For those who matter

This fourth Sunday of Advent gives us an opportunity to pay attention to some important words and attitudes about preparing for Christmas, including making room for the things and people who are most important ... even the ones we may sometimes forget.

Listen in or read on:

Important people

There’s one week left before Christmas.  Is all your shopping done?  Are all the packages wrapped?  Are all your plans made?  Some among us may be still franticly searching this week for the right gifts, but others have already sent the cards, made all the arrangements for the family meals, put the bows on the boxes, and even tucked away a few extra gifts for the people in our lives who might sometimes go un-noticed.  You know who they are: the people who deliver the daily papers, the janitors who clean our schools and places of work and the neighbours next door.  These are important people too.

The scriptures we have heard this week tell the story of some pretty important conversations that took place, and some major players in our faith history, but I’m not going to focus on either King David or on Mary this week.  Instead, I want to give the limelight to some of the lesser-known biblical figures.  These were the ones entrusted with the important work.  These were the messengers, but unfortunately they are far too often overlooked because it seems that they play relatively minor roles in the story.

David was indeed a great king, and an important part of the history of the Israelite people, but if it were not for Nathan, the prophet who stopped him from making some unwise decisions, David may very well have forgotten that before he had been called by God, he himself was a lowly shepherd.  Without the wisdom of Nathan, the great King would never have understood that every gift he could possibly offer to God was first a gift that God had offered to him.  This is the true wisdom that kept David grounded.  This is the true source of the strength he carried in his years of leadership, and all thanks to the wisdom of the relatively unknown prophet Nathan.

There are other figures in today’s scriptures who share their wisdom as well.  The angel Gabriel brought a message from God and spoke words to a young maiden in the hill country of Judea that changed her life: Hail, full of grace!  Greetings to you, so highly blessed.  Gabriel was the one who had to calm Mary’s fears, who had to reassure her that the role he was proposing was a gift that was being offered to her, and a gift that she could in turn offer to all humanity.  The scriptural account of the conversation that ensued doesn’t recount all the words that were spoken, but enough so that we understand the essentials of the encounter.  Gabriel came to announce a miracle, and Mary expressed her doubts.  I think that we would all wonder if she had not voiced some concern.  In fact, her doubts are the same that we would have had, and isn’t it true that when God asks us to cooperate in his plan, we all have doubts and concerns?

The church reserves a place of great honor in our tradition and our teaching for Mary, and rightly so, but not in the same sense that we might pay homage to a film star or a pop idol.  No, Mary’s place of honor was deserved more because of her humility and because she provided us with the first model of discipleship.  It was right that she should question the angel about what God wanted her to do, but in the end she had to give her consent: Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.  In these few words lie the pivotal point of Mary’s entire existence.  This is the phrase she was created to utter.  This is the phrase she teaches us to say as well.

Across the centuries, the wisdom of David and Mary call out to us, encouraging us to always remember the One who continues to love us, to provide for us, and to challenge us.  The example of Nathan and Gabriel also encourage us to constantly make room for the ones who make God’s wisdom known to us, and the words written by Paul to the community in Rome remind us that for all the wisdom we might garner in this world, for all the successes we may know throughout our lives, we should always be ready to give praise and thanks to God. 

See, even the little people can teach some pretty valuable lessons.