This morning one of my thoughts was about the possibility that Mary wasn't the first woman the angel visited... there is no scriptural basis for this, it is pure, mischievous, conjecture.  But what if the angel had arrived at the home of, let's say, Ruth, and Ruth had said 'erm, no, I don't think so'... so the angel went to the home of Naomi, and Naomi said, 'erm... why don't you ask Martha'...  so the angel continued visiting woman after woman until one said yes?  What, then, if Mary had said 'no'?  Was there a 'plan B', another woman to ask?  What might history have looked like if no one had been prepared to bear the Christ?  What would God have done then?

Heresy?

Maybe.

But what of us.  How often are we guilty of 'here I am , Lord, send him/her'?  How often do we say 'no thank you' to what might just turn out to be God's call on our lives?  How often is God's gracious gift of free will the cause of God having to formulate Plan B or C (unless of course you have a complete predestination theology)....

There is something about human sin and finitude that means we can, and do, say 'no' to God.  So perhaps it's not so impossible to think that Mary (and others) could have too.

God of Mary, world-changing, ordinary woman

Help us to be open to hearing the voice of your messenger bringing news of your call on our lives.

Then give us the humilty,

Give us the courage,

Give us the determination,

Give us the confidence

To say -

though we still don't get what it all means -

To say -

though the future will be so different from what we had planned -

To say -

though we struggle to utter the one word you long to hear -

To say

Yes

So Be It

Amen, and amen

This morning we were packed out at church, which was just lovely, even though there were as many people missing as usual.  Some occasional visitors, some returners after a little break, some guests.

And it all felt quite joyful in a fairly gentle, evenly paced kind of a way.

I combined Advent 3 (John the Baptist) an Advent 4 (Mary) under the heading of 'world changers' and we did a little bit of compare and contrast between their lives and the celebrity culture that plagues our own time.  We pondered, necessarily briefly, what me meant by 'changing the world' and who we would identify as people who have changed our own experience of the world, as well as those who have the impacted the coyurse of human history.

An amazing response during the interactive bit - it had been good in previous weeks, but this week was a level up.

So, our wall now has four collage 'trees' on it...

Our Jesse tree, which has one week still to go in terms of symbols to add

Our patriarchs and adventurers tree

Our prophets and discoverers tree

Our world changers tree

And ready for next Sunday we will have our church Christmas tree twinkling in a corner, as the children lead us their wonderful retelling of the Christmas story.