Care Package

Sermon

Will you pray with me? Indescribable God, as we follow traditions, and words, from those who came before us (and this prayer from Claire McKeever-Burgett) help us to: “Declare the God of Mary and Elizabeth everywhere—in birthing rooms and… on death beds and at riversides.

Families of all kinds, rest in God’s gentleness and strength; trust that you are safe in the God of Mary and Elizabeth’s loving presence.” And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts, be pleasing to you who are with us and affirm our lives. Amen.

My preaching professor, when I was in seminary, a fellow named Chuck Campbell, is a type of Christmas story angel figure in my life. When he said: the Lord is with you, you felt it—you almost had to look away, you felt it that intensely.

Chuck also has an intergenerational story of sorts, too, like this text, for me—he was first the professor of a mentor of mine, Mary Kay, who went to seminary miles away from me. And from these pastors I identified a vital part of my own pastoral identity: and that is that my pastoral care is my preaching, and my preaching is my pastoral care. Which is one way of saying what I hope you all can see: that our worship is careful. I’ve felt that in our larger denomination and from our leaders here, differently but immediately, and so I feel confident in saying—we hope you feel worship as care, here or online.

And I believe in this scripture today is a care package: the kind of care package you’d get from your grandmother, your favorite aunt, or a Christmas card with a picture of your friend, sharing what she’s done this year.

There’s a lot of awe in this text, like “aww”, or “Amen”. But it’s critical that we also see the aw-kward, and aw-ful. And the first time I heard this gospel story intentionally awkwardly was in Chuck Campbell’s class (I recall he did show us, when he was talking about how to gesture)…

Chuck suggested that we might read this story less as the Advent of Christmas, but more as a messenger, having to, unwittingly, how shall we say, explain the birds and the bees to a young, and very aware person… In that case, this story starts with an angel having to explain where a baby may come from to a sharp young woman. Awkward.

And on top of that discomfort, there is the painful additional layer of context, that in the time and place Mary was living, she could’ve been executed, if she was really pregnant, as the angel was telling her she really was, while engaged to Joseph. Aw-ful.

We can instantly feel why she may have, even very immediately, run away to an older trusted female relative.

It’s crucial, too, that we read this text knowing Mary, like us all, had a full spectrum of human emotions… not like us, she’s probably the most well-known woman in the Christian world, and she’s usually depicted softly, traditionally, holy, as we often hear the text. Noting some more of the awkward and awful parts of her context, helps me to see how strong and smart and genuine she must have also been… How does this change us, reading, seeing, hearing these women’s stories with all our emotions, even the uncomfortable ones?

Like her trusted Elizabeth pointed out, Mary did believe what the angel had said, and she also probably didn’t… honestly, how could she? She was certainly scared, maybe even angry—sad, joyful, hopeful, possibly an incredibly speedy traveler.

A more explicit translation of what Elizabeth affirms in Mary says: happy is she who believed that what the Lord has said to her would be accomplished.

What does Mary say? I’m here (maybe even to remind herself she’s alive and awake). Let it be, Mary says. Let it be… three little words.

I believe it’s also fair to assume she threw in some other choice words. But I hope these words, “let it be,” are something we can give in care: “let it be.” Even if you say “let it be” to yourself or to God sarcastically, with great fear while rushing out the door. Let it be.

I asked our family dinner church friends to consider this last week: what is something that you can let be? How can you let it be? There was a lively discussion that followed over cookies and I was reminded that we can say it awkwardly, with curses, happily… AND we shouldn’t expect to be able to let it be forever. Maybe you just let something be for winter break. Maybe you let a relationship or a subject in school or a project at work or that decoration that keeps falling be for a half hour at a time in your mind: let it be.

I know I loved these lines from Mary and Elizabeth, like care packages, so much as a younger person because even though I was in a church, like this one, where I was happy to see women in leadership, we didn’t, and still don’t, hear women’s words enough. I remember loving that line from Elizabeth, “blessed is she who believed what the Lord said to her” when I was younger; I know I held on to it because there aren’t a lot of places in the church where we get even small words, pronouns, that acknowledge women, or anyone not identifying as a man.

Now that I’m older, and I look at this story with more experience, as much as I imagine Mary strained to tell an angel, “let it be for me, sure, this is fine and won’t end poorly”; I can imagine Elizabeth also straining to say her beloved lines, “blessed are you, Mary”,  …after wanting for so long to have a child, comforting someone who was pregnant without any effort.

I don’t doubt that Elizabeth’s affirmation and comfort of Mary was genuine, but it helps me to see her strength and faith and trust in her strain, too. We can receive and offer care, even in our pain. Elizabeth and Mary remind me of how important it is that we take shelter in people who will affirm us and our callings, imperfectly, who will affirm what can be born in us. And that we be those trusted places, imperfect, and affirming spaces that people can rest in.

Not everyone births children, certainly not all the time, regardless of trying… but care, ideas, love is conceived and born in all of us, all the time.

There’s a book I’ve loved this year, that I prayed from earlier, and that I’m looking forward to loving even more next year: “Blessed are the Women,” by Claire McKeever-Burgett. In this work, Claire focuses on women from the Gospels and writes what may have been the rest of their stories between the tiny words and brief lines of scripture we do have.

Some of my favorite writings of Claire’s are her writing as Elizabeth, known as the mother of John the Baptist. But as the scripture says, Elizabeth wasn’t a mother for most of her life, so it makes sense that she would say: “Society’s understanding of fertile and infertile, mother and not a mother were not necessarily wrong, just limited… shallow, untested in the court of real, lived experience… why dismiss the creations that I had conceived other than a human child? The garden I nurtured, the pottery I made, the nieces and nephews I taught… the husband I loved: I didn’t grow a child. I grew a life.”

I love this reminder that you don’t have to birth a child to be life affirming. Love is conceived and born in all of us, all the time.

And Claire continues writing this about Elizabeth’s blessing, and Mary’s song, which the choir celebrated beautifully earlier this month. Elizabeth says more with Claire’s words, “My blessing echoed countless women before us who knew what it was to stand side by side, blessing, and believing one another against all odds: Blessed are you among women… blessed is she who has believed. Mary’s song joined the chorus of prophets, heralding the God who feeds and upends for the sake of love, foreshadowing life-altering work.”

How does this change us, reading, seeing, hearing these women’s stories, all of us, with all our emotions? I love the story of these two women, at Christmas, but even more so because it is the end of the year. Elizabeth affirms what has past, and Mary lets it be for the future. And so, we ask: how would we be different if we heard and listened more often to stories like these? …If we heard the women in Palestine and in Lebanon and Ukraine, saying: this is a school, this is a hospital, and this is a place of worship where we share life affirming care?

How would we be different if we heard women like Madame Gisele Pelicot saying “this is my story” because they know that others are afraid to tell their own? In her statement this week, which she said she also told for her children, and her daughters-in-law, her grandchildren, the future, there was also a care package for Christmas. Gisele said, “I have trust in our capacity to collectively project ourselves toward a future where all, women and men, can live in harmony, with respect and mutual understanding.” Love is being born in all of us, all the time.

Let it be… Blessed are you, and blessed is she who has believed.     Amen.