One of the checkout clerks at my neighborhood supermarket is a young,
very engaging African American fellow with an unfailingly positive
outlook on life and really big dreams – which he sometimes shares with
me: a higher-paying job, a law degree, winning the lottery, a knockout
of a wife (his words!), a round-the-world cruise, and most recently, a
trip to Mars. Whenever he shares one of his dreams with me he
looks me in the eye and adds, “You know, ain’t nothin’ impossible for
God.” I love his spirit and, of course, I never disagree with him
about that!
“Nothin’s impossible for God.” That’s the
message that literally leaps out of today’s scripture readings. In the
reading from the Prophet Micah we were told that Bethlehem, little,
insignificant Bethlehem – no more than a wide spot in the road, a fly
speck on the map – would produce the One who would be ruler in Israel.
Bethlehem? Why not mighty Jerusalem, the glorious city on the
hill? Why Bethlehem? Well, the short answer is that God
likes to work wonders with very little; the short answer is that
“nothing is impossible for God.”
We got the same story in today’s passage from
Luke’s gospel. A nobody, an unknown young girl by the name of Mary in a
backwater town called Nazareth is visited by an angel, presented with an
invitation from God, gives her consent, and finds herself with child by
the Holy Spirit. She then runs off into the hill country to visit her
cousin Elizabeth - old and thought to be sterile – who is herself about
to give birth to a son. Unlikely? Absolutely. Impossible?
No. Because “nothing is impossible for God.”
My friends, this will be a short homily because
I’m going to ask you to complete it and I don’t think you’ll have much
trouble doing so since this story about God doing the unlikely and even
the impossible is written into nearly every page of Scripture (think of
Moses, David, Peter, the Twelve, the Samaritan woman, the Magdalene, St.
Paul). It is written into nearly every page of Scripture and it is
written into your life and mine.
So, let’s turn the mirror on ourselves for a
moment and ask a few questions: What have I declared to be impossible in
my life? Shaking an old habit? Overcoming a crippling addiction?
Breaking out of my self-centeredness? Becoming more loving? Saving
my marriage? Loving a difficult family member? Being more ethical at
work? Becoming a saint?
Or take a little broader look and ask ourselves
what else we’ve given up on? Our idealism? Our hopes for the Church, for
our country? Making a dent in the glaring inequalities that cause hunger
and homelessness? Bringing climate change under control? The possibility
of world peace?
If we find ourselves saying yes to these things
and others like them, the question then becomes: what will it take for
us to believe again – really believe - that we have a God who, with our
cooperation, turns things around: makes the crooked ways straight and
the rough ways smooth, a God who never runs out of surprises, a God who
can do so much with so little – with tiny Bethlehem, with insignificant
Mary, with you, with me.
My friends, what would it be like if we were to
draw close to the crib this Christmas – with all its smells and all its
squalor yet with all the glory of the Godhead wrapped in rags – what
would it be like if we were to see there, perhaps for the first time, a
whole new world of endless and exciting possibilities, thanks to the God
for whom nothing – absolutely nothing – is impossible!
Father Michael G. Ryan
|
|
