Before we get too much further away from Sunday, let me write up my sermon notes. We're using Dr. Wilda Gafney's A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church. On Sunday, the Gospel reading gave us Mary's visit to Elizabeth. Here are some of the points I made.
I began by saying that thought about bringing Mary from the creche to serve as a focal point--but what if she breaks? Of course, a broken Mary also fits into a certain approach, about how God can use us in all of our brokenness.
I talked about this time of year as being one of the only times in the traditional church that we hear about women at all. Mary has a starring role, often the only starring role for women throughout the church year. I talked about my experience of church Christmas pageants when I was a child, when every girl wanted to be Mary. As a tall, blonde girl, I never got to be Mary. But at least I got to be an angel. Less lucky children had to be animals in difficult costumes.
Mary and Elizabeth are marginalized in all sorts of ways. They are women in a patriarchal society, they are Jewish in a Roman society that would see Jews as lesser. They live far from the center of power.
Mary and Elizabeth are constricted by biology: biology of being female, biology of being older.
Who would be the best bearer of the message that God wants to get out into the world? The Roman emperor would be the likely choice: rich, powerful, a way to spread the message. But no, God doesn't go with the obvious choice. In fact, God chooses one of the least obvious choices.
Look at creche Mary: look how clean and pretty she is. She would have been much dirtier and raggedy. Think about Elizabeth, who has failed at the one thing she was supposed to do, which is bear a child.
I talked about my difficulty with the text: women as incubators. But it was the first century and the text was written by men.
I talked about this Women's Lectionary project written by Wilda Gafney who tried to correct the male focus of centuries of Christianity: what would a lectionary with women at the center look like?
Mary and Elizabeth have a longer conversation than the conversation with the angels. Intergenerational support! In past years, that aspect of the story would have been the part that spoke to me.
What is speaking to me this year? God issues invitation to Mary and Elizabeth, and they say "Yes." And here we are in the 3rd year of the pandemic. It is a good time to hear this message, of God's invitation. God appears over and over again, with an invitation to be part of God's creative plan, to be bearers of the miracle. Often in the most difficult circumstances, God appears with an invitation.
No matter how broken we are, God can create something beautiful. Even though we're not in the blazing good health of our youth, God invites us to be part of the work of creation. God asks, and if we say no, God will reappear with an invitation.
I concluded the sermon this way:
Stop listening to the part of your brain that tells you that you're inadequate. Scripture tells us again and again of God choosing the most unlikely person and doing something miraculous.
I am here today to encourage us--because so many of us are tired, so many of us are thinking of all the opportunities we missed, all the ways we've screwed up, all the things that are left undone--we have declared ourselves barren, and God comes to us to say, "I am doing a new thing. Come and be part of this new thing I am doing."
I encourage us to use the words of Mary to say yes: let it be with me according to what you have described.
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