The Rev. Canon Melanie Lemburg
The Third Sunday of Advent-Year A
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Crossett, AR
December 14, 2025
“She might say no.” This is the last line in Luci Shaw’s poem The Annunciatory Angel written about the Fra Angelica painting depicting the annunciation, when the angel Gabriel gives the news to Mary that she has been chosen by God to be the God-bearer, the mother of Jesus. The poem is written from Gabriel’s perspective, and it ends with this haunting line: “She might say no.”
Of course, we know that Mary doesn’t say no. Instead, she says “yes.” First, she says, “Let it be unto me according to your word.” And then she elaborates on her yes in the words we have spoken together this morning together in Canticle 15, what we in the church know of as the Magnificat.
Listen again to how Mary says yes to God:
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; *
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed: *
the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him *
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm, *
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers, *
to Abraham and his children for ever.”
I heard an excellent ordination sermon yesterday delivered by the Rev Mark Nabors of St. Luke’s Hot Springs. In this sermon, Mark spoke about how almost all of the prophets, except Mary, at first tried to say no to God. I was captivated by this statement-first in that he had likened Mary to one of the prophets, which is both true and a way that I had never thought of her before, and second- that unlike most of the prophets, Mary doesn’t say no. She says yes immediately. And in her yes, Mary knits together God’s saving work woven like a ribbon through our past, present, and future. Her yes is full of hope and something else that I’ve only been able to identify as whimsy: the mighty are cast down, and the lowly are lifted up; the hungry are filled and the rich sent away empty
This week I encountered another poem that has helped me reflect on this characteristic of whimsy in Mary’s yes. The poem is by Lyndsay Rush. She posts on Instagram under the handle “Mary Oliver’s Drunk Cousin”.
Her poem is titled “Out on a Whim.” Here it is:
Out On a Whim
Every morning I take a deep breath of hope / and horror / and exhale / My phone is full of hot air / and outside, it's worse / but still / I know we are not limited to either and or / outrage or apathy / histrionics or hibernation / all or nothing / we are knit for nuance / and hard-wired for joy / even in the face of atrocity / perhaps especially in the face of atrocity / look for the helpers, yes, / but look, too, for the dreamers / look for the hopeful / look for the artists and the noticers / those clawing their way towards peace / and even pleasure / amidst news that keeps breaking / and breaking / and breaking / if hatred is the hare, not the tortoise / if rage burns twice as bright but half as long / then let me be bolstered by whimsy / if empathy is extreme / and joy is an act of resistance / then dear god, let me be radicalized by whimsy / what could be finer fuel for our fight? / what could better remind us of our humanity? / what could possibly sustain us but this?
What does it mean or look like to be bolstered by whimsy, to be radicalized by whimsy? I think the opposite of whimsy is cynicism. It’s a sort of weary practicality that often dwells under the surface of “but we’ve always done it that way.” Or nothing will ever change, so why bother? Underneath whimsy dwells hope, and it is hope that suffuses Mary’s “yes” and can inspire us in our own yeses to God and to others. Every yes we offer begins in curiosity (which is, perhaps, the sister to whimsy).
What are the ways we can connect with our whimsy this Advent in our own discernment to what God is inviting us into? I’ve been reading a book for my Advent devotion by the writer Christine Valters Paintner titled Give Me A Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year It’s about the practice of the early church mothers and fathers offering to pilgrims a word for them to meditate upon. She writes of this ancient practice: “The word being sought was not a theological explanation or counseling. It was part of a relationship that had developed with the assumption that this word, when received by the disciple, would be life-giving. It was meant for this person in this moment and season in their lives.”
Paintner’s book is a set of spiritual exercises to support someone in seeking a word to reflect upon for a coming year or season. She continues, “When we receive a word, often it is confirmed through synchronicities that continue to appear to us or a sense of felt rightness. I sometimes describe this process of listening as looking for shimmers. Shimmering is a way to describe when something in the world is calling to you, beckoning you, sometimes even urging you to pay closer attention. Sometimes what shimmers is challenging, but we know that wrestling with it will yield something bigger in our lives. Sometimes what shimmers invokes wonder and awe. We notice a felt response in our bodies and spirits that asks us to attune more deeply to what is being revealed.”[i]
Looking for shimmers in our lives or in the world around us is a spiritual practice that we can employ to help us be more open to curiosity, to whimsy. It’s a way of living out of a posture of “yes” to God and those around us as opposed to living out of a posture of “no”.
This week, I invite you to look for the shimmers, the places of whimsy in your lives and in the world. Where are the places in your life or in the world that are inviting your curiosity? How might whimsy be equipping you, bolstering you, radicalizing you to say “yes” to God’s call in your life?
[i] Paintner, Christine Valters. Give Me A Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year. Broadleaf Books: Minneapolis, 2025, pp xi-xii.
