Impossible Hope

Isaiah 11:1-9    Luke 1:39-56

Second Sunday of Advent    December 6, 2009

Mark Twain said, "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."  I love the audacity of youth.  Working with college students, I frequently am taken aback by their assumption that they can change the world.  It isn’t just an assumption that they can do so, simply by putting their minds to it, but also the corollary that the older generations should have done something sooner and in not doing anything have failed miserably.  They see themselves as riding in to save us and to save the day.  As much as this might offend those of us who are labeled as having failed in some way to live up to our responsibilities as human beings, this take on the situation has a truth ringing through it.  We probably have not done all we could to make a positive difference in the world or society, no matter what the subject is.  Living by faith, dealing with poverty, eradicating disease, abolishing pollution, protecting the land and animals, we have not done as much as we might have done in any of these areas.

Do you remember what it was like to be young?  Do you remember when you knew all the answers and were right there ready to respond with all of your brilliant and inspired ideas?  There is something powerful about the assumptions of youth.  There is something to be said for rushing in where angels fear to tread.  Sometimes this is what it takes to make a difference in the world, but always this is what it takes to make a difference in ourselves.  Way back in math class, I remember our teacher saying that it was people who had no mathematical background who were responsible for most of the breakthroughs in the field.  This struck us all as odd, and so he explained that when we have preconceived ideas of how things should be, we don’t allow room for what might be.  The folks who didn’t know what to expect were able to see new things better than those who thought they knew what might happen in certain circumstances and when working with certain formulae.  Young people are the ones who have not been around long enough to hark back to the last time we dealt with a particular problem, and so they approach an issue with a clear mind and a clean slate.  They look for solutions in the strangest of places, perhaps primarily because no one told them not to.  And often they do come up with some amazing ideas.

This morning belongs to Mary, the teenage mother of Jesus.  Each Advent we take time to remember her and the gift she gave to all of us by saying “yes” to God.  But her story is far more complicated than this.  We get a clue about it by reading what has come to be called “The Magnificat” (so named for the first word in the latin translation of her speech).  What I find fascinating is that Mary, after her initial shock and wonder wore off, starts making connections between what God is doing in her and through her, and what God wants to do out in the world.  She sees herself as giving birth to God’s promise of a new day.  She sees herself giving birth to hope, but it is not just hope for her and Joseph.  The hope to which she will give birth is a hope that things will change for all of the oppressed people of the world.  The language of her magnificat is a kind of sensational language that flows effortlessly off of the tongues of young people every day.  Think about some conversations you have had recently with young folks, think about the claims they make about what is wrong with the world and the ways in which they plan to fix it.  Mary is working with a language that most people her age understand very well.  She sees herself as being in the perfect position to shift everyone’s thinking and so she plans to do whatever it takes to force this sea change.  Some folks wonder that Mary wasn’t embarrassed about being pregnant at such a young age and because she was not married as well.  But Mary doesn’t seem to take any time for embarrassment, and she shows no fear either, even though a woman could be stoned to death for the crime of finding herself pregnant without a husband.  Mary doesn’t waste any time worrying about how this all might appear to anyone else.  She focuses instead on preparing herself for what is to come, and making the connections between herself and anyone else who is willing to let God work within them.

Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth soon after discovering that she is pregnant.  Elizabeth was also pregnant via spiritual means although her pregnancy came after many years of not being able to have a child.  There are many thoughts about why Mary went to visit; some say that her family wanted to get her out of town, and out from under the scrutiny of people who might question her unorthodox pregnancy.  In other words, that she left town in order to be protected from public opinion or worse.  The cover was that she had gone to help Elizabeth prepare for her own son’s birth, and she probably did provide a certain amount of support to Elizabeth while she was visiting.  But a strange detail about this is that the scriptures say Mary left just before Elizabeth gave birth.  Why didn’t she stay to help with the most challenging part of the experience - the actual giving of birth and recuperation period immediately afterward?  Was this a way of protecting her from the harsh realities of actually going through labor and delivery?  If so, why?  This might point to the possibility that Elizabeth was the one providing the support in this situation.  Maybe Elizabeth was called upon by Mary’s family to help Mary come to terms with her pregnancy and talk things over woman to woman?  What is absolutely fascinating about the two women’s meeting is Elizabeth’s response to seeing Mary.  The Gospel according to Luke puts it this way; When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!"

And then this is where Mary responds with her song that takes in the larger picture.  This is where she does the teenage thing of seeing the whole world through her eyes, through her experience.  She translates the meaning of her experience as something that has the power to touch the entire world and turn things absolutely upside-down.  It is audacious and powerful and wonderful all at the same time.  And I would bet that if a teenage girl we knew said the same things, we would smile patronizingly at her naivete and listen solely out of politeness so as not to squelch her spirit.  But we would not believe her for a minute.  I wonder this about the people around Mary.  I wonder how they took her, how they heard what she was saying and whether or not they believed any of it.  Did they imagine that she knew what she was talking about, or did they assume she was just acting her age, dreaming the wide-eyed innocent dreams of youth?  My question for us today, is how do we move ourselves from that place of disbelief to one of belief?  How do we open our minds far enough to allow hope to enter in, even if only for a moment?  Are we so jaded and cynical that we cannot see a place for hope to exist in our world, that we cannot clear a space for it in our lives?  And if so, if we are so stuck, then how can we move past this?  How can we really be ready for what God wants to do in us, and perhaps through us?  How can the Christ be born in us, if we refuse to believe that it is possible?  Maybe we each need to tap back into the memories of our youth, and feel again the feelings of invincibility and see the visions of possibility.  Maybe we each need to allow ourselves to stand tall with Mary and respond to God’s outrageous proposal, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

God, we want to believe that all is possible through you.  We want to find a place for hope in our hearts and lives.  We want to bring to birth all that you have placed within us.  Help us to be the people you need us to be in the world.  help us to be the people you need us to be for our own selves.  Help us to be the people you need us to be in order to carry your promise into the light.  Amen.