BIRTHING
Luke 1:46-55

Tom Robbins, author of a number of books most of you have never read, such as “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,”  has a way of asking questions in a direct-cut through your intellectual defenses way that makes him imminently quotable.  He asks a question that is worth pondering on this fourth Sunday of Advent.  Be forewarned.   His references to heaven as a blissful afterlife are tongue in cheek.  But the question itself hits the bulls eye:
“You risked your life, but what else have you ever risked? Have you risked disapproval? Have you ever risked economic security? Have you ever risked a belief? I see nothing particularly courageous about risking one's life. So you lose it, you go to your hero's heaven and everything is milk and honey 'til the end of time. Right? You get your reward and suffer no earthly consequences. That's not courage. Real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness….and risk one's clichés.” ~ Tom Robbins

 This may seem jarring after having just heard Mary’s song sung so beautifully on this Sunday before Christmas.  In part her song is one of joy and wonder.  But if you really listened you noticed that she does not sing a lullaby.  She sings a protest song…a song of revolution and social transformation.  She sings of a God who, in cooperation with her will “bring down the mighty from their thrones, lift up the lowly, fill the hungry and send the rich away empty.”  How do you feel about that?  Maybe you understand why the public reading of the Magnificat was once banned during the repressive years of the El Salvador civil war.   The Magnificat is an alternative narrative to what the world is supposed to be.
With her baby bump just barely showing underneath her peasant’s  tunic she embodies God’s occupy movement….any movement that envisions and works toward a more just world.  She gives voice to the ones in this world that are not the winners, not the powerful, not the ones who emerge victorious to write the history books, but the ones who know the reality and heartaches behind the myths of empire.  She sings of a world that does not yet exist and believes that the vision is something born of God.  She can’t possibly know exactly how all this is going to play out but she does know there is no turning back. 
For this embyonic hope and for the work of birthing this Holy One into the world she risks her reputation, her economic security, her thoughts and beliefs about how God works.   “How can this be” she asks the angel?  And the response is spiritual, not obstetrical:  “ The Spirit of God will be with you and the child will be Holy, and nothing is impossible with God.”  Now if that is all you knew, what would you be willing to risk?
 One of the titles that the church through the years has given to Mary through the years is Theotokos   or God Bearer.    And the reason is that she births more than just a son.  She gives birth to one who will embody the ancient and lasting hopes for a transformed world and give his life for that hope, confident that God’s love and justice will prevail.   And she totally believes in the meaning of this birth.   She has given herself to it, body and soul.  To put the totally of one’s life on the line is the very essence of risk.
The church has also said, through the ages, that each soul…each child of God…is called to be theotokos, God Bearer.  What might that mean? 
Peace on earth is something we print on our Christmas cards but how often have we put our hearts and souls into nurturing those hopes from the first faint flutter that feels like gas to a flesh and blood reality?  See what we’ve done to avoid Robbin’s question?  We’ve made Mary and idol and we’ve reduced peace and justice  to a cliché for.  But they are not a cliché if you are a poor farmer who has just been displaced so that a large corporation can build a resort where you and your neighbors once lived, or if you daily live in fear of arrest and torture, or if your child was killed in someone else’s war, or if  it is more affordable for you to feed your hungry child twinkies than lean meat and vegetables.  These are real issues for a majority of people in our world and Mary sings their song…..which is her song too….which is the song that God has  given to God’s people to sing until the song becomes the very air that we breathe.   In giving birth to Jesus she births the possibility of a new way of being in the world and relating to each other and building community.  In singing her song she gives voice to all those for whom the words are not a cliché, not just a nice image for a Christmas ornament, but a hope that is felt at the deepest levels.
For the four weeks of Advent we have had the empty manger in the front of the communion table….waiting for whatever it is that we could be birthing into being.   Whatever God is up to in this season of mystery….and in the year to follow… will show up first in our individual lives, in our stories, our pain, our joy, our unique ways of being in the world.  What is that flutter that you feel that is stirring up something new, needing YOU to bring it to birth.  What possibility just keeps nagging at you like a song you can’t get out of your head?  What hope has captured your imagination in a way no other has?  There is something we are each called to do….something that we might need to take a risk for so that it can go from a dream to a reality. …from embryonic flutter to flesh and blood new creation.   What will you risk to bring it to birth?
 Mary’s willing to risk everything for this child because she is already in love with it.  She is willing to risk everything for this vision because she has given her whole heart to it.  And if we are called also to be God-bearers in the world we must be willing to be in love with God and with this world…to give our hearts and souls to birthing God’s hopes and dreams into our lives. 

  
Mary Gaut,
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