Lessons: Psalm 72; First Samuel 1:1-20; Hebrews 3:1-6; John 3:25-30
I do not know what it is to trust only or mostly myself. In fact it strikes me as unnatural to trust mostly or only oneself. We are all born by the gift of a father and mother and cannot sustain life initially without help. What happens if this first place of trust is insecure or fragile or abandons one? I do not personally know because when I look at my life there was always somewhere to turn between parents, siblings, grandparents, and God as others spoke of God.
And yet I have seen the fragility sometimes beneath toughness in some who lost the network of trust too early in life. I once served them as a social worker in a children's home. A children's home with all its efforts to care is in the end a warehouse for those either unwanted by their families or whose families are too fragile to properly care. For all its efforts to create joy and coping, it is a place of sadness. So much time is spent trying to heal this core sadness. The principle healing can only come by creating some place where the child can trust beyond the self.
Today is a celebration of places of trust. The lesson from First Samuel is about how the birth of the Old Testament Samuel came about because of trust in God. Hannah, so long childless and so humiliated by this state, pleads to God that she may conceive. We may debate whether any woman should be humiliated by being barren, but like it or not, she is. Can you hear the stigma in that word, barren? So she goes to the only court beyond her husband where she can trust and she pleads to be healed of barrenness. She pleads to conceive a son, whom she is willing to give back to God once he is old enough to be entrusted to the man of God, Eli. To us this may seem too desperate a plea, but for her the sense of her value is caught up in this request and bargain. She is heard, does conceive, and will give back to God one of the great prophets of Israel. Samuel must have been schooled on what a great gift he was to her, one from God's interrupting care.
Today is the Feast of the Visitation of the Mary to Elizabeth. It is a Feast that celebrates the confirmation of God's word to Mary, that in her prayer she heard, that in her body grows the child of God's choice. This is confirmed by a visit to a cousin considered barren but now fruitful with one who will be called John the Baptist. While both children will be brought up to know God, and to know God interrupts attentive lives with opportunity to be useful and of abiding worth, today is about two women who spend time together to share the miracles conceived in them. They were perhaps making sense of their great hope. They were perhaps assuring one another of the journey to come. They certainly were speaking of God's interrupting voice and care. One is perceived rather old for the task of mothering, the other too unmarried. They create an ocean of trust for each other simply by honoring their tales and their hopes. The world may have its snickers about their state, but here is trust shared and built.
The Gospel for today is a simple one. It comes from years later when John the Baptist has well entered his preaching and cleansing ministry. His trust in God is useful to help others review their lives and turn more deeply to God by a right of renewal and repentance, baptism. His disciples are a bit put off when Jesus has himself been baptized and begun to preach. Jesus is gathering steam and creating hope in others' lives. This is perhaps deeper than John's message, for he will be seen as Messiah. John's voice rings a clear note. "I am not the Christ...I am sent before." As the friend of this bridegroom, "this joy of mine is full. He must increase, I must decrease." John remains confident in his role and place.
I am reminded that the gift of parenting, either as a natural parent, an adopting parent, an aunt who steps in to help, a social worker who stand in the breech, or some caring person adopted to this care, is to prepare the way for a young person to increase. Our task is their growth, their coming into being, their discovery of where they can trust in this world and thus be trustworthy. This is not insignificant work. It helps to know God in the midst of it for that is our first parent as we are entrusted to earthly parents.
Sometimes along the way we need to stop, take a breath with another we trust, review our stories with a confirming party, an Elizabeth. Here we can make some sense of our lives and tasks, find assurance for the tasks we lovingly take on yet sometimes feel imposed upon, and listen for how God shows care and joyfully interrupts our lives.
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