Name:
Email:
Posted: December 26th, 2007 at 2:40am By: Rev. Rebecca Schlatter
This column originally was published on Sept. 26, 2007.
A few weeks ago I joined a singing group here in town. Singing has always fascinated me, not only as a fun and challenging way to hang out with other people, but also as a metaphor for bringing forth the best of ourselves and sharing it with others.
As the early Christian saying goes, "Teach your mouth to say that which you have in your heart." Trying to get the song to come out of my mouth the way I imagine it should sound is a similar challenge to saying what's in my heart in a pastoral conversation or a sermon. The metaphor would be different in other vocations — "singing" could mean an engineer constructing the possibility she envisions, or a father being his very best self with his child.
What all vocations have in common, though, is the need for someone to draw out the songs within ourselves. We look for people — colleagues, a community of friends, a mentor, a spouse, a congregation — who can bring out the best in us. We need help knowing what's in our own hearts, waiting to be brought out and voiced, embodied, enacted or created.
One of the Bible's best-known songs is the one sung by Mary soon after she has become pregnant with Jesus. Often called the Magnificat, it begins, "My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior" (Luke 1:46-47). Mary's song has been read and sung by Christians throughout the ages, but seldom with the recognition that, as Luke tells the story, she didn't bring forth her song alone.
Mary wasn't the only pregnant woman in Luke's story; there was also her relative Elizabeth. The Magnificat breaks forth during or immediately after Mary's visit to Elizabeth, whose pregnancy was also God-given and similarly "impossible." The angel had told Mary, "Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God" (vv. 36-37).
Luke offers a wonderful image of these two pregnant women greeting each other as Mary arrives at Elizabeth's home. The greeting includes the babies in their wombs, already set apart for greatness: "When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb" (v. 41).
The image reminds me of the Hindu greeting "Namaste": "The Spirit in me meets the same Spirit in you." I picture Mary and Elizabeth that way: "The potential growing in me greets the potential growing in you."
Elizabeth quickly progresses from greeting to blessing: "In a loud voice she exclaimed: 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! ... Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!'" (vv. 42, 45). Then Mary's mouth opens, and what's in her heart bursts forth in song.
So I wonder: If Elizabeth had not been there — if Elizabeth had not first acknowledged and blessed what was yet to be born — could Mary have sung her song?
And I wonder, too, who does that for you? Who greets the potential in you, before it is even born? Who enables you to break forth, if not in actual song, then with the best of what's in your heart, waiting to be shared?
And who helps you believe that the impossible might be possible after all? "For nothing is impossible with God." I hope there is an Elizabeth in your life, who helps you believe in impossible things that have yet to become clear — things like a cloud's silver lining, compassion in the midst of disaster, a second chance, or resurrection.
Or things like God's presence in the unlikeliest places, such as Mary's womb — or even your very own heart, ready to come forth in your very own song.
— — —
Rev. Rebecca Schlatter is an ordained minister in the Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Reno, Nevada. You can contact her at {email newhousesfromoldbricks@hotmail.com}newhousesfromoldbricks@hotmail.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Rebecca Schlatter.
Permalink
This column originally was published on Sept. 26, 2007.
A few weeks ago I joined a singing group here in town. Singing has always fascinated me, not only as a fun and challenging way to hang out with other people, but also as a metaphor for bringing forth the best of ourselves and sharing it with others.
As the early Christian saying goes, "Teach your mouth to say that which you have in your heart." Trying to get the song to come out of my mouth the way I imagine it should sound is a similar challenge to saying what's in my heart in a pastoral conversation or a sermon. The metaphor would be different in other vocations — "singing" could mean an engineer constructing the possibility she envisions, or a father being his very best self with his child.
What all vocations have in common, though, is the need for someone to draw out the songs within ourselves. We look for people — colleagues, a community of friends, a mentor, a spouse, a congregation — who can bring out the best in us. We need help knowing what's in our own hearts, waiting to be brought out and voiced, embodied, enacted or created.
One of the Bible's best-known songs is the one sung by Mary soon after she has become pregnant with Jesus. Often called the Magnificat, it begins, "My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior" (Luke 1:46-47). Mary's song has been read and sung by Christians throughout the ages, but seldom with the recognition that, as Luke tells the story, she didn't bring forth her song alone.
Mary wasn't the only pregnant woman in Luke's story; there was also her relative Elizabeth. The Magnificat breaks forth during or immediately after Mary's visit to Elizabeth, whose pregnancy was also God-given and similarly "impossible." The angel had told Mary, "Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God" (vv. 36-37).
Luke offers a wonderful image of these two pregnant women greeting each other as Mary arrives at Elizabeth's home. The greeting includes the babies in their wombs, already set apart for greatness: "When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb" (v. 41).
The image reminds me of the Hindu greeting "Namaste": "The Spirit in me meets the same Spirit in you." I picture Mary and Elizabeth that way: "The potential growing in me greets the potential growing in you."
Elizabeth quickly progresses from greeting to blessing: "In a loud voice she exclaimed: 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! ... Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!'" (vv. 42, 45). Then Mary's mouth opens, and what's in her heart bursts forth in song.
So I wonder: If Elizabeth had not been there — if Elizabeth had not first acknowledged and blessed what was yet to be born — could Mary have sung her song?
And I wonder, too, who does that for you? Who greets the potential in you, before it is even born? Who enables you to break forth, if not in actual song, then with the best of what's in your heart, waiting to be shared?
And who helps you believe that the impossible might be possible after all? "For nothing is impossible with God." I hope there is an Elizabeth in your life, who helps you believe in impossible things that have yet to become clear — things like a cloud's silver lining, compassion in the midst of disaster, a second chance, or resurrection.
Or things like God's presence in the unlikeliest places, such as Mary's womb — or even your very own heart, ready to come forth in your very own song.
— — —
Rev. Rebecca Schlatter is an ordained minister in the Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Reno, Nevada. You can contact her at {email newhousesfromoldbricks@hotmail.com}newhousesfromoldbricks@hotmail.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Rebecca Schlatter.
Permalink
Add your comments