Mercy … in every Generation.

A sermon for the final service at Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, NY

Fourth Sunday of Advent/Christmas Eve, December 24, 2023

He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

In today’s Gospel the angel announces to Mary what God is about to do. And, according to ancient theology, this is the very moment of the Incarnation, the moment when the Almighty, the Infinite and Unknowable Source of All enters into the womb a woman and becomes flesh—one of us. The Orthodox churches call Mary “Theotokos,” which means God bearer. And God bearer IS truly the most awe-inspiring thought possible: a woman carrying the wholeness of God within herself. And what our story today makes crystal clear is that Mary, Theotokos, God-bearer, is not someone of rank, of wealth, of importance.

After the angel’s visitation, Mary went to the hills to visit her older cousin Elizabeth and that’s when she sang the song that I quoted at the beginning of this sermon. She praises God for God’s greatness and favor—favor not to the proud, or the powerful, or the wealthy, but to the lowly, the hungry, and the poor—those to whom God has particularly granted mercy. She was bearing a child within her, and that person was to deliver God’s mercy into this world—to be our savior.

How do we know that Mary didn’t talk about experiencing God’s mercy to the lowly, the hungry, and the poor merely as an intellectual exercise? Well, we know it because, when this woman, this God-bearer, this Theotokos, was getting near to her due date, she was forced, because of the Emperor’s decree, to walk many miles to Bethlehem. There’s no evidence in Scripture that she even had a donkey to ride on like you often see in paintings. No, she walked those many miles while pregnant and when she arrived, there was no hospital, no hotel, not even a bed in a small inn. Mary, the God-bearer, Theotokos, gave birth in a stable and Jesus—God come among us—was laid in a manger.

There’s another voyage I want to talk about today because in the Christian church it is the custom to observe the feast of a saint on the day of their death. Saint Wendell Roberts died on December 24, 2005, fifty-five years after he first came to Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania. Father Roberts, who was originally from Jamaica, was called to a church in a neighborhood that was very much in transition, with many new immigrants arriving, especially from the West Indies. Previously a number of old members had encouraged Fr. Theopold to move the church to a more prosperous area, but Fr. Theopold saw many Anglicans among those immigrants and encouraged the church to stay.  When Fr. Roberts arrived, he discovered that New York City’s plan to build the Forest Houses included taking over Trinity’s property. Father Roberts and his congregation were having none of it – he could see all the ministry that would be needed and wanted among the old and new residents. He contacted the bishop and the Diocese of New York and Trinity stood up to Robert Moses and the city housing authority and the church remained.

The church remained. In 1950 Bishop Gilbert appointed Father Roberts as the first Black priest to be Priest-in-Charge at Trinity. Father Roberts tirelessly worked to build up the congregation, visiting parishioners, welcoming new members, organizing and making sure that others organized activities. By 1956 Trinity was sponsor of the Bronx Church League basketball champions. There was a picture in the parish hall of Father Roberts, Mr. Richardson the coach, and that team—it looked like it could have done well against Fordham. The church prospered with a full Sunday school, a boy choir, ranks of disciplined acolytes, and guilds.

Wendell Roberts tirelessly ministered: baptizing, teaching, marrying, and burying; standing courageously with the people of Trinity and the Morrisania neighborhood through both good times and some of the worst times the Bronx ever faced. Wendell Roberts had heard the news of the God who has mercy on all who fear Him in every generation, who has lifted up the lowly and filled the hungry with good things. There’s a stained-glass window up by the altar in Wendell’s memory—but it doesn’t focus on Wendell—it shows Jesus the Good Shepherd tending his flock—Wendell was such a shepherd, his service was not about him but about that flock, those people who have worshiped here, and about our One True, Good Shepherd.

Today is Christmas Eve, the feast of the birth of Jesus, of what theologians call the Incarnation—God bursting into this world of everyday experience, the mercy and love of God worked out in real life. In real life the love of God encounters daily the pridefulness and conceit of human beings, the arrogance of the powerful and the self-interested manipulations of the rich. The witness of Jesus in this world is the mercy of God and in the real world it takes shape in those people he sends out into the world.

Our Epistle today is the very end of Paul’s letter to the Romans. It is the ending of a chapter where Paul concludes his last, and theologically most important letter, by sending greetings and commendations for people he names, noting their preciousness in the life of the church and for Paul’s own life:

“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church…help her in whatever she may require from you, for she’s been a protector of many and of myself as well. Greet Prisca and Aquila who work with me in Christ Jesus and who risked their necks for my life…”

Romans 16:1-3

And he goes on naming fifteen others, both prominent workers in the church and those Paul mentions simply because of their care and love for others. Paul’s words remind me of the people of this congregation, those who are here and those who have been among us. I commend you all as witnesses of God’s mercy. Especially I commend those who we presented for confirmation just over a year ago: Bryce, Sureya, Omar, Joshua, Samora, Monica, and Mia. For those who have blessed us by their presence, but who have passed on, especially Arthur Lake, a teacher of many here, who was able to be present for his grandson’s confirmation before his final illness. Eileen Emmanuel, our faithful church secretary, or Barry Jones, who I remember tending the gardens outside. But I particularly commend those of you—faithful witnesses of Christ’s mercy—who now go forth into the world and the church to be the incarnation of Christ’s love: Wendell’s daughter Paula, who is our own Phoebe, serving and protecting this church and the people of this neighborhood; Crystal who has taken on so much, to serve the people who she loves and the God who cares for her. And those who have served here so long in so many ways—Lilas, Florence, Ona, Jeanie, Agnes, Judith, Luke, Linda, Gabriel, Eleanor, Marvin, Joe and Chang, Enid, Carol, and Locksley and Albert, my brothers on the altar every Sunday and so many others.

This church is closing … for now. Perhaps forever, as an Episcopal church, though, at this point, only God knows what is in store for our beloved church. We are sad, we are grieving. So many memories are here—baptisms, marriages, funerals—the full cycle of our time on earth. I want to tell you though, being among you as your pastor for these last years, has increased my faith and my hope for the church and for the world. God raised Jesus from the dead, and that life lives right here among you. The caring and goodness of the people here—how you know what Jesus wants and do it—that’s what the meaning of the one holy, and apostolic church is. And I see it in the people of this church, Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania.

I commend you—not only for your service here but for your ministry going forth, your love of all of God’s people wherever they are—wherever God’s mercy is needed. You are and remain the body of Christ.

Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.

Romans 16:25-27

And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be with you always.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

And give you Peace

A sermon for the Feast of the Holy Name, Sunday, January 1, 2023

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.

In Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus, it says three times that Mary pondered or treasured these things: When the angel showed up and she was perplexed; when the shepherds arrived and told her that the angel had said that this baby, wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger, is the Messiah, the Lord; and later, when the boy Jesus was found in the temple, teaching, and they went back home to Nazareth.

These were strange events for a young mother: hard enough just having one’s first baby, let alone all these amazing things happening. And those things that angels were saying to her, things like “Savior,” “Messiah,” “Great,” “the Son of the Most High”—what could they all mean? In Mary’s day, that word “Messiah,” usually meant the king, or a great military leader—nobody like anyone Mary knew, or would have anything to do with under normal circumstances.

Extraordinary things—and Mary pondered them. And the fact of her pondering, treasuring them in her heart, makes it clear that Mary, like all of us, could not predict the future. Rather, she had only her faith to guide her through all the wondrous things that attended her child’s birth and beyond.

God’s love and God’s presence are real, and now; but what will happen and how it will be explained? That will take some pondering. Midnight last night ended a year, and we reach out to the beginning of a new one.         

This has been a complicated year: a terrible war in Ukraine that has affected the whole world in many ways, and concerns about inflation and crime left people in our country worried and confused. Yet the government has been more stable and productive than previously—important legislation to address climate change and infrastructure actually passed, and by the end of the year inflation was starting to abate. And people have jobs—there’s no recession. It’s a complicated year where people are concerned for the future of democracy itself, and overt and assertive racism and antisemitism are still increasing. And here in this parish, it is also complicated. Our community of fellows had a difficult time—someone broke into their home in the rectory while some of them were there. A very frightening thing, and for their safety the program was relocated to another church. The NYSJC community has provided much for us, here at Trinity over the five years they were here, and the fellows who served in it grew and flourished and became wiser through their experience with us. Their departure is a loss. In our congregation there has been a decline in attendance—it is clear why that is: the COVID epidemic made it less safe for people to come out and there was a break in even being able to hold services in person. And during those two years all of us became older. Some of our most stalwart, hard-working and generous members are physically unable to make the trip to the church, let alone find parking, and walk up those steep steps. We are fortunate to be able to have Zoom to include some of our faithful members in Sunday worship.

At the same time, this is the first year in a long time that we had a confirmation class! We prepared seven wonderful young people to go out into the world, responsible for their own Christian faith and baptism. That was a very rewarding experience for me. What this church has given those children is deeply important and their lives as Christians will make a big difference in the future of this world, whether it is in this parish or not. And the faithfulness of the outreach of this congregation is bearing important fruit—the Thrift Store, which gives clothes and other necessities to our neighbors has built connections and trust, and we have seen the Gathering Around the Table community grow. Their monthly worship and dinner now have more than 30 attending—with a deacon, soon to be priest, able to lead bi-lingual services and communicate with everyone in their own language, a new church community is growing from this neighborhood.

This time for our church is complicated because we are in times of change. Christ calls us to serve others and not ourselves, and sometimes what happens is the church really is here to serve others. We ponder these things and we do not know what they will mean. But as I ponder, I know that God is present here. I know that this is a place where the Gospel is lived and people are respected and welcomed. I know this because I have been welcomed and respected in very tangible ways, that have nothing to do with any office that I hold or power I might have.

We do not know what the future holds any more than Mary did. We do not know the forms and models of ministry that the next 10 or 20 years will hold for Trinity Church—as a scholar of history and a long-time priest I assure you that the models of the last 50 or 60 years were much different than what the church did in earlier times, and the future will shape the church according to the faith and hope of our community. With the blessed Mother, we ponder, we treasure God’s love and we smile at the witness of those rough shepherds that came to tell those travelers lodging in the stable that their baby was the Messiah and savior of the world.

Mary pondered all the things that she had heard, and didn’t know what to do with them all. But she did remember: the name. The Angel had told her the name for her baby, and she knew what to do with that. According to the traditions of her people that baby was circumcised and given his name: Jesus.

The Holy Name of Jesus is our blessing and guide. In our Old Testament lesson, the people take on God’s name and become his by receiving the blessing of that name:

The Lord bless you and keep you;

The Lord make his face to shine upon you,

and be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you,

and give you peace.

Amen.

Numbers 6:24-26

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

Galatians 4:4-7

The Lord is with you

A sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent, December 20, 2020

Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.

So when this young woman heard this from a stranger, “she was greatly distressed at his words and wondered what sort of greeting this might be,” as one translation puts it. In other words, “who is this guy, and what is he up to?” This whole visit of an angel thing is pretty strange. We may think we know what angels look like, but we don’t—those wings and robes and stuff aren’t in the Bible—they come from people’s imaginations. That Greek word, means “messenger” and it’s pretty hard to take in what this Messenger Gabriel has to say. This ordinary young woman would not have been used to being addressed as “most highly favored one.” This whole thing is disturbing, hard to take in, maybe a little suspicious.

I mean, he says, “you’re going to conceive a child and bear a son.” Mary’s response is, “Oh, really? And since I’ve never been intimate with a man, how’s that going to be?” In this story, Mary is young, but she is nobody’s fool. She’s not naïve, just accepting whatever the first angel to come along says to her. This message to her wasn’t something she expected, or easy to hear.  So Mary pondered this, reflected deeply, and listened to these words: “The power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born to you will be holy; he will be called the Son of God … for nothing is impossible with God.” So Mary responded, “Let it be with me according to your word.” 

We have been saying a canticle every week that are Mary’s words. The words of the Magnificat come just a little later in this story, and they convey what this young woman understood and what she was doing:

“My spirit rejoices in God my Savior; he has looked with favor on his lowly servant … He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation … he has scattered the proud and has cast down the mighty … he has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty.”

All things are possible with God. But this world of ours tries to tell us that these things aren’t possible—that the hungry won’t be fed, that the proud and powerful will always have their way and triumph, that the power of God has to be subordinated to wealth. Mary believed otherwise. She was not powerful, but she hoped in God. She was not wealthy, but she became the Mother of God, bearing in her womb the savior of the world.

She pondered deeply, and though there was no way that she could know all the costs, or the price she would pay as the mother of the One who faced all the demonic forces of this world and was subject to their violence, she did know that accepting the angel’s word and the gift of God would have consequences that entailed travail—work, hardship, and even pain.

I look around at our world, especially our political world, and I see people who would like lots of good things; mostly for themselves. God can lift up the lowly and fill the hungry with good things, but that is not cost-free. Mercy is never cost-free, though God’s love is freely given. To love and respect others means giving up self-absorption and selfishness. That is what it means when Mary’s song says that God has “scattered the proud.” There’s a lot of pridefulness in this world, and believe me, when it starts to get scattered, you hear about it. Restoring a world where there can be justice and balance requires the humility of Mary—but when I talk about her humility, I mean her courage, her willingness to be used as an instrument of God, her hopefulness in the face of discouragement—I mean those things that make her the loving mother of that baby, the one who could nurture him in fearlessness and compassion.

God is with us, as he was with Mary. We may be fearful and we may ponder what lies ahead. But we know that however we might feel, God will not abandon us, we are free to love, free to give, free to claim God’s blessings for the poor. He will not send us away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel,

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

The promise he made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children for ever.

We live in hope, because God has included us, in his salvation, just as he came to depend on and dwell in Mary, that young woman.

We are blessed in this. Listen once again to how St. Paul puts it in this blessing at the end of his letter to the church at Rome:

Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever! Amen.

Romans 16:25-27

Annunciation on Good Friday

A homily on Good Friday, March 25, 2016

Trinity Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York

Pontius Pilate asked Jesus where he came from.

Today is March 25th. That is the day that the church normally celebrates the feast of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel came to Mary and told her that she was going to have a baby, and that baby was to be called the Son of the Most High. All the people who manage liturgical celebrations nowadays sternly inform us that Good Friday takes precedence so we have to put off the Annunciation until another free day when we can have a happy feast. However, there are some scholars that believe that the Annunciation was put on March 25th because there existed traditions in the ancient world that sages and prophets died on the date of their conception, and that some ancient scholars calculated that Jesus was crucified on March 25th.  Rather than go into the complexities and probabilities of that, let’s reflect for a moment on the Annunciation.  I said most of what follows when the text came up in Advent of 2014.

“Do not be afraid, you have found favor with God.” That’s a bold thing to say to a very young woman in this situation. That term “Angel”: the Greek word basically means Messenger. That message that Gabriel brought her, the message of God’s favor, God’s love—it takes some seeing. It did not relieve her from poverty, it did not make people think or say nice things about her. It certainly didn’t get her out of changing diapers and putting up with all the difficulties of child rearing. And if she could see forward, thirty years or so, and see what would happen to her Son…how much pain and grief does the favor of God cost?

But in that child was life. In him was hope. In him is the resurrection from the dead right in the middle of this too real life. How much did Mary know? She was young, no evidence of great education, but she knew quite clearly the situation she was in. So she listened to the angel. She heard him out. She even heard him speak about her older cousin Elizabeth: “For nothing will be impossible with God.” She knew, she heard, and she decided. And then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.”

When Mary went up into the hills and met Elizabeth she sang a song, which explains why she did that and what it means:

 

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed;

the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.

God has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel,

for he has remembered his promise of mercy.

The promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.

 

This young woman was standing at the foot of the cross, with the disciple that Jesus loved—perhaps that means all of us, we are all beloved of Jesus. From the cross, he said to us: “Here is your mother.”

Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.

A sermon for New Year’s Eve – Feast of the Holy Name

Trinity Church of Morrisania       Bronx, New York        December 31, 2014

Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.

In Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus, three times it says that Mary pondered or treasured these things: when the angel showed up and she was perplexed, when the shepherds arrived and told her that the angel had said that this baby, wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger, is the Messiah, the Lord, and later, when the boy Jesus was found in the temple, teaching, and they went back home to Nazareth.

These were strange events for a young mother; they wouldn’t fit into anything that she had been prepared for. She pondered them, she turned them over in her mind. These terms, “Savior”, “Messiah,” “Great,” “called the Son of the Most High,” what could they mean? It was hard enough to have just a baby. All these other things, they might mean anything or nothing. Most of the time when people used that word ‘Messiah’ it meant, the king, the military leader, nothing like anyone she knew. Extraordinary things—so she pondered. There is no reason to think that Mary ever figured out the meaning of all these things surrounding her child’s birth. It was not that these things did not happen or that she was not faithful, but even having these predictions and descriptions, and angels and prophets did not make the future clear. It did not even make the present clear.

God’s love and God’s presence are real, and now; but what will happen and how it will be explained? That will take some pondering. We reach tonight the end of a year, and we reach out to the beginning of a new one. One hundred and fifty-two years ago, the year 1862 was ending and 1863 was about to begin. This country was in the midst of a bloody and bitter war. At issue was whether one person could own another as a slave, and resistance was bitter and violent, because much of the economy was based on that very premise. As a part of that war, President Lincoln had issued a proclamation called the Emancipation Proclamation. It declared that the slaves in the states that had seceded from the Union were freed. It did not free all the slaves, in fact it only freed the slaves in the areas where President Lincoln’s government was not in control. Yet this Proclamation carried a much greater weight of hope for the future for many people. So on New Year’s Eve, 1862, many gathered to watch and hope and pray, for a future of freedom for all of God’s people.

At the end of the year we hope, and we pray and, like Mary, we ponder. Some may have hoped that on January 1, 1863, that all the problems of slavery would be over, it would be gone and everyone would be equal and happy. Or others might have thought that the end of that war would bring those ends into being. But, as we know, more than a century and a half later, these changes were much more complicated than that. The simple changes of laws and of the legal status of persons, only made some difference. Changing the realities of human hearts, human circumstances and human history takes much more than one night or one document or even one war. It takes courage, and persistence and patience and resilience. And even then people may seem intractable and change almost imperceptible. And Mary pondered, what does this angel mean? And she knew she was blessed: “for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” She did not know all that was to come, but she knew the love of God.

We reach the end of this eventful year. And in our country and in our city we see the anxiety and fear and anger of many people. Sometimes those who are violent don’t even know what they are angry about—they also don’t recognize their own fear. We ponder. We ponder our own fears and all those things that affect the behavior of others, over which we have no control. And we pray for our country and our city.

We reach the end of this eventful year in this parish. We ponder what has happened among us and where God will lead us. In just the two months since I have been here, this parish has suffered the loss of Fr. Allen Newman, Keith Warren, and Jean Barthley, beloved leaders, brothers and sisters. We ponder these things and we do not know what they will mean. But as I ponder, I know that God is present here. I know that this is a place where the Gospel is lived and people are respected and welcomed. I know this because I have been welcomed and respected in very tangible ways, that have nothing to do with any office that I hold or power I might have. I see young Christians, growing in Christ, learning to become Christian adults and leaders in the faith.

We do not know what the future holds any more than Mary did. We do not know the forms and models of ministry that the next 10 or 20 years will hold for Trinity Church—as a scholar of history and a long-time priest I assure you that the models of the last 50 or 60 years were much different than what the church did in earlier times and the future will shape the church according to the faith and hope of our community. With the blessed Mother, we ponder, we treasure God’s love and we smile at the witness of those rough shepherds that came to tell those travelers lodging in the stable that their baby was the Messiah and savior of the world.

Mary pondered all the things that she had heard, and didn’t know what to do with them all. But she did remember, the name. The Angel had told her the name for her baby, and she knew what to do with that. According to the traditions of her people that baby was circumcised and given his name: Jesus.

The Holy Name of Jesus is our blessing and guide. In our Old Testament lesson, the people take on God’s name and become his by receiving the blessing of that name:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make his face to shine upon you,
and be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you,
and give you peace.
Amen.

“Though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave… Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the Glory of God the Father.”

She was much perplexed by his words…

A Sermon at Trinity Church of Morrisania, Bronx, New York.

Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 21, 2014

She was much perplexed by his words…

Allan Rohan Crite
Annunciation

Who here has seen an angel? A real angel sent from God, not a statue or a metaphorical angel like a beautiful child? You know, until Gabriel showed up, I don’t think that Mary had either. We don’t know what the angel looked like—those wings and white robe, come out of other stories and the imagination of artists, mostly centuries later.

So what we have, is a young woman, probably a very young one: a teenager, unmarried and not in any way privileged or wealthy. A regular kid. And this Gabriel guy shows up and says, “Greetings, O highly favored one! The Lord is with you!”

 

 

“Huh?”

What else was there to say? This made no sense. ‘O, highly favored one,’ indeed, what is this guy selling? The scripture says that she was perplexed—this approach out of the blue was confusing and perhaps frightening as well. The angel continues, “Do not be afraid…” and then goes on with this stuff about her becoming pregnant and so forth. “How can this be? I’m not ready to have a child—I’m not even with a man…”
We usually think of the whole thing of the Blessed Mother as being simple and sweet, sort of a beautiful pastoral scene, and such good news to this docile young maiden. Maybe we see the renaissance paintings where we have an aristocratic young woman sitting in a beautiful garden, or a sitting room in a renaissance palace—everything peaceful, prosperous and easy. But this situation for Mary was not any simpler or easier than it is for any other young woman in a similar situation. There was plenty of insecurity and doubt—the real world impinged on her and no one could fault her if she were afraid.

“Do not be afraid, you have found favor with God.” That’s a bold thing to say to her in this situation. That term “Angel”: the Greek word basically means Messenger. That message that Gabriel brought her, the message of God’s favor, God’s love—it takes some seeing. It did not relieve her from poverty, it did not make people think or say nice things about her. It certainly didn’t get her out of changing diapers and putting up with all the difficulties of child rearing. And if she could see forward, thirty years or so, and see what would happen to her Son…how much pain and grief does the favor of God cost?

But in that child was life. In him was hope. In him is the resurrection from the dead right in the middle of this too real life. How much did Mary know? She was young, no evidence of great education, but she knew quite clearly the situation was in. So she listened to the angel. She heard him out. She even heard him speak about her older cousin Elizabeth: “For nothing will be impossible with God.” She knew, she heard, and she decided. And then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.”

When Mary went up into the hills and met Elizabeth she sang a song, which explains why she did that and what it means:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed;
the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.
God has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
for he has remembered his promise of mercy.
The promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.

When we watch the pageant this afternoon, remember that it is this courageous young woman who gives birth to that child who means everything to us.