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Sermon, The Rev. Susan Allison-Hatch, December 23

12/23/2012

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Of Mothers and Mothers-to-Be
A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Susan Allison-Hatch


Two mothers-to-be meet at the door of a house in a small Judean town not far from Jerusalem.  One young, engaged but not yet married.  The other far past her prime child-bearing years.  Both know disgrace and, I suspect, despair. One knows the sadness that comes with a life not complete.  The other the fear having a child out of wedlock often brings.  She knows death by stoning or strangulation is often the fate of women in her condition.

But this week I’ve not been able to focus on those two mothers.  I’m hearing the haunting cries of other mothers—the mothers of Newtown and mothers everywhere who have lost children to violence, to drugs, to disease.  Mothers who live, like us, in a world turned upside down.  A world where children die of hunger.  A world of children swallowed up by war.  A world where children’s lives are cut short in so many different ways.

Mary and Elizabeth stand together on the threshold between despair and hope. They greet one another.  Mary, weary after her long walk from Nazareth in Galilee.  Elizabeth, now heavy with the weight of the child growing insider her.  At that very moment, the child moves in Elizabeth’s womb.  Taking Mary’s hand, Elizabeth places it on her quickening womb.  “Blessed are you and blessed is the fruit of your womb,” Elizabeth says to Mary.  Words—encouraging, healing words Mary needs to hear. No wonder Mary stays so long.  She’s found a place where she can carry her child unafraid.  At last, she dares to hope.  At last, she dares to dream.

What a dream she has.  What a hope she holds.

“All generations will call me blessed,” she responds to Elizabeth’s blessing—how bold, how brave.  

“For God is doing great things through me and the child I am bearing—God is turning the world right side up. ”  

That bold hope, that daring dream carry Mary through.  They carry her back, head held high, to Nazareth and to those who scorned her.  They carry her down the long road to Bethlehem. They carry her from the stable to the cross and to the empty tomb. That bold hope and that daring dream carry Mother Mary bold and strong through all the frustration, fear and joy that come with any child.  And in the end they carry her through her deep grief.

Ours is a world like the one Mary knew.  Ours is a world turned upside down.  Every day, every hour children die of hunger, violence, neglect, abuse. Ours is a country that registers cars but not guns; a country that regulates sugar calories in the foods schools serve our children but allows bullets to go unregulated and uncounted.  Ours is a country—a world—crying to be turned right side up.  Just ask the mothers among us.

And yet when we look at all there is to be done, when we see the enormity of  it all, it’s easy to feel defeated before we even start.  Where to begin?  What to do?  It seems too much.  But I wonder, does it need to be that daunting?  
A principal hears gunshots and heads out to protect the children in her charge.  A teacher hides her children—one child at a time—and then faces a gunman poised to shoot her.  Each doing what they can to turn a crazy world right side up.

It doesn’t have to be that dramatic.  Healing the world often happens one step, one act at a time.  Years ago, I heard a scholar talk about “the righteous ones”—Christians who hid Jews during World War Two.  Wanting to find out what set the righteous ones apart from those who collaborated with the Nazis, this scholar interviewed thousands of people.  The only difference he found was that the righteous ones did what they could when they could.  They used who they were and what they had in the moment to turn the world right side up one stone at a time.

You and I, we can’t right the world all at once.  And we can’t do it by ourselves.  Yet we long for a world in which children are cherished, nurtured and nourished.  Like the mothers of Newtown and mothers and fathers everywhere, we long for a world where our children can grow into the people God created them to be—beautiful, beloved and gifted children of God.  Like the mothers and fathers of Newtown and parents throughout our world, we grieve when lives are cut short, when lights are snuffed out.  Like Mary, we are fierce in our love for our children and the promise they bring.  Like Elizabeth, we stand with all the Mary’s in our world.  

We are Mary doing what we can to right things for our children and for our world.

We are Elizabeth, supporting one another as we work to turn our world right side up.

And we are the Body of Christ, turning things right side up when we can, “knowing that we are not obliged to complete the job but (that) we are obliged to continue it.”1  

We do so confident that light will shine in the darkness and that God will come to our broken world and we will be changed.  This is the core of the Christmas promise.  This is the core of our Christian hope.  In the twinkling of an eye we and the world in which we live shall be changed.  Thanks be to God.


----------------------
1 Richard W. Swanson, "The Magnificat and Crucifixion:  the Story of Mariam and her Son" in Currents in Theology and Mission 34: 2 (April 2007)
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Sermon, The Rev. Susan Allison-Hatch, December 9

12/9/2012

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Hallowing:
A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Susan Allison-Hatch


Who are you, Guadalupe?
Who are you to me?
And who are you to us?

Legend has you coming to the poor peasant Juan Diego.
Accompanied by heavenly song, 
You meet him on the desert mountain they call Tepeyac.
You call him, challenge him, and send him on a mission.

What a mission that is!
Sending a poor brown peasant 
   off to the halls of power
   off to the courts of those who persecute him
   off to the people hell-bent on obliviating all that he comes from, all that he is.

What were you thinking?
What were you hoping?

Legend has it, the Spanish bishop left Juan Diego cooling his heels all day long.
Legend has it that it wasn’t until long after dark that the bishop 
even deigned to see Juan Diego.
I can imagine the well-clothed, well-fed,
heavily perfumed courtiers 
snickering at Juan Diego
making him feel even more out of place, even more out of power.

Did he look around betraying his nervousness with quick jerks of his neck?
Did he spend the time shrinking down into a cloak of invisibility?
Or did he simply sit quietly in resignation and despair saying to himself,
“Nothing good can come of this.”

I can imagine the bishop receiving him with weariness and with dread.  
“Another blasted Indian begging for reprieve.”

I doubt Juan Diego was surprised when the bishop asked for proof.
After all—no European ever took the word of a poor native peasant.

What were you thinking, Morenita?
What were you hoping for that day?

No wonder Juan Diego gave you wide bearth when he passed your way again.

I would too.

Truth be told, you frighten me, Guadalupe.  Who knows what you might ask of me 
coming as you do in the squalor of my life.  
meeting me when I am most afraid.
greeting me by name in the moment of my deepest shame.

Who are you and who are you to me?
There are times when I wish that you would just let me be.

But that’s not in your nature--
you’re not made to let folks be.
not Juan Diego
not the bishop or his minions
not me
not us.
Guadalupe, you’re not made to let folks be.

You keep on hoping, Morenita, you keep on hoping.
And in your hope, you hallow.

That’s what you were up to that day at Tepeyac.  The work of Hallowing.

Hallowing a scruffy desert hill filling it with flowers and with song
hallowing an indian peasant making him a bearer of God’s word
even hallowing a bishop and the sycophants surrounding him 
that they might learn to love as they are loved.

That’s your work—the work of hallowing.
Hallowing the desolate places in our lives
Hallowing people others overlook
Hallowing the poor and the powerful
the strong and the weak
hallowing outsiders and insiders too.

I wonder, Guadalupe, is that the work you call us to—the work of hallowing?

Could that be your hope for us?

The Bible is full of hallowing—the hallowing of the lowly ones, the outsiders, the defeated and the despairing; the hallowing of people others overlook, the hallowing of the land and all that dwells therein  .  

Hear the prophet Baruch tell of God’s hallowing the people of Jerusalem—a people besieged, defeated, occupied.  A people who witnessed family and friends—husbands, wives, sons, daughters taken captive.  A people cut off from all that sustains.  A people not unlike Juan Diego and his people.  And yet the prophet Baruch says to them, 

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on 
forever the beauty of the glory from God....For God will give you evermore
the name, “righteous Peace, Godly Glory.”  Baruch continues, “For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.

Hallowing—could that be God’s hope for us?  

Not long ago, a member of the congregation of St. Martin’s came up to me with an urgency I’d not seen in him before.  He rarely talks to me.  When he does, he always prefaces what he says with the words, “Sister, I don’t want to take up your time.”  But this day he was determined to have a word with me.  The conversation started abruptly.
“They trusted me,” he said as he opened up our conversation.  “They trusted me with money.”  “Can you believe it—they trusted me a homeless man with money!” 

Imagine it.  A little thing.  Probably not even a given a second thought.  Just a simple request.  “Can you hold this money for me?”  That’s the work of Hallowing.

Hallowing—it happens at the food pantry every single Tuesday.

Hallowing—it happens when folks listen deeply to one another.

    —It happens in the little things in life.

Hallowing—it happens when we see, respond and acknowledge God in the one and the world before us.

May the hallowing of God’s name echo through the universe.   Amen 

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  • Home
  • ABOUT US
    • WHO WE ARE
    • Leadership >
      • Meet Our Clergy
      • Meet Our Staff
      • VESTRY PAGE >
        • ByLaws
    • Newcomers
    • FAQs
    • Faces of Our Community
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    • Download Service Bulletins
    • Daily Prayer Services - The Daily Office
    • Sermons
  • FORMATION
    • 2022 Lenten Retreat
    • Adult Formation >
      • Lenten Micro-Devotions
      • Lenten Devotional Small Groups
      • Pastor's Commentaries
    • Family & Youth >
      • Supper with the Saints
  • Pastoral Care
  • Outreach & Social Justice
    • Casa San Miguel Food Pantry
    • All Angels Episcopal Day School
    • Art, Music, & Literature >
      • Visual Art >
        • Stained Glass
      • Music
      • Literature
    • Immigration Ministry >
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    • LGBTQ+
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