Saturday, December 19, 2015

The Power of Small

Fourth Sunday of Advent

(Not a real full-fledged homily...more like lengthy musings;)

A lot of smallness in our readings...
The Lord says:
You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah,
Too small to be among the clans of Judah, 
and then from that smallness:
From you shall come forth...
and then greatness
...reaching to the ends of the earth.
not particularly predictable

And then to think of the story of Mary and Elizabeth
The Visitation...as a meeting of wombs.
Wombs housing such smallness
But that is the very cool thing about the incarnation
So small
so seemingly insignificant
So... so... so... particular
that it is scandalous
Why Mary, Why Joseph, Why Jesus,
Why then, and why there???
Why? 
Because it had to be
some-time, some-where, among some-folk
Otherwise all there would be is
another idea about God,
another proposition about God,
another theory about God
We learn to love because
we are first loved
by persons…not ideas or propositions or theories
No…loved into being by God
and loved into fullness
by particular and fleshy persons
The incarnation
…the christmas miracle
is our believing that our own particularity
little ole me and little ole you… 
WE...in all of our seeming littleness,
We...can... together...
give flesh to the body of Christ
and when we get that right
that Christ in us thing
There is mighty power!
...power to change the world
I married into a small family...large in numbers,
but size-wise, on the petit side.
What I have learned is that small really does predict a certain mightiness.
And of course that fits in with the gospel message of reversal...the first shall be last etc. 
Mary was a nobody...small in many ways. 
Bethlehem, the same.
And soon we will find Mary
giving birth in the small Bethlehem stable
and changing the world!
Perhaps my own smallnesses,
the things I'd rather not draw attention to,
are exactly those things God might treasure in me. Perhaps those smallnesses
are what the world at my door needs?
Of Mary's smallness was born Jesus who is called the Christ
What am I birthing out of the gift of my life and faith?
What are we as a Christian community birthing?

There is no such thing as
too small
too insignificant
too lowly

Today
Micah,
Elizabeth and John,
and Mary and Jesus
Are making that most perfectly clear!


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