Marching for Jesus

When I was seventeen, my grandparents invited me to spend the summer with them in Florida.

Who could say “no” to that?  What teenager, who had spent most of their life in upstate New York, would even have to think before saying “yes” to a summer of sun and beach and salty air?

My grandparents picked me up at a relative’s house in Tennessee one day in June.  The ride from Tennessee to Florida is long and boring on I-75, and even though my only responsibilities were sleeping, eating and reading in the backseat, I was exhausted.

Why are car rides so exhausting?

Sometime in midafternoon, my grandmother twisted around in her seat and with a big smile on her face told me how we were going to be spending my first full day in Florida.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “we’re going to march for Jesus.”

I was raised Catholic.  My grandparents—my dad’s parents—were Southern Baptist and I knew that frequent church activities were part of the spend-the-summer-with-us deal my grandparents had offered me.  I just didn’t know those activities would involve “marching.”

“We’re gonna what the what now?” I believe my response was.

“Tomorrow, we’re going to march for Jesus,” Grandma said again.

Now, I loved Jesus.  Please understand that.  But the last thing I wanted to do on my first day of summer vacation in Florida, or any day of summer vacation, or, quite frankly, any day at all—was march for Jesus.

I was tired and cranky from the long drive.  That was part of it.

It was going to be blistering hot the next day—that was part of it too.

But also, I was an introvert.  I was terrified of any activity that drew attention to me.  And nothing screamed “Hey, look at me!” more than marching in a parade, and a religious parade on top of that.

But my dad didn’t raise me to say “no” to my elders.  I didn’t argue with my grandmother.  I didn’t beg her to please leave me home.  I didn’t sulk.

The next morning, I showed up with my grandparents at a parking lot in downtown Melbourne where the parade organizers were gathering everyone.

I was bitter and angry.  I did not want to be there.

But when one of the organizers asked for volunteers to carry signs, I decided that if I was going to be forced to march, I was going to be the best darn parade marcher they had ever seen.

I raised my hand and was promptly handed a large 2x3 piece of plywood, painted white with the words “Jesus said, ‘Blessed is he who is merciful.’”  There was a piece of rope strung through the top so that the sign could hang from my neck, and, I have to say, it was like the sign was purposely designed as an instrument of torture.

We began the parade and this was no small parade.  There were many churches and thousands of people.  My grandmother disappeared at some point, but my grandfather walked with me. 

I don’t know how far we walked, or how long, but it seemed like miles and it seemed like hours and hours.  It was hot.  It was so hot and that sign was so heavy.

At some point, my grandfather disappeared.

I had no idea where he went.  I was just trying to keep one foot in front of the other, sweat pouring off me.

Suddenly my grandfather reappeared, carrying a large soda from Burger King—a large soda … for himself.

I watched as he took long sips, as the ice-cold condensation rolled off the cup, and I tried not to let that bitterness inside me grow.  Really, I was too tired to be angry.

And then my grandmother pulled up—yes, pulled up, in her air-conditioned car, camera in hand, my great-grandmother in the seat next to her.  She drove alongside of us, smiling and taking pictures.  Cold air poured from her open window.

And again, I tried not to be angry.

Afterall, Grandma had just taught me a very important life lesson that has since saved me on numerous occasions.

Being the designated photographer has its perks.

When I was telling this story to a friend of mine a few days ago, she asked me if by the end of the parade, I was grateful that my grandparents had forced me to march.

And I said, “Nope, not at all.”

My grandmother was a firm believer in 2 Corinthians 9:7 which reads, “Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

I was not a cheerful giver.

I was not marching for Jesus.

I was marching for my grandparents.

I did not carry a sign because I was, as my grandmother later captioned in a picture of me, “an enthusiastic marcher for Jesus.”

I carried the sign because I was bitter and that was the best passive-aggressive way I could think of to channel that bitterness.

I was thinking of my march for Jesus as I read our reading today from Luke 1:26-38 that details the angel’s visit to Mary, Jesus’ mother.  We all know this story.  The angel basically says, “Hey Mary, just wanted to let you know you’re pregnant.  You need to name him Jesus.  God’s going to give him the throne of David.  He will reign over the house of Jacob and his kingdom will have no end.  Sound good?”

And Mary’s like, “Awesome, great.”

Mary seems like the cheerful giver especially later in the Song of Mary.  No one seems happier than Mary than to do this for God.  “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior …” she says.

But let’s look a little more closely at the text from today.  The angel appears, tells Mary what’s what and what does she say first?  Does she say, “count me in,” immediately?  Not quite.  Actually, she asks the angel a very obvious and logical question.  In verse 34, she asks, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 

Why is it important that she asks this question?

It’s important because it shows that she doesn’t immediately buy in to what the angel is telling her.  She has questions.  She wants to know how this is going to work.  She’s already looking into the future.   You can see the wheels turning in her head.  She is trying to figure this out.

The angel then explains how the Holy Spirit will come upon her and in verse 38, Mary says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

Basically, she says, “Okay.”

Can you see the difference here between Mary’s initial reaction and her words later in the Song of Mary? The Song of Mary comes a fair amount of time later in Mary’s story.  She is visiting Elizabeth.  In fact, the Song of Mary doesn’t come until after Mary meets up with Elizabeth, Elizabeth declares her blessed, and the child in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy.

Psychologically speaking, Mary handles the angel’s news in a very healthy way.  She asks good questions.  She verifies the angel’s story by seeking out Elizabeth and seeing that yes, Elizabeth is pregnant.  And she gets confirmation from someone she trusts when Elizabeth calls her blessed.  Only then does Mary accept fully accept what is happening.

You see, even though God is giving Mary a gift, even though He is blessing her with Jesus, it is a gift that requires and will require great sacrifice on her part.

We have all, at some point in our lives, been asked to do something that we either didn’t want to do or had reservations about doing.  We have been asked to give our time, give our money, give ourselves and not felt particularly enthusiastic about any of it.

What Mary shows us is that the key to being a cheerful giver is discernment.  It is a spiritual thoughtfulness, a spiritual consideration to just what it is we are being asked to give.  If we allow God into the conversation and if it turns out that what we are being asked to do is from Him, the cheerfulness will come.  We will want to do God’s work because it feels good to do God’s work.

Being a cheerful giver is not something that can be forced.  It is something that should come naturally when we invite God into our lives.

I failed miserably during the March for Jesus.  It was a horrible beginning to my summer and it could have led to my whole summer being ruined if I had stayed bitter and angry.  But then I called my mom.  And I told her the story, and we both laughed until we cried.  That was what I could always count on my mom for—putting things in perspective.

And doing so allowed me to see the March for Jesus as an experience, a story, and one that obviously I’ve been telling now for a long time.

Because once I accepted that that summer was going to be filled with new and potentially uncomfortable experiences—once I accepted that and let God decide just how things would go, I had an amazing summer.

There were no more marches, but there was lots of church, on Wednesdays and Saturdays and Sunday mornings and Sunday nights.  There were new friends and forced playdates with a skateboarder named Trey who was part of my youth group. 

And there was God, always, the Holy Spirit moving throughout everything, enriching me in new ways.

When I went through the discernment process for becoming a priest some years ago, I told basically every group I met with, every person who interviewed me, that the summers I spent in my grandparents’ Baptist church were instrumental in shaping who I was spiritually. 

Who would have guessed?

Who would have known?

Except God.

Amen.