Singing, dancing women and a topsy-turvey gospel
Luke 1: 39-55
Dec 20, 2009-- Advent 4C
- Intro
Finally. We’re in the fourth week of advent, and finally there is someone who is excited. Advent started out with scary lectionary readings about signs in the heavens, and parables about fig trees. Then Zechariah was struck mute because he wasn’t quite sure about the angels words to him. Last week, John was all up in our faces, and called us a “Brood of Vipers”. Talk about “Merry Christmas” and a dose of nice holiday cheer.
But this week, we find somebody who’s merry and not bothering us with their “Bah Humbugs”. Two somebodies, in fact. Two pregnant, impossible women. One too old, one, truthfully, too young-- at least according to our standards. One married to a high priest, one not married at all. Impossible, no doubt.
And these are the two chosen to herald the news that the world is about to be shaken up. Peek with me into their world, on this day.
- Playing in the text
Who can I tell? Who can I trust? They’ll throw me out of the family. When Joseph finds out, he’ll call me all sorts of names. Or worse, he won’t call me anything. He’ll just turn and leave.
The angel made this sound like a blessing, but he didn’t tell me what to do in the meantime. There’s nowhere I can go, no one who will believe my story. I’m bearing the Son of God, and I can’t show my face anywhere.
I don’t know that she’ll understand about me, but the angel said Elizabeth was having strange things happening to her, too. Besides, she’s my family-- distant though she is. Maybe she’s a haven for me. Or maybe, once she hears my story, maybe she’ll throw me out, and shake my dust from her doorstep. After all, no one would want one such as me ruining their family’s reputation.
BEAT
Pregnant, at my age? What will people say? Nobody would bother to say anything if Zechariah fathered a child by a younger woman. But for me to be pregnant at my age?
It’s not that I’m not overjoyed. I’ve prayed for this for years, until I didn’t dare pray it anymore. We’ve moved on. We’ve long since quit praying that God would give us a child.
And now here I am, at my age. And I’m going to have a baby. But who can I tell? Who would understand? I’ve talked to Zechariah, but he can’t talk back. He didn’t understand the angel’s news...so all he can do is listen until this baby is born. It’s great to have a listening ear, but what I want is someone who can share my joy without letting all their questions get in the way. If only...
*****
Can you imagine this meeting? I imagine the shocked look on Elizabeth’s face when she opens the door and finds a relative from long ago. I imagine Mary, with her head bent, not quite daring to look in Elizabeth’s eyes. But after a long moment, after Mary finally dares to look at Elizabeth, and they have a second to take each other in, and then joy takes over.
I imagine Elizabeth catching Mary in a big bear hug, the smile on her face uncontrollable.
Suddenly they are dancing around, and laughing like little school girls-- the joy between them tremendous.
In the instant that Elizabeth takes Mary into her arms, suddenly Mary knows that all well be well. But Elizabeth takes it a step farther, and says with a sparkle in her eyes, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”
And all this because of a well-timed kick from a baby.
I don’t know much about babies or pregnant women, having never been around many, but I would think the fact that a baby kicks is not an event to write home about. I mean sure, when the glowing mother-to-be is standing in a group of people, she’ll say “Ooooh...he’s kicking.” And everyone will put their hands on her belly, as if it somehow belong to all of them.
But unless I’m mistaken, this isn’t a once in a lifetime occurrence. My understanding of these things is that baby kicks happen often.
Yet, as Luke is telling us this story, he wants to make sure we realize that something is different about Elizabeth’s unborn baby’s movement. Luke has Elizabeth attribute it to joy-- as if to say that the joy between these two women is so strong, that even the baby feels it.
We don’t know much about Elizabeth, other than she was married to now mute Zechariah and that she’s expecting a baby, well after that should be a possibility. But, I think, after having already received a miracle herself, Elizabeth is open to seeing miracles in other places. She expects that her world, and indeed the whole world, is about to be dumped on it’s head. I wonder if she feels like she’s in an M.C. Escher painting, where nothing is as it should be.
Yet oddly enough, Elizabeth character doesn’t seem to be terribly fearful. Instead, she is about to be a sanctuary for Mary, who is cut off from her community, which in turn allows Mary be a sanctuary for her.
- A sanctuary
Make no mistake. These women, by virtue of their pregnancies that don’t follow anyone’s rules, are outcasts. They can’t go anywhere and be part of any “in” crowd.
“Marginalized” is a popular word these days-- and it refers to all those who aren’t in the center of things. That ugly word refers, oddly enough, to two women whom we would consider to be abundantly blessed.
In this beginning to a Topsy Turvy world that Jesus ushers in, God provides these women with the two things they desperately lack: community and connection.
Though most of us loudly say how much we love this time of year, secretly, I think we’ve all been battered by the world in some way, and I think we feel that more at this time of year than we do at any other. For some of us, we’ve been battered by too much to do, and not enough time or money to do them. For some, we’re battered battered by the memories of Christmases that aren’t any more, or how Christmas is “supposed” to look.
Whatever it is, it weighs on us more than we’d care to admit, and when things get quiet, we feel it deep within our hearts. I think we’re in need of a sanctuary more than we’d like to believe.
I’ll bet you’ve never thought about it-- about what a sanctuary you find when you’re here. So many of us were shocked earlier this year when there was a church shooting, as much as anything, because we just don’t think about that sort of thing. We feel safe from the world here. I hope, though, it’s deeper than that. I hope it’s a place where we not only feel safe from the perils of the world, but it’s a place where we find acceptance, and feel loved and nurtured.
I think that’s what Elizabeth and Mary must’ve found in each other.
That’s nice to think about-- about how they were able to smile conspiratorily together-- but sanctuary is not something we give much thought to. Perhaps such a thing is a luxury so common in this place that we neither think about what our world would be without it, nor what another person’s world might look like without it.
Our first instinct is never to think about how another person has been battered by the world, or how they are without community that we all crave so much. Our first instinct, instead, is to think how “those” people (whomever they are-- they’re different for each of us) aren’t like us.
I think it’s really interesting that Elizabeth and Mary, the two outcasts, sing and dance around together. Elizabeth never lectures Mary, never asks any questions, never bothers to think about her own reputation. Instead, they rejoice at the opportunity to share their blessings together.
When I first started working this this story, I thought that maybe this was Mary’s passage. But as I’ve sat with it, I think Elizabeth plays a much bigger role than I would have guessed at first. Because Elizabeth had already seen a miracle, she was much more open to believing that other miracles might be out there. Because she her eyes and heart had been open, and she dared to hope beyond the possible, Elizabeth was a safe place for Mary. I think by giving Mary a place where she felt loved and cared for, Elizabeth gave Mary the courage to see her situation as a blessing, and gave her the hope that leads to her song.
My first instinct when I began crafting a sermon was to focus on Mary’s song, and what a Topsy Turvey world she saw being ushered in by Jesus. Maybe that instinct was right, just not in the way I saw it playing out. There is something Topsy Turvy afoot, and we see in the ways that these two outcast women are role models. What they offer to us is not only a joyous look at the coming savior, but through their actions, they invite us to offer sanctuary to all whom we meet. They invite us to take the ones who aren’t like us, the ones who might hurt our reputations, the ones who aren’t doing the things we think they ought to be, and bring them into our safe fold. They invite us to rejoice with those in our midst, opening our arms to them. After all, we’ve seen a miracle, and that opens our eyes to the miracles that just might be taking place in the lives of those around us. Who knows? Perhaps by so doing, we’ll help someone find the courage and hope to sing their own song.
Preachers all over talk about what a problem it is to preach the incarnation: that is, when God became human. They talk about how hard and inconvenient it was that God in Jesus was born a baby, of a virgin mother, in inconvenient circumstances. It’s fleshy and earthy and full of things that we just as soon not think about or preach. It would have been a lot easier if an angel did all the proclaiming, if Jesus wasn’t like us at all. It would’ve been easier if Luke had left these singing, dancing, pregnant, outcast women out of it.
But Luke put them in, and hoped we could hear their story anyway. And today, they are the ones heralding the good news, more beautifully than most preachers could. The news they herald is that no matter how far out we are, we are brought into community. They herald that the sanctuary we find in each other, and pray that we might offer other people, makes all the difference in the world. But perhaps the best news they herald is that miracles are all around, and might even be happening in the life of someone who isn’t on the “inside”.
I don’t think fleshy, earthy Jesus would mind these “impossible” women proclaiming that message, because that will be a big part of his ministry: taking the ones we consider “out” and doing something miraculous and life changing with them.
And thanks be to God for that.
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