My son-in-law, Nico, teaches me about poetry. He says poems proceed. A poem happens in time, like a piece of music: It begins; it continues through; it ends. One can apprehend a painting or a sculpture all at once, he says, but poems and musical compositions want time for procession.
As with music, people often speak of being “moved” by a poem. They feel something. But Nico says a finely wrought poem does indeed move us, literally. He says, “You come to the end and find that you are in a different place from where you began.”
We are like the aged man recalling his journey to Bethlehem in T.S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi.”
All of this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or death?
The poetry of Advent and Christmas and the early days of winter Ordinary Time are just such a procession. We are moved by these stories, and not by the heartwarming treacle of the seasons, but by their heartrending demands. They call us to get up and follow. We are changed on the journey. We come to an end far from where we began. And we wonder, “Were we led all that way for Birth or death?”
We meet Mary on the Fourth Sunday of Advent. She is a virgin and she is engaged to a man named Joseph, a man from a good family. She knows this story; she has watched it unfold with cousins and sisters and friends. It is a story so familiar we know it, and live it, even today. There will be a wedding, and then, if all goes well, children. It will be a quiet life and an honorable one.
Then the angel Gabriel appears, “and coming to her, he said ‘Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.’” Here’s the part of the story where I always stop, surprised by Mary. Why wouldn’t a devout Jewish woman welcome a heavenly messenger? Luke’s gospel records her response to the angelic salutation, "But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be."
We remember Mary being troubled when she hears the news that she, who has never known a man, will conceive in her womb and bear a son. That announcement makes her, not so much troubled, as curious.
So Mary says to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”
The bad news, of course, the trouble, is an angel in the house at all. Angels come with big news, life-changing news. Hebrew history is filled with angelic appearances. There is Hagar, Sarah’s mistreated maid, who made her getaway. The angel finds her by a spring in the wilderness, and asks, “Where have you come from and where are you going?”
Hagar tells the truth, “I am running away from my mistress, Sarah.”
The angel doesn’t give her money for the bus or the address of people who will put her up until she can find a job. The angel says, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her abusive treatment.”
Oh, and by the way, “You are now pregnant and shall bear a son; you shall name him Ishmael.”
It gets better.
"He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; in opposition to all his kin shall he encamp."
“Congratulations, Ms. Hagar, it’s a juvenile delinquent with sociopathic tendencies!”
Sarah, the abusive mistress, is not spared. Just as she’s collecting her first social security checks and signing up for Elderhostel, a survivor, at last, of the hormonal storms, the angel comes to tell her she will conceive and bear a child.
The scriptures tell us Sarah laughed. We are left to imagine her wails as Abraham led their son, Isaac, away, a sacrifice to the Lord.
Then there’s Samson’s mother and Manoah’s wife (for she has no recorded name to call her own) who was barren. An angel of the Lord comes with an announcement; she will bear a son who will free Israel from the Philistines. When Mrs. Manoah goes home to tell her husband all that has happened, she says, "A man of God came to me; he had the appearance of an angel of God, terrible indeed."
Terrible, indeed, is Samson’s death as, bound and blind, he pulls down the pillars of the Philistine temple, crushing himself and all his tormentors.
He had judged Israel for twenty years.
The angel who comes to tell of John the Baptist’s conception and birth, appears before Zechariah in the temple, “standing at the right of the altar of incense.” Zechariah, like his ancestor, Abraham, is an old man married to an old woman. Elizabeth, like Sarah, is barren.
Zechariah is a priest, accustomed to entering the holy places where no other dares enter. One would think him a man at home in the mystical, but the gospel of Luke says,
"Zechariah was troubled by what he saw and fear came upon him."
Then he questions the angel, asking,
"How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years."
For asking, for not believing the angel’s words, Zechariah is struck dumb. He does not speak again until the day of John’s circumcision, eight days after his birth. We have no record of his, or Elizabeth’s, reaction when Herod has their son decapitated and his lifeless head brought to his wife, Herodias, on a platter.
There is no word of Mary’s reaction to John’s execution. Did she hear the talk, how Herod believed her son, Jesus, was John raised from the dead? Did she wonder what John’s death might mean for Jesus?
Mary lives John’s story; they are contemporaries. Elizabeth is her cousin, and the first one to know what news the angel Gabriel brought to Mary. But the other stories — from Hagar to Samson’s mother — are ones she must have heard again and again. She must have known what angels bring: The end to life at home, the end to familiarity and safety, to comfort and security.
I suppose when I was young I found these angelic appearances exciting and desirable. To be chosen, to be called, to bear the son who will father Israel or defeat the Philistines or call out to God, “Here I am, Lord, send me,” that would make for an interesting life. This was before I learned the deep joy of the daily, the peace of a phone that doesn’t ring after ten.
Did Zechariah rejoice to learn that his son “will be great in the sight of the Lord”? Did Mary rejoice to learn that her son “will be called holy, the Son of God”?
I think they knew better. I think they knew how these stories end. Children destined for greatness are not destined for the hearth. Children chosen to lead leave their mothers behind. Mary’s song of thanksgiving bears no trace of the domestic. She knows this is no promise of Sabbath dinners at home in Galilee, no promise of grandchildren playing at the door of the carpentry shop. This is a promise to Israel, to the world, and she is the vessel through which the promise will be made manifest.
He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.
An angel in the house means you will end up far from where you began.
The contagion spreads. The magi come, seeking the child, Jesus.
"Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at his rising and we have come to do him homage."
They travel to Bethlehem by one path and return and return home quite another.
"And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way."
The angel Gabriel points the way to Jesus. So we come to the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, when the story of Jesus’ ministry begins.
"John was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, 'Behold, the Lamb of God.' The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, 'What are you looking for?' They said to him, 'Rabbi' — which translated means Teacher — 'where are you staying?' He said to them, 'Come and you will see.'"
John’s disciples go with Jesus. They spend the day with him. When they return to their group, Andrew seeks out his brother, Simon. He tells him, “We have found the Messiah.”
They travel to Jesus by one path and return and return to their friends and family by quite another. Gone is the honorific, “Rabbi,” a title held by many in their community. In its place is the singular “Messiah,” Israel’s hope, Israel’s longing. Their lives are changed.
We hear on the Third Sunday how "Jesus said to them, 'Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.' Then they abandoned their nets and followed him. He walked along a little farther and saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother, John. They, too, were in a boat mending their nets. Then he called them. So they left their father Zebedee in the boat…and followed him."
They will find themselves at the end of their lives in a place far from where they began. They will find themselves in a place far from where they began, as will all of us who hear the call and follow.
“Canticle of the Turning” is a good hymn choice for these days.
My soul cries out with a joyful shout
that the God of my heart is great,
And my spirit sings of the wondrous things
that you bring to the ones who wait.
You fixed your sight on your servant’s plight,
and my weakness you did not spurn.
So from east to west shall my name be blessed.
Could the world be about to turn?
My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
And the world is about to turn.
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