Welcome to the fourth and final week of our homily series we are calling “Your Best Yes.” As we’ve said the last several weeks, we are in the midst of the most hectic time of the year, the Christmas season, and even though it’s all good, it can at times be overwhelming. Because we’ve still got to do everything and deal with everything we’re currently dealing with. It is a good problem. It means we are blessed in many ways with many things. But it is a problem nonetheless. All the good stuff can start to feel like pressure.
What we need is a strategy. We need a plan, for the holidays for sure, but really moving forward into the New Year, for more sustainable, successful living in 2019. For the course of this series, we’ve been talking about that strategy in terms of the idea of discernment. Discernment is about judgment, not just the good from the bad, But the good from the greater good. And the greater good from the greatest good. God actually wants to get involved and really can help us out when it comes to making good and great decisions. We will find the best yes when we invite God into our decision making process.
Discernment is also about understanding we do have a choice. God made you free to make decisions. He made you capable of discernment. You can choose to say yes, and you can choose to say no. And the best way to know when to say yes and when to say no is to base your discernment in love. That’s really what this series is all about, discernment in love. Over the course of this series We’re looking at how we can grow to love God, love others and, inspired by that love, make disciples through our very best yes.
Two weeks ago we talked about loving God by trusting him. To really love God is to really trust him. Last week we talked about loving others by sharing with them. Just as trusting God is the easiest, most efficient way to love him. Sharing is the easiest, most efficient way to love others.
To close out this series we’re moving closer into the Christmas story. The Christmas story is presented in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. The first introduction of Mary comes in the first chapter of Luke when the angel Gabriel appears to her. Gabriel reveals that God intends to send the long awaited Messiah into the world and that God has chosen Mary to be his mother. But, that is only what God would like to do. That is what God wants to do. God can do whatever he wants to do, but Gabriel tells Mary not what God is going to do but what he wants to do. What will happen all depends on her, without her cooperation it won’t happen. Luke tells us: Mary was greatly troubled and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Luke 1.29
So Mary… pondered. She thought about it, she contemplated it. She considered, she deliberated. She could have said yes and she could have said no. And with the course of human history hung in the balance, this moment of decision is the supremely dramatic moment in all of history, And then, and then Mary said: Let it be done to me according to your word. Luke 1.38 Mary said, “Yes.” Which, of course, is her best yes as well as the best yes ever. The best yes of all of history. That is not, however the end of this story. Look what happens next. What is the very first thing she does in response to her best yes to God? Luke tells us, Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. Luke 1:39-40
Mary immediately thinks of someone else. She undertakes an uncomfortable difficult journey to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who herself is pregnant with the child who would grow up to be John the Baptist. And Luke tells us Elizabeth embraces Mary’s faith as she says: Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Luke 1.42 Mary is sharing Jesus with Elizabeth. She is bringing Jesus Christ to Elizabeth. Receiving Christ, Mary shares Christ.
Christianity is different from every other religion. God has already done the heavy lifting and the hard work, coming to us in the most radical way possible – by entering human history as a helpless baby. God humbled himself to come to us. Christianity says we don’t have to earn our way, nor can we earn our way. God does it for us. Though it is certainly one of the goals of Christian living: to be a good person, to live a good life. But you don’t get to heaven by being good or doing good; our good does not earn God for us. God freely gives himself to us. So God did it for us, that’s Gabriel’s message to Mary and the message of Christmas for us. He did it for us.
Salvation is about accepting Christ into your life, repeating the same yes Mary did, giving God your best yes, and receiving Christ into your life. Ultimately, whatever other “yeses” you’ve got going on in your life, saying yes to Christ is your best yes. And the corollary to that, the “so what”, the “what now” to receiving Jesus into your life is sharing him with others, just as Mary did with Elizabeth. But people aren’t always exactly as open to connecting with Christ as Elizabeth was. And we are afraid of how they might respond, unsure of what we should say. We often believe that we don’t have the tools or skills to bring Christ to others… not to mention the motivation. We think: What am I supposed to say or do?
Do what Mary did. Be present to people and serve them. This is what Mary did with Elizabeth. Mary went to serve Elizabeth. And in the process Elizabeth met Jesus Christ in Mary’s womb. Serving others, helping others, opens up opportunities to influence them for Christ. By your love, they will know Jesus.
Over the holidays we have a unique opportunity to do both. This week there will be opportunities to simply be present with people. And if you go in with the mindset that you want to introduce them to Christ, an opportunity may present itself. Who is one person who doesn’t have a relationship with God that you can make yourself available to? My guess is that someone is coming to mind. Make yourself available to that person. If appropriate, invite them to join us on Christmas Eve or Christmas Mass here at Saint Mary. But more importantly invest in that person this week, or over Christmas week, with the purpose, with the mindset that you want to introduce them into a relationship with Christ. You never even have to say the word. Just invest in the relationship and believe that God will act. Simply invest in them, and let God do the rest. Believe that God will move through you, and God promises to be with you whenever you intentionally try to connect others to Jesus.
This Christmas celebrate the Good News by sharing it. Make that your best yes.
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