Visitation

For our first Gospel reading, we shared Luke 1:26-38. The focus in Luke is on the experience of Mary. Matthew's gospel frames the narrative through the character of Joseph. I wonder if we might be able to hear the familiar story with fresh ears, and perhaps envision a scene more "down to earth" than traditional renderings (like the accompanying artwork).

We agreed that the traditional "reading" we have on Christmas Eve tends to be experienced as a warm, familiar, reassuring tale whose details we have mastered.

But our shared reading on Tuesday night opened us to the stunning and unexpected nature of how God comes and who God chooses. Words like fragile, vulnerable, risky, and confounding worked their way into our dialogue.

We noted that Mary of Nazareth was a teenager growing up in a remote part of the world in a town so small it wasn't on ancient maps. She is promised in an arranged marriage to an older man, and is in the midst of the year of betrothal, a kind of engagement, when the angel Gabriel brings her greetings of God's favor. It is no wonder that Mary is puzzled, as she is hardly "favored" in the world in which she lives in. She would not have been able to go to school, or have a voice in public meetings. Her future, in fact, was arranged for her, and in the world of the Ten Commandments, her married status would be would be among Joseph's "house, servants (if he has any), his ox, his ass, or anything else that belongs" to him (Exodus 20:17)."

Recognizing her fear (which is what most of us feel when we suspect that God has chosen us for something particular and meaningful), he says, "Don't be afraid, Mary." She is terrified. But the worst--or best--is yet to come. He tells her that God knows her, God has chosen her, and she will conceive in her womb a son who will be called Yeshua, and she will birth his tender promise into the world and nurture it (him) lovingly to a mature fullness. He will be called the Son of the Most High.

Mary immediately perceives the challenges:

--(biological) How can this be, since I have no husband?

--unmarried and pregnant (explaining this to Joseph? to Dad?)

--shame and humilation in family and community

--religion would allow her to be stoned for honor's sake

--might be stoned for blasphemy if she claims it is God's doing

--no one to support her

This is "favored?"

We must admit: This is a tough world for God's plans!!

The angel promises God's Holy Spirit, and the birth of this baby will have implications for the world's salvation. This is how God works!

We reflected on the connection this story has with the Magnificat (1:47-55; God turns the world upside-down) and with Jesus' repeated teaching that with God, "the last shall be first."

Who does God choose today? Through whom will he birth new life into the world?

The poor, the powerless, the child, the woman, the voiceless, the person with AIDS, the foreigner, the labeled?

This story carries a particular power when we consider that God offers us God's promise through surprising gifts and missions that God gives us. God often interferes with our "arrangements" and surprises us with angels who have no wings but are just as real. Initially we feel incapable, unworthy, confounded that God would entrust us with the world-saving mission of making God's love real. We already have plans! But we are to carry God's promise within us, we will give birth to God promise in demonstrative ways into the larger world, we will nurture and nourish the promise in faith community. During the greatest challenges we, too, will be prone to ask, "Why me?"

Why not?