What Are You Waiting For? Love & Acceptance

Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:39-55 - 4th Sunday of Advent, December 19, 2021

Pastor Ritva H Williams

The scripture readings for the 4th Sunday of Advent are always my favorites of the season. On this Sunday we light the candle of love and are invited to ponder the gift of God’s love. What does it look like? What does it feel like?

Professor Anne Stewart writes, “It is a consistent theme through the Bible that God delights in upsetting human expectations.” Abraham and Sarah did not expect to bear a child in old age. No one expected David, the smallest of Jesse’s sons to be anointed king. In a time of great turmoil, threats of violence, economic disruption and uncertainty, when people longed for a powerful king to make everything right for them, the prophet Micah says that the Messiah will come from an unexpected place in an unexpected way. Not from the royal city of Jerusalem, but from Bethlehem a little village. From the smallest of Judah’s clan will come,  not a great military commander, but one who will feed their flock like a shepherd in peace and security. (workingpreacher.org, 2015).

God’s love shows up in unexpected places in unexpected ways. God’s love feels like peace and security. God’s love delights in upsetting human expectations. Nowhere is this more true than in the story of our Savior. 

As Luke tells that story, the archangel Gabriel was sent to Nazareth in Galilee. It was a village so small and ordinary that people asked “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). Yet it was precisely in this village, that the archangel Gabriel delivered a totally unexpected birth announcement to young, unmarried woman named Mary. Perplexed, frightened, yet curious, she responded “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). 

We meet Mary this morning alone, pregnant, hastening into the Judean hill country. Why such a rush to get to Elizabeth’s house? Is she just curious to see if her elderly cousin is really pregnant? Could it be that Joseph did not receive the news of her pregnancy well? In the biblical world, an accusation of adultery on the part of a betrothed woman would be a death sentence. Even ending the betrothal quietly without any accusation would be a catastrophe, leaving Mary and her child alone without support or protection. This was a world where women could not own property, enter into business contracts, or even testify in court. 

Mary is pregnant, alone, and on the run seeking refuge, seeking sanctuary. She arrives at Elizabeth and Zechariah’s house perhaps with some trepidation, uncertain of her welcome. 

by He Qi

by Sister Mary Southard

Perhaps Mary expects a scene something like this one on the left painted by Chinese artist He Qi. The painting  on the right by Sister Mary Southard shows beautifully captures the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth. The two women reach for each, the Holy Spirit smiles gently on them, while shadowy figures of household members and neighbors hover in the background. The sound of Mary’s voice causes Elizabeth’s baby to leap in her womb. The Holy Spirit prompts Elizabeth to prophesy and bless Mary. 

Present and future generations will praise and honor Mary and her child. Her faith and trust in God will result in blessing and joy for her. (Judith Jones, workingpreacher.org, 2015).

Elizabeth’s greeting overturns social expectations. She opens her arms and her home to a relative whom her neighbors would expect her to reject. Young, unmarried pregnant women would normally be judged, shamed, and shunned in ancient Judea. But Elizabeth welcomes, blesses, and celebrates Mary, treating her as more honorable than herself. (Ibid)

Elizabeth’s words and actions are prompted by the Holy Spirit, but they grow out of her own experience of shame and exclusion. In ancient cultures, a woman’s primary purpose in life was to bear children. As an elderly infertile wife Elizabeth had endured a lifetime of being treated as a failure. Her response to her own miraculous pregnancy says it all, “ … the Lord …looked favorably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people” (Luke 1:25). At long last, in her old age, Elizabeth is an honorable married woman, pregnant with her husband’s child. She might have lorded it over Mary, but instead extends the grace she has received to her young, unmarried, pregnant cousin. (Ibid).

God’s love welcomes, blesses and celebrates persons society tends to shame and shun. God’s love empowers people to grow spiritually, to pay forward the love they have received. 

As Pastor John van de Laar writes, Mary’s arrival at the Elizabeth and Zechariah’s home was greeted not just with acceptance but with celebration and love. Elizabeth honored Mary and expressed a depth of respect that Mary had probably never experienced before. And in Elizabeth’s wholehearted welcome, Mary sensed such a new depth of divine acceptance that she could not contain her relief and thankfulness.

Her famous Magnificat begins as an expression of amazement at how God has taken notice of her — a humble peasant woman — and chosen her to carry the messianic child. In Elizabeth’s greeting, Mary feels affirmed — accepted and honored in spite of her being in situation that would be frowned upon by the religious elite, by her culture, and even by her family. In seeing how God has loved and welcomed her, Mary realizes that God’s love and acceptance extends to all those whom her society would judge and reject. All those whom society would condemn for being too young or too old, too inappropriate or too sinful, too poor or too unclean — God celebrates these persons as much — or perhaps even more — than the wealthy, powerful and civilized. 

Mary’s song expresses the good news that her son will proclaim to all people. Pastor van de Laar puts it this way: 

… no matter how unwelcome we feel, no matter how others may reject us, we belong. We are part of the cosmos … connected with the earth and everyone and everything in it. And we are enlivened but the same Divine Spirit that permeates all things. [We are called to live] into the knowledge that we are welcomed, beloved, and accepted as we are … [We are called to] claim the truth that we are accepted and allow it to fill us with confidence and courage … [to] allow it to change us into an ever-more radiant reflection of the love, grace and acceptance of God. 

Where Pastor van de Laar speaks of God’s love and acceptance, commenting on this same event Jan Richardson speaks of “A Blessing Called Sanctuary.”

You hardly knew how hungry you were to be gathered in,  to receive the welcome that invited you to enter entirely —  nothing of you found foreign or strange, nothing of your life that you were asked to leave behind or to carry in silence or in shame.

Tentative steps became settling in, leaning into the blessing that enfolded you, taking your place in the circle that stunned you with its unimagined grace.

You began to breathe again, to move without fear, to speak with abandon the words you carried in your bones, that echoed in your being. You learned to sing. 

But the deal with this blessing is that it will not leave you alone, will not let you linger in safety, in stasis.

The time will come when this blessing will ask you to leave, not because it has tired of you  but because it desires for you to become the sanctuary that you have found — to speak your word into the world, to tell what you have heard with your own ears, seen with your own eyes, known in your own heart:

that you are a beloved, precious child of God, beautiful to behold, and you are welcome, and more than welcome here. 

This is the good news that we are all waiting for. Amen.