Sermon prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA

by Gregory S. Kaurin, associate pastor

Morning Promise services, 12/15/02

 

Text: Luke

Sermon:

The Gospel of “Oh Well…”

 

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My mother is a very wise woman.  I say that for a number of reasons… but the biggest reason is this phrase that she has used many times (two words…that from her mouth are the gospel truth).  The gospel according to my mother is this: “[sigh] Oh well.”  I will tell you why my mother’s “Oh well” is gospel truth in just a bit.  But first, let’s talk about the virgin Mary.

How would you describe Mary, the mother of Jesus?  What do you think she was like?  Some of the first words that come to mind might be mild and accepting.  Maybe even passive.  After the angel Gabriel told her everything that was going to happen to her, at the end of the visit, she said, “Let it be with me, according to your word.  Let it be.”  And while the shepherds gathered around her and little Jesu, Luke wrote that “As for Mary, she treasured all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”  Passive, quiet Mary.

Honestly, I don’t think that’s the whole picture.  I believe that Mary was a young woman who knew when to accept certain things, and also how to sing and rejoice.  I bet she knew when to cry, and argue her point as well.  She even argued, however briefly, with Gabriel—an angel of God, “How can this be?”

But she apparently knew deep in her heart how to trust God, and his love for her.  She knew how to place her dangerous situation in God’s hands.  When she went to see her cousin Elizabeth, Mary was barely pregnant.  Unmarried.  Joseph wasn’t the daddy.  Society would reject, could even kill her and her unborn child.  And yet she sang.  We call it Mary’s Magnificat, which is a Latin verb that means, “She makes great.”  “My soul proclaims your greatness, O God.”

Mary was not passive, she just trusted her life, her entire life, in God’s hands.  She was at peace, and dealt with things as they came and went.  She could do this because she knew what to treasure and what to let go.

A few years ago, James F. Kay was reflecting on Mary’s Magnificat and said this: 

 

 

Can you and I sing Mary’s song?  I think that depends on this question: How deep is your trust?  Do you come to church, do you worship and pray, “Just in case” God is real?  Or do you do all this because you know he’s real?  How deep is your trust?  Have you learned yet, that God will always be there for you?  Even those times that you can’t feel him?

All these prosperity preachers, saying that God wants you to be rich and prosperous, sometimes I’d like to knock them upside the head…or their Mercedes…one or the other.  Physical prosperity isn’t the issue.  The only wealth that matters, the only treasure, is your relationship with God. 

Does God want you to be prosperous, or talented, or prodigious, or smart, or childlike and poor, does he will you to have a certain spouse or a child, or 12 children?  It’s true that all these things are gifts of God, while they are here, but what God wants most—and most simply—you can find written over and over in scripture: “I will be their God.  And they will be my people.”  Or, more personally, “I am your God.  And I want you to know that you are my child.”  That’s what God wants for you: a relationship, …and your trust.

Mary trusted God.  She wasn’t just pregnant with Jesus.  She was pregnant with the grace of God.  His love for her.  Her trust in him.  And so she sang: “My soul proclaims the greatness of God.”

 

 

We are pregnant with the grace of God.  Messiah Lutheran Church of Auburn Washington, brothers and sisters in Christ, it’s time that we started giving birth!  God’s grace must be born in us and from us, too.  Our lives need to sing with Mary’s acceptance, with Mary’s expectation, and with Mary’s expressiveness.  She was not passive.  We could learn from Mary how to express our faith. 

Keep in mind, though, you are not called to prove Christianity to anybody.  That is not your job.  It is your responsibility to share why you believe, or what God means to you. 

It’s not as hard as we pretend, and it gets easier every time.  No wise arguments needed.  You don’t need to take a class.  No memorized passages or miraculous experiences are necessary.  Just you.  Let the rest go.  God will do the rest.

 

We could also learn from Mary what to treasure in our hearts, and what to let go of.  That’s where my mother comes into play, and her gospel of “Oh well…”

Now, my mother is not the virgin Mary…for at least two reasons.  First, her name is Arlene, not Mary.  (Second… I am fairly certain that my oldest brother is not Jesus Christ.)  But I can tell you that my mother is a very wise woman—from whom I am still learning, very slowly, the gospel of “Oh well.”

I have heard her use that phrase all my life, when things might be stressful, times when we had to struggle: “Oh well.”  With argumentative children, when buried under work, or frustrated by co-workers, or short of money: “Oh well.”  Grandchildren staining her carpet with grape juice, delays in the house remodel, and dealing with all the grown men in her life, “Oh well.”  (That’s probably how she put up with me sometimes.  “There goes my son, Gregory… Oh well.”)

Some people might hear “oh well” as resignation, to mean that you are giving up.  But when I hear my mother say, “Oh well,” I hear something completely different.  In her “Oh well” I hear forgiveness, and a wisdom that knows when to turn the battle over to God.  I hear a prayer for peace, acceptance, patience and assurance.  It is an “Oh well” that says, there are things more important than this, so let’s just deal with it now, so that we can get on with it; it’s not worth being depressed or bitter.  I here underlying it an assurance that there are things of greater worth than this momentary struggle.

A few days ago, I was listening to the Christmas carol, “O Holy Night,” and a phrase jumped out at me like never before.  “Long lay the world—in sin and error pining—‘til he appeared and the soul felt its worth.”

“The soul felt its worth.”  Your soul has worth, not just metaphorical, spiritual worth, but extreme value and importance to God.  So much that he would come to earth, wipe out the sin and error.  So much that he would be born and die. 

There’s the assurance.  You mean that much to him.  Let your soul feel its worth.  If the rest of life is crowding out your sense of worth, if it’s crowding over your central relationship with Christ, then it’s time to let it all go, or put it back into perspective with a big “[sigh] Oh well.”

 

Try that with me, everyone, “Oh well.” 

Let all the stuff and pressures go.

Let the gospel of “Oh well” fill your soul with peace and assurance.

You are a child of God.

Christ has made himself central in your life.

 

“Oh well.”  All is well.

 

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