December 22, 2024 – Fourth Sunday of Advent
Kahu Gary Percesepe
| Surprise! The angel Gabriel visits Mary with astonishing news. She, Mary, in her virgin body, will conceive and bear a son destined for the throne of David. Almost as an afterthought, Gabriel adds that Mary’s elderly and previously barren kinswoman Elizabeth is also with child. Enter the story: Imagine you’re Mary, a teenaged girl already engaged to be married to an older man named Joseph. God’s messenger interrupts your day. You were helping with the wash, you were working on dinner, you were dreaming about your wedding, you were going about your average everyday teen existence when this happens. What’s your first move? Mary needs to escape her gossiping little town. She feels the staring eyes and hears the whispering behind her back. She travels over the hills to the home of her old cousin, Elizabeth. She knows deep inside that Elizabeth will understand and offer her a safe place to wait for the child. A very young girl meets a very old woman. Both feel misunderstood. Joseph, the young girl’s fiancé, is considering separation, fearing scandal. Zechariah, the old woman’s husband, has been struck dumb and doesn’t understand what’s happening. Luke is a masterful writer. He braids a narrative built on parallelism, a poetic encounter between these dueling unlikely pregnancies: one scandalously too old to be pregnant, the other scandalously too unmarried. One who views her pregnancy as God “taking away the disgrace” of her childlessness, the other fearing the disgrace hers would bring. One just emerging from five months of seclusion, the other just starting. One drenched by the Holy Spirit from the day of conception, the other just now getting her own fill of it.[1] As they gaze at each other in wonder and awe and not a little bewilderment, they shout with joy. They embrace– can you see them? They hold each other, they cry, they laugh. There’s a lot about Mary’s situation I cannot identify with. But I suspect that there are women here who can. Some women with older sisters and cousins may relate to this text. Some women may recall those times when they received life altering news, and the first impulse is to take it straight to an older woman friend or relative. Maybe you know what it is to be the youngest in a clan of sisters, or maybe you have that one older cousin who has been there, seen everything, and has that amazing ability to see something you’re missing, who can offer empathy and a sense of perspective. Or maybe you’re a woman who is an only child, a woman with no sisters or female cousins, and you’re thinking, wow, I wish I had had somebody to talk to back then, what a difference it might have made. As a man, I’m jealous of the amount of emotional labor women accomplish. Being a modern man means being cut off from feeling, from emotion, from the ability to easily emphasize. I watched my dad, a veteran of D Day, a man who came home from that terrible war happy to have escaped the killing fields of Europe only to lose his first-born son in a bizarre accident. He never spoke of it. Like the soldier he was, he stood stoically by his post, but at what price emotionally? He died at age 71. To prove oneself to be a man can be very costly. As the philosopher bell hooks once observed, the first victims of patriarchy are men. “The mother of my Lord!” Elizabeth cries. “My soul magnifies the Lord!” Mary cries. Elizabeth affirms and celebrates her young cousin. Who else could do this for a pregnant teen? Elizabeth greets Mary with the word, “Blessed,” and I wonder if it’s only because of this greeting that Mary knows everything is going to be OK, because her trusted kinswoman has told her so? Feeling the love and acceptance of the older woman, Mary realizes her grace, her gift, her special blessing. Inspired as a prophet, Mary proclaims, “The Lord has looked with favor on the lowliness of this servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me.” Two women oppressed by the patriarchy of the ancient world suddenly realize their greatness and are free to celebrate their blessing. Each understand their need of the other. To be together, to protect one another, support one another, and affirm each other. They remain together for three months. Then each of them feels ready to face her truth alone, without fear, willing to suffer the social consequences of their motherhood.[2] I can’t think of a better message for our church and our world than this story of friendship, care, and aloha. In a world filled with shame and guilt, we need to visit one other. We must offer one another safety, and space for grace, space to claim our freedom and celebrate our gifts. We need to escape the judgmental voices and suspicious minds and the hostility of those who do not accept us or want us, and retreat to a place where we know we are loved and accepted and affirmed. Family—isn’t that what church is supposed to be? Can we be that for one another? Amene. |
[1] [1] See Nadia Stefko’s wonderful “Sunday’s Coming” commentary on this text, “The Wisdom of A Kinswoman” in The Christian Century.
[2] Ibid.