12/14
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| Together apart |
Well, at least one good thing about the Covid spike…no Santacon this year.
Walking the streets of Harlem, all is quiet and deserted. In all the the tiny plastic houses, which seem to be a gift from Stella Artois beer, there’s only two tables with people at them, both at Silvana.
Today the Electoral College made it official, Joe Biden is the next President. Never before did this pro forma exercise draw breathless coverage from Wolf Blitzer and CNN. Now we’re one step closer to an inevitable January inauguration. But somehow I fear more shenanigans are in store.
This is the context for our Bible Study tonight as the lectionary shifts into a more thematic Christmas mode. Specifically, Mary’s visit to Elizabeth. (Luke 1: 26-38.) Russ requests that we extend the reading through 55 so we get the Magnificat as well.
Marsha loves the simplicity of the story. Russ the simplicity of a story of a young woman. Michael is awed that a woman with no social standing, no great lineage would be chosen for such a role. And AmberLee, as always, come in at an angle and sees connections with a Marvel comics origin story with Venom, Brock and Anna. And I tell her that that’s pretty much the way people in the first century heard these stories, like Marvel Comics superheroes.
Here then birth of Jesus is foretold. The angel greets Mary with the words “Hail Mary” which would find their way into football parlance in the 20’s through Notre Dame, although ironically it was a Presbyterian player who convinced the team that they needed to pray. And now the phrase has not only football specific meaning but broader metaphoric use, like in Trump’s legal maneuvers. Gabriel’s announcement echoes his earlier announcement to Anna about her old age miracle pregnancy keeping up a common Biblical trope, e.g. Sarah. From elderly barren women getting pregnant to a pregnant virgin is just one more leap.
This visit takes place in Nazareth, backwater town of no importance. In Galilee, not Judea. To a woman who is a virgin. (People make much of the fact that the Isaiah passage 7:14 literally says “", but no matter because she has “known no man.” (34) Thus sending the Roman Church on an ever winding doctrinal goose chase of immaculate conception and perpetual virginity. When the point is about youth and holiness and how anything is possible with God, not about biology. (Strange that in Matthew the angel appears only to Joseph. In Luke, Mary’s situation is fait a compli. And Jesus’ royal lineage is argued through Joseph, 2:4, even though he was not apparently involved.) Let miracles be miracles, wonder be wonder.
And her child will bring a kingdom without end, fulfilling promises in 2 Samuel 7:16, Isaiah 9:7 and Daniel 7:14.
Mary’s response to “how can this be?”(34) Is “Let it be.”(35) (More of that later.)
She is much ‘perplexed’ and has much to “ponder.” But in the end accepts.
Much can be made of what is left out, the gaps between her title and her test, the question and the answer, the vision and certainty.
That yes doesn’t come easy. It will open the door to scandal, ostracization and potential death by stoning. “God’s favor” is not necessarily evident. She doesn’t know the future. That will end with the special child’s crucifixion as an insurrectionist. She only knows enough to take the first step.
I do note that virgin birth stories are common in many cultures and traditions, including Krishna, Bacchus, Hercules and even Quetzelcote. Something very basic to humanity is at work here.
The visit to Elizabeth takes place in the 6th month of her pregnancy, At Mary’s revelation, her yet to be born John “leaps” for joy. Compared to Elizabeth, wife of Zechariah the Temple priest, living in a fancy Jerusalem suburb, Mary is a poor relation. Mary’s triumphant song, the Magnificat, is a riff on Hannah’s song in I Samuel 2:1-10, a song of great reversal, pulling the mighty down form their thrones, filling the hungry, sending the rich empty away. And she sings it as if it has already been accomplished. The already and not yetness of the Gospel. Desmond Tutu’s “we have already won…” long before apartheit officially fell. It is real and concrete. I remember hearing a woman who had just learned to read in the Sandinista literacy campaign read this passage in a street mass in Managua. And then say, “I saw this happen in my life.” (How much more tragic the betrayal of the revolution by Ortega.) It goes deep, Luke alway speaks of “the poor” the “hungry,” no Matthean nuanced spirtualizing, It speaks to those who Franz Fanon spoke of as the wretched of the earth.
Mary’s consent, and the essence of the Magnificat, will become the Lennon-McCartney classic, “Let It be.”
“…..And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be”
There will be an answer. Let it be. Yes. Come, Lord Jesus, come.
Let it be
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