Share
RSSDecember 19, Advent IV
12/19/2004
Isaiah 35: 1-10
James 5: 7-10
Matthew 11: 2-11
Psalm 146 or 146: 4-9
“..and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.” -- Matthew 1: 19
What might have public shaming have done to Mary, the mother of our Lord? It might have killed her: the law permitted a woman caught in such a position to be stoned to death. But Joseph was a just man, Matthew says. And he may already have loved the woman who was to be his wife. He didn't want to hurt her. And he didn't know any other way to handle this situation -- although God was about to show him another way.
Shame kills people today, too. Episcopal Relief and Development’s partners walk a delicate line in HIV/AIDS education efforts in Africa, and in their provision of care to those who suffer. The enormous numbers of the infected have not wiped out the stigma attached to the disease in many places: some people still prefer to suffer and die alone, rather than expose their families to the shame of their diagnosis.
But American visitors to the clinics supported by Episcopal Relief and Development in southern Africa frequently remark upon the dignity of the patients there, and upon the quiet, stubborn love of their families, who journey miles with them to the treatment centers, bringing food and bedding from home. Familial love -- family understood much more broadly than we understand it here, including dozens, perhaps scores of related people -- is a source of spiritual power in Africa, under girding situations that might otherwise be unbearable. Faced with intractable suffering, love conquers in the end, simply by refusing to turn away.
How did AIDS come into a family's life? Was the mother's first hint of her husband's infidelity her own infection, a baby's first experience of HIV/AIDS in the womb? Or was it the sad facts of family life in many villages: the long absence of the father in a work camp, where loneliness and a little cash buys brief comfort and then endless suffering, and the act of love brings it all tragically home?
We might think that the means of transmission would make a big difference in the degree of shame a family experiences, but a visit to a clinic supported by ERD tells us that it need not be so. It doesn't matter how you got it: you are a human being until the very end, a life worth prolonging as long as it is possible, a life worth mourning when it is finished. The children of the dead and dying shock visitors with their joy: they are children of tragedy, yes, but they are still children, one American visitor says, and she tells of how they blew bubbles together, and how the children laughed and laughed.
How did Mary become pregnant, people in her town must have asked. There must have been a stigma attached to her, too. But, however it happened, it mattered less in the end than who the child was who would be born. At the foot of the cross, her unusual pregnancy didn't set her apart from any other bereaved mother: what kept her there was stubborn love, the same love that binds together the families of the stricken all over the world.
Written by the Rev. Barbara Cawthorne Crafton for ERD. Episcopal Relief and Development saves lives and builds hope in communities around the world. We provide emergency assistance in times of disaster. When the immediate crisis is over, we rebuild devastated communities and offer long-term solutions in the areas of food security, health care, and HIV/AIDS.
