The Visitation Selected Sermon

“Mother Mary meek and mild…”

In artistic depictions of the Visitation, all the great medieval and renaissance paintings, there seems to be a uniformity in the blandness of Mary’s facial expression that seems curiously at odds with Luke’s description, “Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country,…” In the birth narratives the focus is on Jesus’ birth and in most commentary written on the Visitation the focus is on Mary’s ecstatic utterance of the Magnificat and we skip over that line, “She arose in haste and went into the hill country.” Occasionally it is noted that Mary may have been in danger of local censure and repudiation by Joseph and possibly stoning.

Possibly stoning.

“She arose in haste and went into the hill country.” The reason for the haste is not given, but the threat, the innuendo is there. Girls in many cultures for the last five thousand years or so are taught to view pregnancy outside of publicly controlled and sanctioned situations with the utmost fear. In many places and times a woman’s entire life and destiny hung upon her fertility being legally owned and controlled by a man. Death, exile or perhaps even worse — marriage to the rapist — were the legal consequences for a woman pregnant outside the marriage contract. Although most commentaries skip over the consequences Mary faced or at best give them short shrift, it takes my breath away.

“She arose in haste and went into the hill country.” It seems as though the jig is up for Mary and the local machinery has been set in motion to deal with her crime. I imagine her, heart pounding, realizing she must do something, go somewhere. Did she pray in the garden where first she heard Gabriel’s voice, did she pray, into the yawning silence and hear only her own breath echoing back? There is no intervening angel here, no dream, no help. Has God, like a guilty man, left her helpless and alone to deal with the consequences of the “overshadowing” of her life?

She does not go to the authorities to tell of her vision, her experience, her epiphany of God. She does not seek clemency or sanction. She heads, alone, to an undisclosed location somewhere in the hill country.

How is it that the danger and the aloneness of Mary is met with silence on our part?

In the wake of centuries of biblical study and theology caroling about the fruit of Mary’s womb, or Mary as holy flower pot, of immaculate conceptions, womanly meekness, Mary’s meditative and circumspect silences, her surrender to God, of being the “handmaiden” of the Lord, we’ve lost sight of the young woman, setting her face towards Judah, without any direction that we know of, in order that God’s will be done. There’s no record of any miracle that intervened on her behalf, no enigmatic stranger writing in the sand to come between her and the accusers that have begun to close in about her. No, she arose, alone and went with haste, no one can bear this burden, drink this cup but she alone. From and through the very cultural traditions that would shame and kill her, God will create freedom for Mary, for us. Maybe we lost sight of her because she was so far ahead of us.

So where does she go for succor? To Elizabeth, her older cousin, another woman who, being barren, hadn’t gotten it right either. And lo, here she too is with child! Did Mary know? Did Elizabeth know about Mary? They don’t ask who, what, where questions, but join together in the call and response kiddush-style, in a sanctifying song of praise. Temporal censure has no hold upon these two women caught up in the passion of holiness. On the contrary, rare clarity of sight is given Elizabeth.

No, God did not shove off like a guilty lover leaving Mary to struggle alone, God awakened her to a world shot through with God’s love and presence. God awakened her to God within, without, beneath, behind, before. Immanuel. God gave her a song of strength with which to do a great work of the Spirit, giving birth to a child.

Somehow I see Mary, walking quickly, determined, up and up into the hills, looking over the land she loves, that God loves, and knows herself beloved. In this incredible experience of union the words of her ancestress begins to rise in her heart and joins the beat of her stride as she continues her ascent into Judah. Joining herself to God she moves further and further from what she has known and further and further into the unknown. From the daily round of village life, the future with Joseph, Mary moves out of the private and into the public. Mary sees her people, sees herself, sees her God and knows that all belong to one another. To love clearly and cleanly justice must come to Israel again. With each step the proclamation of liberation works its Word into her sinews and muscle. The Angelic vision begins to transform her, move her, from naive child to a woman of faith. The song wells up from within; in loving God she will give birth to Freedom itself.

Phyllis Trible, Hebrew Bible scholar, often states that scripture is a pilgrim, and is transformed by each voice which takes it up. Hannah’s song of personal salvation becomes Mary’s song of human salvation. Ann Johnson, author of Miryam of Judah reflects that before joining with God in any great act of liberation the prophets of Israel recount the acts of God and their willingness to play whatever role God will require of them. In the Magnificat itself we see foreshadowed all the great themes of Jesus’ ministry, in Mary’s bravery we see foreshadowed Jesus’ embrace of his Passion.

Self sacrifice, personal danger, unequivocal commitment, daring, risk, ecstasy? Doesn’t this sound like someone else we know? Much is recorded in scripture about how Jesus is like the Father. Like Father like Son. But here we see where he learned true humanity in its best, most exalted state, reflected in the determination of his mother to bring him to birth under threat and unaided. The birds have their nests and the foxes have their holes but the mother of God had no place to lay her head. But she went forward anyway into the unknown and into God. Like Mother, like Son. He comes by his prophetic disposition quite honestly.

Much has been written on how Mary embodies the perfect human response to God through being quiet, receptive, passive, and maybe that’s true somewhere, somehow, but not here. In skipping over the full ramifications of Mary’s choice and Mary’s action we lose the brave, bold, risk-taking heroine she is. We lose, quite literally, a heroine of biblical proportion.

Mary shows us the other side of what is called for after the initial assent to God; courage, action and the will to place all of who we are in God’s service. She demonstrates that with the sacrifices we are called to make comes incomparable delight. In so doing she breaks the trail of liberation, first for her self, then for her son, and ultimately for us. Mary was saved through the time of trial, Jesus was saved through the time of trial, we will be saved through the time of trial.

In a world that increasingly calls for Christians to take bold, self-aware actions of trust in God, Mary surely is a model for our times Blessed is she, and so blessed are we. Amen.

 — The Rev. Claire Woodley-Aitchison presides at St. Peter’s Community Outreach Center, Inc. 137 North Division Street, Peekskill, NY 10566. Claire Woodley-Aitchison’s ministries include numerous women’s issues.