How does a weary world rejoice? We find joy in connection.
True confessions: I have an amazing girl band. Not literally a band. That is my slang for a group of besties that see one another through thick and thin.
There are six of us and we go by the acronym which means something like mighty fierce girl power. We are all Methodist clergy and range in age from just over 30 to almost 60. Together we’ve walked through the death of a spouse, legal proceedings, marriage, engagement, babies, breast feeding, the ongoing care of parents, and the real and imagined life crises of multiple teens and young adult children.
Also, we’ve seen one another through the church appointment cycle, charge conferences, stewardship campaigns, job changes, snakes in the church building, funeral gaffs, staffing mistakes, and COVID closures.
Most of our contact happens via text – in a lively chat that we should probably encrypt and hope and pray is never subpoenaed. We share a lot of weariness in that space. So much so that from time to time we have to remind one another that constantly seeing what is hard and negative probably isn’t healthy.
But…when we come together in the same room it is a PARTY. We gathered earlier this year for a mid-afternoon watch party of the movie Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret. Just this past week we gathered for a healthy homemade lunch of soup and bread and salad and dessert…and laughter and tears of joy and shared love.
The weariness, our tight schedules, our overwhelming to do lists, and the stress of whether or not we are doing enough faded for a couple hours of connected joy. That connected joy is rooted in shared life and unconditional love and encouragement for one another.
Thanks be to God.
Similarly, Janice and I share a skin tingly, goose bumpy connection at times when we are sharing work, prayer, longings, and reflections about the world around us…and that all started with a moment of what felt a bit like electricity in a hallway at Annual Conference about 6 years ago.
In retrospect, that encounter was a moment not unlike the one we witness between Elizabeth and Mary in today’s gospel text – two women recognizing God’s call in their lives.
Connectedness causes our bodies to respond. When we connect with one another, we are actually able to reflect the other’s inner experience – experiences like joy - in ways that can’t necessarily be felt or seen in our solitude.
In today’s gospel lesson, Elizabeth becomes pregnant after years of infertility. And Mary, just a young girl at the beginning of her reproductive years, is visited by that feisty angel Gabriel to tell her that she will bear God’s son.
Each woman is carrying a child. Each woman, in her own home, in her own community, is carrying ponderous news – the kind of news that will be hard for their families and hometowns to fully understand.
Elizabeth has kept to herself. Last week we looked at the story of her husband Zechariah receiving Gabriel’s visit in the Temple. Because of his questions to Gabriel, because of his seeming doubt, Zechariah is rendered speechless. We can assume that he was able to reveal to his wife Elizabeth SOME of what Gabriel said using signs and charades and perhaps even written words, but could he transmit the fullness of his experience and the news he was given?
Perhaps Elizabeth’s time of seclusion was a time of fear. Perhaps she was worried that she’d also have her speech taken away. Perhaps she’d experienced pregnancy loss in the past. Perhaps she needed time to sit with what was going on. The text suggests she’s older. So there is both the physical burden and the emotional burden of coming to grips with growing another human inside her body.
And Mary’s position is more perilous. At a minimum, she may face being shamed and excluded from community. Her betrothed is likely to shun her, assuming the worst. So what was it like for her to steal away from her family and travel, probably by herself, from Nazareth to Hebron? It was probably about 100-mile journey. That is many days of hard travel for a very young woman – and I assume it might not have been very safe.
Can you imagine Mary showing up at Elizabeth’s door? Perhaps Elizabeth looks weary from the physical work of growing a child. And Mary is covered with the dust and weariness of her travels. Mary wouldn’t have known Elizabeth’s news. And of course, Elizabeth wouldn’t have anticipated Mary’s news…
But in their shared miraculous state, Mary greets Elizabeth and the baby inside of Elizabeth leaps. Maybe it was the first time she realized that there was a baby that was able to move inside of her. What an electric moment.
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth exclaims:
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb…
…And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Something happens to these women in this moment. There is a release here from the burdens of what they do not know and cannot fully understand. Each of them has a moment to allow their excitement, their wonder, their BLESSING to be seen by the other…
That is a form of joy.
It is the joy that the angel Gabriel promised to Zechariah. And it is joy that is manifested in Elizabeth by the vital movements of the baby inside of her.
Elizabeth’s word in the moment of connection are full of excitement and revelation of God… her loud cry is said to be full of the Holy Spirit. In the moment she sees Mary she is able to NAME the blessed state Mary is in, and she names Mary as the mother of the LORD. The leaping of the child within her also suggests the special nature of the the child she carries – also full of the Spirit.
Can you imagine God receiving you in the way that Elizabeth receives Mary? Open arms? Full of affirmation? Full of revelation?
One of the first times that I was conscious of being in the presence of God, I woke from a deep sleep laughing, with a radiating sensation of joy that felt like it was part of my being. I had been received for a time in God’s arms.
What if those moments when we connect to one another are glimpses of God’s desired joyful connection with us?
Today, we gather at a table for a joyful sharing in the meal where we are invited by God, met by Jesus and surrounded by the Holy Spirit. We come to the table in community, and we know that by some mystery, others we’ve never met gather with us. God gathers us together in this space, and my deep prayer is that we meet God and one another with JOY…Joy that we then bring to others around us in deep connection.
May it be so.
Amen.
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