Luke 1:39-56
“Movements”
December 9, 2018
It’s called an Honor Walk and it is the moment in hospitals all over the country when an organ donor dies and friends, family and hospital staff lining the route that the body of the deceased will travel, usually from an intensive care unit to the operating room. This past Tuesday morning at 6:30 a.m. in a close-knit community in Indiana, while the small body of a four year old girl was moved through the hallways on a gurney, hospital staff that ranged from security guards and housekeepers to social workers and surgeons joined family, friends and local community members in lining the route in what her minister described as “a beautiful, heart-wrenching and holy moment for all” because they were painfully aware of the circumstances of this beloved child’s death. Her 3 year old brother accidentally shot his sister with an unsecured gun he had found in their grandparents’ home. And yet in this heartbreaking tragedy there was to be new life. Eight different people have received transplants from this little one that they had been desperately waiting for including a 1 year-old child who got a new heart and a 4 year-old who now has a new liver. To rise up in the midst of the unimaginable is to know and feel and lean into the God who is present throughout. To take such profound grief and loss and hold it up for some glimmer of light and hope and possibility, however small or distant, is to let God into the picture and allow change to happen.
Transformation is a constant. We get to hear about it and, if we pay close attention, can be a witness to it happening in our midst. Mary’s Magnificat is a beautiful account of what Mary feels God is doing in her life and with the people of Israel. This is sung with Elizabeth, her much older cousin, as a witness. The two of them are to be together for 3 months, encouraging their respective motherhoods, which they are fully aware are gifts received from God. These two were a community unto themselves, keeping each other company in the promises that were literally growing within them. Elizabeth has just offered Mary reassurance, declaring, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Young Mary, in growing into a surprising and probably frightening pregnancy, has in many ways escaped the judging world around her. In Elizabeth, she has an ally, a friend, a sister. This is a woman with whom she does not have to explain herself or as one writer imagines Elizabeth saying in describing Mary, “What she does not have is a sonogram or a husband, or an affidavit from the Holy Spirit that says, ‘The child really is mine. Now leave the poor girl alone.” (Barbara Brown Taylor, Home by Another Way, p. 18) In the company of Elizabeth who gets this pregnant teenager, Mary is able to sing her joy.
There was also reality amid Mary’s joy. Mary sings of God as one who has kept the covenant that was made long ago. In Mary’s song we are reminded of another joy-filled mother, Hannah, in 1 Samuel. We also hear God’s words that the prophets and our ancestors have heard through the ages – what God is about is taking the known world and its earthly structures of power and shaking it up like a snow globe. God is doing a new thing – through Elizabeth, through Mary, through us. This beautiful song speaks of bringing down those on thrones and making sure that the hungry have plenty to eat. These words have been sung in churches for 1600 years. This Magnificat, in its honest portrayal of God’s new world order, has offered hope to those with little or no power. This has meant that it has also been banned by governments such as that in 1980s Guatemala which viewed it as too subversive and politically dangerous. Those in power were worried that the people might riot in their attempt to strive for this new world order. How about us, here and now? Is this Song of Mary’s too controversial for us? Would we be willing to sing or even say out loud these words to those who would oppress God’s people or keep all from being fed or determined that untold financial wealth is not the dream God wants for us but rather a place at the table for all of God’s children – including those now nearing our southern border who are fleeing dire situations or those who are literally starving to death in Yemen.
Late yesterday afternoon when the tree and the menorah were lit in front of the town offices here in Arlington to the wonder and awe of old and young alike, bundled against the bitter cold, the singing of a few familiar Christmas songs broke out. Some folks had the words in front of them but many did not, instead singing by heart those oh so familiar songs that speak of a shared tradition, surrounded by neighbors. We sang our joy amid the setting sun and the lights that shone forth. During this season when we love singing the familiar carols that have been passed down to us, maybe we can remember one or two that hold special meaning. Perhaps a beloved music teacher taught them to us or a dear departed family member who always took joy in singing them. Now the singing brings us to a special place beyond our everyday existence, where we are transported if just for a moment.
For me it is Silent Night that we will sing together amid our candlelit circle on Christmas Eve that transports me to my childhood when I am wearing the pajamas that were the gift I would receive from my grandparents. It was the only present we could open on Christmas Eve and then of course were made to pose wearing them in front of the fireplace with my brothers and sisters for the obligatory Christmas photo that would be sent to our faraway grandparents. And then we would sing Silent Night while one of us would place the up-till-then missing Jesus into the Nativity scene that my uncle had brought back from a visit to Germany years before. For moments like these that we return to in our hearts, the world feels, even temporarily, like a place where “all is calm, all is bright.”
What song are we to sing to tell what God is doing in our lives? Will they be songs of scarcity and fear or will we sing songs of abundance and generosity? How will we magnify the Lord in the coming weeks? Is there an opportunity to enlarge God’s role in our overly full days? What would that look like? How might we be transformed by the knowledge that while we may not be pregnant we are each God-bearers to a world in desperate need of unconditional love, gentleness and hope. Let us pray then these words from UCC minister Rachel Hackenberg:
Overwhelmed by the shadows of this world,
O God Most High,
we pause to remember and be centered within
your power that overshadows all fears and iniquities.
In your mercy, incline your heart to our prayer.
Your steadfast love is established forever:
without fanfare or pride,
yet omnipresent and glorious.
We magnify you,
by whom all generations are blessed.
We rejoice that in you is all goodness and life, O God Mysterious.
Attune our lips to bless one another with hope;
strengthen our resolve to serve you in kindness and generosity.
Multiply grace upon grace to those who are burdened.
Your steadfast love is established forever:
without beginning or end,
yet partial to the hungry and the brokenhearted.
We magnify you,
in whom all things are possible.
We pray for the lost to find a companion, O God Incarnate,
for the weary to know rest and the skeptical to catch visions,
for the powerful to be undermined and unraveled,
for your mercy to be remembered, embodied, shared in joy.
Your steadfast love is established forever:
without shelter or source,
yet always and everywhere.
We magnify you,
to whom is all glory forever and ever. Amen.
(Prayer from Rachel G. Hackenberg,