Luke 1:41-56

Today, I must preach on a mystery that I know little about and will never experience- the joy of being pregnant. I saw a woman recently nearing her delivery day. Her hands caressed her belly as she spoke, and she seemed to sparkle with delight. She had that glow which might be from a happiness, or increased blood circulation and hormone levels. Even hair grows thicker during pregnancy as the body is supercharging with new life. I could see a joy that was contagious to other people in the room.

I can share that joy, but it is also complicated. I have an adopted son, a foster son, and two stepchildren. They all bring me joy even though I have not played a biologically creative role in their lives. I didn’t experience the day of their birth. They don’t have my eyes or nose, just some of my annoying habits. I adopted James at one-month-old, which is close to birth, and I’m the only father he has known. Michael was already six years old when he came to my house as a foster child, and Christina and Patrick were teenagers when I came into their house. They all three had a dad, which makes me their backup; pull the handle in case of emergency, Dad.

I’m content in my dad roles. I easily relate to Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus, in the Christmas pageant, and would take any of my kids to Egypt if they needed safety. The complicating emotion is I know all the things that can go wrong. I think about everything that needs to go right in a pregnancy. From the outside, pregnancy looks hard of women.  Some pregnancies don’t go to term, with 10 to 20 percent of women experiencing miscarriages. It helps if love remains between mother and father, though single moms raise 40 percent of children. Some of the best moms I know are single, but it’s hard.

I have become a father amid someone else’s tragedy.   Someone abandoned his pregnant girlfriend, or child protective services got involved, or after a divorce. Fatherhood isn’t just a biological thing. For me, being a Dad means entering a situation as it is, accepting ambiguity and uncertainty, and doing my best to heal what is broken. Being present with joy does not mean ignoring the complex emotions and pitfalls around birth and parenting. It means discovering joy despite it all.

Theologian Henri Nouwen put it this way: while happiness usually depends on circumstances, joy runs deeper. “Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing — sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death — can take that love away.” Thus, joy and sorrow can not only coexist; joy can even be found amid sorrowful circumstances. Mary’s situation was complicated and vulnerable, but her effervescent song of joy flows from a wellspring deeper than the surface of things.

Let’s look at the complexity of the joy that comes through the text in Luke. Our story begins after the Angel Gabriel visits Mary to tell her she has been chosen to give birth to the Messiah. Who would you tell first if you were pregnant for the first time?    Notice Mary goes immediately to visit her relative Elizabeth. I wonder why she didn’t go to her mother. Nor does she tell her fiancé, Joseph. Mary needs someone wise to help her sort out her unusual circumstances. Elizabeth is a logical choice because the angel tells Mary that Elizabeth is also pregnant. Everyone thought Elizabeth was too old and was likely barren.

So, Mary seeks counsel from someone likely to be sympathetic. If angels deliver shocking news, wouldn’t you check it out to ensure you aren’t crazy? Build an ark. Confront Pharoah to let my people go. You will give birth to the Messiah. This knowledge is a lot to carry. Most people in the Bible want a second opinion after a divine visitation.

Today, we would give Mary the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), which helps to diagnose mental health disorders like schizophrenia or anxiety. One of the 567 true or false statements to answer is “God sometimes speaks to me.” When I took this test upon entering seminary, I laughed out loud when I came to this, because God’s call was why we were all in the room. Yet if I say “true,” I might get a diagnosis. Several people were staring at me, so I continued the test.  Two minutes later, someone else laughed. A minute later, two people laughed. While some people looked around perplexed, one person said “Sssshhh!” She laughed two minutes later, and most of the room laughed at her. The test supervisor looked like she thought it was a madhouse, and we had to explain to her that God spoke to all of us. I think that bothered her even more than the laughing.

Mary decides not to tell her mother or her fiancé. How will Elizabeth react to her news? When Mary walked in the door, Elizabeth’s baby, who would be John the Baptist, leaped in her womb. Mary says hello, and Elizabeth says, “Blessed are you among woman, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Well, good morning to you, too, Elizabeth. She understands without a word from Mary. Call it intuition or a spiritual gift, she confirms what Mary has experienced. There is excitement in the room that two pregnant women experience the multilayered miracles of body and divine Spirit. They have a pact.

Unfortunately, this scene doesn’t make it into most Christmas pageants. It would tell young women that wise elders are around to guide them, even in complicated families. Luke’s Gospel brings women’s experience front and center. Joseph has little role to play, whereas Matthew’s Gospel is about Joseph and his dreams, and Mary never speaks. Whoever wrote the song “Mary Did You Know?” must have only read Matthew’s Gospel. If you read Luke and the Magnificat, it’s clear Mary knows exactly what is going on. I wonder if Luke, being a physician, had a little more experience with women and knew how to include that in the Gospels.

A closer look at the words of the Magnificat reveals a bold joy. What are your hopes for your children or grandchildren when they are born? What would you say if you had to write a song about it? If Mary was a different kind of person, a helicopter parent aspiring to a prosperity Gospel, she might have sung:

My soul Magnifies the Lord,

For this, my son will go to the Ivy League,

(Well, maybe not Harvard, Penn or MIT these days.  Dartmouth?)

My dear one, aspire to dwell in the grandest abode,

Let your home be a palace of luxury.

Your name will be synonymous with wealth and abundance;

And your wealth shall be counted with many zeros,

Heed, my progeny, the call of the luxury car.

And may valet parking be your birthright.

Mary magnifies upside down action of God to move world toward justice through her son.

He has shown strength with his arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
⁵² She has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
⁵³ She has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.

The Magnificat echoes throughout Jesus’s ministry in Luke’s Gospel.  His first sermon says, “God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. When he said it is harder for a camel through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven-sounds like the Magnificat. Jesus saw with different eyes, noticing the poor widow giving her last coin, Blind Bartimaeus shouting for mercy, showing mercy on a woman caught in adultery.  Is this perspective from Mary?  Mary did more than change his diapers and nursed him from her breast.  She was also his teacher, and she likely taught him the values of the Magnificat. Wasn’t God working through her, guiding his whole life? Maybe God chose someone like Mary because she wasn’t docile, and she didn’t teach her son Jesus to go along to get along or curry favor with the rich and powerful.

Do you know who understands the power of the Magnificat? The rich and powerful get it. During British colonial rule of India, the Magnificat was banned. The British East India Company prohibited the recitation during evensong in Advent in Anglican churches.  On the final day of British rule over India, as English flags were lowered in unison, Gandhi asked that the Magnificat be recited at each site as the flags came down.

This third Sunday of Advent, we are called to be present with joy. Mary’s story celebrates joys large and small. There is the tender joy of new life, a baby’s leap in the womb, a wise elder to guide, and a safe haven. But there is also the joy that the world can truly be better than it is. There is joy when all are fed, all are made whole, and all are welcome. Mary carried this joy pregnant on a donkey, to birth in a manger, flight to Egypt, and beyond. This joy is ours to carry, too.  If we are present to notice joy, it is right here and right now.