Who me? Favoured? No way! I’m just a poor peasant girl living in a backwater village in Judea. I’m a nobody. Look at my rough hands - calloused from tilling this small patch of earth to grow a few grains and vegetables, worn from pounding grain and kneading bread, cracked from washing the few clothes we have. Look at my feet, dirty and dusty from walking to the well and to market each day. Look at my face, browned and weathered, damp with perspiration and streaked with grime from a hard day of work. Look at my tunic, patched, threadbare and dulled by the sun.
Look at me! I am a far cry from all of those paintings and portraits you have of me hanging in galleries around the world, a far cry from all of those statues of me posing in chapels, churches and cathedrals, even a far cry from all of those sweet young girls who take my name and play my part each year in Nativity pageants.
Look at me - do you see a blue robe of fine expensive cloth? Do you see a halo of light around my head? And where are the brushed and shining locks of hair? Where is the soft and unblemished skin? Where is the serene and demure face, full of peace and innocence?
And yet, in the wisdom of God, it is to this Mary; to it is this poor unadorned peasant girl that the angel messenger comes. It is this Mary who will bear the child Jesus, the Messiah!
It is scandalous!
Why she is uneducated and illiterate; she has no connections and no credentials. What can God be thinking?
Is God’s most precious gift of love to be entrusted to the care of such ordinary folk? Shouldn’t there be some kind of application process? Shouldn’t there be a list of key prerequisites? Shouldn’t there be a test or an exam to weed out the riffraff?
What can God be thinking?
If you read the Bible closely, you’ll know that this isn’t the first of God’s scandalous choices. Those chosen by God to be messengers and leaders of God’s wisdom and way don’t have much of a reputation for sanctity, purity or perfection. God’s leaders, prophets and servants have been murderers and prostitutes, thieves and felons, cheaters and betrayers. Very few have had any worldly credentials or power.
But God is rarely concerned with worldly credentials or power. God isn’t deceived by outward appearances. God is attuned to what is at the heart.
And whether they happen to be illiterate or educated, rich or poor, whether or not they’ve made mistakes in their lives, whether or not they feel up to the task, God chooses people who have dared to open up the doors of their hearts.
Sometimes the door is only open a crack, but often that’s enough, enough for God to enter and wake up hopes and dreams, gifts and strengths that may have been dormant for quite some time. The angelic messenger of God woke up a poor peasant girl named Mary. And in her awakening, Mary discovered within, that she had an amazing strength and courage to accept the gift and responsibility of bringing the Messiah into the world.
Gathered here today, we are just ordinary folk, like Mary. We have our own history of failings and mistakes, and in the global context, we don’t have much power or influence. And the good news is that God doesn’t really care about that. God only wants to nurture and strengthen what lies deep within us; God only wants to open the doors of our hearts wider so that we too can be midwives of God’s love; so that we can participate in bringing God’s liberating and healing love into the world.
But much of the time, we don’t feel that we are capable or worthy of taking on this role or accepting this invitation from God. We don’t feel prepared, or gifted, and we know all too well our faults and weaknesses. How can we be midwives of God’s love - there is much at stake…what if we mess things up, what if we fall out of favour with God, becoming a curse rather than a blessing?
It’s interesting that in the angel’s visit to Mary, to Joseph and in subsequent visits to the shepherds the angel always says, ‘Do not be afraid.’ Of course we are often afraid to take on this work, who wouldn’t be?
Assisting at a birth can be glorious and profoundly life-changing, it can bring much joy. Assisting at a birth can also be hard work - the birthing process isn’t called labour for nothing. It is a labour of patient waiting, mingled with pain, exhaustion and remarkable strength. It is precarious work, for in birthing, we often teeter close to death.
And yet, regardless of our fears, in spite of the potential risks, God calls us to assist at the birthplaces of all that brings God’s love into this world, because God chooses not to act single-handedly; God only chooses to bring love into the world by partnering with us.
With our North American cult of individualism, where we often think that our happiness and good fortune are only the result of our own efforts, we are often oblivious to the many midwives who make God’s love possible and real for us. Sometimes it helps to stand outside of our culture to become more aware that God employs a host of midwives who pave the way for God’s love to flourish in this world.
A story that begins in the Hagadera refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya is a story of the work of many midwives. Located about an hour’s plane-ride north of Nairobi and 80 km west of Somalia’s border, the world’s largest refugee camp with a population of 230,000 sprawls across the desert. It was supposed to have been temporary refuge for displaced Somalis and seventeen years later people continue to flee here.
Muno spent most of her life at the camp; when as a toddler, she fled along with her family from the chaos of Somalia. In spite of the unrelenting monotony and hardship of life in a refugee camp, Muno was supported by many midwives who worked with her to bring to birth the hope of a different life - a different future for her.
Noting that Muno had a hunger to learn and was highly intelligent, her father stood up for her, promoting education rather than marriage - going against some of the norms of their more traditional Muslim culture. Illiterate herself, Muno’s mother added her support - wanting her daughter to have and to be something more than she was. Muno’s eldest sister, Halima, took over Muno’s household chores so that she could devote her time to reading and studying.
Rose Akini, who attended an all-girls boarding school in Western Kenya, gave up a career in accounting and came instead to the refugee camp to teach. She was the first person who helped Muno believe that she could have a life outside the camp and that education was her way out. With her support, counseling and tutelage, Muno applied for a university scholarship offered by World University Service of Canada. She became one of 18 students from Dadaab who are chosen from a shortlist of 36.
And so, on August 16th, the bus came, and even though she was overjoyed to be embarking on a life of new possibilities, Muno was overcome with grief at leaving her family. Unable to move, eventually her parents had to carry her on to the bus like a small child, gently and firmly ushering her into a new life.
Muno is now here in Mississauga, living in residence and studying at UTM. Cut off from her roots and her family, she will still need a lot of support to navigate a culture and climate that is so foreign to her…she will still need those who will act as midwives to guide her into the fullness of life that others who are still in Kenya have lovingly prepared her for.
Our circumstances and our stories may not be as dramatic as Muno’s, and yet if we pause to reflect, we know that it is because of the work of many midwives that God’s love is real in our lives.
Midwives such as faithful friends who have stood with us in good times and in bad; teachers who have mentored and challenged us; strangers who have been unexpectedly generous to us; family members who have given sacrificially for us; those who have toiled with us, giving us hope and strength to be about the often difficult work of loving; and those who have rejoiced with us when such love brings abundant joy.
Erin Mills United Church acts as a midwife of God’s love, whenever as a community of faithful people we gather to pray for one another and God’s world; whenever we hold up one another in our need; whenever we mentor and nurture the young and the vulnerable; whenever we stand firmly and courageously for God’s justice for the earth and for the downtrodden and whenever we work collaboratively and creatively to make way for God’s love to be born in new ways in the community and in the world.
I don’t know about you, but I know that my experience of God’s love in my life and my ability to give that love to others would be gravely impoverished if it were not for the ways that this congregation and other gatherings of the church have acted as a midwife of God’s love in my life. And I know that through the labours of this community, God’s love has been made real for a host of others.
And I know that our labours as midwives are not over; there are many more births that we are called to assist at; many more vigils where we must balance patient waiting with prompt and timely action to bring God’s love to birth in due season. At times our work may feel like an endurance test when the work appears to be slow or demanding, and at other times we need to be alert and ready to act quickly when a critical moment is at hand. At all times knowing that lives are held in our hands, we approach this work with awe and humility.
The work of a midwife is no small thing; it is rigorous and demanding work; work that is aware of how fragile life can be. And so we too need to hear the words of the angel, ‘Do not be afraid’. For when our hands tremble, when our strength fails, when our courage falters, we remember that the one who was born in poverty in a rough stable and into a rough world, stands with us.
For Jesus of Nazareth is both the one born as God’s gift of love and the one who through his life, death and resurrection continues to labour among us to bring God’s love into our lives and into this world.
And so in these last few days and nights before Christmas eve we give thanks that we are chosen and privileged to assist at the birth of God’s love in Christ. We give thanks for all those who have assisted at the birth of God’s love in our own lives and for the Christ who labours along side us. And we pray that once again as we tell the story, sing the carols and gather at the manger that the fears of this world will melt away and that the way will be opened once again for love to be born among us. Even so, come Lord Jesus come. Amen.
-details of Muno’s story are from the Toronto Star
