The Chance to Love--December 11, 2019

The Chance to Love--December 11, 2019

"In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.  The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, 'Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.' But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus'." [Luke 1:26-31]

As much as it is a gift of grace to be loved in this life, it is also a gift of grace to be given the chance to love as well.  And those who allow us to love them, for however long that invitation is extended to us, they are giving us an immense gift.  

Sometimes I forget that.

Mary's story reminds me, though, when I get forgetful... or more likely, when I start taking this gift of being allowed to love others for granted.  The way the story begins has a way of helping me to hear and see again that it is a gift of grace that God gives Mary the chance to love this child.  Before we get to how the baby will be special, before we even get to the courage and faith of Mary's "yes" (and how the whole universe hangs on her "yes"), there is the announcement of the angel that it is a holy and precious gift Mary has been given.  

The angel's greeting sets the table for the rest of the conversation: "Greetings, favored one!"  You could just as well translate it (a bit more literally, if a little awkward in the English) as "Hello, having-been-graced one!"  This is an important point to stay with for a moment, because later translations (and then even further down the road, a whole line of theology) would slightly skew the original sense and render it, "Greetings, Mary, full of grace."  Yes, that's where the opening line of the prayer to Mary called the "Hail, Mary" comes from.  But notice the shift in emphasis.  If you hear the angel's greeting as "Hail, Mary, full of grace," it sounds like she is being given a reward for her accomplishment of being such a grace-ful person.  It sounds like God went and found the most worthy person and gave her a big gold star of a prize by awarding her the right to birth the Messiah.  But that's not really how the angel's message goes.  As Luke tells it, this is all about grace.  It is all about the gift Mary is being given in the opportunity to love a child.

It is, of course, always difficult to love people--anybody at all.  To genuinely love someone means the inescapable risk that they will not return the love, or that they will bail out, or that they will grow distant, or that they will grow up.  To love someone runs the risk that you will suffer at times because you are with them as they suffer... and it will mean sometimes you suffer alone because they have gone elsewhere, grown up, or moved on.  That is true of every parent's love for their children, every friend's love for another friend, every spouse's love for their husband or wife.  It is a strange grace, and a costly gift, to be given the opportunity to love someone entrusted into your life.  And yet, of course, for anyone who has ever loved anybody else, you know it is worth the price of admission--not even to have the love returned, but simply because it is a holy privilege to be allowed to worry about them, to wipe their tears way, to make them laugh, to help in a time of need, to speak the right word, and to listen in silence.  It is a holy privilege to pay the costs of loving.  Mary doesn't yet know what the costs will be, but she and the angel both know that the costs, however high, are worth it.

Mary will be called upon to reorient her whole life around this child.  She is not simply asked to endure the physical pain of childbirth or the gawking stares of neighbors during the pregnancy as the neighbors whisper and gossip about who they think the father is.  No, her whole life will be poured out in loving this child--even when he grows up and becomes an adult on his own.  Part of being a parent, of course, is that you hold a certain empty space in your life to be available for the sake of your kids, no matter how old they get or how independent they are.  You don't get credit for that empty space, but you are indeed expected to hold your life open, intentionally empty in places, forever, for the sake of loving them.  

That is a beautiful, costly, thing, that emptiness.  Mary will pay it all her life long--not only on the ordinarily difficult days when her son has grown up and is roaming around all the surrounding towns, but also on the terrible Friday afternoon when she has to watch her son die, and to be helpless to stop it, but only able to keep watch.  

All of that is encapsulated in the opening greeting of the angel: "Mary, you are graced, because you have been given the gift of getting to love this child... even though it will cost you a great deal of heartache."  Of course, Mary is getting a window on the cost that God has chosen to pay as well in loving both Mary's boy (who is also God's dear child) and loving the whole world.  God chooses day by day to keep loving the world, despite the costs and the heartache to God's own heart.  And yet, just like Mary, God chooses this love, and chooses the pain of it, because that is how love works--it is a gift, even if a costly one, to get to love others.

So, dear ones, let me ask you this favor, and I will do my utmost to do the same myself: when you are given the opportunity to love others, do not take that lightly or dismiss it.  Do not take that chance for granted, and do not rush to fill in the empty spaces we are meant to keep open so that we can be available for those it has been given to us to love.  There will come a day soon enough for each of us when those opportunities have come and then gone, and it is a damn shame to miss out on the opportunity to love those God has graced us with, even when it means great sorrow, too.

Perhaps the best way to honor this season in which we remember the birth of our Lord and the announcement of the angel to his mother is simply this: to receive it is as gift of grace that we are allowed the chance to love others... and to give ourselves completely to that calling.  And perhaps if we dare to treat each person we meet today as though it is Christ in front of us that we are being asked to love, we will get a glimpse of what ran through Mary's mind as the angel said to her, "Hi, Mary.  You are being given such a gift..."

Lord God, thank you for the privilege it is to be allowed to love people.  Let us not waste or miss the chance when we have it.