Sunday 22nd December, Advent 4: Micah 5:2-5a, Hebrews 10:5-10
and Luke 1: 39-45
A line from Claire Keegan's novel Small things like these: Bill wondered, ‘was there any point in being alive without helping one another?’
We all need help and can offer it: perhaps relying on emergency friends!
It might be the person you pick up the phone to when you need to talk through a situation or decision, to offload or find support. The ones who make space to catch-up even when diaries are bursting; who’ll turn up on the doorstep or pick up the phone at times of joy.
It might be the people you list as emergency contacts - or who rely on us: those who have spare keys, who feed cats, can give us a lift to hospital, who wait with us as we process painful news, or who will be at your side as you celebrate.
It might be one person or a handful; a close tightly knit circle or an eclectic mix of people gathered across the years, who’ve been there in different times and seasons. Those who’re older and wiser than us; those who’re younger with different energy and views.
We never know when we might need that ‘safety-net’ of friendship. Sometimes we rely on organisations or professionals to be that ‘friend’ for us.
For example, the Roman Catholic charity Stella Maris works with seafarers. One of their port chaplains talks about supporting Rafi - a marinor taken seriously ill and hospitalized 1000s of miles from home. He said, ‘if I wasn’t there, he would have had no one. I became like his next of kin.’
Friendship can be the difference between being lonely, frightened and overwhelmed and being supported, cared for and encouraged.
It’s a friendship such as this which we see in play in today’s gospel: a relational safety net in the face of joy and uncertainty, questions and hope.
Mary heads to the hill country in haste. She turns up on the doorstep of her kinswoman. Perhaps Zechariah opened the door; his wife hearing the younger woman’s voice.
Mary passes from threshold to household and into Elizabeth’s embrace. Driven there by fear and uncertainty, joy and longing.
We don’t know if there were words tumbling from Mary’s mouth or how much Elizabeth knew by intuition or if shared her own story.
Within this safety net of friendship, there is trust and hope. Both women gave themselves over to loving acceptance, echoing the promises of God being fulfilled in them. The moment of recognition flows from the fruit of their wombs - the one leaping for joy at the presence of the other.
Then the conversation shifts. It’s more than a friendship between two women - different generations but both unexpectedly pregnant; both figuring out what their partners would think, say or do; and indeed what their off-spring would think, say and do!
It’s a moment of praise and worship; greeting and leaping and joy; blessing and song. It is the breaking in of good news. Elizabeth pronounces a blessing on Mary: it affirms her faith and trust in God; it reaches from the present into a future where God’s promises will be fulfilled.
We hear, say or sing Mary’s response day by day at evening prayer or evensong [we will sing a version of her magnificat at the end of the service]. From the core of her being she magnifies the Lord - declaring God’s ways. The lowly, brokenhearted, oppressed and vulnerable are raised up; the rich, powerful, proud and stubborn are brought low.
This is a renewed world, the stuff of the unfolding hope of a different future. Mary is sometimes depicted in icons as the undoer of knots - knots of injustice, sorrow, exploitation, selfishness. These things are undone in Jesus, the Christ child she carries in her womb and labours into the world.
She speaks as if the status quo has already been reversed. The eternal hope becomes a present reality. We are reminded of God’s faithfulness - the constancy of divine mercy - across generations and for ever.
This encounter - this emergency friendship - acknowledges the world’s cries and celebrates that God sees it.
God responds to it. God surprises us with where renewal begins - not from a place of power, but on the doorsteps and in households, amongst those there for each other in emergencies (the joyful ones and the sorrowful ones).
As we reach the final Sunday of Advent, we are reminded that we prepare to expect the unexpected. To hope for it. The prophet Micah speaks into that curious logic. Like us, his world was one of economic and social challenges; where violence and insecurity seemed intractable.
Headlines this week draw our gaze to the plight of women. We have heard the testimony of Gisèle Pelicot whose dignity and courage shamed her abusers, empowering others to share their stories and speak for justice. We have heard women amplify the voices of Afghan girls who on reaching 6th grade are banned from education by the Taliban, sparking protests and vigils.
Yet Micah hoped for a different world - and we can and should too. He looked for God’s presence in the unlikely places: in the small places, the little groups, the tiny child. This is how God’s holy one comes to us - then and now, not just in a crib but in our hearts. The word of God in a speechless infant is the source of our security, peace and strength.
In him we are invited to see the image of God in each other. To be for each other that emergency friend. To do the small things. Courageously. Faithfully. Small Things Like These - now released as a film - is set against the backdrop of the Magdalene laundries in Ireland.
We see the protagonist Bill Furlong as a child and with his own children. He reflects on smallest gestures that make a difference against a tide of abuse, indifference or control. He reflects on the daily kindnesses of Mrs Wilson - who had supported him and his mother, who in an early time might have ended up in the laundry. He reflects on the world of trouble ahead of him in seeking to save a life.
Cillian Murphy shows us Furlong’s worry, love and courage. Keegan writes of such radical emergency friendship as he reflects,: ‘he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?”
We’re not called to bear the weight of this alone. The writer to the Hebrews calls this process of making whole, renewing and restoring ‘sanctification’ - and it is God’s work in us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, as we are forgiven and renewed, opening up our blessed hearts to others.
In Jesus God’s love dwells with us; we are united with him in one body. We journey together with joy and sorrow, seeking reconciliation. In sharing our embodied selves, laughter and tears become holy. The world is broken and yet beautiful - the fullness of our embodied life together means that when no one else is there, we become each other’s next of kin. Emergency friends. Helping one another. Doing small things like these.
© Julie Gittoes 2024
