We Sing Stories of Hope
Let’s begin this morning by using our holy imagination…
There aren’t a lot of 14-year-old girls among us, right…so maybe putting ourselves in Mary’s shoes is complicated.
Maybe we can try this:
Retirement is within sight. Plans are set. You’ve worked hard. You don’t have a lot of financial resources – but enough. A modest retirement plan. You anticipate selling your home and moving to a more affordable area, perhaps closer to other family. Your health is good right now. There won’t be extended world travels in your budget, but you will be comfortable.
And then there is a knock at the door and a visitor with news. You are asked to take a toddler into your home. Permanently. And for legal reasons, that child needs to be raised right here in Montgomery County.
You can see a sweet child in a car seat in the unfamiliar car parked in your driveway playing with a stuffed toy.
Do not be afraid, says your visitor.
Take a few deep breaths. Feel that story in your body.
I wonder what you feel?
What words come to you?
Are they words of hope? words of lament?
Or maybe both?
Something else?
In first century Palestine, the setting for the story of Jesus’ birth that we’ve been walking through these past four weeks, the people felt the full weight of foreign occupation. They were struggling economically. They were losing their land because the burden of taxation was too high.
In first century Palestine, to be a woman was to have little power or control over your body or your well-being.
To be a priest was navigate between the powers of the Temple and powers of politics while to serving the local community.
In today’s scripture, in the midst of that setting in first century Palestine, we hear the songs of praise lifted by both Mary and Zechariah as the fullness of their circumstances becomes known to them.
In light of Gabriel’s announcement, Mary has received a form of confirmation and encouragement from her cousin Elizabeth. Mary’s response is to offer her song of praise for the LORD God, a song of hope and justice.
Zechariah, silent for the entirety of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, finds his tongue freed when he and Elizabeth have followed the angel Gabriel’s instruction to name their only son John – not a family name but a name that means God is gracious. His song is of praise and prophecy – speaking into his son’s special future in the unfolding story of God.
Are those the kind of words that came to you when you pondered that unexpected and highly inconvenient call placed on your life earlier in our imaginative reflection?
It is a rare person in our midst who faces the most challenging circumstances with the joyful expectation or the bold assurance that God is up to something amazing. It’s not unheard of – I know one or two of you out there right now within the sound of my voice. You amaze me. You are a gift and an example.
There is some of that praise and perseverance woven into the Black spiritual tradition – a tradition I cannot place myself in. I can only listen and learn and hear the bigness of praise alongside lament. I can only listen for and appreciate the expectation and hope rooted there. I can only listen for and appreciate the claim of God’s power to set it all right.
There are folks who live into the bold belief that we if we can imagine it, if we can speak it, then we can manifest it, we can make it so. Amanda Gorman demonstrated that spirit in her poem, “The Hill We Climb:”
When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
And maybe that is true – maybe our speaking hope, maybe our singing hope in the face of the unexpected is the way we call forth God, the way we recognize God at work, the way God speaks through us… Maybe in speaking our hope we actually DO manifest the goodness and light of God in the world.
For me, pondering these responses from Mary and Zechariah this week, I was drawn back to the earliest days of COVID, when we as a church were abruptly separated from our building and therefore separated from one another and our common life. For me as a pastor, everything I thought I knew about how to “do church” was altered. I remember the dawning awareness that we were in a season where being the body of Christ would mean finding all new ways – ways to gather, ways to worship, ways to serve, ways to mourn.
And in the midst of that, I sometimes turned my camera on and spoke hope. Or at least I tried. Because it was what I could do.
Maybe in the face of unexpected calls from God, we could offer our own canticle of hope:
Thank you God!
Thank you for loving your whole creation.
The love you pour out through the world changes things.
The power of your Holy Spirit moving in the world
makes a difference…
moves hearts…
reshapes our responses
and changes lives.
This thing you ask of me is a blessing!
I can see how your call is part of the bigger peace you see in the world.
Where the last are first.
Where the oppressed are lifted up.
Where the hungry are fed.
Where the unhoused are given a warm and dry place to sleep
Not just tonight but every night.
Where those who have felt the sting of abuse and neglect
Find shelter and care.
I can see how the way you call me to the work of LOVE
is bigger than just this moment.
I can see how your call to me is part of the same call
That you placed on Abram and Sarai
On Esther
On Ruth
On Daniel
On Jonah
On Mary
On Zechariah and Elizabeth
On Joseph…
On John…
O God you are good. And true.
And because of your love,
The dawn of heaven will break upon us
to give light to those who sit in darkness
or in the shadow of death
to guide us instead on the path of peace.
May it be so.
Amen.
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