Pastoral Prayer:
Spirit of life, God we know by many names, hear our prayers this morning

When the weather outside is unforgiving, when we find ourselves bracing against the wind and struggling to stay upright on icy sidewalks, may this community be a place of warmth and shelter

When the consumption and commercialism of the holiday season becomes overwhelming, threatening our pocketbooks and our planet, may this community be a place to recenter in our values and remember what is of ultimate worth

When the holidays resurface family fractures and losses, when commercials featuring smiling families around a Christmas dinner bring us grief and pain, may this community be a place of welcoming and belonging, where we are reminded we are beloved children of God.

When the business and hustle and bustle of the season becomes more than we can handle, when we find ourselves weary rather than merry, may this community be a place of respite and stillness, where we can catch our breath and rest our souls.

When the suffering and hatred in the world bring us to despair, when our young people live in fear to go to school or to worship, when it feels impossible to celebrate the holidays as we grapple with more horrific acts of gun violence, may this be a community where we can lament, grieve, raise our voices for peace, and work for change

And when, despite it all, we find ourselves suddenly bursting with joy over the gifts of winter, the peaceful falling of snow, the beauty of lights, the smell of evergreen, the hope of the nativity story, the love of those dear to us, may this community magnify our joy and provide us with a space to offer the proper praise.

Spirit of life, abide with us this morning, open our hearts so we may welcome one another, and all that we are carrying, into this sacred space with care and gratitude. For it is a blessing to be together.

Second Reading: “Annunciation” by Denise Levertov
“Bravest of all humans,
consent illumined her…”

Sermon:

We are entering a week of shifting energy in this winter season of quiet waiting. Hanukkah begins tonight, and the first candle will be lit. In the Hanukkah story, after an era of oppression, the chaos of rebellion, and tumult of war, there is a new beginning. The freedom to rededicate and reconsecrate something sacred, but not, it seems, the tools. Despite the victory, perhaps too much has been lost? But then, a small jar of oil. Enough to burn for one day. A single candle lit. A slight turn towards hope, but the totality of the miracle not yet revealed. Waiting still, but something has shifted.

The week ahead continues our journey into the darkness of winter, as we look towards the shortest day and longest night of the year. A week from now, on the winter solstice, the sun will seem to stand still, to pause before the days begin to lengthen. It will still be winter, still time to rest, look inward, lie dormant, let go, set intentions… but we will feel the earth begin to tilt, just a little. And our spirits tilt as well. We begin to anticipate the later sunsets and warmer weather. We are waiting still, but we sense the shift.

And we enter the third week of advent. Joy. Gaudete Sunday from the Latin word for rejoice. The scripture often read when lighting the pink candle is from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, “Rejoice…the Lord is near at hand.” The colors change from dark purple to a lighter rose, symbolizing a shift from preparation to anticipation. This shift is a subtle one, but meaningful nonetheless; it is a small change in our posture, a slight turning from the dark towards the coming light. Rejoice - the thing we have been preparing our hearts for is so close. The divine is flickering in the periphery of our vision, casting an angelic glow on the seemingly ordinary world around us.

It’s a lovely image, this slight turn, this pause, this thrill of hope as we anticipate the coming miracle, the coming light, the unrealized possibilities that lay before us. Or at least I think it is.

But it seems not all of our spiritual guides this week are satisfied with subtle shifts. Mary, well Mary, is so far out ahead of us, she is talking in past tense. “My soul rejoices,” she sings, for 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. This is no slight turn towards hope, but a revolutionary declaration.

Now I can romanticize the magic of anticipation, the wisdom of seasons and cycles. But let’s be honest, if given the option, I’m going with Mary. I’d rather have the hungry fed than hopeful that they will be fed soon. I want justice and peace and liberation and the kingdom of God now. And forever, not just for a season. I want the joy that comes not with anticipation, but with victories already won. The kind of joy that can make claims in the past tense.

But that’s not the world we’ve inherited. And I know there are days when it seems like we are further from the reign of peace and justice than we’ve been in a long time. As I put the finishing touches on this sermon last night, I got a news alert about a shooting at Brown University and woke up this morning to news of a terror attack on a Jewish community center in Australia. When I read these headlines, when I watch news reports of ICE agents dragging someone from their car as they plead with bystanders to call their family, I can’t help but think Gabriel sold Mary a bill of goods. 2,000 and some odd years after Mary sang the magnificat and we’re still waiting. And yet, we keep lighting candles of joy. Mary’s song makes me think: perhaps we don’t have to be limited to fleeting moments of joy that burn, flicker, and die when the advent or Hanukkah candles are snuffed out or the last embers of the yule log burn to ashes. Perhaps we can find a more lasting, deeper joy, a joy that in itself defies the powers of injustice.

For Mary too lived in a world of unrealized dreams, even as she sang her past tense song. She lived in a world of empire and occupation, extreme wealth inequality, oppression and cruelty. She was also waiting, and the Bible, not always a subtle text, gives us a physical state of waiting to drive home this point. Mary has a nine month wait at the very least. And I’ve got to assume she figured at least a few more years beyond that, enough time for the child to learn and grow into someone who can cast down the mighty.

How is it that Mary manages to rejoice as though something has already been done, even as she waits? What does it take to cultivate that kind of joy? There are three aspects of Mary’s story I want to highlight in an attempt at an answer.

First, is Mary’s active consent. This is the piece Denise Levertov lifts up in her poem and that is important to so many feminist Biblical scholars and reproductive justice advocates. Mary chooses. She listens, she considers, she says yes to this work of birthing revolutionary love into the world, even at great risk. The decision is wholly and fully hers. She doesn’t ask Joseph, she doesn’t consult her family, no Roman soldier bursts through the door interrupting her conversation with the angel. She recognizes her agency and she chooses to act. This is a powerful moment. In some way, this is when the assertion of the magnificat were made true—this waiting moment, this short beat between Gabriel’s pronouncement and Mary’s answer. This is a moment of freedom. The mighty were cast down in this moment when they had no control over Mary’s answer.

Every moment we use our own agency, every moment we choose to make the world better or more just, even in some small way, even when it feels like barely a drop in the bucket, is a moment for rejoicing for it means despair, oppression, and authoritarian control have not had the final word.

Second, Mary’s choice brought her deeper into community and connection. Ross Gay, poet, professor, gardener and author of “The Book of Delights,” has spent a lot of time thinking about joy and the difference between Joy and happiness. In an interview, he said that for him, “joy is the moment when my alienation from people goes away. And it shrinks. Everything becomes luminous.” He goes on to talk about how joy is grounded in that which connects us, in our common experiences, including a recognition of our own shared mortality. Those moments when we feel deeply connected to each other and to a greater whole, he calls a joining — a “joy-ning.”

And isn’t that so much of what we find in Mary’s story? Moments of shrinking alienation, moments where the space between humans and the divine and humans and each other closes. Mary is visited by an angel and becomes a carrier of the sacred. Her own body becomes the home of God. She visits her cousin Elizabeth, also carrying a miraculous pregnancy and the two women delight in one another’s presence, staying together and supporting one another for three months of their pregnancies. Undoubtedly, this unexpected and unorthodox pregnancy created a new level of trust and devotion between Mary and her soon to be husband Joseph, who remains by her side. And as the story continues, divine messengers talk to lowly shepherds, kings travel across borders to bring gifts to a baby born in a stable, and in that stable we see the familiar images of animals and a young family peacefully resting together under the same star. This story takes place in a world full of imperial violence, greed, and injustice but it provides so many images of deep joining and joy-ning.

Every moment we find deeper connection with those around us, every moment we find ways to care for one another, every moment we recognize our shared humanity and in the process, shrink the distance between us is a moment for rejoicing. For it means alienation, division, loneliness, and fear have not had the last word.

Finally, Mary’s choice is ultimately and very literally a choice to guard the spark of the divine within her. She chooses to carry and protect divine goodness in a hostile world. I’ve been slowly reading a new devotional, by Princeton Theology Professor Hanna Reichel called “For Such a Time as This.” I can’t recommend it enough. Dr. Reichel draws on the wisdom and courage of the German theologians and faith leaders who pushed back against the Nazis and offers lessons for people of faith attempting to navigate today’s political climate of Christian nationalism and fascist ideology. In the chapter titled “Rejoice always, lean into Joy,” Reichel draws on the story of Etty Hillesum, a young Dutch Jewish woman, who supported Jews in Amsterdam facing deportation, documented their experiences and was eventually murdered at Auschwitz. Etty insisted on finding joy amidst immense suffering. She wrote that she believed our main duty as humans is “to guard little pieces of God inside ourselves.” Her insistence on joy wasn’t denial or delusion, it was a way to protect something sacred against a campaign of total desecration. Reichel writes, “Etty Hillesum did not let the horrors of her day define who she was, nor did she let them exhaust the meaning of her life… Joy despite and beyond despair is its own testimony that suffering cannot determine what your life is about or what your life is for. Joy despite and beyond suffering is its own testimony to God’s sovereignty over the powers that be.”

Every time we guard the spark of the divine within us, every time we keep our souls whole and our conscience clear, every chance we have to notice and protect beauty in a world that would prefer we see only fear, is moment a rejoicing because it means suffering, cruelty, and desecration have not had the last word.

Ultimately, what Mary’s story reminds me is that there will be no single future moment in which the magnificat becomes wholly, totally, cosmically true. No moment in which we come to a consensus that the mighty have been cast down and the hungry filled and we can rest on our laurels. No, if the hungry are filled it’s because we’re doing the work of feeding one another. We must make the magnificat true continuously. Mary knew that and she said yes to her part. Which is why she could sing with joy in the past tense. The promises of Mary's song are made true over and over again each time we choose to act for justice, each time we reach towards community and connection rather than alienation, each time we guard the divine spark within us and refuse to surrender it to imperial powers. In every small act of love and care and resistance. This means we have to keep working, yes, but it also means we don’t have to wait for joy. Our joy is not dependent on a coming promise but is found in the daily work of creating and sustaining the promise for ourselves and our community.

So rejoice friends, not because everything is perfect, not because we’re ignoring suffering and injustice and not even because we are anticipating an end to suffering and injustice. Rejoice because every day we’re alive is a day we can say yes to the sacred, every day we’re alive is a day we can ensure injustice, alienation and suffering don’t have the last word.

May it be so. Amen