March 25, 2021
/The Feast of the Annunciation
Isaiah 7:10-14; Luke 1:26-38
The Rev. Jeffrey Bohanski
The Lord be with you.
Let us pray. Good lord, help us to remember you are with each of us. Help us to say yes to your will. Amen
In our homiletics classes at Iona we were taught to think about the subject we are going to preach on and ask ourselves what comes to mind about that subject. For instance, when I think about The Feast of the Annunciation, it is easy for me to think of a Botticelli painting I once saw. In the painting, Mary and Gabriel are alone in a small room. Mary is on one side of the room and Gabriel is on the other. Mary is portrayed as a white thin red headed woman. She is wearing a red dress with a blue coat and there is a delicate gold halo around her head.
Gabriel, on the other hand is portrayed as a scoundrel looking character crouching in the opposite corner of the room looking to me like he is ready to pounce. Like Mary, Gabriel is white complexioned with red hair. He is wearing a full flowing red garment that seems to be belted at his waste. There are strong eagle like wings sprouting from his upper back. If it was not for the thin gold halo above his head, I would not think he was an angel. Mary has her hand up as if to stop Gabriel from speaking any further.
Although this is a beautiful painting packed full of meaning, I don’t think it is what draws us to worship this evening on this the Feast of the Annunciation.
I think today’s celebration is about Mary, a down to earth young, innocent girl who has the courage to trust Gabriel when he tells her “The Lord is with you.” It’s a celebration of this same trusting young girl who said yes, to God’s plan. You see, God’s plan was this: God so loved his creation that God wanted to send God’s Son, God’s Word, into the world to love it and redeem it. God wanted to show God’s creation how to love each other, how to serve each other and how to love God in the process. All God needed for God’s plan to come about was for someone to say “yes.” Today we celebrate Mary trusting that God was with her and Mary saying yes to God’s plan.
The Good News today is that this very important “yes” God needed was uttered by a young innocent trusting girl from a small simple town. A town where someone would eventually ask, “Can anything good come from there?”
I believe that if God would come to a trusting young girl from a small simple town to make God’s plan come to fruition, there is hope for this simple Prius driving, gay bivocational priest like me. I believe there is hope for us all. You see, I believe it doesn’t matter to God which side of the border one comes from, what the color one’s skin is, one’s age or one’s weight. It doesn’t matter to God what one’s sexual orientation is, what one’s gender is or what gender one knows one needs to transform into is. It doesn’t matter to God which political party one belongs to or what one’s marital status is. I believe God invites us all, like Mary, to trust that our loving God is with all God’s creation. I believe this loving God invites us all to say “yes” to his plan to bring God’s Son, God’s love to where ever we find ourselves each day.
Like many of us, I find myself driving the streets of Houston in my daily life. I often wonder how I can say “yes” to God’s plan when I am in traffic. Perhaps it is by letting that driver next to me merge into my lane in front of me. Perhaps it is simply by not blocking an intersection when I find myself stopped in heavy traffic so others can get through to cross the street. Perhaps it’s about acknowledging the driver next to me is a child of God who is also trying to live out God’s call for him or for her.
Perhaps I can say “yes” to God’s plan of bringing God’s son into the world when I am walking down the street and I don’t cross the street when I see someone coming toward me who doesn’t look like me. Perhaps I could say “yes” to God’s loving plan by simply saying hello to that person. I believe by saying hello to someone I am recognizing God’s presence in that person and that God loves that person as much as God loves me.
Perhaps I can say “yes” to God’s plan to bring God’s Word, God’s love into the world when I encounter someone from the other side of the political aisle who says something I don’t agree with and give a kind response. Perhaps I could explain my position and attempt to engage a respectful discussion. Perhaps if I would find it impossible to have a respectful conversation, I could end it kindly, walk away and leave that person in God’s loving hands without going to social media to vent my feelings.
Today’s celebration is about what can happen when we, like Mary, trust that God is with us and with others. Today’s celebration is about, like with Mary, our saying yes to God’s invitation each of us has to bring God’s son, God’s Word, God’s love into the world. This evening I ask us all to ponder what the world would look like if we all viewed ourselves and each other through the lens of God’s loving plans for God’s world that Mary saw on this day, this Annunciation Day. Amen