December 20, 2015
Text: Luke 1:39-55
In my mind, Advent is not so much about turning ourselves around, repentance if you will, as it is about our stopping our regular activities, unplugging from media mindlessness and watching and waiting for the incarnation of God. An incarnation that was and is and is to come. There is no agenda here about our wrongness or rightness or call, instead the agenda belongs to God.
Where is God’s incarnation today? Seeing God in our world right now feels particularly difficult with for me: knowing how and why and what ISIS is doing in the Middle East; the many Syrian refugees; the systemic violence in the longstanding Israel-Palestine tensions; and in our country, a budding epiphany about the violence and large inequities of our own African-American population. Where can we see God?
Christianity’s essential agenda is incarnation - to have the word become flesh and dwell among us. What is the word? In this context, the Greek is logos, which means much more than the meaning of one word; rather, it means everything God wants to communicate to man; so, essentially, every message so far in the Old Testament becoming flesh. This is the Word beginning in Genesis that created the world and why. This is the Word that brought deliverance from Egyptian slavery for several nomadic tribes. This is the difficult but creative story of a people learning to trust God and each other in forming the nation of Israel, evolving chapter by chapter into the still future land of Zion where peace is flowing like a river and justice rains down like manna from the sky. Jesus is That word becoming flesh and living as God among us.
So essentially in Advent, we are asked to get ourselves out of the way and wait and watch for the Word of God among us, the incarnate Jesus among us. God IS flesh around us – Emily Owsley reminded us of the acts of love everyday three weeks ago in sharing her journey with L’Arche, also in small acts of love we do for each other like Dawn and Mike’s faithfulness to Florence’s return home this past week, in grand manifestations of beauty in Creation like the red and orange canopy of clouds that were lit up this past Wednesday morning, and in more rare but large systemic acts of hope like the climate accords agreed upon two weeks ago where all nations agreed to lower their carbon emissions across the board.
If there is any turning or repentance, it is in acknowledging that we are delusional in thinking we have full control of our own selves as spiritual beings. What will God birth among us? What will God birth inside us?
Just one month ago, I returned from my first trip to Haiti. Without knowing it, I was practicing an important Advent discipline in that I had no particular agenda in going. I was not particularly looking for a new calling or to even learn the language – heck, I did not even consider getting shots or even pack much clothing (thank God it was really hot there). All I knew was just that Faith and Money would provide the kind of immersion and awareness that I valued, and that I was available, and that I wanted to share in the memories my husband had regarding his trips to Haiti, which have become a part of our marital consciousness. Please know that Faith and Money was very clear and diligent about what we needed to know – shots, cultural orientation, etc. Mike Little even sent us a link to a downloadable app for Creole that I completely missed in my scan of the emails. Kate can tell you I called her at 9 PM the evening before, finally done with the day, begging her for details that I was sure I was missing.
The intention of the Faith and Money trip was not to help build a school or worse, a church, or to even to bring 5-gallon buckets within which Haitians can clean water with the addition of a little bleach powder. Faith and Money intended for us to meet and be with the rural community of Ma, in the mountains, 22 km from Jacmel. At the end of the “drivable” road, we were greeted by half the village with hugs, smiles, and loud enthusiasm. They threw our bags on their heads, and we walked side by side along their rocky, dusty, narrow path to their village. I stumbled on some Creole to begin knowing one of the women next to me and was pleased she knew a little Spanish. The connection was halting and humorous and helped by Djaloki, one of our Creole translators, but it was a connection. At the top of the first mountain, we passed the open air classroom, which was just a black board and homemade benches. We passed farmland that was barely discernible from the forest on the steep mountainsides before arriving at the home of Krismas. Yes my Advent walk had taken me to the home of Krismas. He, even by himself, embodied the Haitian Bonjou with such energy and openness. He even enthusiastically used his English to greet us and make it known to us the door to their hearts was wide open – not necessarily vulnerable – but open. In addition to Krismas, we met the other half of the village where we received the same enthusiastic greeting and we were handed a coconut with a straw for refreshment. Mike Hanna had told me about this custom – not in relation to his trip to Haiti but in relation to his trip to Liberia, Africa. All of the sudden I discovered we were really in this hidden African country in the middle of the Caribbean.
Kim Montroll and I were introduced to Jolene and Daniel who welcomed us into their two-room home where they raise five children. They gave us their only double bed and essentially half their home. I was grateful for the warning the night before that this might be the case. I was challenged, grieved, thinking “I would not do that for a guest.” Two of their boys slept at a cousin’s home; in the other half of their home, Daniel, the father, slept in a single bed; the oldest, eleven-year-old, daughter, and the two-year old slept on the floor; the mother, Jolene, and her seven month old baby slept on another single bed in the second room. Their home was total of two hundred square feet with a separate wooden hut for cooking and two covered latrines. That first night, Jolene told us excitedly that she planned a special breakfast the next morning. Her “alarm clock” was the baby at 4 AM crying for milk. After she nursed her back to sleep, I could hear her shuffling to the kitchen; over the next 3 hours, she bounced between cooking for us and caring for each of these 3 kids as they woke up crying or with a yearning question or with a need to get dressed and go to school. I know a little of what this is like with three kids of my own and I began to cry as I thought of the challenging circumstances she was dealing with compared to my own circumstances with the same tasks. She was patient and gentle. She was loving and kind. She was God-made-flesh for me as she showed herself as pure love in the midst of this adversity.
And so it was with much of our visit – it was not the fact of poverty alone that affected us. And our hearts did not shift at the smiles, the songs, the food, or even the stories alone. It was the whole experience of wide-open, welcoming arms and boundless energetic generosity in the midst of multiple desperate realities of poverty that broke my heart, separating my chaff from tender wheat to reference Marjory’s sermon last week.
Context is everything, as my story above exemplifies. Djaloki had told us that Haitian communication would be contextual – that Haitians are much more whole body listeners, more adeptly paying attention to our body language, energy levels, and the spirits we bring with us. Yes, as the Haitian proverb goes, Ayiti (Haiti) is 60% converted Catholic, 40% converted protestant, and 100% voodoo. They carry a sense of animism, dare I say incarnation, of every part of creation having a unique spirit that communicates. This sense has not been lost over these 210 years of independence from European colonial rule. While there I was puzzled one night when running back to my hosts’ house, I had to wait for it to be unlocked by Daniel. Surely they were not worried about being robbed. I was told that at night that it was important to keep the spirits out of the house. Also, remembering a previous trip to Honduras and the scorpion inside my bedroom one night, I knew these spirits were also manifest in very physical ways.
Another thing I learned in Haiti was not to promise anything. It was so tempting to start to promise help in some ways but Kim guided me gently back to communicating in the here and now, … which made me much more vulnerable. Doesn’t it always make us more comfortable in the moment when we distract our discomfort with promises instead of staying with the difficulty in the moment?
I want to bring all three of these elements – contextual understanding, an understanding of animism, and a here and now focus to the scripture reading today.
Luke 1:39-55
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "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."
And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."
From a European perspective, Barclay’s perspective to be specific, we would hear this scripture not so much as a product of spiritual clarity of a 14-16-18 year-old newly engaged girl, but as the product of the gospel writer Luke, essentially projecting his ideas on how Mary’s “yes” was the beginnings of a revolution. Through the humble beginning and life of Jesus, we have a roadmap of a moral revolution (scattering the proud in their thoughts), a social revolution (bringing the powerful down from their thrones and lifting the lowly), and an economic revolution (filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich empty away). Also with this perspective, I easily dismiss Mary’s part in the whole thing – just a scared girl in the midst of a domestic problem. Her “yes” was an accident.
But from the Haitian perspective, I am alive with possibility here. As Mary I feel the heat and dust and hills on the road to Judea, and my urgency to see Elizabeth and meet her spirit and her fullness. My strides are wide, and I am grateful for the extra supply of blood as a result of my pregnancy to get me there sooner. I am full of unknowns that are scary but also full of mystery and possibility.
As Mary sees Elizabeth and greets her with a big Bonjou! the doors of their spirits and the spirits within them connect and John leaps for joy at the divine presence of Jesus in Mary. With all the bizarre circumstances surrounding each of their pregnancies together, they are not just pregnant together; they are full of God’s revolution of life with all the mystery that goes with that. Luke’s gentile and educated words are not far from Mary’s own belief in the mystery inside her.
Just two days ago, in the lectionary scriptures, was the story of how Joseph was ready to dismiss Mary quietly upon news of her pregnancy. Given the myriad of reactions and interpretations, he could have had regarding the circumstances of this pregnancy, whether his child or not, he embraces the vision of an angel and follows through with the most difficult path because he has faith in God and embraces many manifestations of how the Holy Spirit and the many spirits may work without dismissing a choice, just because of the unknowns.
It is much easier for me to imagine both Joseph and Mary as Haitian as they threw themselves and their new family into this mystery of God that would bring them mortal danger and social trouble right away.
It is (only) through this complete surrender of our own agenda that we can be so rooted in both mercy and forgiveness. It is only in our surrender to our need to know God’s plan for our lives that we can hope and trust in God’s mystery. It is only through the emptiness of ourselves that we can be full of God and God can be born in us this season, for a purpose possibly still unknown.