December 20, 2009 Discerning Our Role

Luke 1: 46-55
Not all of us can get pregnant.

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
Questions:

  1. What different roles do you have in life?
  2. Do your roles change?
  3. How is a set of tasks different from a role?
  4. Do we have roles we are unaware of?
  5. How can our roles in life hurt us?  Help us?
  6. What is Mary's role in God's reign?
  7. What is yours?


Sermon - “Discerning Our Roles”

Have you ever tried out for a play or a musical?  Have you ever waited anxiously for the posting to see what part you got?  Would you be the spearholder or the king?  Would the role suit you or would you have to ‘put on’ the character?  Of course the most important roles in our life are handed out often without our involvement.

We have clusters of expectations and scripts that are called roles that play a large part in determining who we are. We negotiate our roles within the pressures of expectations and stereotypes, but we undeniably have roles in life. Artists and psychologists agree that in many ways, 'all the world's a stage' and that we take on certain patterns of talk and behavior that give structure to our personalities.

Often situations force these roles on us, however we modify them.  When we are born into a family, we have a birth order that weighs upon us.  Perhaps we are the oldest, perhaps the baby.  Right from the very beginning of our lives, there are situations that call forth from us a particular set of responses that become a role.  How we discern and embrace these roles is the question of the morning.

The roles that come from the situations of our lives may or may not be accepted.  As Paul wrote, “when I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” But we all know people who refuse to grow up, who decide not to take on the role of an adult.  Later in life a woman may leap at the role of mother, or not.  Some people may deny that they are grandparents in the way they act because they just can't see themselves as old enough to be a grandparent.

Our family position is just one of the undeniable role positions in which we are placed.  At some point, we live someplace and take up a role in relation to the people around us.  Whether we like it or not, we are neighbors to someone.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus tells a parable that broadens our understanding of the role a neighbor takes because he knows we all have the role of the neighbor.

At some point we get jobs and become employees or bosses and have role relationships with clients and co-workers.  We take on occupations that have role expectations attached.  Physicians are supposed to act a particular way, pastors another.  In any profession, when you reach a certain level, fame forces another role.  A famous figure once said "If you are given a chance to be a role model, I think you should always take it because you can influence a person's life in a positive light, and that's what I want to do. That's what it's all about."  Unfortunately, the person who said this was Tiger Woods.

Others respond to situations in ways that give us hope.  Neil Armstrong didn’t set out to be the first person on the moon.  He simply embraced what came to him.   He said once in an interview, “Yeah, I wasn't chosen to be first. . . .Circumstance put me in that particular role. That wasn't planned by anyone.”

Today we observe the response of Mary who was in a very strange situation. She was about to become a mother in a situation that could have gone quite sour.  In Luke's version, Mary's embracing of her role in the divine drama takes place before Joseph enters the scene at all.  She had every reason to disbelieve that her role could be anything but social outcast and mother of trouble.  Her position of humility, however, made her the perfect vehicle for the demonstration of God's grace.  She allowed her role to become holy.  She brought God into her situation and transformed the role of unwed mother into the role of handmaiden of God.  The world has never been the same.

There are two points I would like to make about all this.

1. God calls us all to particular roles.
2. We need to discern and embrace the role situation we are in.

In church we teach that all have been chosen by God for particular parts of the job of redemption.  In First Corinthians, Paul wrote a passage we used in our stewardship campaign this year: "to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines."

But there is a broader context than the roles we have in church.  John Calvin understood our whole life to be a vocation called by God.  He wrote "It will also be no small alleviation of his cares, labours, troubles, and other burdens, when a person knows that in all these things  he has God for his guide. The magistrate will execute his office with greater pleasure, the father of a family will confine himself to his duty with more satisfaction, and all, in their respective spheres of life, will bear and surmount the inconveniences, cares, disappointments, and anxieties which befall them, when they shall be persuaded that every individual has his burden laid upon him by God. Hence also will arise peculiar consolation, since there will be no employment so mean and sordid (provided we follow our vocation) as not to appear truly respectable, and be deemed h'ghly important in the sight of God"

Being the baby of the family can be an excuse for irresponsibility or a springboard to creativity.  Being a baker can be a daily drudge or can be a vehicle for God.  This means investing a holiness in our situations that often transcends the stereotypes of our roles.

God and Mary conspired together to transform use her role as mother and handmaiden of God for the salvation of the world.  What role of yours shall be transformed?

We may have romantic notions of some future world in which we are superheroes, but the future is closer than we think, and is apparent that God chooses to arrive in the vessel of what already is.  Each of the roles that you now have can be the vehicle for the coming transformations of God . . . or not.  As Glinda, the good witch of the south asked Dorothy, “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”

The discernment we are called to is how our roles can also be roles in the kingdom of God.  In his inaugural address John Kennedy talked about embracing a role.  He said "In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility - I welcome it."

My father often told me he didn't mind if I became a ditch digger as long I was a good ditch digger.  God tells us something similar:  You are a ditch digger for a particular holy reason.  You have a role in God’s realm.  There are no small parts in the grand scheme of things.  We may need to transform the role of being a child to our parents as time goes on.  We may need to mold the role of teacher around our particular skills, but the casting list has been posted, we have been cast in a holy and wonderful production.  Break a leg.








----------------------------
Unused:

My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.  John Lennon

I'm not a role model... Just because I dunk a basketball doesn't mean I should raise your kids.  Charles Barkley