Dreams of the Women

December 23, 2012

Luke 1: 39-55

I’ve heard it said from time to time that dreams are for the young.  The older you get, the more realistic you are.  The older you get, the more of your own dreams have been squashed.  The older you get, the more you realize that your dreams are just that—dreams.  Reality takes hold, and you need to be responsible.  You need to pay your mortgage, become respectable, grow up.

Mary was young.  Some say she was 13 or 14.  Some would even venture that she’s younger than this.  She was a poor girl from a poor family, living in a poor village.  She had no prospects to do better than this.  She was a nobody.

But God saw something in her.  God saw in Mary someone that was strong enough, brave enough, and just enough of a dreamer to believe that she could be part of this unlikely plan.

After Mary met the angel, Gabriel, who informed her that she would be the mother of the Messiah, she went “with haste” to her much older cousin, Elizabeth’s, house.  She didn’t have to tell Elizabeth that she was pregnant.  Elizabeth just knew—as did the child, John the Baptist, who was still in Elizabeth’s womb.

John knew, Elizabeth knew, Mary knew.  And it was exciting to them.

Perhaps it’s the responsible, pragmatic person in me, but how on earth could this be exciting?  This is terrifying!  Mary pregnant with God’s child is not good news.  It’s dangerous news for Mary.  It’s awful news.  It’s nothing for Elizabeth and Mary to share blessings about.  As a young, single, pregnant woman, she could be stoned to death for adultery, regardless her consent in the act.  She could bring shame and stigma to her family, and her betrothed could turn against her.  Mary’s life was on the line.

And yet, Elizabeth exclaimed, “Blessed is she who believed, for here will be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

And yet, Mary sang her song of praise to God.

My soul magnifies the lord, and my spirit rejoices with God my Savior.

For God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed. 

For the mighty one has done great things for me, and holy is God’s name. 

God’s mercy is for those who fear God from generation to Generation. 

God has shown strength with God’s arm, God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their heart. 

God has brought down the rulers and lifted up the lowly. 

God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. 

 

This week, as many of us have reflected on the innocence of life taken from us in the recent shooting, I’ve been hearing this song—Mary’s song—through the voice of this young girl.  And three things have overwhelmed me as I’ve read this song.

Mary sings this song of praise to God, but it is not an original song to her.  Mary sings an updated version of Hannah’s song, sung thousands of years before her by the mother of Samuel.

Hannah was unable to have a child.  And she wanted to be a parent so badly.  So, she went to the temple and promised God that if she had a son, she’d give the child to God.

And when she gave birth to the child, and had weaned him, she brought him back to the temple, and “lent him to God.”  Hannah—older and wiser than Mary sang a triumphant song of God’s deliverance.

Mary took Hannah’s song and sang her own version of it.  At a time when she did not have plans or hopes to be pregnant, but God made it so, Mary sang a song of God’s deliverance, of God’s power and might.

Mary wove her story of being used by God into the story that Hannah was also part of.  This child placed herself firmly in this tribe of Israelites, claimed her right to it, and sang it out with joy.

Second, Mary saw this pregnancy as a blessing and a gift.  This dangerous, risky pregnancy was a good thing to Mary, “For God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant.  Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed.”  It didn’t take Mary a long time to move from “How can this be” in her conversation with the Angel Gabriel, to “God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant.”

What was within Mary that she could say this as a young teenager?  What was within Mary that gave her the certainty to trust the Angel, to trust her place in history, and to trust that God was blessing her with this child.

 

Mary’s song also brings me to the story of Esther, the Jewish woman who married King Ahasuerus to save her people from the evil laws that were being passed against them.  Esther didn’t want to marry the King, but was convinced by her Uncle Mordechi, who said, “Do not think that in the King’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews.  For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your family will perish.  Who knows?  Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for such a time as this.”

I wonder if this powerful story of young Esther came to Mary. I am inclined to this that that was floating around in the minds of Mary and Elizabeth.  When Elizabeth spoke to Mary, she said, “Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”  It sounds like Mary’s place in history was based on her simple, hopeful, radical act of believing that she was part of God’s cosmic plan.  Just as Esther had to believe that she was part of the plan to save her people, Mary had to believe in it too.

 

I’ve heard it said that dreams are for the young.  The older we get, the more we must leave our dreams behind, in favor of dealing with our current reality.

But this is not the case for Elizabeth.  Mary’s older cousin, Elizabeth, was almost too old to have a child.   But she and her husband wanted a child so desperately.  And God gave them the desires of their hearts.  Elizabeth continued to dream, and her dreams were fulfilled.  She said, “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably upon me.”

 

This Advent story can be made too perfect.  We make Mary too holy, and Elizabeth too wise.  I want to see these women in their human forms, not the sanitized version we’ve seen in the movies.

But, even in—or especially in—the more human telling, we see incredibly strong, confident, and brave women.  We see women who know their place in history, who know their story and the story of their people.  We see women who have such confidence that God is using them, just as God used Hannah and her child, Samuel, and just as God used Esther to save God’s people from oppression and enslavement.

 

God calls each of us and has put each of us where we are, for such a time as this.  God has given us opportunities to gestate hope, joy, peace and love, and to bring it to life where we are.  God has given us example after example in the Christmas story alone of the ways God uses everyday people to do great things.  We do not need to look for the powerful to do the great things, God has given us the prophetic words and prophetic actions to bring it to life—here and now.

Dreams are not only for the young.  They are gifts to all of us—young and old, weak and powerful, women and men.  These seeds of dreams have been planted within us, often generations before us in the stories of our ancestors.  These dreams are not to be tossed away in favor of being a grown up.  These dreams are stirring within us that call us to better things.  These are dreams that go back as far as Hannah’s song, and further than that.  These are dreams of God’s justice, of God making things right, of God’s work being completed in heaven as on earth.

Hannah dreamed of a child of her own.  She prayed and petitioned God, and God gave her the desires of her heart. In return, she gave that child back to God, and God used Samuel to build a great people.

Esther did not want to be in the palace of the king.  She did not want to be the person that would save her people.  But she knew that she was the person that could do it at such a time as this, and God used that which she dare not dream to save her people.

Elizabeth wanted a child and prayed for one, and God gave her the desires of her heart.  She believed that this child of hers was special, she dreamed  that he would prepare the way for the Messiah.  She raised him with that expectation.  And John the Baptist opened the way for Jesus’ message to be heard.

Mary was barely old enough to be thinking about being a mother.  And yet, when she was visited by Gabriel and told of God’s desires for her, she took on the dreams of her people, and accepted the responsibility.  With joy carried this child, God’s son, into the world.

 

As ancestors of the people of Israel, we carry this story of hope and live into it.  We declare God’s mercy, we long for the day when the hungry are filled and the rich are sent away empty, when the mighty are scattered and the lowly are raised.  We see this story as a gift from God, and as a call to live our dreams into reality.

Let us pray:

God and maker of all, You chose the most unsuspecting of women to mother your Son, and by your choose gave new glory to human flesh and earthly parenting.  With the joy that was Mary’s, may our souls magnify the Lord, and our bodies be the means through which you continue the mighty work of salvation, for which Christ came.  Amen.