Loading...Don’t know about y’all, but this year is ... odd.
It’s the Covid, it’s the election cycle, it’s the gloomy weather,
it’s the anxiety about health care and people’s personal economies.
And, it’s the in-our-faces (finally) and the please-don’t-just-walk- away conversations — difficult conversations —
that are happening about racism and inequity in our country.
We are anxious and unsure. We are grieving. We are lamenting.
We thought we knew right from left, up from down, front from back.
But, many of us are topsy-turvy, and twisted all around.
As more than one person has put it, we aren’t all in the same boat in this chaos, we are all in the same storm, but in wildly different kinds of boats.
The storm is raging around us,
but what we have access to for help or resources
varies significantly.
To continue with the boat metaphor —
some of us have rafts and others have yachts,
and still others have ocean liners.
I have felt more overwhelmed in these last 10 months than ...
I think ever in my life.
And, I haven’t even gotten sick, or worried about the health of close family or friends.
But, like all of you — whether we acknowledge it or not — I have experienced grief. A weird sort of grief.
What was “normal” life is LONG gone. The patterns of interaction and routines of daily living are [fzzzt] gone. Plans made for school, trips, or holidays are no longer....
Of course, normal wasn’t really all that great, at least for a significant number of people.
Living daily with food insecurity — which has only been exacerbated.
Living daily without knowing if you will be safe in your home.
Not knowing if you will have a place to call home.
Living with micro aggressions and other manifestations of racism.
And this limbo state we’re in —
Lord, have mercy!
Christ, have mercy!
Lord, have mercy!
We are lost. We are lamenting. We are grieving.
And, into this chaos, this storm, this loss,
steps the angel Gabriel
who tells us that we will bear the Holy One —
that the One promise of long ago will show up in us.
Gabriel tells us that the Holy Spirit, Wisdom herself, Sophia, Hochma
will overshadow us and that the Messiah will come alive in us.
If we’re anything like Mary,
we’ll say, “Say what?!? How can this be?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the Orthodox Church, Mary is known as Theotokos,
or God bearer.
She carries Jesus in her womb for nine months,
and Jesus is God, incarnate — She is Theotokos.
But, she also bears God because she responds to God’s call with courage, poise, and hope.
Even though it wasn’t in her plans.
Even though it could have, frankly, gotten her ostracized from her community or even stoned to death.
Even though she was a young woman with almost no power in society.
But, she looked at Gabriel — maybe squarely, or maybe slightly askance —
and she, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord. I’ll do it.”
Will you bear God to the world?
Will you say yes to God?
This is a call, an invitation, and I don’t know about y’all, I’m not always sure that I’m ready to say “yes”.
That’s OK.
At least, you don’t have to do the Very dramatic thing of having a baby!
What we’re invited to do is right in front of us:
Loving your neighbor, loving yourself,
loving the stranger, loving your enemy.
And yet, you’re filled with loss and grief, and don’t have the energy or emotional bandwidth to do this?
look for the ways others are bearing God’s good news of great joy
and rest in that until you feel strengthened enough.
Then we will all be able to say, in some way or another:
“Here I am, the servant of the lord. I’ll do it.”
