The Rev. Canon Anne E. Kitch
Micah 5:2-5 Canticle 15 (Luke 1:46-55) Hebrews 10:5-10 Luke 1:39-45
Fill the hungry with good things. My nephew Owen, who is six, recently asked his dad, “Daddy, how are you doing?”
“I’m good, buddy.”
“What do you mean? Happy healthy good, or humanality good?”
“What does humanality mean?”
“You know, like when you do nice things for people and do your best to help them.”
Fill the hungry with good things. When I became a mother there were many surprises. I swear, no one told me how awe-inspiring, sleep-depriving, life-overwhelming it was going to be. It seems there was so much more to it than I could ever have anticipated. For instance, I would never have predicted my fear of newspapers. Actually, my downright manic aversion to news. It seemed I could not pick up the paper that arrived on my doorstep each morning without being confronted by headlines or pictures of children in danger. Children in need. Children dismissed and abused by hunger, war, racism and poverty. It overwhelmed me. It was as if in becoming a mother I had a new umbilical chord that connected me to all mothers. As those children suffered I felt for those mothers, those parents, who suffered with them. Do any of those parents love their child any less than I love mine? As I felt overwhelmed and exhausted trying to care for my infant in my comfortable warm home supported by my incredibly loving husband and provided with excellent medical care, I wondered about all those other mothers who has less--much less. I cried for them. It was months before I could face the news.
But I emerged from that time with a certainty that I could not act for my child alone. I knew I needed to car for and act for but for other children as well. Fill the hungry with good things Mary, the mother of Jesus, responds to the announcement of her upcoming motherhood by seeking out others. Perhaps she was much less burdened by the cares of the world as a teenager than I was as an older adult. Perhaps the angel brought her wisdom along with the astounding announcement. She is not paralyzed by fear but able to reach out to others immediately. When the angel Gabriel disrupts Mary’s entire world with the news that she will bear God’s son, he also tells her of another wonderful pregnancy, that of her cousin Elizabeth.
Now Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah were childless and really too old to be having children. Nevertheless, an angel had visited them and promised them a son who would be John the Baptist. So, having received her great news, Mary leaves immediately and sets out to visit Elizabeth who is now six months pregnant. Mary, so young to be pregnant, and Elizabeth, too old, meet. When they do, Elizabeth feels the child bounce within her and knows in her heart before Mary tells her that Mary also caries new life within her and this life is for the life of the world. Elizabeth praises and blesses Mary. Mary responds with a glorious hymn we know as the Magnificat the one we just prayed together:
My soul proclaims the greatness the Lord,
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant…
These are the first words Mary utters to another about God’s revelation to her. It is a hymn of praise and it is a song that glorifies a God who cares about those in need. She sings of a God who is merciful and strong, one who lifts up the downtrodden, fills the hungry with good things.
Fill the hungry with good things. There is much waiting to be filled with good things this day: stockings carefully hung, plates beautifully set, hearts and homes open for friends and family. But what kind of good things are we waiting for? With what good things will we fill ourselves this day? The happy, healthy kind? Will we also fill them with humanality goodness? You know, the kind when you do nice things for people and do your best to help them.
Fill the hungry with good things. As we turn the corner from Advent to Christmas (and a very sharp corner it is this year), I offer a meditation from the Loma Tribesmen of Liberia which a friend here at the Cathedral shared with me:
Christmas Promise
Whoever on the night of the
Celebration of the Birth of Christ
Carries warm water and a sleeping mat
To a weary stranger,
Provides wood from his own fire
For a helpless neighbor,
Takes medicine to one
Sick with malaria,
Gives food to children
Who are thin and hungry,
Provides a torch for a traveler
In the dark forest,
Visits a timid friend
Who would like to know about Christ,
Whoever does these things
Will receive gifts of happiness
Greater than that of welcoming a son
Returning after a long absence,
And through he live to be so old
That he must be helped into his hammock,
And though his family and friends all die
So that he stands as a trunk stripped of branches,
Yet life will be sweet for him,
And he will have great peace,
As one whose rice harvest is great,
And who hears his neighbors
Praise the exploits of is youth.
So will you receive happiness
If you do these acts of love and service
On the night of the celebration of Christmas,
The Birth of Christ.
Amen.
Anne E. Kitch © 2006
