Luke 1:26-38
The Question of the Day is: We inevitably forget or fail to see certain people or certain groups of people. Share a time when your eyes were opened to really see a particular person or a particular group of people.
For me, when I read the book Nickeled & Dimed about low-wage workers in the US, I began to see hotel workers. On a more personal note, as I got older and learned more about history, I began to see my great grandmother who was born in 1899, emigrated to the US from Sweden, and witnessed all the massive change of the 20th century before she died at the age of 100. So often, we see our family members only through our deeply personal lens, who they are to us, but my great grandmother had seen so much of life, had lived through such change! To consider her this way helped me more fully see her.
To find the community’s reflection, go to the Grace Facebook page live stream worship for Sunday, December 20.
We’ve probably all gone to children’s Christmas programs, dance recitals, soccer games, or the like. Whether we are a parent or grandparent, an aunt or uncle, a friend or simply an onlooker, we have witnessed small children find their parent or grandparent, friend or teacher in the crowd and furiously, continuously wave. Music or dance or athletics momentarily forgotten, the child sees the person who means the world to them and points themselves out to that one. The child wants to be seen by the people they love. Children want to be seen.
As an introvert and on the shy side, for many years, I tried to enter and exit groups of people as quietly as possible. While on internship during seminary, I would enter my office and simply start working. Twenty feet from my office, two administrative staff and sometimes the worship coordinator would be sitting in an adjacent office, but rarely did I greet them or in any way acknowledge their presence. Each day, though, I watched my supervisor, the pastor, come in and, first thing, check in with everyone. How are you doing? What’s going on today? How’s your family? When I finally asked him about what was clearly an intentional practice, he told me: Everyone wants to be seen.
I too know the draw of wanting to be seen. While preparing for an ecumenical worship service here at Grace a few years ago, I found myself playing host and orienting a leader equivalent to our bishop but from a different church body. I had met him several times, and more than once before, we had helped lead the same ecumenical worship services. During our brief discussion, I suddenly realized he had absolutely no idea who I was. For he asked me: You’re a pastor? Where? You’re a Lutheran? Yes, I serve here at Grace. I couldn’t help myself; I added: We’ve met before. I too want to be seen.
Just like everyone else, I imagine Mary from our gospel story today wanted to be seen. A girl from a Jewish family, living two thousand years ago in ancient Israel, a person without power or prestige. We know little about her, save her own description of “lowly” later in Luke chapter one. The angel Gabriel shows up and announces to Mary that she will give birth to a son who will be named Jesus, the Son of the Most High, a child given her by the Holy Spirit. Mary questions the words of the angel Gabriel but then accepts them and enters into partnership with God. Of course, upon first seeing the angel Gabriel, she is perplexed, and she ponders his opening words which are “Greetings, favored one!” I can just imagine Mary wondering: Who am I that an angel calls me favored? And probably all the readers of the gospel of Luke wonder too. Mary is an obscure choice for the mother of the savior of the world, yet God favors her, chooses her, sees her. Out of all the other possible women who could have carried the Incarnate One into the world, God chooses Mary. Why would God do such a thing, to choose, to favor, to see a lowly girl? Who is this God who chooses, favors, sees the lowliest of us?
The God who comes to earth as a baby. The God who lifts up the lowly and leads the captives out of bondage, the God who fills the hungry with good things and shows mercy from generation to generation. This God chooses a lowly girl to bear Jesus...and not because God pities her and not because God is making a point about inequities in society and not because God is making Mary an example. Rather, God sees Mary, a lowly girl without power or prestige but a young woman of faith and courage and hope who says, in response to the wildest of announcements: Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word. God chooses Mary because God knows her, because God truly sees her and sees she will partner with God for this wildest, holiest of journeys.
So too does God see each of us. God sees you. As you are. Loves you. Turns toward you with grace as God has done for generations of God’s people.
And God sees each person. Knows every name. Does not proverbially “walk by on the other side” to avoid anyone. God regards each person everywhere, in every nation, speaking every language, practicing every religion, each person in particular. The particularity of God in seeing each person wakes me up to the particularity of each person who crosses my path. Each member of the Grace community, each of my family members, each one of my Facebook friends, every stranger at the grocery store, every one of my co-workers and colleagues, each one of my neighbors. God sees each person, in particular, knows them intimately, loves them.
There are no throw away people, no nameless, faceless bodies, no strangers, even.
There are only people seen, known, and loved by God.
In this pandemic, a season of isolation, we may feel forgotten. We may have forgotten others. But God sees us all.
The announcement of Jesus’ imminent birth through Mary tells the story of a deeply particular God who sees each one of us, a God who sees you. Thanks be to God! Amen.