Text: Luke 1:26-30; 39-45,56
Speaker: Joel Miller
Perhaps you’ve heard, our Advent theme is Visitations. Doorbells, eagles, angels, a storyteller with a backpack, and an impromptu choir singing “And the Glory of the Lord” have all made an appearance this season. Visitations come in many forms.
And of all the stories leading up to the birth of Jesus, it’s Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, that the church has remembered as The Visitation. It has its own feast day, for Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. The Visitation has inspired artists, famous and not, to capture the moment these two pregnant women meet in the home of Elizabeth in the Judean highlands. Mary, young, is newly pregnant. Elizabeth, less young, is six months along. Even outside the realm of the miraculous, they could have been 30 years apart in age.
Mary has traveled “with haste,” Luke writes, all the way from Nazareth, a journey of perhaps 90 miles, maybe 100. Why so urgent? How hard did she push it – the animal, her own legs – to arrive as quickly as possible?
When she did arrive, she entered the home and greeted Elizabeth, her relative. No text messages in advance that she was coming. No doorbell. Mary greeted Elizabeth. And Elizabeth greeted Mary. Elizabeth felt the child within her leap, or kick, or a fist pump, or whatever it was. Elizabeth calls Mary blessed, and blesses her with hospitality for three months.
This is the Visitation. There are no angels. Just these two women and the children they will soon birth.
This piece you see is by Franciscan Brother Mickey McGrath. He titled it “Windsock Visitation” in honor of the sisters of the Monastery of the Visitation in Minneapolis. These sisters set out a windsock on days when their much-loved after-school program is open to neighborhood kids. They are Elizabeth welcoming Mary’s visitation.
The painting portrays Mary, the visitor, in gold, clothed in the sun. The green stars and blue crosses on her dress represent Bethlehem and Calvary. Elizabeth, the host, is dressed for the occasion with flowing colors and jewelry. The two halos form a heart with the arms that point to their wombs, which are having their own communion of sorts. In case you don’t know what a windsock is, it’s that thing above Mary’s head, hanging from the house. It’s a sock that catches the wind, or the Holy Spirit.
I was drawn to this image because of the colors, and the expressions and postures of the women. In Elizabeth’s face I see both joy and a gravity of presence, hard-earned through her years of living. Her arm is on the outside, drawing Mary in. Mary reaches out, but doesn’t seem ready yet to smile. She is a girl suddenly in a woman’s world. She’s leaning back ever so slightly, as if embracing Elizabeth will officially make this whole thing irreversibly real. As if Mary is still coming to terms with the unfathomable.
What do you see? What’s happening here? What kind of visitation is this?
VT 238 Wisdom From On High, v. 1
Wisdom from on high is dawning. Even now a gold ray shines into a world of shadows from her realms of endless day. Hidden womb who birthed the heavens in the womb now hides away.
Far more than the other gospels, Luke situates his story within the political landscape of his time. Luke didn’t write in chapters – those were added later – but, as it stands, each of the first three chapters begin this way.
Chapter 1: In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was priest named Zechariah…
Chapter 2: In those days, a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first census and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem.
Chapter 3: In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee (different Herod), and his brother Philip (also a Herod) ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitus, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of the Lord came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
Each of these headings give an orientation to the larger frame of Roman rule.
In the ancient world, this was also a way of telling time. How do you describe when something happened before Before Christ and the Common Era? Well, you tag it to which emperor, which king or governor was in charge at the time. We still do this in our way. Back during the Eisenhower administration…or the Bush era, or the Obama years. Luke is giving us, the listener, the bearings we need to better understand what’s going on.
And what is going on? What, dear congregation, is going on?
Amidst all this name dropping of the rulers who defined what era everyone else was living in, Luke introduces another point of reference. A primary point of reference, actually.
It’s subtle enough that you could miss it, anyone could miss it, almost everyone missed it.
Here it is: “In the sixth month.” That’s it. The sixth month. It’s the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy with John.
That’s when the angel Gabriel visited Mary with his announcement about Jesus, and that’s when Mary went, with haste, to visit her cousin Elizabeth.
This, rather than the maneuverings of an empire, is the main event. Elizabeth’s body becomes the clock by which sacred time is told.
It’s never been easy to be an unwed pregnant teenager, but in Mary’s time it was stigma and alienation at best, a death sentence at worse. The shame wasn’t just hers to bear. It was a dishonor to all her relatives.
In the sixth month, Mary puts her life at risk. She accepts the angel’s invitation. Then Mary, like a refugee, flees to Judea. She heads toward the home of one of those relatives she has just dishonored. How will she be greeted? Will she even be welcomed in? No wonder she is hesitant in the painting. Maybe even shocked.
What is going on?
Elizabeth opens her arms, her home, and her heart. Elizabeth goes so far as to call Mary and herself blessed. Not dishonored. Not shameful, but blessed. Mary flees danger and finds sanctuary.
Mary stays for three months. It’s a holy trimester – her first, Elizabeth’s last. It’s a timeline outside the control of kings. This is the visitation, and what happens here is a primary point of reference.
VT 238 Wisdom From On High, v. 2
In her heart the joy of heaven, in her hands the poor of earth, on her back all human sorrow, in her laugh all human mirth. God most human, God most holy, God incarnate comes to birth.
Several years ago Eve and I visited our sister church in Colombia. They were great hosts, showing us around their city of Armenia, in and out of different homes, even taking us to a resort with a pool where we engaged in intense games of Super Uno. Our Spanish was sketchy, but we had that word down. Uno.
One of the lasting impressions for me was the way they greeted us, and each other, whenever we entered homes. Without fail, it seemed, everyone would put down whatever they were doing, and give their attention to greeting the guests. It was a physical welcome with a kiss on the cheeks. This is common in Latin America, I know, but it’s striking when you’re not used to it. Even more striking than the physicality was the act of acknowledging each person, however briefly. It felt very dignifying, like each person was bringing a presence into the room that needed to be honored, and was. That’s how I experienced it, at least. It has served as a reference point, and on my better days, I’m living in that same spirit.
This, at a minimum, is what is going on in the Visitation. Elizabeth acknowledges and blesses Mary. Mary embraces Elizabeth. John gives a jump toward Jesus. And Jesus becomes the embodiment of the Divine Presence honoring and blessing the immeasurable dignity others.
For Caesar, when John and Jesus are born, it’s two more tally marks on his census of future subjects and taxpayers. For those with eyes of faith, these births and the Visitation that prepared the way are more than tally marks. They open up a room for us all to live in. Can you find yourself in that room? Even on our worse days, we are worthy of honor simply by having a presence in the room.
Beyond the minimum, the Visitation is a direct nonviolent assault on Caesar’s world, or, for us, a culture that turns people and all creation into a collection of resources and commodities to be extracted for profit. We do know, after all, what Mary and Elizabeth were talking about during those three months. Mary wrote a poem about it, with a verse about bringing the powerful down from their throwns and lifting up the lowly. If you can’t see a revolution of values in this painting, you’re not looking hard enough.
In the fourth year of Biden, after Trump had been elected, when Dewine was governor of Ohio and Ginther the mayor of Columbus, the day after the winter solstice, a group of children and adults, young and not as young, gathered inside a Mennonite church building in the Clintonville neighborhood. It was the fourth Sunday of Advent during which everyone was reminded for the 90th or perhaps 100th time that the theme was visitations. They lit the candles of Hope, and Peace, and Love and Joy. They sang the words of Mary about God turning the world around. They sang about Wisdom dawning from on high. They heard the story of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth and they looked at a painting by a Franciscan brother. They imagined, with him, what was going on in that singular moment of Elizabeth welcoming Mary. They pondered what proceeded out from that moment through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus and the community he called into being. They considered that whatever was going on in that story and in that painting, had to with their lives, and their world. And they felt this wasn’t just a task for individuals, but something they did together, as a community, in partnership with other communities. And they figured they might as well go big, and sing aabout all creation standing in wonder at the gift of Wisdom that keeps on showing up, dawning from on high, absorbing human sorrow and honoring life and the Source of life, in all its glory.
VT 238 Wisdom From On High, v. 3
All creation stands in wonder as her glory fills the sky. Down in adoration falling, we her children raise the cry: She who is and was and evermore shall be, alleluia! God most high!
