{"id":4497,"date":"2022-12-11T18:09:31","date_gmt":"2022-12-11T18:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2022\/12\/11\/joy-based-on-luke-146-56\/"},"modified":"2022-12-11T18:09:31","modified_gmt":"2022-12-11T18:09:31","slug":"joy-based-on-luke-146-56","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2022\/12\/11\/joy-based-on-luke-146-56\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cJoy\u201d\tbased on Luke 1:46-56"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Some of you weren’t here last
\nweek, and quite likely most of you have been through enough this week
\nthat the nuances of last week’s sermon are no longer front and
\ncenter. \u00a0(Most? \u00a0All? \u00a0It’s OK.)<\/p>\n

\nLast week we lit the Advent
\nCandle of Love, and we looked at the example of Elizabeth’s loving
\nwords to her young cousin Mary. \u00a0Mary was engaged, pregnant, and
\nvulnerable. \u00a0Her pregnancy looked like proof of infidelity,
\neverything in her life was likely in an uproar, and her cousin
\ngreeted her with words that changed everything. \u00a0They celebrated
\nMary, they exclaimed over Mary, they reframed Mary’s shame, and
\npainted her instead as a a person committed to God’s faithful acts in
\nthe world \u2013 even at high cost. \u00a0The words showed that Elizabeth saw
\nher, loved her, and helped her let go of her fear and her shame.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nTruth be told though, the Luke
\nreading cut off right in the middle of the scene last week.
\nElizabeth greets Mary \u2013 and it was extraordinary. \u00a0BUT, the next
\nlines are Mary’s response to Elizabeth, and they make a lot of sense
\nto read together as one conversation. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nAfter Elizabeth wiped away
\nMary’s shame and made room for love, Mary responded with her words of
\npraise for God, ones that are so famous they’re named. \u00a0Mary’s words
\nare \u201cThe Magnificat,\u201d called so for the opening line about
\nmagnifying the Holy One.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nNow, most scholars agree that
\nLuke 1 is a creation of the early Christian community, maybe even of
\nthe author of Luke itself. \u00a0What I find really remarkable about that
\nis that Luke has so much compassion for these women, and such a
\nstrong sense of what they would be going through. \u00a0It gives me hope
\nthat there were strong women’s voices within the Christian community
\nat that time, that the equalitarian nature of the Way of Jesus
\ncontinued long enough that women’s voices were actually being heard
\nin the ways these stories were told. \u00a0Or, maybe, Luke was simply an
\noutstandingly compassionate human, able to see beyond the bounds of
\nhis own education and gender. \u00a0Either option is really lovely, and
\nI’m really grateful for the ways these stories are told, so that
\nthere is INCREDIBLE truth and wisdom in them. \u00a0Luke and\/or his
\ncommunity, and his later editors cared about Mary and Elizabeth, not
\njust as wombs, but as humans with their own struggles and needs. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nThanks be to God for these
\nstories.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd, truly, thanks be to God for
\nthe ones who thought enough about Mary to find words for this hymn of
\npraise to God that fit who she was as a person and a parent. \u00a0They
\nare profound words.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nThey are also PROFOUNDLY joyful.
\n Mary is praising God, for being God. \u00a0Mary knows her place in the
\nworld, and it is not the top. \u00a0She is awed that God would work with
\nher to do important things, and SEES herself as being \u201clowly\u201d and
\nlifted up by God’s work with her. \u00a0I’m also stuck that while the
\nfirst few verses name Mary’s awe at God’s work in her life, she moves
\non quickly to simply her delight in God’s own self. \u00a0She celebrates
\nGod’s loving-kindness, constancy, strength, willingness to turn
\nupside down the powers and privileges of the world, to lift up the
\nlowly, to fill up the hungry, to offer care to those in need of it.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nMary’s song is a song of joy for
\na God who feels close at hand in her life and in history, the past,
\nthe present, and the future, the one who brings hope, the one who
\nmakes it possible for her to face her own daunting circumstances.
\nShe expresses JOY at being a partner with God in God’s work EVEN
\nTHOUGH the circumstances were so far from ideal for her.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd I believe her words of
\npraise for God were a response to the words Elizabeth spoke to her.
\nAs Elizabeth wiped away her shame and made space for Mary to
\nexperience love, Mary’s life-light was able to emerge fully, and that
\ncame out as PURE JOY.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nIt is hard (really really hard)
\nto fight through our shame to get to joy. \u00a0But when the shame goes,
\nOH the things that can emerge!<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nI’ve been thinking a lot about
\nshame in the past few weeks, largely because focusing on the story of
\nMary doesn’t give me any other option. \u00a0Mary fits into a very long
\ncultural tradition that values female virginity, seeks to control
\nfemale sexuality, and generally treats women as if their only value
\nis in their capacity to provide womb access to the man who owns that
\naccess. \u00a0If she fails \u2013 because she is raped, because the couple is
\ninfertile, or for any other reason, SHE is shamed.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nThis is one of the few times
\nwhen I don’t think the Biblical needs much contextual help. \u00a0History
\nhas changed, but not so much that we can’t follow that one. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nThis is why I find Elizabeth’s
\nwords so powerful, when she compares Mary to other Biblical heroines
\nwho were in compromising situations but were not defined by them. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nI also have been thinking about
\nwhat shame looks like today. \u00a0Obviously there is still an
\nover-abundance of shame around sex and sexuality. \u00a0But we like to
\nmake things complicated in our society today \u2013 we have a tendency
\nto make standards so contradictory and impossible that everyone can
\nfind something to be ashamed about. \u00a0There is shame for having too
\nmuch sex, or too little, for being too focused on it, or not enough,
\nfor being sexually interested in the \u201cwrong\u201d person (or type, or
\ngender), or for being asexual, \u2026 for example.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd, there is shame for those
\nwho have been assaulted, harassed, raped, or abused. \u00a0This is some of
\nthe strongest shame, and some of the most problematic.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nFor anyone holding sexual shame,
\nI invite you to this powerful reality: you are like Mary, the
\nmother of Jesus.\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd I pray there are people like
\nElizabeth in your life who will help you reframe what you’ve
\nexperienced and find your own power in your story. \u00a0So you can find
\nyour joy!<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nIn our society, though, sexual
\nshame is just one component. \u00a0It seems to me that there are almost as
\nmany sources of shame as there are ways we categorize each other.
\nExisting within capitalism, we have a societal narrative that poverty
\nis shameful. \u00a0But, truthfully, we also know there is a shame in being
\nwealthy too \u2013 that to gain too much is to take it from others, to
\nhave too much is to refuse to use it to help others. \u00a0And, somehow,
\npeople in the middle can feel shame BOTH WAYS. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nWhich is how a lot of things
\nwork. \u00a0Our society acts as if there is shame in struggling in school,
\nbut also shames those who do too well in school, and it manages to
\nfall both ways on those in the middle. \u00a0Or there is a story that
\nthere is shame in different bodies \u2013 heights, weights, abilities,
\ndis-abilities, colors, hair types, noses. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd, let’s also mention the
\nshame around relationship status, where one might experience shame
\nfor being single, or marrying too quickly, or being divorced, or
\nremarrying at the wrong time, or having kids or not having kids or
\nstaying home with kids or not staying home with kids or having too
\nmany kids or too few kids or kids the wrong way or at the wrong time.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nOur society is ripe with ways to
\nshame us, to tell us we’re wrong, to make us squirm. \u00a0It manages to
\nland on everyone, although not at all equally, and causes untold
\ndamage, most of which is invisible.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nI suspect the shame is aimed at
\ncontrolling us and getting us to buy things, a population overcome
\nwith its own failures is less likely to notice how it can seek
\njustice for each other, and is less able to connect and build
\nrelationships that transform lives. \u00a0And, we’re all a part of it too
\n\u2013 as we are overwhelmed by our sense of shame, we tend to try to
\nlower the anxiety of it all by naming what we see in other and…
\npassing it along.\t\t\tIck.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nBut, this story of Elizabeth and
\nMary is a profound example of the powers that can TRANSFORM shame.
\nElizabeth saw Mary’s shame, referenced it, reframed it, and
\ncelebrated Mary instead of shaming her. \u00a0That’ll change things.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nLast week I called us to be like
\nElizabeth, wiping way shame to make space for God’s gifts of love
\n(and this week I’ll add joy.) \u00a0But one of you, in response, reminded
\nme that before we can be like Elizabeth wiping away shame, we need to
\nface our shame like Mary did.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd now, I need to go back and
\nadmit that Elizabeth had her fair share of shame too. \u00a0At the
\nbeginning of Luke she was a childless woman, which would have been
\nunderstood to be a \u201cuseless\u201d woman. \u00a0(Blech.) \u00a0But something had
\nhappened in Elizabeth where her shame become an opening for
\ncompassion instead of a form of embitterment. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nWhat a beautiful thing that is,
\nwhen our wounds, our shame, our struggles can open our hearts, break
\nopen our compassion, make space in us for the struggles and shames of
\nothers. \u00a0That thing that can happen is a form of grace. \u00a0It is an act
\nof God. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nIt is an act of God that comes
\nin many forms \u2013 sometimes the grace within us starts in awe and
\nwonder, sometimes from another person offering it to us, sometimes
\ndirectly from God, sometimes from the wisdom of a stranger \u2013 maybe
\nthrough a book or podcast, sometimes even I think it just comes from
\nwithin when the strength of our spirit rejects the narrative of our
\nbrokenness.<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

\nEven though shame gets passed
\naround this world, and magnified, SO TOO does grace. \u00a0I believe that
\nthis is a place where good theology is a source of grace, and thus of
\nhope, love, and joy. \u00a0So let me say some things as a person of faith,
\na religious leader, a pastor, \u00a0a person who seeks to follow Jesus’s
\nways of knowing God:<\/p>\n