As we’re getting so close to Christmas Day, we hear today this passage known as “The Visitation”: pregnant Mary paying a visit to her pregnant cousin Elizabeth. Which is kind of weird if you want my opinion, because these two past weeks we have heard John the Baptist, a full grown up man, preaching in the wilderness with passion and fire, and following that we now have a story of him not even being born. Not many people have a story of them not even being born, but there is something very special about John of course, he was a prophet and he was the one who would point everybody towards the Messiah. And so even in the womb, John recognized Jesus, he could sense his presence and he leaped for joy.We talked about that last week, that we generally see John the Baptist as a kind of austere, tough preacher, and yet he was full of joy because of his great love for Jesus. And I wonder how it is for us. This past week, Xavier and I had an email from my sister in law who told us that “she went to church to see Jesus, and thathad been such a big comfort to see Jesus“. And I thought: Wow, this is really special isn’t it? To have this sense of immediacy, intimacy, to be able to sense the divine presence in this way, like it is the most natural thing in the world. How would it be if we told our family and friends on Sunday morning: I am going to see Jesus. But that’s what it should be all about, no? Today we will be holding both our annual meeting and our Christmas party and it makes a lot of sense to think of our work as a church at Christmas because the church is the place we go to meet Jesus and to adore him, some theologians have compared the church tothe cradle of Jesus in this world.
So how does it happen? How do we get there, that we have a church where we can effectively meet Jesus, experience the divine? Well, let’s take a closer look at our Scriptures.
The first thing we need to notice to understand what’s going on, is that our Gospel is actually split in two in our readings this morning. It starts with the passage I have just read, the story of the visitation, but then it continues with “The song of Mary”, we have read it together, and you may know this song as “The Magnificat”. So Mary visits Elizabeth and then she sings out her praise. Now Luke’s Gospel is interesting because it is the Gospel that tells us the more about Mary. Matthew talks about Jesus’s childhood from Joseph’s point of view and in John and Mark’s Gospels, there is no childhood story. Why is that? Well, we know that the Gospels were written by different people, apostles and witnesses, and we know that Luke wrote both his Gospel and the Book of Acts. The Book of Acts mentions that Mary was part of the group of the Apostles, which is why we can certainly assume that Mary herself shared her memories with Luke, so we have a very touching and intimate story this morning. This visit with Elizabeth, it must have made such a big impression on Mary, it must have been so astonishing that Elizabeth’s unborn child would react to Mary’s greetingand then Elizabeth called Mary “the mother of her Lord”.Mary indeed could never had forgotten this day,or even that week. If we go back a few verses in Luke’s story, Mary has just learned from the angel that she was to become pregnant with the Messiah and that her cousin Elizabeth, who was barren was already pregnant as well, and that’s why we hear at the beginning of our passage that Mary “set out and went with haste” to Zechariah and Elizabeth’s house. I smiled when I read some commentaries by theologians who said that Mary was ina hurry to visit her cousin in order to verify if what the angel said was true. Well maybe it’s more simple than that, when a woman finds out she’s pregnant, or that a friend is pregnant, she naturally wants to share the good news. So this why Mary goes to Elizabeth and during this visit, Mary also has confirmation of all that was told her before.
There is a reciprocity though between Elizabeth and Mary, and I think it is important for us to notice that. I picked this image for our bulletin because I thought it was great to see Mary and Elizabeth represented by a Japanese artist for a change. Yet the way the women are represented is very typical of all the many artworks picturing the Visitation: Almost like a mirror, Mary and Elizabeth face each other and they often hold hands or hold each other, and they look a little bit the same, and yet different. Sometimes there is even a representation of the babies in their wombs. May and Elizabeth, John and Jesus, they almost look like a pair of twins but they are cousins. And I like it, first of all because I often hear that here at All Souls “We are all cousins”! But more seriously, we know that most Christians call themselves brothers and sisters, and it’s true we’re all brothers and sisters in Christ, with God as our Father, but I like this idea of being cousins because it means we’re close but we’re not the same. (Also siblings fight a lot) But here is my point: with Mary and Elizabeth, John and Jesus, we have here a picture of the church, the church as an embryo if you will, representing what the church should be: A community where people can mirror each other, bless each other, and acknowledge ineach other the work God is doing in their lives.
I was listening this week to a podcast by Canon Whitney Rice from the Diocese of Missouri, and she said how sad it is that so little people know that God loves them or have a sense of God’s presence in their lives because we, the churched people, we are so bad at evangelizing. And she said that evangelizing is not so hard and it’s not about saying to people: Do this or believe that, or else…Canon Rice says that evangelization starts with gratefulness, with acknowledging all the wonderful things God does in our own lives and in the lives of others. And we should do more of that in our churches, with each other, and also outside, with people who don’t believe yet. As we share our stories, we can discern this presence together, see how God has blessed us in joyful times, sustained us in difficult times. AndI think this is really what ourGospel is about: Elizabeth shares with Mary what she has felt in seeing her, she acknowledges God’s presence in Mary and she sees Mary’s faith, she says: Blessed is she who believed. And then Mary starts singingwith gratefulness acknowledging everything that God has done in her life…and then moving to everything that God doesfor all the people. She’s not like one of those “good Christians” confessing with false modesty that God has blessed them when their business goes well. Rather, Mary sees blessings for all the people and in all the people. She sees God at work everywhere. And it’s really to this vision that we are called, because as Canon Rice puts it, once we have this vision of what God does in our lives, in our community and in the world, then we can join and participate in whatever God is up to, and this how our testimony as Christians spreads and how our churches are thriving. We remember today that Bethlehem was a little town of few people in the words of the prophet Micah,and yet God had chosen Bethlehem. What God sees is the faith, the faithfulness and our willingness to do God’s will, and that’s all that matters. Based on this criteria, every little church can be a big church.
So how do we get there, how do we see God at work, experience the divine? Well, there are two things that I notice in Mary’s song and in her way of serving God:
– First of all, Mary has a deep humility, a sense of her ignorance and limitations. She is the lowly servant, she belongs with those who “fear God”, and indeed if we think that everything that happens in our lives is because of our hard work or because of our resilience or luck, there are few chances that we will be able to see God at work. But because Mary and Elizabeth are much aware of their limitations and powerlessness, they can see that all goodness comes from God. It’s not an excuse to be passive, rather they choose to trust God entirely and submit to God‘s will.
– Andin this, there is also a desire to understand, to join in. Mary has often been presented as passive, but a young woman who goes on foot on an 80 miles journey is anything but passive. She wants to share her joy and her faith and what she has heard and learned and she wants to find out more. Mary had a deep knowledge of Scripture, there are at least 15 references to the Old Testament in the Magnificat. Mary was able to see what God’s was doing because she knew who is God, that God saw the poor and the lowly, and she knew it because she knew the prophets. And that’s what we do at church too: we learn about who God is so we can recognize God in our lives, and once we recognize God in our lives, we can more intentionally participate in what God is doing. To participate, we have to be both humble and smart, lowly and hungry as the Magnificat puts it. How can we be fed at church if we don’t come hungry? This desire for God is the sign of the Holy Spirit already at work, it both fills us and yet leaves us craving for more. This is what happens when God is calling us.
So this is my questions for us as we start again on the journey with our annual meeting and the coming celebration of Christmas: How do we need to be transformed to be able to discern what God is up to in our lives, in our community, and in the world? Are we willing to call ourselves servants to whom only matters God’s will? And do we have this eagerness to do God’s work, even in the scope of our own limitations?