Searching for a sign

Luke 1:26-47

I think it’s pretty normal to want a sign that we’re on the right path. I’m not talking about a street sign or neon flashing sign, but—especially when things seem confusing or stressful—some sort of symbol or indication that we’re headed in the right direction. Thankfully, God is big on signs, sort of like little love notes sent to people that are in a bind or walking through tough moments.  

For Abraham when he was feeling pretty stressed out, God somehow illuminated the twinkling stars of the heavens and said, “there you go, there is your sign that you will have many descendants.”

For Moses, there was a burning bush that he stumbles upon in the desert which is so overwhelmingly holy that he immediately takes off his shoes.  (Then, lucky him, he gets to dole out 10 signs or plagues to Pharoah that carry their own potent message). 

In the case of Mary of Nazareth, she gets a whole conversation with an angel named Gabriel. Each of these people needed these signs because each of them was facing some sort of big life challenge. They needed a little extra reassurance of God’s presence with them as they stepped into the unknown that was before them. 

In the case of Mary, she had received life-changing news from the angel.  Her initial response was dramatic as she tried to get her head in the game.  She immediately took off “with haste” scripture says to visit someone she could trust. Mary’s village was not going to be okay with this news. Joseph was certainly reeling. So she treks about 60 miles out into the hill country to visit her elder cousin, Elizabeth.  

Elizabeth is so much older than Mary that she is probably more of what we might think of as an auntie figure.  Elizabeth has known her fair share of hard knocks along the way of life, the smile lines run deep into her face, and when Mary comes rushing into her house with news about an angel and a pregnancy tumbling out of her, Elizabeth opens her heart and arms wide and wraps her in love.   

After time with Elizabeth,who is grappling with her own miraculous pregnancy with John the Baptist, Mary is able to face this enormous challenge before her.  Something in her changed while she was with Elizabeth. She made sense of this sign, this visit from Gabriel and she prepared herself for the task ahead.

While Mary responded faithfully to God, this isn’t always the case. Signs can be great and reassuring. The tricky thing is that they can also be misinterpreted.  

Harriet Powers was a 19th century African American quilter.  One of her two surviving quilts now hangs in the Smithsonian.  This particular quilt in the Smithsonian shows different scenes from the bible where signs from God were misinterpreted or even ignored.  In one scene, you see Noah’s neighbors making light of his ark and then refusing to join him—we all know how that turned out.   In another panel, you see Jonah ignoring a sign from God and then ending up in the belly of a whale. Then, in another square, you see the dove descending on Christ in his baptism which all of humanity later ignores when he is crucified.  

I first learned about Harriet Powers’ quilts from African American theologian, Dr. Donyelle McCray. In the bible quilt about the signs, Dr. McCray thinks that, Ms. Powers also quilted the stories of contemporary signs from her time that showed God’s judgement.  

For example, on one day in 1780 there was a creepy dark, dark day where you couldn’t see the sun (this was later attributed to pollution) and she quilted a scene about it. 

She also quilted a panel about a particularly spectacular meteor shower from her lifetime. On that night of the meteor shower in 1833, maybe God had hoped the people with respond with awe that would open their hearts, but instead, animals, horses and cows galloped and ran like wild all over the place. People screamed and hid, they thought the world was ending.  

Ms. Powers' quilt, which is a sermon in its’ own way, might be showing us that, yep, there are signs that appear to us, but what we do or how we respond when we receive these signs is key.  Some people respond to these signs from God in faithfulness, and some people, as Ms. Powers showed us in her quilt, don’t. 

 So what about us today? Have you ever sought some sort of sign you’re on the right path? Do you seek one now? When she was reflecting on Harriet Power’s quilt, Dr. McCray observed that there comes a point where we must stop seeking signs and act on the ones we’ve been given. And, she went on to explain, we have all been given the sign of all signs, man of sorrow, wonderful counselor, prince of peace in the person of Jesus.  While the cross is certainly important, the whole life of Jesus including the way he lived, and healed and blessed and prayed, is a sign to us today that requires a faithful response from us. It calls for a certain way of living from us, that centers grace, compassion, generosity and hope in the midst of a weary world.

Eventually, Dr. McCray explains, something amazing happens to us when we live our lives in response to Jesus this way. When we tune our lives to the life of Jesus, we no longer seek signs, we become them.

Look at Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin: In her gracious and accepting hospitality, she became a sign to Mary of God’s gracious love.

I’m sure many of us can think of people in our lives who have been signs to us and assured us that we are on the right path, especially in those moments of stress or challenge.

Becoming a sign of God’s love might seem like a tall order. Believe me: No one does this perfectly—unless you know how to walk on water—but, God uses the ordinary stuff of our lives to make signs of holy love, justice and joy in the world. 

Even in times of great trial, when we are completely unraveled and barely holding on, even then, God still somehow uses us as signs to reflect a holy light to those around us. 

Today, we will baptize Florence Dahlia into the life of Christ.  Florence already is a sign of God’s gracious love in the world. It’s easy to see this in her as a beautiful baby. But in time, as she fixes her eyes on Jesus, she will deepen in her ability to become a sign of God’s gracious love in the world she will learn this through her loved ones and through you all. Any number of us in here today can assure her that she will certainly mess this up and fail at being God’s light at some point. Any number of us could tell her that this broken world is imperfect: sometimes systems fail and people are cruel and stingy.  Sometimes, the shadows seem overpowering. And any number of us will come around her in precisely those moments of shadow and pain as signs of God’s gracious love. 

Our lives with God are a conversation of listening and responding, of living and dying and rising again. For everywhere that Jesus went—that Love went—the world was not just reimagined, but remade. Just when we least expect it, God will use us as signs that remake the world one moment at a time.