Part 1: The Visitation (Shirley Redekop)
In place of a traditional sermon this morning, we will, as Mary, mother of Jesus did, ponder what was told to her by the angel Gabriel, and Mary’s reaction to this news. In the spring of 2014 and again in 2024 Fred and I attended reflective services at the Church of Reconciliation in Taize, France. The Taize community was founded by Brother Roger in 1940 as a Christian retreat to welcome refugees fleeing from the Nazis during WWII. Brother Roger pondered what it really meant to live a life according to the scriptures, and began a quest for a different expression of the Christian life. The brothers who joined the ecumenical community sought to be “signs of the presence of Christ among men and bearers of joy” around the world. Now thousands of people, mostly youth, come every year for a time of teaching, prayer, song and quiet retreat three times a day. Taize’s ethos is of simplicity, peace and social justice for ourselves and the world. So, while in the church there, I was drawn to a small stained glass window depicting Mary visiting Elizabeth after the angel Gabriel pronounced her favoured of God, to carry and birth the Messiah for our world, Jesus. It’s a poignant moment–two women, one very young, the other older–one from a town with a bad reputation, unmarried, poor and pregnant. The other, the wife of a temple priest, a holy man of God. Both blameless in God’s sight. But Elizabeth was barren, unable to conceive a child, and in that culture this meant that she was a failure, shamed and gossiped about. But then, God promised her and Zechariah a son, and she became pregnant. Months later, when Mary hears from the angel, that her relative Elizabeth is also expecting a baby, I think Mary was compelled to go to her, so they can ponder these miracles together, and what this may mean for their lives and the world. At that time there were no telephones or mail, so I suspect that Elizabeth had no idea that Mary was pregnant, or that she was coming to visit her. Looking at the painting, I like how their eyes meet. Not yet with joy. More with questioning– perplexed, trying to understand. Then, if you look close, you see Elizabeth’s baby kneeling and Mary’s baby reaching out. Elizabeth exclaims to Mary, “Blessed are you among women for as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting the child in my womb leaped for joy, and blessed is she who believed there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her.” These two women went from lowly in significance and shame, to radiating with God’s purpose and joy. In the silence following the trio, let’s ponder this perspective.
Click on this link to find the image The Visitation, by Brother Eric, a stained glass window from The Church of Reconciliation in Taize, France.
Image: The Visitation by Brother Eric
Part 2: The Magnificat from Luke 1:46-56–see below (Janet Bauman)
In church history and art, Mary is often portrayed as quiet, compliant, meek and mild, but here, in this “stunning poem of praise to God who redeems and restores the world” (Jan Richardson, Circle of Grace, xvii), Mary is fearless. Responding to Elizabeth, who calls her blessed, and drawing on the scriptures of her people she bursts out with these words of wonder and joy at the history of the mercy of God. She is prophetic too, proclaiming the gospel in her own voice.
As mother, as prophet, as God-bearer, Mary calls each one of us to embrace this calling as well. For as Meister Eckhart put it, “We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born” (Birthing the Holy, Christine Valters Paintner, p. 140).
In the silence to follow, I leave you with these perspectives to ponder:
- What catches your attention in the Magnificat, and why?
- How do you respond to Mary’s prophetic song?
- What does it mean to be a “God-bearer”?
- How can you give birth to God in your own time and place?
Part 3: Poem–Blessed Are You Who Bear the Light–see below by Jan Richardson (Janet Bauman)
Jan Richardson has found that the art of writing blessings helps her to perceive the ways that God inhabits the ordinary, reminding her that “every moment and each place lies within the circle of God’s care” (Jan Richardson, Circle of Grace, xiv). Designed to convey God’s deepest care for our wholeness and well-being, “The most profound blessings…meet us in the place of our deepest loss and inspire us to choose to live again” (Richardson, xiii). A blessing opens us, awakens our imagination, “challenges us not to accept how things are but to dream of how they could be transformed” and how we might be called to participate (Richardson, xvi-xvii).
Read the poem.
In the silence to follow, I leave you with these perspectives to ponder:
- What catches your attention in this poem? Why?
- How are you encountering God in the ordinary this season?
- How does the light live in you?
The Magnificat
Mary’s Song of Praise
Luke 1: 46-55
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour!
For though I am God’s humble servant,
God has looked with favour on me.
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 endures
from generation to generation
for all those who revere God.
God’s strong arm
has accomplished mighty deeds!
God has scattered the proud
in the thoughts of their hearts.
God has brought down the powerful
from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly.
God has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
To Israel, God has given help,
and remembered to be merciful
as promised to their ancestors,
Sarah and Abraham and their children forever.”
Blessed Are You who Bear The Light
By Jan Richardson
Blessed are you
who bear the light
in unbearable times,
who testify
to its endurance
amid the unendurable,
who bear witness
to its persistence
when everything seems
in shadow
and grief.
Blessed are you
in whom
the light lives,
in whom
the brightness blazes—
your heart
a chapel,
an altar where
in the deepest night
can be seen
the fire that
shines forth in you
in unaccountable faith,
in stubborn hope,
in love that illumines
every broken thing
it finds.