Fourth Sunday of Advent Year
Liberation and change come from the bottom up and from the outside edges from those in more marginalised social locations is one of Advent’s main themes. In God’s reign, we hear that the hungry are filled with good things; the lowly lifted up; the arrogant scattered; the powerful and privilege brough low; and the rich sent away empty.
In Luke, we read of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and call to mind ancient stories of courageous, scandalous, feminine liberation on behalf of oppressed people. Advent is a good time to honour, cherish and listen to the many strong female voices that challenge us, teach us, love us, and bring us into a deeper experience of God, if we let them. Those female voices are still widely ignored, marginalised, and muted by those who think that only men should be heard. The Jesus story turns all that upside-down. It places women front and centre, right from the start. Mary’s role is shocking in a time and a place when only men made the big decisions and women were treated more like property than persons.
Today’s gospel is not about the birth of two sons who are the conduits of liberation, but about the women who shaped them. The encounter between Mary and Elizabeth was very much under the radar and might have gone unnoticed by the world’s major power players, it does not mean it was not important. Because the powerful were not paying attention to what was going on just outside Jerusalem it does not mean it was not important or world altering. Within that encounter and time spent together, we also witness God’s love breaking into the world in ways that would change everything.
Mary exemplifies the promise of God’s love where people deemed unimportant would be raised up an become powerful voices for liberation. As always, God enters our world through the least - the forgotten ones, the overlooked, and lowly. The prophets taught that God works among the small and lowly to accomplish big things. Remember the Egyptian midwives and Israelite women who protected babies from a murderous Pharaoh! Remember the women who stayed with Jesus by the Cross and later came to the tomb whilst the men hid in fear. They were the first preachers of the resurrection. Today we see two women – Elizabeth and Mary – conspiring together about the children they will birth and raise to change the world and communicating the potency of female cooperation rather than competition.
Micah speaks of a small Bethlehem and what emerged there – God at work on the peripheries. This contrasts with contemporary culture where more is better, survival of the fittest is lauded, bigger is better, power is prized, and imperialism signifies blessing and worth. In Mary (and Elizabeth) we see that hope and joy are offered in the quiet and insignificant places of our lives especially when we sit with those considered to be the least. Jimmy Carter, referring to Tolstoy's War and Peace, said that ‘the course of human events, even the greatest historical events, are not determined by the leaders of nations or states but come about by the combined wisdom, courage, commitment, discernment, unselfishness, compassion and idealism of the common ordinary people.’ This is true of many groups including the Sant'Egidio Community, Pax Christi members committed to nonviolence whilst operating in violent places, and Médecins Sans Frontières risking their lives for wounded, sick and vulnerable in Palestine and many other places, and journalists who risk their lives to tell the truth of injustice. The sign of hope is where the people call for change when leaders are numb, apathetic or self-interested. They dare, as we must, choose to be people of hope in the face of apparent impossibilities.
Luke actually named these two women. There are no male voices as the women praise the God who liberates the oppressed - later expressed in Mary’s Song – the Magnificat. The struggle for liberation and justice by women is basic to the struggle for liberation and justice for all. We cannot resist injustice when we are denied access to the ideas and leadership of women. A different vision of human society is needed if we are revere and protect all forms of life, including Mother Earth. It means building a world where all forms of domination and exploitation are condemned and empathy, especially for the weak and vulnerable is prioritised. It means recovering the capacity for awe and reverence for the sacred sources that sustain life.
Mary was not just another unfortunate unwed mother bringing a child into an unsympathetic world. Elizabeth was not just an old woman whose unexpected pregnancy surprised and shocked her husband and relatives. Here are women giving life to the good news before a silenced priesthood. Here, a young woman reaches out to care for another and finds mutual support. It continues as women strive to free us from human trafficking. It continues among the elderly are the backbone of many families and communities. It continues in the service and care offered in parishes, community centres, hospitals, and nursing homes. It continues as they oppose harsh and inhumane policies towards asylum seekers and refugees. It continues as they engage in peacemaking and caring for the earth, and listen compassionately to the stories of the needy, the humiliated and wounded.
Mary’s visit to Elizabeth poses some important questions. Who are we listening to? Which voices greet us with peace? Who do we visit? Who do we aid in time of distress and need? Do we see who is caught in the web of the world’s distrust, exclusion, and violence such as refugees, Muslims, First Nation people, homeless people, people living with mental illness, youth, and LGBTIQA+ people? Where do we stand with the so-called ‘illegals’, the expendables and unwanted? Do we make room in our everyday living by striving to be kind and people of peace? Do we believe peace begins with us rather than the other? Micah refers to the one who comes who ‘will be peace’ (5:5a). Jesus’ birth is best celebrated by a commitment to his way of peace. It begins by small daily actions of peace. Our world needs subversive acts. In Mary and Elizabeth’s time Israel was dominated by repressive foreign occupations, including Rome, where cruelty ruled, starvation and general hopelessness, as the irredeemably corrupt and the politically well-connected survive and thrive. This is now the scene in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria and the once oppressed nation has become the oppressor.
We are called to engage our little corner of the world and try to feel the pain of people and seek to address it. Like Mary we can be Christ-bearers to one another. As Meister Eckhart, the 13th century German mystic, says: ‘We are all called to be mothers of God – for God is always waiting to be born.’ The ancient biblical story we have just heard must become our story, with its abundant grace and costly responsibility. God chooses us to remind those in power and the wealthy to move towards greater solidarity with those on the underside. God is speaking to both those who are insignificant and marginalised and the powerful to remind us that we are brothers and sisters and that our hope for a new world of peace comes from being in solidarity. Each of us carries God’s life within us to be a source of blessing for others and be companions to one another.