The Rev. Sara Warfield
Scripture: Luke 1:39-55
This scripture of Mary and Elizabeth’s meeting comes up every year in Advent in our lectionary, either on the third or fourth Sunday. Which honestly, I love. Because…Have y’all heard of the Bechdel Test? It’s a test for movies, actually. To pass this test, a film must meet three criteria. It must 1) have at least two women in it, who 2) talk to each other, about 3) something other than a man. This has to happen just one time in the entire movie for it to score 100%. Just once. And 43% of all movies fail.
Now if we’re being very strict, the Bible fails the Bechdel Test completely. Every single book…but Ruth, Mark, and the passage we heard in Luke today all come really close. And I think we need to celebrate even the partial wins of half the population being significantly if momentarily represented in our Holy Scripture.
Today’s gospel is considered borderline passing. Because it is 1) just Mary and Elizabeth who are 2) talking to one another. But they’re talking about an unborn baby who does turn out to be a man—and a savior and God-with-us, so I feel like there’s a little wiggle room there. I give it a B minus.
Joking aside, though, I do celebrate when two marginalized, often ignored, and lonely people get to come together to nurture one another’s joy, one another’s hope.
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Let me ask you something: When you were in high school, what happened to the girls who became pregnant? When I was in high school in Wyoming in the mid 90s, those girls were sent to a “special” high school where the “troubled” kids went. Now that I look back, it’s almost like everyone, from parents to school administrators, were doing their best to hide them away. If those girls went out in public and were spotted by their peers, the stares and whispers would start. We’d notice her bulky coat and loose pants. I say “we” because I’m sure I was among the starers and whisperers. And the poor girl would do her best to get out from under our gaze as quickly as possible.
I’m sure the situation wasn’t much better in your time. And it certainly wasn’t good for Mary, who was not only unwed, but also the baby wasn’t her fiance’s doing. I can’t imagine the shadow of shame people cast on her.
Now let me ask you something else: What do you think is one of the top questions a woman gets in her late 20s, early 30s? When are you going to start a family? You have to settle down before it’s too late.The clock is ticking. And what about us middle aged and especially nearing middle aged women who either can’t or choose not to have children. The disappointment our parents don’t hide very well. The sideways looks we get in church—not this church, bless you—but some of us have felt it in church communities.
Now imagine being Elizabeth who truly wanted to have children but couldn’t. The community around her treating her as if not having children was a failure of her womanhood, even punishment for a lack of faith. I imagine she, too, got the stares and whispers, especially in her society and especially as she was getting older and less, well, fertile. All that on top of her own heartbreak around not being able to have the family she dreamed of.
So it’s no wonder that Mary, the unwed pregnant teenager, set out with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth, the woman who had finally, miraculously gotten pregnant in her old age, though not before a full adulthood of judgment.
I imagine they were both lonely in their own ways. Mary who was likely ostracized by her community—let’s not forget that an angel had to convince Joseph to still marry her. And Elizabeth whose joy had been postponed for so long. They needed each other. They needed each other to reflect the joy of their situations. Because getting pregnant when you want to have children is joyful. And they each needed someone to celebrate that with them.
On top of all that, it’s John the Baptist and Jesus who are in their wombs. One baby who will faithfully prepare the way for the other baby whose life and death will turn the world upside down.
That’s what Mary sings about. Through Jesus, God will:
scatter the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
Bring down the powerful from their thrones,
and lift up the lowly;
fill the hungry with good things,
and send the rich away empty.
In the midst of their frustration and despair, Mary and Elizabeth find their people. They come together to bolster one another, and also to celebrate what God will bring into the world, how Jesus will remake the world.
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But has he, though? Has the world been remade? We look around, and it doesn’t feel that way.
And to that I would say: The world is not remade just once. It was remade when Jesus rose from the dead. It was remade when he commissioned the disciples to teach his love to the world. It was remade when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jerusalem at Pentecost and allowed everyone to understand one another.
It was remade when the first cathedral rose above all the trees. It was remade when Julian of Norwich held a hazelnut in her hand. It was remade when Gandhi went on a hunger strike, and Martin Luther King, Jr. crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.
The world is remade whenever we choose to act on the values that Mary sang about, the values Jesus would embody: to bring down the powerful, to lift up the lowly, to fill the hungry, and to send the rich away empty.
But when you do this work without others, it gets, well, lonely. You can feel like you are the only person in the world fighting for your beliefs and values. That everyone else is not doing as much as they should be or they don’t care enough or they are actively part of the problem. When you feel alone in all that, despair is always close by.
That’s why Mary set out with haste to be with Elizabeth. To be with someone who understands her despair and frustration but who also shares her values and joy. "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." That’s how Elizabeth greets Mary. In other words, Elizabeth is well and truly psyched. That joyful presence, that affirmation inspires Mary to proclaim and celebrate how the fruit of her body will remake the world.
It’s hard to believe that we can remake the world when we’re on our own. Because we can’t do it on our own. One person did not build that first cathedral. Julian of Norwich could have never recorded her brilliant visions without the support of her monastic community. Gandhi did not fast alone, and Martin Luther King, Jr. did not march alone.
The only solid answer I have when people are despairing about the suffering and violence and greed around them is: find your people.
That’s why I’m here at St. Luke’s. That’s what church has become for me. You’re my people. People who want to share our faith together, to figure out our values together, to affirm one another’s ministries in the world together. We build up one another’s joys, and we hold each other’s despair so that none of us has to feel alone in them. None of us has to feel like we have to carry it all by ourselves.
And carrying one another’s joys and despair—and letting someone else carry our joys and despair—well, that’s what love looks like. That’s what Mary and Elizabeth did for each other, and it’s what we get to do for one another. And to that I say:
My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
Amen.
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