Luke 1:39-45 

Rev. K.C. Van Atta-Casebier 

A Sermon for Foundry UMC 

12.19.21 

Let’s Pray. God, for Your wisdom and revelation and hope, we pray now. Amen. 

Well, this is a very embodied story, a story of two pregnant women. While I hope I have done faithful work to make this story both accessible and gentle, I do want to offer this word, keep watch over your heart. Breathe deeply and take breaks if you need to. 

Have you ever felt like you just knew something? Call it intuition or spiritual connection or universe electricity or just a well developed gut. Recently I answered a phone call, and I just knew what was waiting on the other end before the other person had spoken a word. I’m sure many of you have had moments where you felt Spirit pointing to something with about a thousand neon lighted arrows. As if to say, RIGHT HERE. This is the thing. This is your next step. Or take this path or this leap. Slow down. Breathe deep. 

Occasionally in the noise of it all, that divine voice of inner wisdom can get absorbed into the frequency of our environment. For this reason, I can hear my gut best when I am quiet and still, and when I allow my body to sink into itself. But not only is it difficult to hear, sometimes it can be hard to differentiate between what we are hearing from our inner truth and (I’m going to put this bluntly) downright mind tricks. Dangerous lies. And when my mind dupes me, I cope by spending a lot of time in a hypercritical flurry of preparation - pre-grief, pre-anxiety, pre-leading, pre-stress, pre-organizing, pre-worrying. And while yes, some of these things can be immensely helpful in the event of a crisis, the truth of the matter, even though it may be hard to see it, is that sometimes things work out. Even after you’ve stopped believing, even in the face of all of your preparatory grief or stress. Even if just for a moment. Sometimes, in the most unlikely circumstance what we get instead of a tragedy is a blessing. A humble God, a willingness to learn, a love that wins again and again, healing from trauma - a little bit at a time, survival, an unexpected miracle, a star in the night sky, a brave mother. 

A few years ago I was sitting in a surgical waiting room, the kind where every half hour or so a surgeon will come in and announce a name. The family members to whom that name belongs will approach the doctor, and right there in the waiting room they tell you the fate of your loved one. I listened as a surgeon came in, announced the name, “Lisa,” and waited for the family to approach. I saw from across the room, a woman start to gather her things and get up. She comes running over to the doctor. The doctor says, “Are you here for Lisa?” “Yes,” the woman replies. And then I watched as this doctor struggled to make sense of their relationship,

all while holding the most precious information of this woman’s life. Are you her friend….or her sister...or an aunt? As he continued to struggle, I saw the pain in her eyes. “No, I’m her wife,” she said quietly. The doctor then told her that her beloved Lisa was going to live, that he had gotten all of the cancer with clean margins. She wept openly as she wandered back to her waiting room seat. Something within me said, “Go to her.” I tried to fight this urge with all of my might. I was there for my family. I was not there in any official capacity. But still, the energy stirred. “Go to her,” it said. I could feel my shoulders tense, my abdomen tighten, my breath quicken. Something dared me to move. And it always feels like a dare, really. Because there is always something at stake - even if it’s just our comfort. So I went, but not before I had a tug-of-war in my head or what I have begun to call - indefatigable mind sparring. Eventually, my gut won. And this was clear because before my mind could catch up, I was already walking toward her. I asked if I could give her a hug, and apologized for the doctor. She said, “I’m just so glad she’s okay. And I’m not