Sing God's Liberating Lyrics

I discovered I’ve been fighting, and losing, a battle I didn’t realize I had joined. I’ve long believed that John Gray's idea that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, is lame. What little I’ve heard sounds like a theory with psychobabble, cute folktales, bits of eastern wisdom, and traces of Greek philosophy. My belief that he makes millions off a lot of nonsense had me thinking that I never give his notion any energy at all, much less am I fighting actively against it, until the other day.

We’re slowly rolling out Christmas traditions at our house. There have been quite a few changes since we’re in that semi-empty-nest position with our last child in college. Our daugher is here on break. Is our daughter home, or are we hosting a guest?

We went to a nursery to cut down our Christmas tree. This year only one son and our daughter joined in the work. I love that tradition. My excitement, however, doesn’t carry over to decorating the tree. Oh, there are ornaments I like to set thoughtfully because of the memories they hold. Once those 10 are up, I just want to get the job done. My wife and daughter, on the other hand, see hanging ornaments as the beginning of a mission.

Each room in the house becomes a shrine for particular decorations. Fortunately, they don’t mind my quitting the operation early. This year, with the crew short-handed, I stayed at the tree longer than usual. I did a great job filling in gaps, balancing shiny round things with hand-made relics from the kids’ preschool and kindergarten days. We got that baby decked out in record time. I went to bed while Rachel and Anna garlanded from room to room.

Next morning, reaching for a coffee cup, I found an ornament on each cupboard door handle. There was nothing new about that. What was odd was my certain memory that I’d hung all those on the tree. Obviously, this man had hung those ornaments in the wrong place. Moreover, my doing so disturbed the festival balance of nature the women I make home with treasure. Kindly, they restored order without wounding my ego. Women, it seems, often see, nurture, and express visions richer than men can ever imagine.

Luke knew that long before John Gray and I came late to the awareness. Luke boldly asserts Mary and Elizabeth front and center within the drama of the new thing God intends to do with John and through Jesus. (See Luke 1:39-55.)

We too easily miss their significance for many reasons. Our Christmas pageants don’t include the reality that both Zechariah and Joseph are late to come onboard. Both these men require an extra effort on God’s part before they are ready to join in.

We too quickly focus on the pageant’s larger than life characters. We’re awed by the adoring angels. We sympathize with the scared shepherds. We’re horrified by Herod’s charade. We warble a song for the three traveling wise men. Truth is, compared to Elizabeth and Mary all these male folk are just bit-players. Luke depicts these women as much more than passive incubators.

Luke gives them each a place more prominent than that of the women behind every good man. Their personas don’t merely propel the Christmas plot to Bethlehem. Their souls’ authenticity and genuineness are critical to the change God craves for the cosmos. They come to that place in their alertness for God’s presence and by their preference to let God’s ways be their ways. Through all that, they remain wholly themselves.

We marvel at, and so distance ourselves from, what we call miracles. They take pleasure in each other’s pregnancy. We pooh-pooh, and so retreat from, their pious ignorance of procreation. They ponder what power God is exercising. We draw doctrinal pronouncements from their meeting. They sing God’s praises. We see two poor, powerless women. They prepare for the problems and perils of everyday parenthood. We set them on remote pedestals. They proclaim the profound promise divine partnership with their ordinary womanhood will work in and for the real world.

Listen, first, because that’s what Mary does, to Elizabeth. Her hearing Mary’s greeting sets off her feeling a movement within. She expects that moment, like every moment, to be pregnant with the possibility of extraordinary meaning. In that expectant moment the Spirit fills her so full, she lets out a shout God still wants us to hear. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

Two realities; first, Mary is neither a superwoman, nor is she a conquered woman. Elizabeth’s praise toward Mary is recognition that Mary has received what God desires for all God’s children, namely, that we all hear and respond to God’s call that we each give birth to God’s holy will inside our own ordinariness. Second, Elizabeth thanks God for her ability to name and claim the always presence of God both within her and around her.

Mary’s response to all of this is both equally other-centered and likewise God focused. She rightly, and humbly – as in well grounded – or rooted in the favor God has shown her, acknowledges the gift she’s been given. She then immediately testifies that God’s favor toward her is already rushing toward and for the favor of the whole world.

God is, she sings, bringing about the fulfillment of the promises made to creation and creatures from the beginning of time. With strength and power, God is undertaking the merciful, compassionate rewombing this world requires in order to be reborn into God’s good news for all.

I hope you’re seeing and hearing the depth and breadth of these promises. God wouldn’t need all the strength and power described here if God were only interested in ratcheting up our piety. The world wouldn’t need a Mighty One if all that were at stake was which holy book congressional representatives swear their oaths of offices on.

God’s oath, sworn in word and in flesh, from the moment God created us in God’s own image and likeness, means that God has little interest in tinkering at the edges. God’s vision for us sees an honorable society. God’s rule over us requires a more gracious government. God’s extravagance to us demands a more equitable economy.

From the time of Abraham God has been writing, in one form or another, lyrics that make holy melodies just like that. Women, neither from Venus nor Mars, but of this good earth, seem to hear them easiest and to sing them loudest.

Today, God wants those lyrics to make their way, as they did for Elizabeth and Mary, from our ears, to our hearts, and deep within our souls. Then we, like they, can boldly, through the ordinary pain and messiness of life together on this good earth, give birth tomorrow and join forever, the only Messiah who means what he says to us and does what he means for us.