"Voices of Hope in Pregnant Joy"
Pat Walsh
Sunday, December 21st, 2003
"Voices of Hope in Pregnant Joy"
Pat Walsh
Sunday, December 21st, 2003
When our hearts are hurting because of the sad news we have heard this morning the readings for today become even more important. Meister Eckhart calls us forth to walk as a person trusting in God in the midst of all that is happening, telling us this is essential if we are to be birthers of God. Luke tells us the story of two women coming together and as their bellies rub against each other and their arms entwine pregnant joy fills the air. This morning as I come before you to break open the word. I may be old like Elizabeth, but not pregnant or barren, yet her story is our story and I would like to share some insights I have gathered over the last few months as I pondered, explored and prayed with the gospel story we have just heard. When Luke wrote around 90 , he he was trying to make clear, as he states in his prologue, the story of Jesus. There was a great amount of discussion happening in the Jewish Christian community about when Jesus knew he was the Son of God. Mark wrote he knew he was the Son of God at his baptism, Matthew takes it back further to when the angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him Mary is pregnant. Luke takes it a step further and using the beautiful story telling skill of the Jewish people, shows how Jesus knew he was the Son of God in Mary’s womb. As we know, in that encounter, the child within Elizabeth’s womb jumped in recognition of God’s presence in Jesus.
Luke’s use of Old Testament characters, what we would call plagiarism, was the Jewish art of story telling called midrash. Luke has used old testament characters deliberately to help the community of the time understand how Jesus was connected to God—more powerfully than any of the old testament characters were connected. So Abraham and Sarah become Zachariah and Elizabeth. An angel tells both men their old, barren wives would conceive and bear a son. Both men doubted this and Zachariah is unable to speak until after John is born. In another story, Isaac, son of Abraham and Sarah marries Rebecca. When she is pregnant the life in her womb leaps and she goes off to pray. She is visited by an angel who tells her that she will have twins, Esau and Jacob and that their life is preordained in the womb and the last born shall be served by the first born. The only other story of a baby leaping in the womb is in the visitation story. Elizabeth’s kinswoman visits her at this time. Esau is John and Jacob is Jesus and the first born will make ready the way of the second born. So great is Jesus power at this point that John in Elizabeth’s womb jumps in recognition of his divinity. Though it was not in the text this morning Mary, in replying to Elizabeth’s warm greeting says “Yahweh recognizes the lowliness of his handmaid and all generations will call me blessed” Leah, the servant of Rachel, wife of Jacob says when she is given to Jacob and conceive a child “Yahweh has recognized the lowliness of his servant and future generations shall call me blessed.” All of Luke is full of midrash. He has a beautiful way of saying if you think God was great in what he did with a figure or story out of the Old Testament, it is even better in what I am telling you about Jesus. He is trying to share his excitement and experience of Jesus in his life and like all experiences, words never do it justice.
Though it is interesting to know what was going on at the time of Luke’s writing, and our understanding is enriched, we come to a conclusion that makes us wonder why we are reading this story. It never happened. It is a creation of Luke’s story telling and not a real event. So much history has been built around this story, religious communities carry its name. The image of hospitality at Christmas flows from this event. How do we reconcile all the tradition that has grown from this story with the reality of the story being only a story.
Are we called today to understand the scripture and scholarly explore the surface that I have barely scratched, or are we called to pray with scripture? There is a difference. In prayer we are asking to connect in some way with God and using the story from scripture as a way of opening up to God’s presence. So let your head sink down into your heart and open your imagination as we begin an old—several hundred years old, but simple process for praying with scripture—to contemplate, to reflect and to respond. Here, in contemplation as you enter into the story, your imagination is the guide. In one of my imaging it happened like this. A young teenager has been traveling for four days to get to the house of her cousin. She is pregnant, she has morning sickness, she is alone in a caravan of others journeying to Jerusalem. She has left her parents behind, even the man she is to marry and if asked who is the father of her child, what can she say and not sound crazy? Why isn’t he with her? Truly if some one is walking in trust, young Mary is doing that. She arrives at the house of her cousin Elizabeth and knocks hesitantly on the door. Elizabeth, old, and as everyone in the community knew, was shamed by God, because she had no children. In becoming pregnant she is embarrassed to go beyond the confines of her home and allows no one to see her. She herself is uncertain if she is pregnant, it makes no sense or if as Zachariah has written, she is pregnant and their son is to be named John. Privately she cannot keep her joy from spilling out. Again if anyone is walking in pure trust, Elizabeth is doing it. She hears the tentative knock on the door and no household servant is available to answer the door. Elizabeth goes to the door and opens it. She sees Mary, Mary sees Elizabeth. Mary is just starting to show and Elizabeth is very full. Arms fling around each other as bellies rub together and joyful loving warmth flows from Elizabeth to Mary. Mary feels the loving acceptance showering forth from her cousin and Elizabeth is bathed in Mary’s love. Love’s embrace says it all.
Are we at all like Mary, are we aware that God is present within us. As we live our life day by day are we present to the Sacred dwelling within us? Meister Eckhart tells of having a dream and though a man he was pregnant, big belly and all, pregnant with the fullness of God. So pregnancy is not just a female thing, all of us are called to be birthers of God, just as God herself from all eternity lies on a maternity bed. For the essence of God is birthing. Mary calls us to remember who we are. Elizabeth calls us to something just as important. She calls us to recognize the divine in one another. She recognizes in Mary God present. All of us are birthers of God, as a community of birthers God’s essence and presence is ever growing and changing as we experience God in a diversity of ways. Today we are reminded in pregnant joy to see our God in the unborn and in the faces of children who give us hope. Who can resist when you know a pregnant woman well putting a hand upon her abdomen in hopes of feeling the child within her move? Can you hold a newborn baby in your arms and regardless of whatever heartbreak is within you, not smile with joy as you look into their eyes. Children are our hope. They live in the moment and Jesus recognized their value in his time just as we do in our day.
In my own prayer life I had been struggling with God, over a flare up in a chronic health issue. I had stopped journaling and felt adrift. One morning knowing I needed to finish putting this homily together I picked up my prayer journal in which I draw my way into connecting with God and drew a door. Odd image I thought. Thought about how doors can stay closed and keep God out, how when opened can let others in. However, I didn’t understand fully what it meant until that evening. I went over to the home of a young man who considers himself my fourth son and who asked me over six years ago to be godmother to his daughter. Their home is a split-level and after walking in the door you have to go up or down the stairs. As we, my husband Ed and I, were going to join some of his family for dinner the door was left unlocked. I opened it and Maddie, my goddaughter who was on the upper level saw me. She ran down a few stairs and then leaped off them into my arms and as she hugged me said, “I missed you” and her smile and sparkling eyes did the rest. “I missed you too.” I whispered into her ear. As I set her down, I felt the message was coming from more than just Maddie and if I had any doubt, as I straightened up after setting Maddie down, her three year old brother Jordan launched himself from the stairs into my arms. As his feet wrapped around my sides he looked into my eyes and with the biggest smile said “I missed you too!”
Just as Elizabeth was reaching out to Mary these two children reached out to me. They reminded me of who I am and more excitingly of who they are. Children are such incredible healers, such sources of hope and joy. In difficult times, it is often a child, or children that pull us through. Mary in response to Elizabeth, according to Luke, goes on to say what has been called the Magnificat. Today in ending this might be what we would say:
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