Many, many years ago, when I was a student at a Baptist seminary, I attended an interesting
congregation in downtown Louisville. I’ve told some of you about this place. The church had
been founded as a fairly traditional church in an urban residential neighborhood, near other
similar congregations. The building had a worship space on the main floor, a fellowship hall with
a big kitchen in the basement and Sunday School class rooms on the sides and on the top floor. It
was Baptist, so there was a deep baptistry in the front center of the worship space with hot and
cold water supply to fill the pool for baptism by immersion.
Over the years, the neighborhood changed. Most churches in that neighborhood followed white
flight to the suburbs. But this church recognized that there were still people in their
neighborhood. They were just different people. Houses had fallen into disrepair, but people still
lived in them, either as renters or squatters. A large government housing project had been built
across the street, and lots of people lived there.
So this church stayed and became a different kind of church. It became a multi-racial, multicultural, multi economic community. Some leaders discovered that drug and alcohol addictions
were destroying lives of people in the neighborhood, so they offered space for recovery groups.
At some point along the way, they converted the Sunday School rooms into living spaces and
started a residential treatment center at the church for folks struggling with addiction. Since the
baptistry already had hot and cold water, they turned the changing rooms into showers. They
opened up the basement fellowship hall and started offering community meals a couple of nights
a week. At one of those meals each week, they sang hymns and shared communion.
And they still gathered for worship every Sunday. People who lived in the projects across the
street, homeless folks wandering by, folks in recovery who lived upstairs, people from the
suburbs who appreciated the work of this community, seminary students and professors. We all
met together in a very plain worship space. There was no organ, no stained glass, but the
community was beautiful. And because this was the late 80’s, almost every Sunday the piano
player offered as a prelude the theme song from Cheers – You want to go where people know
people are all the same. You want to go where everybody knows your name.
A theme song from a TV show about a bar might seem an odd choice for the start of worship, but
it worked there. For some, this church was the only place where anybody knew their name. And
for everyone, this church was where they learned the good news that people they previously
thought different were really all the same.
I was only there a year. But that one year with this congregation in downtown Louisville has
forever shaped my vision of what the church can be. Church should be a place where everybody
knows your name, where you are welcomed and embraced on life’s journey and where you
welcome and embrace others. And church should be a place where we proclaim the gospel truth
that in God’s sight we are all the same.
So in that sense, the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth was church. Nazareth, where Mary lived, is
in the north of Israel. Ein Karem, thought to be the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth, is about 7
miles southwest of Jerusalem. The two are about 90 miles apart. That’s a long journey by foot or
by donkey.
But when the angel told a young virgin Mary she would give birth to a son who would be great
and would be called the Son of the Highest, and when the angel confirmed this by saying, “And
now your relative Elizabeth in her old age has conceived a son. For nothing will be impossible
with God,” when Mary heard all of this, she had to talk to someone else who would understand,
someone who knew her name and could relate to what had happened to her. She had to find
Elizabeth. So she went with haste.
I doubt Elizabeth and Zechariah knew she was coming. They had their own issues. Elizabeth was
old. Now they were expecting a child. This was welcome news, but it was complicated. An angel
had visited Zechariah to tell him about the birth, but because he didn’t believe this could be true
he was made unable to speak until the child would be born. So Elizabeth had not been able to
talk with her husband about what was happening to her. It was an awkward time for Mary to
visit.
But notice how excited Elizabeth was. The child in her womb leaped with joy. She was filled
with the Holy Spirit. She immediately called Mary by name – “Blessed are you among women
and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Blessed is she who believed that there would be a
fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
And then Mary sang her song of praise. I often forget the timing and assume that Mary sang the
Magnificat when the angel first told her she would bear Christ. But that’s not the way the story
goes. This holy encounter between two people who shared a common experience of God gave
rise to Mary’s song of praise. Being with Elizabeth led her to sing.
And what did she sing? She sang of the goodness of God to her and to everyone. She sang of
God’s mercy to every generation. She sang of a God who levels the playing field – casting down
the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly so all people could be one as God
originally intended. She sang that in God’s eyes and in God’s dream for the world, people are all
the same.
This visit between Mary and Elizabeth was the very first church. It was the very first time people
who knew of Jesus met together. But Mary and Elizabeth were not the only people present.
Zechariah was part of the household as well – one who did not understand what was happening
and had no voice to share their praise. Still, he was there. And John and Jesus were there in
embryonic form, future generations who would bring God’s blessing and presence. They were all
there – the vocal, the silent, the confident, the confused, an aged couple, a young adult, little
children.
And ever since then, God has called together communities of people who know Jesus. We are all
different in some ways. Some of us, like Mary, travel a long journey to get here. We move from
place to place physically and spiritually. We stop in different communities along the way.
Others, like Zechariah and Elizabeth, may stay in one place all our lives, but the presence of new
people in the community changes us. We discover Christ in each other. When we meet,
something within us and within those we encounter leaps for joy. And together we declare the
truth about who God is. Together we sing, “His mercy is on those who fear him from generation
to generation” because we see that mercy at work in one another. Together we declare “He has
filled the hungry with good things” because we see God filling us and filling others through us.
Through our life together, we bear Christ into the world, bringing God’s healing and joy and
salvation everywhere we go.
Today we formally welcome about 20 new members of this congregation. We typically do this
twice a year, once when one of our bishops visits earlier in the year and once in December.
Today is a fitting time because tomorrow, December 21, is the feast of St. Thomas, the doubting
apostle who travelled from Jerusalem all the way to India with the good news.
We hope this St. Thomas will be a place where everyone knows your name, where you will learn
the names of others, where you will be welcomed and embraced and known. But even more
important, we hope this will be a place where you will learn and live the good news – that I
God’s sight people are all the same.
And if you have not yet joined St. Thomas, know this – you are welcome here. We don’t care
where you’ve been, what you’ve done, or who you are. You are welcome. Your life, your
experience, your journey brings Christ in you to this community, and something within everyone
leaps for joy because you are here. But we do ask one thing. We ask it in our baptismal covenant
and in our teaching and preaching and learning from toddlers on up. We ask you to accept that
people are all the same, that God has made us all from the same dust of the earth and redeemed
us all through the life of Jesus. And we’ll ask you to help us proclaim the good news of Mary’s
song. Amen.