Uppity angels
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
December 20, 2020—Advent 4B
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Luke 1: 26-38
As I was contemplated Gabriel’s visit to Mary this week, I was led by words from Jan Richardson, who invited me to imagine angels who are far feistier than the ethereal wafters we often see depicted. After all, in the bible, angelic messengers are hardly benign, bringing (as they do) startling news and surprising invitations. As Ms. Richardson puts it, “They might come with comfort, but they always came with a cost.”[1]
Which is why she imagines for herself, in this challenging season, a more uppity kind of angel: “Someone who can breathe fire. Who will remind [us] that being nice won’t sustain [us] through the labor. Who will cry out with [us] in the birth pangs. Who will dispatch the dragon who waits to devour what is struggling to be born.”[2]
This is the kind of messenger we need in difficult times. Which are actually the kind of times God’s message comes through strongest: when it is most needed, and when we are most ready to hear it. That’s why an angel can’t be something sweet and airy, that can only hang around if there’s no wind, or noise, or distractions.
An angel needs to have some oomph. And some staying power. And it wouldn’t hurt if it had a sword and a couple of practical skills to help us make it through the night!
Mary would need all of this. Because she is not only being asked to bear witness to the kingdom of God with the astonishing words of the Magnificat. Though to be honest, they would have been enough. It takes great strength to face into the powers of this world and declare that God’s will is for those who are currently high to be brought down, and those who are low to be raised up. That’s the kind of talk that can get you labelled a trouble-maker. That’s the kind of talk that might get you executed for being a revolutionary. That’s the kind of thing that might get you hauled up on suspicion of being a Communist…
So, in fact, the witness of Mary’s words is already a lot. But the words themselves spring from a deeper witness: a witness Mary must bear in her own flesh. In her body. The Eternal Word becomes flesh in her, and only then does it burst forth in her words. The truth of what the angel has told her, the witness of God’s intention, begins in Mary’s body. It grows there, becoming more and more true, more and more real, more and more undeniable.
And it occurs to me that this goes even deeper. Mary’s witness to us about the Dream of God comes both through her body and her words. But even before that, God’s witness to Mary came the same way: there were the words Gabriel spoke to her … but there was also the message within her flesh. So that even in later days, when she might well have questioned whether she’d imagined her angelic visitor with their strange, disturbing message, there was the flutter within her belly that bore witness to the truth. She knew the truth; even when it scared her, even when it seemed too huge and insane to be believed, she knew it. Because God’s witness was brought to her in her very flesh.
Our bodies can be very powerful messengers. Can help us to recognize a trustworthy source. Might even be enough to allow us to trust like Mary did: to accept, somehow, that we are indeed favored by God. (Imagine, if that was the message your body was sending you!) Because God is bearing witness in our flesh, in this human flesh that God created as a temple (as a home!) for God’s own presence.
Our bodies bear powerful witness to so many things. Sometimes they bear witness to the power of God, as Jesus proclaims in John’s Gospel before he heals the blind man (John 9:3). We catch glimpses of that witness in so many miraculous recoveries, in healing and restoration that we see happen in this world. Our bodies also, much to our chagrin, often bear witness to our humanity and fragility, reminding us that we are not immortal. Reminding us sometimes that our choices make a difference. Reminding us to be gentle with ourselves and each other, because these bodies of ours need so much care.
In this time of pandemic, so much is being said through the bodies of the people of the world. Public policy speaks not only through its words but in the very flesh of its citizens: in patients who are cured, and those who die; in the faces of health care workers rubbed raw by long shifts in PPE; in bellies that have been fed … and those that have not. The flesh bears witness.
Individual hearts are similarly shown forth. We see them in the willingness to make sacrifices, and change behaviors, in order to protect others. We see them in tears that are shed, not only for our own griefs but on behalf of those we know have died alone, separated from their helpless families. Hearts that break open in compassion are God’s kingdom being born within us. The flesh bears witness.
God speaks to us in word and in flesh. And we speak to the world the same way: our message is carried in what we say, but also (and gosh, especially when we are tired, and it has been a very very long year, and coherent words seem like a lot to ask) we speak with our very bodies. Our tiredness speaks, reminding us to be patient, to lend assistance where we can. Our hunger speaks, both the physical kind and the hunger for human contact, telling us what is truly essential to human survival and thriving. Our limping speaks of the wounds that so many of us carry: speaking of unexpected endurance, and speaking of times that go beyond our endurance and take us to undeniable interdependence.
All of it, ALL of it is a witness to God about our lives. And all of it can speak to us about the lives of the people who live on this planet with us. All of it speaks of our life together, which is so inextricably bound. May that witness give life to our own witness, so that our own message (no matter how quietly we might be singing) is a proclamation of God’s love, is a signpost pointing to God’s justice, is a glimmer of God’s marvelous dream for all people!
And through it all, may God send us uppity angels, (the ones Jan Richardson clearly imagines as midwives) will who wait with us, labor with us and cry out with us. Who will know our limits, but push us beyond them; who will see us through. Who will call us to our strengths, tend us in our weakness, and dress each ragged wound. Who will laugh in the face of convention, weep for our own pain, and bid us come and live![3] May it be so. Amen.
[1] © Jan Richardson from Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas
[2] ibid
[3] Ibid, “Blessing”