Grace Congregational UCC

“Two Mothers To Be”
Luke 1:39-45
Hebrews 10:5-10

December 24, 2006 (4:00p) - Kim M. Henning

Christmas pageants are the delight of every congregation. We love our children. We love the Christmas Story. There can hardly be a better way for our children to learn that story than for them to become participants in that story.

I learned recently of a Confirmation Class that performed the Christmas pageant. With their own kind of enthusiasm and creativity, they entitled their pageant, “What if Jesus was born today?” Carrie, a spirited young girl, volunteered to be Mary.

The Confirmation Class did some research. They read the story in Luke. With their imagination they likened Mary and Joseph to being modern-day refugees being forced from their home. The distance, they noted, from Nazareth to Bethlehem was about a hundred miles. How would they travel that far? Well today, they imagined Mary and Joseph riding together in a rusty Chevy Impala.

When it came to lodging, the light was turned off at the Motel Six. And the Confirmation Class determined that Mary and Joseph would find a small shack behind someone’s home, and that’s where Jesus would be born.. And so this Confirmation Class put together the script for their Christmas pageant.

The day of their performance, however, Carrie had another idea regarding a modern day interpretation of that story. Carrie looked radiant when the angel spoke to her of her pregnancy. She cried appropriately when she told her fiance, Joseph what had happened, and she cried appropriately again when Joseph said, “‘till death do us part.”

As the scene changed, Carrie disappeared. And when she emerged for the final scene, Carrie walked slowly down the center aisle with Joseph and what the congregation saw brought a mixture of nervous laughter and some did not laugh.

Carrie had tied a pillow under her “Mary” costume. It rode on her hips, and it clearly indicated that Mary was expecting a baby. She walked heavily. She sat down awkwardly. And she revealed on her face a very tired look. A few in that congregation wondered if this modern-day dramatization had gone too far.

After worship, they conversed. Everyone agreed that the story was accurate. It was just that no one had ever seen a Christmas pageant with Mary looking ‘pregnant’.

Here is a good place to begin this morning. Mary is pregnant. According to this morning’s story, Mary has just been informed by the Angel Gabriel that she is with child from the Holy Spirit. She is pregnant to be sure. And as you heard in the story, when news of her pregnancy comes to her, Mary goes to visit a distant relative, Elizabeth, who is also pregnant.

Can you see the two of them together? R.T. Frances, a scholar of the New Testament has noted, “One is old and has no children; and the other is young and has no husband.” Elizabeth and Mary are both pregnant and each has a surreal story to tell

Elizabeth, the mother-to-be of John the Baptist, is like Sarah from of old. Elizabeth had been—in biblical language–‘barren.’ She was past the age of child-bearing. When Sarah was told that she was to bear a child, her reaction was to laugh----it was laughter of disbelief, laughter of ‘this can’t be.’ Elizabeth’s experience surely would have been like Sarah’s.

And Mary, the mother-to-be of Jesus has her incredulous story to tell as well. An angel had spoken to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God. And now your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son;; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing is impossible with God.”

Two mothers to be are standing together. They are different. Elizabeth is elderly. Mary is hardly a teenager. One is old. One is young. Their circles of friends would not have intersected. We would suppose that their energy levels would be different. Mary was in a small town girl; Elizabeth was from the hill country. They were markedly different.

And what should bring them together? Well, for one, they were pregnant. But more importantly, it seems to me, they each had a faith story to tell—and when you have a faith story to tell—you can’t be alone, you can’t be in isolation, and surely it is difficult to tell a faith story to someone who does not have a faith story of their own.

Faith talks to Faith. Spirit abides with Spirit. Those ‘of God’ talk to those ‘of God’ or we just keep missing each other. God had spoken to Elizabeth. God had spoken to Mary. Now Elizabeth and Mary need to be with each other. That is just how faith works.

I shared with you earlier the news of Father Greg Smith’s death. I was able to be with Father Greg about a week and a half ago. We had a marvelous exchange. I did not at the time realize that death was a eminent as it was.

We spent at least a half hour talking. We talked churches. We talked about the books he was reading. We talked about the death of his father. We talked about parish ministry. And then we prayed.

In the midst of that conversation, Father Greg said something like, “I am so tired, but I love conversations like this. I don’t have the energy to talk about trite things–sports, weather, gossip. I don’t want it. I want to talk about God, church, faith, how we can work together, the purpose of life, the power of God.”

When Mary and Elizabeth are together, I doubt that there is much chit-chatting. At a moment like theirs—what could be more important than prayer, or reading scripture together, or singing, or taking time to discern what is really important. It is like Mary and Elizabeth are on retreat with each other. They are safe with each other. They share a common bond of their humanity with each other. They know that God is breaking into history in a new and beautiful way and piddling away time—however it is that we piddle away time, just isn’t going to cut it. Mary is passionate. Elizabeth is passionate. Mary is courageous. Elizabeth is courageous. And God, through them, is breaking into our world of politics and money and armies and unjust wars and bringing to them something that is really important.

What is the practical implication of this story? The practical implication is that the young of faith need the old of faith and the old of faith need the young of faith. If a young person has not been to a nursing home or to a funeral or if a young person has not sat with someone who has Alzheimer’s Disease, they miss so much wisdom, so much truth; they miss the roots of mature faith.

And likewise, if an elder has not been with the young where the young dwell—in school, in the park, on the floor, at their concerts, it is just so clear that they miss so much delight, wonder, excitement.

Here, today, we have ‘two mothers-to-be.’ You know—faith never happens in a vacuum. Our biblical faith is not about persons in isolation. Our biblical faith is about community: one person of faith being with a second person of faith. And truth be known, it is utterly unimaginable what can potentially happen when you bring two believers together.

You see, Mary and Elizabeth spend three months together. And when they are together, the story is told to us that Mary says to Elizabeth, what we have called, “The Magnificat.” 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.......

Then Mary goes on to say, “He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.”

And then Mary, this young, young person takes on government when she says, “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly....”

And then Mary, who is not even old enough to vote yet says, “God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

Today, they stand side-by-side. And between them........is God.