I have three confessions to make. The first is that I’m not a fan of musical theatre. I mean no offense to those of you who like it, but I just have never personally taken to it. The second confession is that, although I am trained as a professional musician and adore classical music, opera is not my favorite genre. I don’t dislike it. I go to operas and do enjoy some of them, but I prefer other musical genres. The third confession is that this sermon might have something to say to the first two confessions I have made.
As I reflect on why it is that I don’t particularly care for musical theatre or that some operas fail to captivate me, I think it might have to do with some lack of imagination within me. Maybe I find it difficult to take seriously the way people suddenly stop their normal speech and begin to dance and sing about something that is happening, especially in musical theatre. And it bothers me that as a trained musician I might find that nearly preposterous.
And yet, that is what both musical theatre and opera do. They suggest that the richness of life can’t be limited to the dry, spoken word. Some things must be sung about. Or danced out. And if we really engage with the mystery of life, perhaps singing and dancing are not ridiculous responses after all.
This inner compulsion to move our bodies and engage our vocal cords is not limited to musical theatre and opera. Perhaps you have witnessed it in everyday life among those who are less guarded than you. Or maybe you are free enough to act spontaneously, in the moment. I suppose I forgot to add another confession about myself. I don’t like to dance.
But I remember fondly the student in my choir at St. James School, when I was on the staff there, who in nearly every rehearsal could not sing without also dancing. To stop her from moving to the inner pulse of the music would have been cruel. Her inner impulse was always to dance.
It is this invisible, responsive energy manifesting itself in charged, visible action that strikes me in the story of the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth. It is a familiar story, but I wonder if we often miss what is pulsing like a strong electrical current beneath the surface of the text.
Mary has just been visited by the angel Gabriel, who has announced that she will bear the Son of God, although she has not known a man. This annunciation comes to her, unbidden and unsolicited. Mary is a teenager. She is not married. And now, she has a piece of astounding news hidden within her soul. With whom will she share it?
I am sure that much inner turmoil happened between the story of the Annunciation and the story of the Visitation that we hear today, although Scripture doesn’t help us here. What single, teenage girl in a society with strict norms about marriage would not have been terrified by the news from the angel? How many people would even have moved beyond fear in order to consider this as good news?
We have no reason to doubt that Mary was vulnerable to all these emotions. But the important thing for us is how she responded, and that’s what we hear about today. Mary is practically running from Nazareth all the way down to the hill country near Jerusalem. It’s a long journey by car, much less by foot. She makes haste, because, it seems, her soul, her heart, her mind, her whole being is radiating the electricity of the good news imparted to her. Her only response is to share it.
Share it she does, and when she does, Elizabeth responds in kind with a radiant blessing of Mary’s state. Even the unseen child in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy. This is a scene in which ordinary speech fails. The only appropriate response is song and dance. And Mary sings her praise of God, echoing the strains of Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel. The shared tradition of generations of women whose forlorn state is then blessed is a common song.
What is also so striking about this literal song and dance is that many people, perhaps many of us here today, find it preposterous. It is similar to the way in which musical theatre and opera stretch the limits of my own imagination at times. And maybe this says more about my need for imaginative growth than about the artistic media themselves.
But there is something else to this story of the Visitation that adds to its potentially preposterous character. It’s not that Mary and Elizabeth break into song and that even an unborn child dances. It’s why they do so. This is not some scene from a musical theatre production or an act from an opera. This scene is an embodied realization of the stupendous works of God.
For Mary and Elizabeth are united in being surprised by God. It is utterly nonsensical that someone of Elizabeth’s age could bear a child, but she does so by the grace of God. It is unthinkable that a human being could conceive a child without a human, biological father, but Mary does so by God’s initiative. And this, to most people, seems absurd.
But like my own criticism of musical theatre or lack of interest in some operas, this seems to say more about the jaded state of the world in which we live rather than about the veracity of what God has done.
What a contrast lies between God’s mighty works and what we believe God can actually do! It puts into bold relief the expectation of hope to which we are called as Christian people and the prevalent sterile skepticism that any hope is even possible.
Which is why the song and dance of Mary and Elizabeth are so important for us. It’s as if we are suspended in time and space, while confronted by injustice, inequity, violence, and destructive willfulness. And we watch not some grand entrance of a mighty God to stomp it out, but instead the ecstatic play of two humble women, graced by an unbelievable power. Their song and their dance are the profound faith in something seemingly unthinkable and absurd.
Day after day, it probably seems impossible to us to sing and dance like Mary, Elizabeth, and the unborn John the Baptist. Mary’s song appears to be a pipedream relegated to some inane musical theatre production. For the strong among us seem only to get stronger, the weak only weaker. The powerful literally get away with murder, and the rich become richer. The hungry are not fed in so many places, and the promise made to our ancestors is perceived to be a distant hope.
There are good reasons why many people cannot sing and dance like Mary and Elizabeth. Maybe you, too, feel that way. But maybe, too, our imagination needs to be inspired by the song and dance of Mary and Elizabeth. Perhaps, after all, there is something incredible we are missing.
It is easy to dismiss Mary’s song as musical theatrics if we think she only sang and danced because of what God did to her. We are also told that she is blessed because she believed that what God promised would come true. There was some potential for belief in Mary before she ever received the good news of God. We would be naïve to think that Mary witnessed the rich becoming poor and the poor becoming rich, and the hungry being fed and the powerful being knocked from their thrones. But Mary didn’t sing to respond shallowly to what she saw happening. She sang because she knew that in some unseen, perhaps even absurd world, God would and was already delivering on his promises. Mary required not visible signs. She believed. She trusted. And she sang.
Can you imagine such a world, where we could be filled with such intensity of hope in God’s promises? Can you imagine if we couldn’t help but move our bodies and sing and dance? Can you conceive of a world that could dare to imagine the unimaginable? Can you imagine saying no to the tired and benumbed illness of unbelief and saying yes to a fantastic world that is not only hopeful but true?
There may be no more demanding and essential task as Christian disciples than to cultivate, like a well-tended garden, the fruit of this hope. It will be a challenging endeavor on many days; we cannot deny that. But we cannot also deny the power of this hope.
Let us look to Mary. Let us look to Elizabeth. Let us believe that even a child in the womb could be receptive to a dynamism among us testifying to the unbelievable power of almighty God. Let us revel in the dance. Let us embrace the absurd. Because God has delivered on his promises. He is doing so now. And he will do so again, throughout eternity.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 19, 2021