Close to Home: Seeking Sanctuary
Luke 1:39-55
December 19, 2021
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
Photo by Jaimie Trueblood/newline.wireimage.com
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31MlM6HEcJY
What happens after the angel leaves? The Bible rarely gives the kinds of details I want. So, the angel appears out of nowhere and says “do not be afraid,” as they always do. And then they say whatever it was they came to say. You’re terrified, but trying not to show it, because they said not to be. Then they leave. What happens right then? Right after they leave? Do you have a panic attack? Do you lean against the wall to keep from falling down or maybe go throw up? Maybe you crawl in bed, pull the covers over your head and pretend it was a dream.
We do not know what Mary did immediately after the angel left her, but we do know that within a very short time she made her way to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth is married to a priest. Her male ancestors were priests. Luke describes her as righteous and blameless before God. So, maybe when you’ve been visited by an angel, one of the first things you might do is to go and see a religious person, someone who is close to God and may understand the mysteries of angels.
If we didn’t already know this story, we might expect a different reaction. We might anticipate that the righteous religious Elizabeth would speak harshly to her young unwed relative.[1]
I wonder if Mary is afraid of that too. She has made a journey of 80 or 90 miles, climbing the Hebron mountains perhaps while coping with morning sickness. That might be evidence of how desperate she is to find someone who will receive her kindly. She takes a risk and goes to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth does not cluck her tongue about young people these days. She does not scold Mary. She welcomes her with open arms. She blesses her, she recognizes the bond that they share. They have each believed a promise delivered by an angel. How wild is that? What an inexpressible relief that must have been for Mary, she could let down her guard. She was safe with Elizabeth.
Perhaps you know that feeling. Perhaps at a time when you greatly needed it, someone defied expectations. They didn’t get mad. They didn’t judge. They just offered you space to pull yourself together.
The afternoon was hot, and the two boys were looking for a cool place to hang out. They jimmied the lock on the back door of the church, walked through the sanctuary and down a staircase. Once in the cool basement of the church, they began shooting pool. They had done this several times before. But one day, something moved in the shadow of the room and then the pastor stepped forward. The boys were caught, and they were afraid.
But then, the pastor smiled, "Of all the people in this neighborhood, you guys are trying the hardest to get into this church," he said. He reached into his pocket, then pulled out a key. "Here," he said, "come any time you want."
That episode changed the lives of the two brothers and their parents. Their family became active in the church. A multi-generational history of alcoholism was interrupted. The youngest of the boys, Roger Swanson, grew up to become a pastor and denominational executive.
Sanctuary is the gift of welcome and acceptance and belonging and safety. It can be powerful, life changing. Elizabeth provides sanctuary for Mary which enables Mary to become sanctuary for God.
Mary becomes Jesus’ safe person. She is the one who gives birth to him when she is far from home. She is the one who flees to Egypt with him and Joseph when Herod threatens his life. She worries over her teenage son when they are separated on that trip to the Temple. She coaxes him to save the party at Cana, and she stands by broken-hearted, angry and helpless when he dies. Other people may be intimidated or threatened or in awe of the amazing adult Jesus, but Mary knows him to well, she is his safe person.
Sanctuary is an expansive word. We use it to talk about this room where worship takes place. It is also used about places that rescue hurt and endangered animals. People are finding sanctuary in motel rooms and Red Cross shelters in the aftermath of deadly tornadoes last week. Some churches have provided sanctuary for months on end to people at risk for deportation.
Sanctuary is the gift of welcome and acceptance and belonging and safety. It is not just a place. It is also the people who create safe places for others.
Pastor Stan is one of those people. He is a pastor who provides sanctuary for queer and trans people. That safe space often happens in person as he travels and speaks in churches around the country. It also happens on-line. People who are afraid to be themselves, afraid of the reaction of their families and their churches find him. They find him through social media, or by referral by someone else who was recently in a similar situation. He is also often contacted by the parents of LGBTQ people, parents who want to respond with love, but who are conflicted by what they think the Bible says.
About a year ago, Pastor Stan was contacted by one of those moms. She said that her daughter (I’ll call her Sue) had asked her parents to follow Pastor Stan on Facebook. He often shares messages of abundant welcome, especially to LGBTQ persons. Sue told her parents that Stan was an Evangelical pastor who had shifted his position on the issue of sexual orientation and inclusion. She wanted her parents to consider making that shift for themselves.
So, the parents did what Sue asked, and they were surprised by what they found. You see, Pastor Stan has a life beyond his ministry. He has adult children. He has parents. And when Sue’s parents started following him, his posts were about his mother and his family’s journey with her dementia. Well, at that time, Sue’s paternal grandmother had recently died of Alzheimer’s and her parents were actively caring for her maternal grandmother who also had it. Sue’s parents were incredibly touched by the connection between Pastor Stan’s experiences with his mother and their own journey. His sharing of that difficult and tender time ministered to them in a powerful way.
They felt that connection so strongly that they were hesitant to hear his position on inclusion. They didn’t want it to diminish the ministry they had already received. But, because of that ministry, they wrote to him and said, “We have reluctantly opened our hearts and minds to consider that, just maybe, we have been wrong. We both know, if we are ever where your mom and mine are now, of our four children, our gay child will be the one to sing hymns with us and soothe us through the long and lost days and nights. We are grateful to have found you when we did. We have a sense that God is speaking to us through you in ways we could have never heard were it not for your mom. Thank you.”[2]
Almost a year later, they wrote to Pastor Stan again saying that they had become fully affirming of their gay daughter.
I thought about Pastor Stan’s experience with that family, and I thought about Mary and Elizabeth. Sue’s parents were more ready to hear him because they made a connection over a shared vulnerability, a shared sense of gradual, impending loss. And I realized that maybe Elizabeth is more ready to receive Mary because of her own vulnerability. She is after all, also experiencing an unexpected pregnancy and wondering how she will be judged for it. So, I’m wondering about the connection between the ways that we extend sanctuary, the ways that we make it safe for other people, and the ways that we share our own journeys, especially the hard parts.
I want to affirm you as a congregation. You have truly been sanctuary for many people. It has happened in people’s homes and private conversations that I’ve never heard, I’m sure. But it has also happened on the first day that someone came to worship and then I was the one they told how grateful they were to have found this safe place.
I can identify three major groups of people who have found sanctuary here. One was people fleeing persecution and danger in another country. As they sought asylum, which is another word for sanctuary, their journey brought them to Albany and then to us. Some are part of us today, some have moved on. A second group are LGBTQ persons, whom we have officially welcomed since the 1990’s. It is unfortunate, but true, that they still seek sanctuary because many places are not safe. And the third folks I might identify, are those who lost their spiritual homes or felt unwelcome in them as their understanding of God and the Bible, and the nature of faith made a big shift. When they realized that their theology was no longer represented in the communities which had once been sanctuary to them, it was like a foundation was pulled out from under them and they were in a kind of free-fall. But, in some cases, they found a place to stand again among us. I affirm this congregation for providing sanctuary to all those folks. I trust that we will continue to do so.
Those efforts have not been without cost already, I know. But I suspect that if we are to continue reaching out with the gift of welcome and acceptance and belonging and safety, if we are to connect with those who desperately need sanctuary, it will probably require from us even more willingness to be vulnerable, to be our authentic, messy, broken and brave selves.
Scholars sometimes see this scene between Mary and Elizabeth as the first gathering of the community of Jesus. Paul Simpson Duke says, “It invites us to recall how much we need each other, to draw fresh courage from each other and to celebrate all that we share as bearers of the promise together. If these two women are a prototype of church, they certainly embody [both] how improbable and how subversive the church can be.”[3]
So beloved ones, may we like Mary, go to each other and risk. May we like Elizabeth, receive each other and bless.
May we find welcome, belonging, complete acceptance, safety as we recognize the deep, deep love of Christ present among us. Amen.
[1] Justo Gonzalez, Luke in the Belief Commentary Series, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010), p. 22.
[2] The Rev. Stan Mitchell on his Facebook page, October 13, 2021, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=4366624183406008&set=a.117771208291348
[3] Paul Simpson in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year C, Volume 1 Joel Green, Thomas Long, Luke Powery, Cynthia Rigby, Editors, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2018), p. 61.