Year B
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26
Romans 16:25-27
Luke 1:26-38

May the words of my mouth…  O God…  speak your Truth…

It’s Advent 7… and our waiting is almost over… and I wonder what we’ve been waiting for…  are we…  in spite of our seven-week Advent…  still waiting only for Christmas morning…  are we waiting for an end to 2020…  for a new presidency to begin…  for our COVID vaccines and an end to the pandemic…  are we waiting for a return to normal and an end to change…  for change…  less…  ness…  I can tell you…  if we’re waiting for that…  that’s going to be a lot like waiting for Godot…  because the universe is in constant motion…  and constant change…

I just read an astronomy article which told how researchers have created computer simulations…  called E-MOSAICS…  which are able to simulate the paths that some smaller galaxies have taken…  before they merged with our own galaxy…  the Milky Way…  and about how the giant…  spiral galaxy…  Andromeda…  which is about 2.2 million light years away… is on a collision course with ours too…  but not for about another four billion years…  astronomers have even picked out a new name for what that new galaxy will be…  Milkomeda…  so what does this ever-changing nature of the cosmos mean for humanity…  I think it emphasizes that change is inevitable…

Perhaps the most poetic reminder of this change…  is in Percy Shelley’s sonnet…  Ozymandias…  which describes the fall of kings…  but Shelley’s sonnet is a metaphor for a king who never expected things to change…  in his time and down to our own…  and if you’ve never heard it…  here’s the sonnet…

I met a traveller from an antique land…  
Who said — Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert…  Near them…  on the sand…  
Half sunk… a shattered visage lies…  whose frown…  
and wrinkled lip…  and sneer of cold command
tell that its sculptor…  well those passions read
which yet survive…  stamped on these lifeless things…  
The hand that mocked them… and the heart that fed…  
And on the pedestal…  these words appear…  
My name is Ozymandias…  King of Kings… 
Look on my Works…  ye Mighty…  and despair!
Nothing beside remains…  Round the decay…  
Of that colossal Wreck…  boundless and bare…  
The lone and level sands stretch far away…

In the sonnet…  the speaker recalls having met a traveler…  who told him a story about the ruins of a statue in the desert of his native country…  two vast legs of stone  stand without a body…  and near them…  a massive crumbling stone head…  lies half sunk in the sand…

The traveler told the speaker…  that the frown…  and sneer of cold command on the statue’s face…  indicate that the sculptor understood well…  the emotions of the statue’s subject…  the memory of those emotions survives…  carved into the lifeless statue…   even though the sculptor and his subject are both now dead…  on the pedestal of the statue appear the words…   My name is Ozymandias…  king of kings…  look on my works…  ye Mighty…  and despair!…  but around the decaying ruin of the statue…  nothing remains…   only the lone and level sands…  which stretch out around it…

Many…  like Ozymandias…  seek lasting fame… but in the Book of Sirach (44:1-14)…  while its readers are asked to sing the praises of famous men…  those who ruled their kingdoms…  and made a name for themselves by their valor…  their intelligent counsel…  and those who spoke in prophetic oracles…  while the author asks us to remember these men…  the author also reminds us that there are those of whom there is no memory…  who have perished as though they never existed…  but these were godly men and women…  whose righteous deeds are remembered by God…  and that inheritance will remain in their children’s house…

In our reading from 2 Samuel…  we  hear the story about who will build the house for God…  the Temple…  David thinks it’s his to do…  but in a dream…  God tells the prophet Nathan…  that from the day God brought the people of Israel up from Egypt…  God had been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle…  and has not asked for a Temple to be built…  and that it’s God who will turn David into a house…  and a kingdom…  and a throne…  which shall be made sure…  and which shall be established forever… it’s David’s son Solomon…  who will build the Temple…  so who’s building a house…  for whom…  and what is a house…  is it a Temple… is it a building…  is it a home where the heart is…  or can it be a womb…

In today’s Gospel…  the angel Gabriel was sent by God to bring good tidings to Mary… and he said…  Greetings favored one…  but Mary did not earn this status because of something she did or said…  or because she was without sin…  this status was bestowed upon her because God is God…  and Gabriel told her that she would bear a son who would inherit David’s throne…  and Mary was bold enough to question an angel…  how can this be…  how could it be that she…  would give birth to such a child…  

We can imagine God saying in that still silent voice that God has…  All I need for you to say…  is Yes to me…  so I can be born in your midst…  and we’ve said before that Mary could have said “No”…  and we’ve wondered before how many other young women may have said “No” before her…  but Mary did not… she said…  Let it be with me according to your word…

In the physical realm of human time…  permanence is an illusion…  and one pervasive truth…  is that there’s change…  and we…  like the galaxies…  may be pushed and pulled by unseen forces… forces which may merge new ideas into our old ideas…  adjust our direction…  challenge our notions about how things are…  or could be…  and in the spiritual realm of God’s time…  love is not an illusion…  it is the most real and permanent thing there is…  it’s what brought the universe into being in the first place…  and we are not pushed and pulled…  but are invited…  into ever increasing love…  and into that permanent place we call home…  

Greetings favored one… is how God greets each and every one of us…  and I think the faintest impulse of God’s breath is saying to each and everyone one of us…  All I need for you to say…  is Yes to me…  so I can grow within you…  to be born in your midst… we certainly have the right to say No…  but we also have a long and well-established history of saying No…  though I’m certain God is wanting each and every one of us to answer…  Let it be with me according to your word…  the world needs our Yes…  perhaps more now than ever…  the world needs God’s people to say Yes… the world needs those things to happen that we think can’t possibly happen… about which we say…  how can this be… since these ways are unknown to me…   perhaps we too…  need to be overshadowed by the Holy Spirit…  

Advent is almost over…  and in many ways…  the world is much the same as it was when Gabriel came to Mary…  in a state of expectancy…  parts of our lives have been put on hold…  or disrupted…  or taken from us…  but the Good News is that we’re living into the experience that God does not dwell only in churches…  synagogues…  and mosques…

Humanity may not have a choice about whether the Andromeda galaxy will crash into our own…  our willful heel-digging cannot prevent that…  but we can become more and more willing…  to invite God’s word into our lives… and let it overshadow us…  so that the Christ-child will grow in the Temple…  in the womb of our hearts…  God’s been patiently waiting for the right time… and we can ask…  is now the time…  will I allow…  will I invite God to do the impossible though me…  only some of those…  who strive for power…  like Ozymandias will be remembered by mortals…  but God will remember the all righteous…  and in the words of a hymn…  and there’s not any reason…  no not in the least…  why we shouldn’t be righteous too…