Jesus The Good Shepherd

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Pressure cookers belong on the kitchen stove. Ball bearings are to reduce friction. Nails are for building. But on Monday they were part of a bomb that killed three people and injured hundreds on a day of athletic achievement and celebration. The search for the guilty brought Boston to an unprecedented standstill.

Being fairly new to the area, I have listened to what people around me tell me about what Patriot’s Day means in Boston, and what the Marathon means—how it is part of the way Boston welcomes the world. I am especially struck by how it has always been such a good day: a time to get together with friends, a day to watch the Red Sox or the historic Boston Marathon—and if the weather was good it was a perfect day. People have told me that they were there—at the Marathon—or had just been there, or had almost been there, or were there last year. Parents who took their children home early that day sent them to baseball camp this week with children who were there when the bombs went off. We are all so connected, and we feel shaken and vulnerable. We struggle to make sense of what happened, and to try and explain it to our children. We want answers: why? Why did they do this?

Even if the surviving bomber tells us why he and his brother did what they did, it will be no answer at all. There is only one answer explaining acts of cruel destruction—the answer is that there is evil in the world.

The Gospel new lambproclaimed this morning is part of a chapter in John called the Good Shepherd discourse. Jesus said “My sheep follow me.” He said, “I give them eternal life.” “No one will snatch them out of my hand.” Who wants to snatch the sheep? The wolf. The wolf is the image of the evil destruction.  Jesus is the Good Shepherd, the Wolf is Evil Incarnate, which for better or worse leaves us as the sheep.

Last week, I was thinking about sheep. I have preached on the Good Shepherd before, but I confess that most of what I know about sheep comes from the internet. Most of us don’t know much about sheep—I’ll never forget the young man in our youth group who said that the Bible stories didn’t mean much to him because WE AREN’T FARMERS. It dawned on me that there are sheep in Hingham, at Weir River Farm; and I know the farmer.

I had heard that there were new lambs up at the farm, and I went up to see them and to ask Meg to tell me about sheep.  Right off the bat she said: “People think sheep are dumb because they move as a flock. They aren’t dumb. They live a life shaped by their fear. They are afraid of predators. They are vulnerable.”

up closeMeg, who has a young daughter herself, said lambs are just like babies: “You think you have the house baby-proofed and safe, and in no time at all the baby gets into something. Lambs can get wedged between a bale of hay and a wall in just seconds, and then we hear them crying for help. Loudly!”

She pointed out the lambs climbing up on their mother’s backs, “See, the sheep are tired from giving birth so they are lying down. The lambs are standing on them because their instinct is to be up high—it’s safer if they have a good view.  The moms are watching us to see if we are a danger to the lambs. When they see that we are safe, they go back to resting.” She said, “Sheep are very good mothers, and fiercely protective of their lambs.” The more she talked about sheep and lambs, the more I thought that sheep are a pretty good metaphor for people.

Now, if you are willing to imagine yourself as a sheep, you follow Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who is protecting you from the Evil Wolf. Evil is not just our enemy, it is God’s enemy too. Jesus did many deeds of power during his life, but the greatest of all was when he conquered evil and death and rose again. The greatest gift of the Good Shepherd was laying down his life for the sheep. Now—in the middle of the Easter season—we have a close up view of the Resurrection and it helps us to see how God is at work in the world. When you look at the films and photos of the bombing, you can see God at work, even when it doesn’t look like it. What you can see is Grace.

The thing people talk about the most, when they talk about the moments right after the bombs went off, was how many people ran toward the sound of the explosions. Many of them were first responders, trained for moments like that. And many of them were ordinary people who turned to help: to lift the barricades, to stop the bleeding. One man, Tyler Dodd, has been recognized as a hero among the many who rushed to help. He was a block away, not even watching the race, when he heard the bombs. He ran toward the sound, and on the strength of his previous mass trauma experience, he was waved in. He braced himself for what he knew he would see as he headed into the center of the carnage, and he quickly began to bind up wounds and comfort the injured. During an interview later, he was asked the standard question: how were you able to go into that situation and do what was needed? But he didn’t give the standard answer: that he was trained for it. What he said was: “Every morning I pray to God that he will use me as an instrument.”

Tyler Dodd was an instrument of God’s Grace that day, but he was not the only one. There were many examples of Grace, thank God. It is Grace that helps us to transcend ourselves and act with love and goodness, even when self-preservation would have us head in the opposite direction.  Grace is what made it possible for some people to turn toward the danger, not away from it, and to help in the rescue.

In the days since last Monday, I have heard people reflect on how the bombing has affected them. Everyone is dealing with feelings of vulnerability, their own or those they love. One person said that cleaning out the closets seemed much less important, and she was going to spend the day planting flowers. Does that sound odd? Or maybe it’s brilliant. It is an incarnational response–a way to show that life is precious and we get to make a choice about what is truly important.

You can be an instrument of Grace: by planting flowers, making peace, caring for a sick friend or a sad child.  And if you are fearful and hurting, you can just be a little lamb and climb up into the safety of the arms of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

The pot has returned to the cook, the nail to the builder, and the ball bearings to the engineer.  And we do what we are shaped to do; we gather and we pray for healing and peace.  And all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.

Blessings, Anne+

Remembering Corrie ten Boom

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the-hiding-place-by-corrie-ten-boomReading the story of Corrie ten Boom, when I was in high school, was an important moment in my spiritual growth. The Hiding Place, a memoir, tells of Corrie’s life in Holland, and how her Christian family helped the Jews suffering from Nazi persecution. The title refers to both the physical hiding place where the ten Boom family hid the Jews in their home, and also to the line in Psalm 119:114 which says, “Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word… The hiding place in their home was betrayed, and Corrie and her family were taken to the camps. Only she survived, and amazingly she spent the rest of her life traveling the world and talking about forgiveness, hope and freedom.

It was many decades later, in coming to serve at St. John’s, that I met the authors; my dear friends John and Elizabeth Sherrill, whom you meet in this video. They spoke to a group of young actors who are preparing to present a stage version of The Hiding Place, at the Company Theatre in Norwell, MA. You will see several material reminders of that terrible time, including a yellow star and a flower that Corrie embroidered on her undershirt, using thread she unraveled from her clothes and a smuggled needle.

On this day, when we officially remember the Holocaust–or more appropriately the Shoah (calamity)–I am proud to share this evidence that the terrible lessons of that time are being remembered and taught to our children.

Blessings,
Anne+

The embedded link wasn’t working, so please click on the link below to see the video on YouTube.

[http://youtu.be/59o2luUjP8M]

Moses at the Burning Bush

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Exodus 3:1-15

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

Then the LORD said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”

But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM Who I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: this is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.

Moses and the Burning Bush Crystal CathedralHave you ever seen a burning bush?

I did, on a trip to Southern California.  Several years ago, my husband Steve and I took a detour to see the Crystal Cathedral.  Not only was the worship space dramatic and huge–they used to have major productions of the Christmas and Easter stories that included live animals on stage–but they had monuments on the grounds intended to bring biblical events to life.  I must say I found it a bit disconcerting to walk beside a reflecting pool and see a seven-foot statue of Jesus in mid-stride walking on the water, with his arm raised in greeting.  That was where I saw the burning bush–it was a statue of the bush, and it was piped for gas so that flame shot out of the tip of each branch! There was a statue of Moses too, holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments (which was rushing the narrative somewhat). It was realistic, but it missed so much of what the story has to tell us. The Sunday lectionary, the arrangement of readings from scripture, allows you to hear most of the Bible if you come to church every Sunday for three years (and I recommend that you do!) But a little research revealed that none of the early stories of Moses’ life are part of the Sunday lectionary–so this moment at the burning bush is the first time we meet Moses.

What has happened to Moses before this? He was born into slavery in Egypt. He was in danger from the first slaughter of the innocents–Pharaoh feared how numerous the Hebrew slaves were becoming, and he ordered that all the infant boys be murdered so they would not arise in battle against him. Moses’ mother protected him by preparing a floating basket, and sending him out into the Nile just upriver from where one of Pharaoh’s daughters was bathing with her handmaids. Pharaoh’s daughter saw the basket, and decided to rescue the Hebrew child raising him as her own. She named him Moses, an Egyptian name meaning “I drew him out of the waters.” He was raised in the palace, away from his people and culture, until the day he observed an Egyptian overseer abusing a Hebrew slave who was one of his kinsmen. Outraged and angry, Moses struck the Egyptian when he thought no one could see him. He buried the overseer in the sand. The next day, he was arguing with another Hebrew who said, “Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses was afraid he would be punished for what he did, and fled Egypt, to the land of Midian (on the Arabian peninsula), where in time he married and became a shepherd.

We meet Moses here as an exile: a refugee shepherd with anger management problems, walking with sheep in the ownerless desert. Then a miracle occurs. There is a bush, burning in the desert but not consumed by the flames, and Moses turns aside to see it. God speaks to Moses from the bush. He calls him: “Moses! Moses!” And Moses says: “Here I am!” “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is Holy Ground.”

Have you ever stood on Holy Ground?

Holy ground is that place where you encounter God’s presence. A church is holy ground. I have often wondered why we don’t take off our shoes when we enter a church. That is certainly the tradition in Islam–for worshippers to take off their shoes when they enter. I suppose the arc of our tradition that led us through Northern Europe, and cold stone churches, made bare feet an impractical choice. Although, a clergy friend did tell me that some preachers kick off their shoes when they enter the pulpit.

So Moses was standing on holy ground, and God called him to lead the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land. And Moses said…  No! He argued and objected from his first breath. Who am I? he asked. Who are YOU? What is your name? What if they don’t believe me? What if they kill me? God answered with patience and help, with signs and wonders, and ultimately with the unimaginable generosity of revelation of God’s divine being: Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. I AM who I AM, or a better translation: I WILL BE who I WILL BE. God is indefinable Being: immanent and transcendent. Immanent in the personal conversation, the very awareness of Moses’s feet; and transcendent in the fiery vision of the bush–the one God unbounded by time or physical being.

This encounter is so rich–there is so much to explore in the story!  I am fortunate to meet for lunch with a clergy group almost every Friday.  We gather for conversation and study: we are Jewish, Unitarian, Baptist, Lutheran and Episcopalian. I couldn’t resist asking them about this story: Moses! Burning Bush! What have you got?

The senior Rabbi said: It is a miracle story, which can be tricky. Are you asking people to focus on the miracle? Or is the teaching more important?  Anyway, the miracle is not that the bush was burning! The bush could have been burning since Creation! The miracle is that Moses turned aside to look. Then God entered the bush. The important thing is the communication between the human and the Divine.

sumacThen a minister said: I have seen a burning bush. I was on the coast north of Boston, on retreat.  A quiet whisper drew me out to the water, and as each wave hit the rocks, I saw spray shoot into the air. As the sun shot through each droplet I saw a full arc of a rainbow in the spray. Then the spray dropped to the ground and the rainbow disappeared. Then another wave sent the spray up again, and another rainbow formed. I watched this happen over and over, awash in the miracle of creation. Then I turned and saw the Burning Bush. I was transfixed. When I was finally able to form thoughts I realized it was a sumac bush that was covered with the same tiny droplets of water from the spray, lit with the blazing sunlight so that every leaf, every twig, every branch blazed with the light of the sun.

pile_of_shoesAfter she finished speaking we were all quiet for several minutes.  Then a priest said: I have stood on Holy Ground. Years ago, I served in Newfoundland. People there always took off their shoes to go into the house; there was so much dirt and salt that if they tracked it in it would fill their houses. Communication wasn’t always good there, especially if you were in a remote area. One day there was an accident; someone working on the roads in the far north was killed by an eighteen-wheeler. Normally, it would have taken weeks to get the news, but someone was there with him, and he had a cell phone so he called and the family found out immediately. The news went through the whole community like lightning. I got a call and went to visit the family right away. When the door opened I could see the entryway. There was a mountain of shoes in the middle. All I could think of was this passage: “Take off your shoes, for you are on holy ground.” Each pair of shoes represented a person who had come to this family in their time of grief, to offer love and care.

This encounter with God, the I AM who is both immanent and transcendent, makes me think of one of Anne Lamott’s great prayers.  She is a writer about religion and life who brings humor into the conversation. She says there are three great prayers, which make up the title of her most recent book. The first great prayer is Help! It is the prayer the Hebrews prayed to God when they were enslaved in Egypt. The second great prayer is Thanks! That is the prayer that the Hebrews said when they reached the Promised Land. And the third great prayer seems like the one we can pray today, in response to Moses’ encounter with God. The third great prayer is: Wow!

As you walk through this season of Lent, I encourage you to dig your toes into Holy Ground, and feast your eyes on the blazing signs of God’s glory.  And say Wow! at every opportunity.

Lent Madness meets Sacred Story

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Anne and bracket

The Rev. Anne Emry distributing Lent Madness brackets at the Hingham train station

I never thought I would go to the train station fully vested, but anything can happen around here.  I work at what has become ground zero for Lent Madness–the brainchild of my boss, the Rev. Tim Schenck.  About three years ago he came up with this crazy mix-up of Lent and March Madness which pits saints against each other in rounds decided by online voting.  It began on his blog: Clergy Family Confidential, and has now gone viral, and has been featured in major media outlets.  Now Lent Madness has it’s own website, and is affiliated with Forward Movement. Not only have I been passing out brackets at the Hingham train station (can’t tell the players without a scorecard!), but I have created the first official Lent Madness Lenten Series Curriculum.  You will find it on this blog, with it’s own page for easy access. The first contest this Lent is between Jonathan Daniels, a modern civil rights martyr and Macrina the younger, a fourth century theologian and monastic. Let the madness begin!

Jay O’Callahan and the Power of Story

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2013 Stories from Birmingham and the Civil Rights Movement

(L to R) Jay O’Callahan, the Rev. Paul Sprecher, the Rev. Anne Emry

Jay O’Callahan tells stories all over the world: in Tennessee, London, Dublin and now in Hingham, at Glastonbury Abbey.  The Hingham-Hull Religious Leaders Association presented an event featuring Jay’s beguiling talent to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  An audience of all ages was rapt listening to Jay embody the stories of a young white woman who grew up in Birmingham and worked for equal rights.  He enacted the song-poem of Brother Blue and his encounter with grace when he thought he would be killed sitting in the front seat of an Alabama bus.  Sacred stories always point to God’s grace, and when they are told by a master storyteller they are a great delight.

Christmas Day: Traveler on a Cosmic Journey

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John 1:1-14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

IMG_8249My favorite Christmas tradition is putting up the crèche—the nativity scene with all of the familiar characters.  My crèche figures come from the south of France—I bought them on a trip there when I was visiting family—and they are Santons (little saints) made of terra cotta.  The Santons from Provence include all of the usual figures—Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus, shepherd, many sheep, the magi—and so many more.  My crèche includes a peasant and his wife with her market basket, a priest with a red umbrella whose handle is a goose’s head, and my favorite figure who is clearly a traveler. The traveler has a cape that is spread out behind him.  He clasps his hat to his head as he leans into the wind.  His other hand grips a walking stick that he plants into the ground as he propels himself forward.  He is a dynamic figure, and he conveys the strenuous motion and effort required by his journey.  He is a modern looking figure—compared to the others—and his part in the nativity scene is to remind me that we modern people are also on the journey to Bethlehem.  And now it is Christmas day, and we have arrived in Bethlehem.  The Messiah is here. No matter where our journey began–in the nearby hills or in the distant realms of the East, we travelers find ourselves in the same place. Is this the end of our journey? Like people who meet on the road always have, we tell each other stories of our journey. Our stories are each different–of course they are. We began in different places, saw and heard different things

The Gospels are stories of four different journeys to meet the Christ.  Each one begins in a different place.  Some tell of some of the same events.  There is a difference in each—the sound of a different voice, the perspective of a different pair of eyes.

The Gospel of Matthew tells of a journey that begins with dreams and messages from an angel. It is Matthew who tells us of the Magi–we call them kings but they are more likely astronomers–astrologers (they were mostly the same thing back then).  A cosmic vision of a never-before seen star!

The Gospel of Mark begins the story about Jesus at his baptism as an adult–at the beginning of his ministry. No swaddling clothes are found in the Gospel of Mark. We never see Bethlehem through Mark’s eyes.

The Gospel of Luke describes our journey to Bethlehem, like Matthew. He begins with an angel’s visit–this time to Mary, and he tells of the birth in the stable, the shepherds and the heavenly host shouting Gloria! Another cosmic vision—unearthly, transcendent!

The Gospel of John has a cosmic perspective too—and it begins even earlier. The author of the Fourth Gospel begins with the beginning of everything–the beginning of time.  Beginning, Beginning….Every journey has a beginning….John starts: In the beginning was the Word–.

And in your ears you may hear the echo of another beginning.  It is the very beginning of our holy scriptures…  It is the book of Genesis which begins: In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

John’s Gospel doesn’t merely echo the words and images of Genesis—John’s Gospel is built on the foundation of the ideas and images of Genesis. Beginning, light,  darkness, goodness, and most essential of all is the phrase: “God said, Let there be light.”  God said. It is the speaking of God that created the heavens and the earth and everything. And the speaking of God was the speaking of a Word.

After the journey that ends at night in a little village called Bethlehem, that ends in the company of angels and shepherds and animals and a newborn child, we wake up in the morning wondering what it all means.  And on this morning we hear the words of light and darkness from before the beginning of time.  And somehow we begin to make the connection that the newborn child is the human presence of the eternal holy.  We are witnesses that something cosmic has happened—and we share that realization with all of the Gospel writers, with the ancient inhabitants of Bethlehem and their motley visitors, with John the Baptizer, and with the whole community that speaks through this text.  Suddenly we hear many voices: We! “We have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

We linger in this joyful moment as long as we can, but we cannot stay in Bethlehem.  It is the end of one journey, and the begining of another.  As we hold the wonder of the birth of Christ in our heart, we still travel through a world that is blasted with darkness—as we know only too well.  And yet, and yet, “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” That is the cosmic reality—that the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem is a light that shines through time—back to the beginning of creation and forward to this very moment.  That light cannot be stifled by the darkness in this world that is always trying to blot it out.

No matter how sharp the wind that cuts through our traveling cloak, nor how bleak the midwinter night, the star that beckoned us to make that journey to Bethlehem still guides our hearts to our Savior Jesus Christ.  And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Word of God, the eternal, undefeated light of the world.

Blessings,

Anne+

The Song of Mary

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Annunciation by Janet Mckenzie

The Annunciation by Janet McKenzie (used with permission of the artist)

When you need to know the truth, who do you listen to?  Not the Mayans, evidently. Here we are, after the latest predicted apocalypse has failed to arrive. And yet, the world as we know it may actually have ended a week ago Friday—with the death of the innocents in Newtown, Connecticut.  At so many levels, our lives are filled with uncertainty about the present and the future.  Uncertainty and uneasiness, and even fear. No wonder we listen to people who say they are prophets, who say they can predict the future.  But prophets don’t all agree, and what you hear depends on who you ask.

Of course the truth of the matter is that prophets aren’t mainly in the business of predicting the future. The bible is full of accounts of prophets, and sometimes they did predict the future. But more important, a prophet was someone called by God to share Godʼs vision—speaking and acting on Godʼs behalf.  Prophets often had harsh words for leaders who fail to keep faith with the people, and with God. The bible is full of accounts of the calling of the prophets, when they were given a task to do.  Mary is not usually called a prophet, but there is reason to think of her as one. Mary, the young girl from Nazareth was called by God to give birth to a child, Jesus the holy child of God.  You’ve heard the story of how an angel came to tell her that God had chosen her.  You might have a few pictures, on the walls of your mind, of the scene of the Annunciation.  That scene has been painted by great artists—Leonardo, Botticelli —there are many paintings of this scene showing an angel kneeling before a beautiful lady robed in splendid silks. There is often a stem of white lilies between them, symbolizing her purity. Those painting show the elevated Mary—the Mary who has been on a pedestal above ordinary women.  But those painting tell us more about the world of the court painters who made them than they do about Mary—the girl from rural Palestine, a girl from Nazareth, a town hardly noticed by Jerusalem and of no importance to Rome. So letʼs look at her in a different way and call her Marʼyam. Marʼyam is the name of the young prophet from Nazareth in her native language. Let us “invite her down from the pedestal where she has been honored in the past, to rejoin us on the ground of the community of grace in history.”[1] What would a new, more realistic painting, look like?

The background of this painting would be the dry golden landscape of ancient Palestine. There are hills in the distance, and some dark green trees. Near the center of the picture is a young Jewish woman. She is fourteen or fifteen years old, with long, black hair tied back by a scarf. A donkey is walking in a circle, its harness tied to a stake in the ground. It is pulling a threshing board to separate the grain from the chaff. The grain and chaff are being combed into a circular path under the donkeyʼs feet. Marʼyam stands in the hot sun, under the blue sky, clapping her hands and calling to the donkey to keep walking. Her skin is brown like her people, and browner from the sun. As she reaches down to pull away the chaff, a man appears—a stranger. Marʼyam is startled, but he quickly greets her in such a way that she is not afraid. At that moment, she is more puzzled at his appearance, and his words. He tells her that God is with her. He tells her that she is going to conceive a child from the Holy Spirit. Marʼyam recognizes this as Godʼs word to her, and her only question is: how is this possible? The messenger tells her that with God, nothing is impossible. And Marʼyam consents. She well knows the danger she faces. The penalty for an engaged woman in her community who is pregnant outside of marriage is death by stoning. The messenger leaves as suddenly as he came, and Marʼyam hastily departs on a journey from Galilee to Judea.

Mar’yam heads for the hills, to stay with her relative—call her by her Hebrew name: Elisheva. Elisheva understands at once what has happened, and Mar’yam is able to tell her what God has given her to do. Few of Marʼyamʼs words are recorded in the scriptures, and the best known is her joyful song: the Magnificat.

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.

Janet_McKenzie_195

Painting by Janet McKenzie (used with permission of the artist)

Mar’yam calls herself lowly, which could mean that she is humble before God. She is also humble as a result of her life experience, a life experience of humiliation–the humiliation of a poor, vulnerable woman living under the oppression of the double taxation of Herod and the Roman Empire, in a climate of suppressed violence.

And yet, she rejoices in what God is calling her to do—she is bringing to birth the long awaited Messiah.  Mar’yam sings for joy at what that means for the people of Israel. In her song we hear prophetic speech—a rallying cry for the poor and fearful to overcome evil and violence. This Mar’yam is not a passive, ethereal being detached from the suffering of her people. She is of her people, of her family and her land–a Jewish woman of faith, a holy soul who is a prophet and a friend of God.

Mar’yam of Nazareth gave of herself, of her humanity. Jesus came from her humanity, just as he cames from God. It is worth pondering—that God became incarnate in the young mother before God became incarnate in Jesus. She was a young woman, without resources or power but she participated in the redemption of Godʼs people, of her people. There are similarities between Marʼyamʼs life and the lives of so many poor women today. She gave birth in a homeless situation; she and Joseph fled as refugees with their baby to a strange land to escape being killed by military action.

Call her Mar’yam or Mary–this song is the longest speech placed on the lips of any woman in the whole New Testament. It is a freedom song. She looks into Godʼs time and sees salvation already accomplished.  When we need to know the truth, we listen to Mary. Mary’s song rings in our ears, and calls us to disrupt the hold violence has on our world.  She sings of a future where all children are safe from violence.  She sings of a future where people have homes and food and jobs.  Her words are in solidarity with us. She sees to the far horizon and sings of the coming reign of God. We will be fed, and we will feed others. We will be blessed and we will bless others. We will receive justice, and we will do justice to others. All things are possible with God.

Mary sings of a future worth struggling for.  It is a song with a marching beat–she sets our feet on the path of unfinished business. She sings prophetically, she sings about something that hasnʼt happened yet.  She sings of a hopeful vision for the future because she can see farther than the rest of us, and she keeps us from giving in and giving up. She sings to keep our hearts full of hope.  We need to hear that song over and over again. Sing it, Mary.

Wishing you a blessed Christmas,

Anne+

[1]  Elizabeth A. Johnson. “Mary of Nazareth: Friend of God and Prophet,” Living Pulpit 10, no. 4: 12-17.