Look at our lessons, the one from the Hebrew Scriptures (2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16), and the one from the Gospels (Luke 1: 26-38). In both of them, people who had reasonable expectations of what they should do next are totally astonished by God coming forward front and center and saying “no!” you will do this instead!

The story about David is not very well known in our circles, but it is important, and all the more so by being on this particular Sunday, when we normally focus on Mary. But David sets the scene, as it were. We are used to David “setting the scene” by being named as an ancestor for both Mary and Joseph. It was part of the make-up of what the messiah would be, a descendent of King David. They knew their family lines back twenty generations, and the interesting thing about the Davidic line is the number of women that are named – and all of these women are, shall we say, shady ladies?  Did you ever think about that? Mary is just the last in a whole line of women who were not considered paragons of virtue.

But we’ll get back to Mary and her female ancestry in a minute. In this small story about David, God is telling David no. No, God says, you will not do the thing that kings do, you may build yourself a big palace, but you will not build me a house. Rather, I will build you a house. David is thinking in terms of a big temple for God, God is thinking in terms of ancestry. Both ways of thinking use the same word “house,” which in Hebrew is bet or beth, as in beth-el, which means house of God. David is thinking small when he thinks he is thinking big. David thinks, now that I have made it as a king, I should do the king thing, I should build a big temple. David is thinking too small. God tells him to get over himself, that he is not going to build a house for God, that is too small. Rather, God is going to make a house out of the line of David, one that will last forever.

Now this is the kind of talk that is written down after the fact. Do I think that this conversation actually happened? Not really! Does that matter? Not really! Because, whether it was actually said or not, I think there are some important things for us to consider in this passage. They revolve around what is important to whom. What do we think is important? What do we think is important to God? Have we checked to make sure that those things we think are important are also the things that God considers important?

How do we know what God considers important? I always come back to Micah 6:8. “God has told you, human one, what is good and what the Lord requires from you: to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.”(CEB) Here is what God wants, pure and simple. As far as God was concerned (or at least the prophet was saying God was concerned, it matters not), David wanting to build a temple was not about God, it was about David looking good. It was about David looking like a king, not about looking like God’s servant. God was having none of it.

One of the things I have learned, am learning, and will continue to learn, is that God has a sense of humor, and that therefore God finds the limitations we put on things rather humorous. The latest example of this for me is that we decided it was time to sell our Ford Explorer. We originally bought it to be able to tow the RV. There’s just one problem. Even though we wanted to sell the Ford, we still needed it to be able to tow the RV when we were ready to sell it. We figured the RV would not sell until the spring. Who buys an RV in the winter? So, we thought, there was no way we could sell the Ford. That was our limitation.

In the meantime, my nephew totaled his car. It is rather much of a tradition in our family that when one of the younger set needs a car, the older generation looks around to see if it is time to upgrade, and let the younger one have a good but older model. Well, we had an extra one sitting around, a nice sedate Passat, and my brother-in-law happened to be in town, so we offered it as a loan, they accepted, and he drove it up to Reno. We asked if they wanted to buy it, and well, no, it was a little too sedate for their taste. So in a fit of generosity, I asked if they wanted to buy my Beetle. They were astonished, and accepted.

In the midst of all of this, talking with my sister about it being time for me to get something that had cruise control, she asked what we were doing with the Ford. What I had not realized was that my brother-in-law had also totaled his car. He wasn’t exactly looking, but what were we asking for it anyway? Here is where we see the humor of God. We could not sell the car because we needed it to tow the RV – unless, of course, we could borrow it back! It gets funnier. On a whim, I put the RV up for sale on a very tiny website, and this week a guy bought it – and just in case I didn’t get the message? He went up north to get it, I didn’t have to tow it at all.

Coincidence? I don’t believe in coincidence.

When we read the genealogy for Mary, we don’t believe in coincidence either. These shady ladies in her history should not have survived, much less have been named in the lists that everyone recited in public. They were not “nice,” these shady ladies. For example, one of them invited the commander of the enemy army into her tent, got him rip-snorting drunk, and then took a tent-peg and quietly bashed it into his head with a mallet. Then she left her tent, of course the enemy didn’t pay attention, because she was seen as a camp-woman, she went to the commander of the Israelite army, and told him that his enemy was dead. Gutsy, courageous, inventive, but not nice.

Whatever happened between Mary and the angel, the fact of the matter was that she got pregnant, and Joseph knew it was not his, because, as the narrator is quick to point out, Joseph was a good man. That is, he was not one to press himself upon his fiancée too quickly. The story goes on to say that at six months, that is, when she was beginning to show, she ran away to her cousin’s house, so she would not be stoned. Small villages tend to have very strict moral codes, and she had broken one of the big ones. The question was whether Joseph was going to accept this child or not. He said he would, the village calmed down, and it was safe for Mary to come home again. But everyone was clear that this was Mary’s baby, not Joseph’s. It is easy for us to miss the nasty call of “bastard” when we hear the adult Jesus being called son of Mary.

But Mary is just the last of a long line of shady ladies in the lineage of David. She too is strong, she too sings the song of the underdog, the song of the oppressed, the song of Hannah. Hannah was barren, and her husband loved her too much to divorce her and marry someone who could bear children. Hannah’s prayers were granted, there was also an angelic visitation, and when she finally had the child she sang the prototype of the Magnificat, our canticle this morning (Canticle 15 ). And Hannah’s song recalls the song of Miriam, again, the song of the underdog who defeats the oppressor, who at that time was the pharoah and his army. And lest we forget, the name Mary is just the Anglicized version of Miriam.

So again, we have a wonderful story, a myth, that is, a truth that is told to us in a story. Was there an angel? Did it all happen this way? Who knows? Who cares? That’s not the point. Like the story of David wanting to build a house, and God saying no, here we have the story of Mary, and God’s request that Mary say yes.

The details are unimportant. The concept is critical.

Are we like David? Are we willing to listen to God say no to what seems right? Are we willing to listen to the prophet? Are we willing to let go of the usual societal expectations to do what God wants for us?Are we willing to listen to God?

Are we like Mary? Are we willing to say yes? Even when it looks totally crazy, even when we could lose everything we had worked for, even when all our friends and relatives line up to stop us, will we say yes to God? Are we willing to listen?

That’s the question for this morning, will we listen to God? What do you think? Will you listen to God? Be prepared for something new.