12/13/20 “Will You Accept Your Anointing?” by Nancy E. Petty
Isaiah 61:1-4; Luke 1:46-55 and John 1:6-8
The prophet proclaimed:
“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the oppressed…”
Mary, the mother of Jesus, sang:
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant.”
And the Gospel of John reads:
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.”
The year was 1988. The month was August. I had just graduated seminary. And on Sunday, August 21 I knelt on the chancel steps of Greystone Baptist Church. One-by-one, members of that congregation laid their hands on me. They anointed me with their prayers and love as they ordained me to the ministry that I had expressed a calling to. It was a powerful spiritual experience but it was also a beautiful human experience. Never had I felt so blessed, so loved, so chosen. It was an experience that continues to bring deep joy to my life.
Some years later, I remember talking with a Pullen member after having a service of ordination here at Pullen. This member was not the one being ordained but she had participated in the laying on of hands of the one being ordained. After the service, she said to me, “I wish I could receive such a blessing. To have people lay their hands on you and bless you must be an incredible feeling.” I have never forgotten her words and have wondered about the wisdom of her reflection. What would it be like for the church to be in the business of blessing and anointing all people?
I guess some would argue that baptism is the church’s ritual for anointing, for affirming God’s favor, for being chosen to “prepare the way” for God’s love and light in the world. At Pullen, we might also point to rituals like parent-child dedication and the Rite-13 ritual as acts of anointing, or at least blessing. But what if we anointed teachers, social workers, doctors, activists, organizers, bankers, artists, lawyers, stay-at-home moms and dads, counselors, administrators, and researchers? What if we anointed every single person for the work they have been chosen to do in the world?
I can hear the argument now. By anointing everyone, then no one would feel special. Anointing is for those special people called by God for something “special.” Not for ordinary people who haven’t been to God school.
I would counter that argument by pointing to Isaiah, Mary and John—ordinary people of their day anointed, favored, and called by God to bring good news, God’s embodied love and light into the world. Some would want to argue with me that Isaiah was no ordinary person. By the fact that he is called a prophet carries with it some sense of “being called by God” to speak on behalf of God. But what we forget is that prophets were not as revered in their day as they have become in the pages of Christian theology. Prophets were often seen as nobodys preaching doom and gloom. They were often persecuted and their messages rejected; they were rarely listened to by others and when their words threatened the dominate systems of power they were silenced. Being a prophet was not a place of status in the ancient Israel. No one would have seen that role as a “favored” position. More than likely, many would have viewed Isaiah as an outlier. So when he spoke the words, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners” most people around him would have responded, “Oh, there is poor old Isaiah talking crazy again.” He would not have been seen as someone anointed or favored by God. That status was held by those inside the dominate systems, both religious and political, where the people with the “right titles” and robes were the “real” anointed ones.
It would have been the same with John, Jesus’ cousin. This man sent by God is remembered as the beloved disciple or “the one whom Jesus loved.” There is nothing spectacular about John other than he was one of the 12 apostles – a disciple of Jesus – traveling the countryside with a message that was hardly believable. He was an ordinary man, a fisherman by trade, who God sent as a witness to testify to the light – the true light that was coming into the world. It was this fisherman that God chose, anointed, favored to usher in God’s commonwealth.
But if you are not convinced by Isaiah and John as being ordinary people anointed by God then surely you will be convinced by the young single woman that God chose to give birth to the baby who would humanly and divinely embody God’s radical justice-love in the world in ways that would change the world forever. Listen again to how she describes her life.
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant…God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; and filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
Hear those words, again and again… “God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant…God has lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry.” It is an amazing story. God anointed an unmarried young woman to give birth to love and hope and peace and joy in the world. God found favor in her, blessed her and affirmed her God-given worth when her world saw her as a nobody; and she changed the trajectory of the world’s history. It is the alternative narrative of our faith. God anoints, ordains, favors, blesses those the world sees as nobodys.
It reminds me of one of my predecessor’s favorite Emily Dickinson poems. It was not unusual for Bill Finlator, either at the beginning of our visits or at the end, to look at me and begin reciting Dickinson. He would say, Nancy…
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
The lectionary text from the Gospel of John for today included verses 19-28 of chapter 1. We didn’t read them earlier. That was intentional. But that part of the text describes the answer John gave when the priests and Levites from Jerusalem ask him, “Who are you?” They quizzed him: Are you the Messiah? Are you Elijah? Are you the prophet? His answer: “I am not the Messiah. I am not Elijah. I am not the prophet. I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord.”
Here is the headline from today’s lessons from Isaiah and Mary and John. We are all anointed for whatever work God has called us to do and is calling us to do. We are all favored in God’s eyes and when we say “yes” to that favor we find our deepest and most joyful meaning in life. We are all called to be witnesses to the light, to cry out in the wilderness, to make straight the way of the Lord. It is John who is explicit though in reminding us that we have to know who we are and who we are not.
This brings another memory to mind that is stamped deeply on me. As I sat in my office the day you voted to make me your pastor, a reporter was sitting in my office with me. She said to me, “Bill Finlator was known for his passion and work for justice, specifically racial justice. Mahan Siler was known for welcoming the LGBT community into the church and blessing same-gender holy unions. What will you be known for?” I remember looking at her and saying, “I can’t be Bill Finlator. I can’t be Mahan Siler. I can only be me and I don’t know how God will use me in my ministry here but I will try my best to be faithful to who God has created me to be and to whatever God calls me to do.”
Who are you? John told them: I am not the Messiah. I am not Elijah. I am not the prophet. I am the one crying out in the wilderness. We can only be who we are and remain faithful on the journey of becoming who we are as God’s beloved. We are not all anointed for the same work, but we are all anointed. We are not all favored to do the same task, but we are all favored. We are not all called to cry out in the wilderness in the same way, but we are all called to cry out for justice and love and hope and peace and joy.
On this Joy Sunday, I simply want to remind you and me that our deepest joy in life comes when we live our most authentic life; when we can discern and stay true to who we are as unique and wonderfully created individuals beloved by God and each favored by God. This is our true joy. It is the lesson of Isaiah and Mary and John. Your joy will come when you live your best life believing that you are anointed, favored and sent by God to be light in the world.
Thomas Merton, the American Trappist monk, says it this way.
At the center of our being is a point of pure nothingness which is untouched by sin and illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark that belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God written in us. It is so to speak God’s name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship [and daugthership]. It is like a pure diamond blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.
Joy – the joy birthed in the Christ-child – is the joy of that little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty that is the pure glory of God written in us. In all of us. In everybody. It is the truth of Dickinson’s poem. We are nobodys anointed, favored and sent by God to be that blazing light in the world that vanishes all darkness and cruelty in the world.
Are you, are we willing to accept our anointing as nobodys and at the same time be God’s divine hope, peace, joy and love in the world by being our most authentic selves? I believe in you. And I believe in us to be the anointed nobodys in the world that make a difference in the world.
