Birthing God: A Journey of Many
Steps
Buddy Summers, Christ Church Uniting,
Introduction
How can Mary, as we encounter
her in Luke, help us understand the steps we would be taking were we called to
bear God’s love and grace into our world?
In case you haven’t been thinking about this---in the language of our CCU commitment to social justice, community building and spiritual growth, these sermons on Mary have principally to do with spiritual growth---although, as you are well aware, social justice, community building and spiritual growth are all connected.
When meditating upon Luke’s story
of The Visitation, it helped me to remember that every narrative is
compressed. Every story, in the telling,
leaves out things, often important things.
Mary set
out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country. What is compressed is the entire
journey. What
was left out? All the steps.
It takes
thirty minutes to drive to Windward Mall.
It takes four hours to walk. I’m
guessing that Mary’s walk to her cousin’s village took at least an entire day,
perhaps more. In the language of those
who count their steps, a day’s walk would take at least 30,000 steps---just
getting there.
What was
happening along the way and what unfolded each step along the way---these are
important things, they matter. Mary’s
God bearing journey, her stepping onto the road and all the steps that
followed---these things are relevant to us---
In
the event any of us are called to birth God into the circumstances of our
lives, how do Mary’s steps inform ours?
Of the
likely hundreds of thousands of steps involved in the Visitation alone, I will
describe three---three of Mary’s steps on the way of birthing God: seeing the big picture, stopping to assist
someone else along the way, and going home again.
Seeing the Big Picture
Having
greeted her cousin and having been warmly received, Mary responded with a
poetic outpouring. The words to which
Connie danced and the Taize canon we sang are based upon it---
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.
(NRSV, Luke 1:46-48)
Or, as
Eugene Peterson (The Message) put it in his contemporary translation---
I’m bursting with
God-news;
I’m dancing the
song of my Savior God.
God took one good
look at me, and look what happened---
I’m the most fortunate
woman on earth!
Ecstatic
delight. Going beyond her own joy, Mary
then describes the big picture in prophetic terms almost identical to those
voiced generations earlier by her ancestor Hanna, whose child Samuel had been a
miracle. (1 Samuel 2)
As Mary
saw it, God was making good on promises to Abraham, Sarah and their
descendants. God would be pulling down
the thrones of the proud and arrogant, setting a banquet for the poor, and
leaving the callous rich out in the cold.
Mary was interpreting the big picture of her life’s calling, seeing the
forest, undistracted by the trees.
Why is
seeing and staying grounded in the big picture important to the work of bearing
of God’s grace and love into the world around us?
Here’s an
example. In our country, corporate
officers and board members, regardless of the nature of the business, can be
sued by stock-holders if “maximizing profit” is not their supreme guiding
value. That is the law. The common good is trashed again and again by
corporate corruption and the trampling of environment, employees, customers and
clients. Surprise.
Corporate
capitalism’s radical standard of profit-as-bottom-line stands in stark contrast
with the kingdom of God big picture in which everyone has enough (e.g. when
manna was provided in the wilderness), no one has need (e.g. as among the Jesus
community described in The Book of Acts),
and debts are forgiven and property redistributed periodically to restore human
dignity and access to God’s gracious gifts (e.g. the Sabbath and Jubilee
legislation in Leviticus.)
And, it
must be said, the corporate standard and those who cling to it are directly and
appropriately threatened by Mary’s view of a world in which God is actively
working against the proud, arrogant and callous rich.
Here’s
another example of the importance remaining grounded in the big picture.
In the
wee morning hours just before leaving for Thanksgiving break, the U.S. Houses
of Representatives passed a budget bill cutting $50 billion, reducing funds for
essential services for health care, food stamps, foster care for neglected
children, student loans, and the enforcement of child support orders. The budget is a moral document reflecting the
values of our country, and it doesn’t look good.
According to Sojourners Magazine, “later this month, Congress will decide whether [or not] to give a Christmas bonus of tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.” My thought is this. These breaks may benefit us in the short term (since we are among the wealthiest), while boding ill for us as people of God who somehow lost sight of the big picture. Do you get what I’m saying?
More House news, not unrelated I
think. [
The
notion that persons can put on different hats and honor different moral values
depending upon the roles they are playing (whether parents, public officials,
corporate officers, or children of God) stands in stark contrast with the First
Commandment big picture that God is the Lord of all of life and that we shall
have no other god’s, bottom lines, private or personal interests before God’s
interest.
The big
picture matters enormously. Gabriel
visits many. Many are called. Many consent to birthing God’s grace. And yet, if we lose sight of the big picture,
there will be no glad tidings in
The Step of Assisting Someone Else
Sometimes the best next steps are counter intuitive: steps like standing still, tarrying in place, or going back, returning to home base. Rather than kiss and run, Mary stayed three months, the last three month’s of Elizabeth’ pregnancy
The angel’s message had been
confirmed.
Mary recognized that her presence
was needed even though there was uncertainty back home. She washed clothes, made soup. She learned about pregnancy and self
care. She observed how Elizabeth and
Zechariah got along. She observed her
cousin’s struggle with the gossip and innuendo that surrounds an unseasonable
pregnancy. Perhaps she took part in the
midwifery itself and the birth of
The best next step was to interrupt
her journey. Why
is this important to help someone else with their birthing work? Because everything
is connected.
By
responding faithfully to the need at hand, we develop new skills and uncover
previously unimaginable possibilities for the work ahead. An example arises from the complaint often
heard that it’s too bad our denominations are distracted from “the real work”
by disagreements over God’s intensions around sexual orientation and practice.
It’s
quite possible that until we take care of the business of learning how to be a
truly inclusive church with those in our midst we will not be able to proceed
to other sorts of ministry. Didn’t Jesus
say something about ‘being faithful in small things?”
Remember
the Good Samaritan story? Three
religious leaders bypassed the wounded pilgrim in need because they were in a
hurry to do good in
What we might wish to bypass as a trifling distraction might truly be the holy work of the moment (i.e. learning to be an inclusive love church in Jesus’ name.)
The Step of Returning to Home Base
The third step in this story is the long walk back to her father’s house, back to Joseph, and whatever the future might hold.
She had been in the soup of the
feminine collective for three exquisite months. Had she been right to tarry with
For Mary, the real reason for going
home, though she could not know it beforehand, was that the path to
I have found that regardless of the project, cause or work in which I have been immersed, there has always come a time to return home, to my roots, the core. This has taken many forms---a return to scripture, a revisiting of the Constitution of the church, calling up a sibling, old friend, or when there were alive, my parents.
In a poem I once referred to this home going as “stealing away for tea to the Tent where Yahweh lives and something is always brewing.”
Conclusion
Three steps then. Seeing and seeking to remain grounded in the big picture, stopping to assist someone else in need along the way, and going home again. Thank you very much Mary. You are blessed indeed, and you are blessings us.
A woman called out to Jesus during his healing and preaching ministry saying, “blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that suckled you.” But as Jesus said (and it applies to you dear Mary), “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!” (Luke 11:27-28)
Birthing God in either Mary’s or our world is a journey of many steps. In the event that Gabriel visits us and we consent, may we be blessed in the hearing and the persistent doing.
Aloha nui loa. The Lord is with you.
Journey mercies.
