Sunday, December 20, 2009
Luke 1:39-55
Advent IV
Craig Shirley
Face to Face with Mystery
It may surprise and even distress some of you to hear me say that Christianity is not really a “spiritual religion.” Christians affirm the Incarnation, the belief that God Almighty came in the flesh, took on our humanity in order that we might be brought back to God. By embracing our humanity, Jesus Christ elevated our humanity. His birth as a “God made human” was completely contrary to the Greek way of thinking about the human body as something loathsome and shameful, something to be shunned and shed for the more spiritual, heavenly form.
“Today’s Gospel, as we stand on the threshold of the nativity, features two pregnant women, ‘great with child’ as the Bible puts it. When you think about it, it’s a very carnal way to begin a spiritual text like the Gospel of Luke – two women sharing obstetrical details with one another over a cup of coffee. But so it is that the story of Jesus begins in a fleshy, material, carnal, and I would add, real way.”
Many people idealize this meeting. We want to look at it through those fuzzy lenses that photographers used to use to take pictures of Doris Day. They erase all the wrinkles and care lines and make everything look rosy and demure. But when Mary opens her mouth, her words are anything but demure. They are gritty, and real; political, a social statement, a down to earth discussion between two women, both of whom have experienced life in a way that no woman has ever experienced it before. There are a number of lessons to learn from their conversation.
First of all is the “well duh” reality that both women are expectant, first time mothers. It is a natural, normal part of life that women conceive and bare children. We are experiencing that very thing right now in this congregation; at my last count we have at least five couples expecting babies after the first of the new year – all of them first time parents. What an exciting time that is, and a stressful time as well. Will the child be healthy, will we be good parents, will the baby have our best attributes or our worst, can we afford to raise a child, what about the world into which this child is to be born? These and other questions are ever present in the minds of new, expectant parents.
But for other women the image of an expectant birth can be cataclysmic. There are those who yearn for, who want a child but are unable to conceive. For them, every announcement of a pregnancy is like a blow to the stomach. For others a pregnancy is the last thing they want or need; single, underemployed, or fear of pregnancy because of sexual assault can all bring panic rather than peace and joy at such news. And then there are those who have a pregnancy cut short. Miscarriage is a devastating blow to a couple who are anxiously waiting a new life. But there are those, also, who for a variety of reasons, choose to cut short a pregnancy voluntarily. So, from even the simplest reading of this lesson, we come to understand that there are all sorts of implications, subtle and not so subtle, to the deep theology that comes from the chatting of two pregnant women in a nondescript home out in the country.
But a deeper meaning to this story is one that highlights decades of discussion in our present day churches about the role of Mary in our faith lives. Luther and other reformers could not support the kind of Marian devotion that evolved throughout the Middle Ages because of this text. Praying to Mary, proving Mary’s status as a virgin and following it back also to her mother, venerating Mary; all these things become the fodder for discussion as modern day Lutherans and Roman Catholics sought to find some common ground on the role of Mary in the church.
What they both came to conclude is that Mary is significant because she shows us how to be receptive to God’s Will. She demonstrates how one encounters the holiness of God, how one engages the mystery. “The birth of God is a mystery that overwhelms reason and thought; it cannot be demonstrated or argued. It is experienced and received with holy awe. It cannot be domesticated, made comfortable or safe. It cannot be prettified, tamed or contained; it cannot be put in a box, wrapped with nice ribbon, placed under a Christmas tree, and adored from a distance.
Mary is in communion with the Holy Spirit (1:35) “the holy spirit will come upon you”, she is willing to serve God (1:38) “Here am I, the servant of the Lord” and she is blessed because she heard God and believed “blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken” – in spite of the amazing pronouncement. “Mary’s blessing is shared with the world because of what God will do through her son.” She is the vessel, not the source, but without her the word cannot become flesh. “ The song identifies and anchors God’s salvation in the lives of God’s people, not only in “spiritual” ways, but in tangible, physical, and social ways.” Imagine this text circulating around the Greco-Roman world. The rich will be sent away empty while the poor lifted up. The claims are unsettling, troublesome, disturbing and disruptive. It is not the stuff of children’s Christmas programs by any means!
And then there is the Pastor’s wife – Elizabeth, reported to be Mary’s much older cousin. Mary was perhaps 15 or 16, just barely of childbearing age. Her counterpart in the conversation is Elizabeth; elderly – perceived to be beyond childbearing age, much like her Old Testament predecessor Sarah, Abraham’s wife. Like Sarah, she has lived in disgrace because she was barren. Zechariah her husband was a holy man, a priest in the temple, but how holy could he really be when God did not bless them with a child? The whole thing was suspect.
Perhaps for her part she could be considered the hope of those who wait – God has not forgotten those who are barren but who wait all the same for a new life in their midst. But of greater ilk in this story is the child that she will bear – John the Baptist, the last great prophet who will announce to the world that this child is the long expected Messiah of God. And so, as Elizabeth visits with Mary, the child in her womb leaps at the presence of One so great, and Elizabeth functions as a prophetess, like her soon to be born son. She is living proof to a new generation that God works through history to liberate people. In her case, in a patriarchal society that counts women only for their ability to bear sons, she and Mary become the first people to know about what God is up to. In doing so, she lifts the status of women to a new level and speaks of liberty for all women – a concept that still has not been completely grasped in our modern world.
And since then, God has lifted up others who have worked to liberate human beings; women and men, children, people of various ethnic backgrounds and skin colors, people with different sexual orientation, poor people and people with psychological and social issues. All have had their advocates “from generation to generation” just as Elizabeth became an advocate for Mary, but also for the child to which she was about to give birth.
Think of the world in which Elizabeth and Mary lived: death and disease, poverty and ruthless power, human life held cheap. Yet they continued to live in hope because something extraordinary, something from the world beyond them was unfolding before them. Zechariah and Elizabeth, hopelessly old, were given a child to prepare the way for the One who would bring light and life into the darkness of this world. Righteous Joseph and the very young virgin, Mary, carrying the One who would set us free from sin – no wonder they were filled with inner joy.
So today we can celebrate, in all its fullness, the good news of Christmas. The Word became flesh to live with us, share our life and conquer its death. Today the Word comes to give us power to become the children of God. Today the Word comes to be with us all the way – in every way – always. Amen.
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