?
Where were you when you first heard the call of God on your life?
What was your answer?
I grew up in a wonderful Christian family.
We went to church every Sunday...
...every Sunday.
Even if we were out of town, we went to church in the town we were in.
And if I slept over at a friend's house on a Saturday night, I was expected to be in church the following morning.
I grew up going to church.
I went through my teenage, long haired, party hardy rebellion years right there in front of every one of the members of my church.
In my late teens I had a strong call from God, and gave my life over to Christ.
It was an almost magical time for me.
I had felt, for a number of years, as if I had gotten way off course in life and I felt bad about it.
I wasn't your "model child," shall we say when I was called.
So, when I was asked to lead the adult Bible study in my home church as an 18 year old new convert, I was very stunned and humbled.
Everyone else in the room was at least twice my age.
Many of them had been my Sunday school teachers throughout my growing up years.
During the very first Bible study I taught, still looking like a long-haired rocker and surrounded by gray haired church ladies I read out loud the Scripture that Kelly read earlier from 1 Corinthians.
"Look at your situation when you were called," Paul writes.
And then my eyes started to tear up, my voice got hoarse and I continued on: "By ordinary human standards not many were wise, not many were powerful, not many were from the upper class.
But God chose what the world considers foolish to shame the wise.
God chose what the world considers weak to shame the strong.
And God chose what the world considers low-class and low-life--what is considered to be nothing...
...so no human being can brag in God's presence.
It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus.
He became wisdom from God for us.
This means that he made us righteous and holy, and he delivered us.
This is consistent with what was written: The one who brags should brag in the Lord!"
Having God choose her to give birth to Jesus, no doubt, blew Mary out of the water!!!
"How could He choose me?" she must have thought.
"Why would He choose me?"
And so, "Mary said, 'With all my heart I glorify the Lord!
In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.
He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant...'"
Humility is a special quality, a gift that God bestows upon us.
It gives us a right view of ourselves.
In reality, the entire Christmas story is a story about the reversal of values in God's Kingdom.
Mary, a peasant girl, was chosen to give birth to the King of Kings.
Jesus was born in a stable and laid in a dirty feeding trough for animals.
The first people God invites to see the newborn King are homeless shepherds.
The entire Gospel story is a call for us to humble ourselves.
It's been written that "Pride is a dangerous sin.
It eats away at our soul.
It convinces us that we are better than others, we deserve more, and we are above the law.
It convinces the powerful that they can do whatever they want."
God's gift is the gift of a healthy humility.
God doesn't want us to be depressed, and hate ourselves.
God desires us to accept God's gift of salvation--God's gift of acceptance, forgiveness and love.
And in order to do that, we must be humble or humbled.
Paul wrote in Philippians, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.
Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus...He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death."
In the book we have been reading for our Advent study for the past five weeks Adam Hamilton writes: "One of the things I've noticed is that you're going to be humbled one way or another.
You either humble yourself, or God will do it for you.
When God does it for you, maybe you show up on the front page of the newspaper, or your family and everyone in the neighborhood knows about it, and you're humiliated and brought low.
How much better it is to humble yourself before God--to say, 'God, please help me remember who I am and that my life is a gift and that anything good ultimately comes from you.
Help me to live like that and to treat people well."
However you slice it, humility is a gift from God.
We must have it in order to accept His gift of forgiveness and salvation.
Mary's response to her calling has the feel of awe-inspired humility, astonishment, and perhaps most significantly trust and faith in God.
"I am the Lord's servant," Mary said, "Let it be with me just as you have said."
A powerless teenage girl trusted and believed God.
She said, "Yes" when He called her and she gave birth to a child Who would transform all of creation.
That's Mary's story.
What is your story?
How is God asking you to help birth the Kingdom in your neighborhood, in your workplace, in your home, in your church, in your school?
Mary, the first disciple, has led the way.
She said "Yes" to God.
She followed.
Now it is our turn.
Do we have enough courage, enough gumption, enough humility to do the same?
