Text: Micah 5:2-5a, Luke 1:39-56
I have a kind of strange question to ask…
Does this dress look familiar to you?
How many of you have noticed or realized that I have worn it every Sunday for the last eight weeks?
How many of you have noticed that I have worn this dress… I mean, this exact garment, not one like it, for every day for the last sixty-two days?
I had seen advertisements for this Wool& dress for ages, advertising this magical wool garment that stretches and doesn’t smell and that you don’t have to wash every day. Something that keeps you cool when you are hot and warm when you are chilled.
A friend did the challenge. Then another. And so I thought – why not.
I needed a new black dress and something that was well constructed and would last me for a while and could be a sustainable addition to my wardrobe made sense.
So here I am… day sixty-two.
Why on earth am I talking about a dress on the fourth Sunday of Advent?
Because we all need to have a safe place to run and share and feel safe when the world around us is falling apart.
Our scripture for this morning tells the story of how an unwed, pregnant teenager ran away from home – and ran straight to the arms and household of her relative, Elizabeth.
Many of us have heard this story before.
A relative who went off to live somewhere else for a while – to hide from a secret shame, to get clean, to take responsibility for mistakes.
We have stories that have been passed down in hushed tones about the family that took them in while they got their lives back together.
But we also know there are times in all of our lives when we have a struggle that we aren’t quite sure how to share or speak aloud.
And so you seek the sanctuary of a close friend – someone you can be honest with. Someone who will believe you. Someone who will be on your side.
When I started this silly challenge of wearing this dress for 100 days, I joined a facebook group dedicated to the task. I was anticipating getting ideas for how to style with items already in my closet, advice for cleaning… that kind of thing.
What I didn’t expect is that this group would be a place of sanctuary for so many.
Women talking about difficulties in relationships.
Sharing stories of health crises or tremendous loss.
Wrestling with insecurities about how they look and past emotional abuse.
We all need a place to turn when things are rough…
When we are unsure of what to do or who will love and accept us…
And this facebook group about a dress has become a place of sanctuary for so many.
The responses are full of love and encouragement and grace and support.
Ya’ll… it feels like church.
Our text from the Hebrew scriptures talks about a ruler who will be born in Bethlehem.
It is an insignificant and unlikely place… but he will be our shepherd.
He will help us find safety and peace and security and love.
And as Christians, we believe that one that was promised was the Messiah, Jesus.
But he was born to an insignificant and unlikely person… a young woman, pregnant and unmarried, vulnerable.
Mary is open and willing and ready to be God’s vessel… but also, she must have been terrified.
How could you explain such a miracle? How would others have responded?
Would there have been stares, questions, disbelief?
Despite her faith and her courage, was it simply too much?
She turns to the only person she thinks can understand… her cousin, Elizabeth, who is having her own miraculous pregnancy.
I have preached on the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth countless times in my ministry.
But I don’t think that I have ever focused on what it meant for these two to find one another in this moment.
Charles Campbell captures it well:
“The scene is absurd… A baby leaps in the womb. Blessings are shared. Astonishment is expressed. Songs are sung. By two pregnant women… It is fleshy, embodied, earthy, appropriate as a forerunner to the incarnation… In the women’s actions, the world is indeed turned upside down. Hierarchies are subverted. The mighty are brought low. Two marginalized, pregnant women carry the future and proclaim the Messiah.”
(Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 1, p 95)
In this place of sanctuary and safety, the two women offer support.
They share the joys and the triumphs and the stress and the difficulty.
And they proclaim and shout and sing about how God is turning the world upside down.
We’ve talked a lot over the last several weeks about home.
About God making a home among us… about the kin-dom taking root right here in this world.
And the truth is, if we really let it, it changes everything.
God is initiating a world of love and grace and mercy and welcome.
God is calling us to repent of the ways we have shut one another out and turned one another away.
To let go of our tendencies to shame or harass or judge.
To embrace a life of humility and freedom and mercy.
And while Mary’s song talks about rulers being toppled from their thrones, we are called to live these promises out with actions that are much simpler.
Who will you welcome today?
How can you offer sanctuary for someone who is unsure about their future?
What do you need to do to show grace to someone you love?
Where is God calling you to be a shepherd for others?
That’s what church is all about, after all, isn’t it?
It is about sanctuary.
It is about forgiveness.
It is about community.
It is offering hope and love and support and prayers.
It is a pocket of the kin-dom of God right here on earth as we let the love of Christ transform how we treat one another.
It might be a facebook group about a dress…
Or it might be at the dinner table when your kid comes out…
Or it might be how you respond to the co-worker you disagree with…
Or it might be reaching out to a complete stranger in the check-out line with a smile of encouragement…
But we are called to love our neighbors.
To love with open arms and humility and compassion.
May we be sanctuary for all who seek it.
May we carry that kind of love with us… may we carry church with us… wherever we go.