What are your plans for Christmas? That’s been a common question the last couple of weeks. It’s a question I’ve asked and been asked. Some are traveling, others are staying home. Some will have a big gathering of family and friends, others will have a more quiet low key Christmas. Food and gifts are parts of most people’s plans. 

I haven’t yet had anyone answer, “Well, I’m planning to celebrate the birth of Jesus in my life.” But then neither have I answered that way. And I don’t think that’s what Mary was planning either when the angel Gabriel shows up in today’s gospel (Luke 1:26-38).

We all make plans, not only at Christmas but every day. Most nights when I go to bed I already know what I will do the next day. I get up at the same time each morning and follow the same routine. My calendar tells me where I will be, when, and what I will do for at least the next six or seven months. I have an ongoing to-do list and expectations for my future. I’ve planned my life. What about you? Is your life like that too? What are your plans for life?

A few month ago I was listening to a colleague reflect on the last couple years of his life. They’ve been hard years, painful years. Things he never wanted or imagined possible happened. 

He said, “I just thought I knew what faith was. I had no idea. I didn’t have faith, I had a plan.”

“I didn’t have faith, I had a plan.”

I was struck by his honesty, insight, and wisdom. And then I cringed as I recognized myself in what he said. His words pierced my piety, and spoke a truth about my life. 

Most days I don’t live by faith, I live by my plans. Maybe you do too. I get through most days without faith. I plan my life and I live my plan. Faith doesn’t really enter into it until my plans get interrupted and the impossible happens. 

I think that’s often what’s going on when we ask someone to pray for us or another asks us to pray for her or him. It’s often why names are added to the Sunday prayers of the people. Our plans have been interrupted.

We see that kind of interruption happen to Mary in today’s gospel. Our sacred tradition teaches that she had been living in the temple for about eleven years since the age of three. (Holy Apostles Convent, The Life of The Virgin Mary, The Theotokos, 25, 68) She didn’t intend to marry let alone get pregnant. (Ibid., 60-60) She planned to remain in the temple. Nevertheless, she was betrothed to Joseph and gave birth to Jesus when she was about fifteen years old. (Ibid., 68)

What she never expected or planned for happened. We hear that in her question to the angel Gabriel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” She could just as well have said, “That’s impossible.”

Haven’t there been times when you’ve also asked Mary’s question? I don’t mean the virgin part, but the “How can this be?” part. Haven’t there been times when what you never expected or imagined possible happened? Haven’t there been times when you’ve said something like, “I can’t believe this is happening,” “It’s impossible,” “This is unbelievable,” “I never thought this would happen,” “How can this be?”

It might be the last thing you ever wanted to happen, or it might be something you never thought about or considered, or it might be something you had hoped and dreamed for all your life. Regardless, the impossible showed up and interrupted your plans. It’s a moment that calls forth and tests our faith. It asks us to make an offering and that’s very different from making a plan. 

Plans are about the future. An offering, however, is about the present moment. Plans are made with desires for and expectations of a particular outcome. That’s why we plan, to get what we want. An offering, however, is made without expectations and without the need to control or determine the outcome. Plans set limitations. Offerings hold unknown potential and possibilities. 

When Gabriel, messenger of the impossible, shows up Mary doesn’t try to explain, understand, or rationalize what is happening. That’s just more planning. Instead, she makes an offering. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

I don’t want us to be naive about the offering Mary makes. I can easily imagine that even as she makes her offering she’s asking herself, “What will happen to me now? Will Joseph believe any of this? Will he stick around? What will the neighbors say and how will they look at me now?” And let’s not forget that we know how the story goes and that a “sword that will pierce [her] own soul too.” (Luke 2:35)

Her offering is risky. It puts here in a vulnerable place. It doesn’t guarantee an outcome. It doesn’t necessarily fix anything or mean that everything will be okay. And that’s true for any offering you or I might make. It’s just a first step. 

Mary’s offering today will be followed by another offering when she goes to her cousin Elizabeth and her soul magnifies the Lord and her spirit rejoices in God her savior, and another offering when she gives birth to Jesus and treasures and ponders all the shepherds tell her, and another offering when she places her newborn son in the hands of the old priest Simeon, and another offering when she stands at the foot of the cross. Mary didn’t plan, she offered. Offering after offering. What if we lived more like that?

I’m not suggesting you that you should completely give up planning, I’m probably not going to either. But what if we held our plans a bit more loosely? What if we met each person and the circumstances of our life asking ourselves, “What’s the offering I can make in this place at this time?”

Maybe that’s really what faith is about – making an offering and letting go of the outcome. What might that look like and mean in your life today? What’s the offering you can make? What’s the offering being asked of you today?

Whatever that offering is, it just might give birth to the divine in this time and place. After all, “What good does Gabriel’s ‘Ave, Mary’ do / Unless he give[s] [you and] me that same greeting too?” (Angelus Silesius)

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Image Credit: By John William Waterhouse – Art Renewal Center, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.