Today is the fourth and final Sunday of Advent, the church season in which we simultaneously look back to remember and look forward as we await the birth of Jesus on earth. This entire season is about the anticipation of that moment and what it has meant to the world.

Yet - interestingly - if we look at our Gospel readings for the four Sundays in Advent, we find that today's reading is the only one that is set in the period leading up to Jesus' birth. In each of the Gospel readings these past three weeks, Jesus is an adult man, alive and well.

I suppose that may have something to do with the fact that the Bible tells us little about the period of time between the Annunciation and the birth of Jesus. This story of a young pregnant Mary visiting Elizabeth is about all we've got. It is an important story, and maybe not for the reasons we usually focus on.

Mary's home in Nazareth must have been a hundred miles or more from what is described as a "town in Judean hill country" - a journey a young pregnant Mary would likely have to make on foot. Did she travel alone? Wouldn't that have been dangerous? In addition to local men along her way, there were likely Roman soldiers who posed extreme danger to a young woman on her own. It must have taken several days. Where did she stay along the way? Was she safe?

What would have prompted her to do such a thing? She had just learned that she was expecting a child, but as we know she was not yet married. Her society - not just her social circles but her faith community and family members - would have seen her situation as sinful and shameful. Something to be hidden, not talked about. She likely would have been shunned, and - given the mandates of her own religion - could have been put to death by stoning as soon as her pregnancy became known.

So why walk 100 miles to talk to Elizabeth about it? Although the Angel Gabriel had told her that her cousin Elizabeth was expecting a child, she was not told to go there. Wouldn't a young girl in Mary's predicament have turned to her mother Anne instead? To her fiancé Joseph? To her BFF or a trusted neighbor lady?

Instead, she sets out alone and on foot. She must have had to make preparations for the journey, and I'm imagining her parents trying to do everything they could to stop her. Mary shows a certain defiance there that I think is kinda cool. But I'm guessing she was scared to death, with no earthly idea of what was going to happen to her, either along the journey or - if she made it that far - when she arrived. What would be Elizabeth's reaction?

So why Elizabeth? This woman we know very little about and called Mary's "cousin" and Mary - probably through earlier but infrequent family visits - must have grown close enough to Elizabeth that she knew her to be a person who could be trusted with a secret.

When Mary finally arrives we see Elizabeth's reaction. She immediately became Mary's ally. No judgement. Certainly no rejection. She simply opened her door, wrapped her arms around Mary, taking her into her protection for the next three months.

Did Elizabeth suffer any kind of discrimination herself because she was harboring Mary? Did her neighbors, her friends, members of her congregation perhaps, stop talking to her? We really don't know. What we do know is that her acceptance of Mary seemed to be immediate and unconditional. Without regard to the way others saw or thought about her young cousin, Elizabeth gave none of it any account. Absolute welcome. Physical care and protection. Love extended simply to someone who needed love.

We tend to see this passage on its surface only and entirely about Mary reciting the words of the "Magnificat" (which are more realistically lyrics to a hymn written decades later and attributed to Mary retrospectively). But I do believe that these words likely capture the feelings that Mary experienced in that moment of acceptance.

Because of Elizabeth, Mary likely went from someone thinking of herself as the lowliest of the low, as someone who would be rejected by family members, by neighbors and friends, by society writ large and by her faith community - to someone who could declare: "My very soul glorifies God, and my spirit now rejoices, for He now looks at me - someone I believed to be the lowliness of His servants - with favor."

What a gift Elizabeth gave Mary! To help her feel good about herself. To take those feelings of shame and rejection and turn them into feelings of glorifying God and feeling lowly no more! What a gift!

And that can and should make us ask ourselves: "Who are the Marys around us today? Who are those who feel rejected by family? By society? Even by God?"

You know, one of our modern-day curses is something called Netflix. If not careful, one can easily get sucked into wasting every waking moment binge-watching Netflix series in their entirety. But this past week I stumbled on something onto something that caught my interest, and I decided to watch it. It was a documentary starring Will Ferrell - you know, that comedian of Saturday Night Live fame, the "Elf" himself from that movie of that has become a modern-day Christmas classic.

And I thought, "Will Ferrell? A documentary? Really?" A word I never associated with such a goofy, funny guy.

But this documentary, called "Will and Harper" was compelling and touching and thought- provoking. It featured Andrew, the head writer at Saturday Night Live when they worked together there. They had become really good friends and had even traveled around the country together by car, relishing in stopping at small-town bars and diners for greasy food.

During the pandemic they were living on opposite sides of the country and had lost touch. But Andrew at age 61 and the father of several children had finally realized his life-long gender dysphoria and had transitioned to become a woman. Harper. And the documentary opens with Harper reaching out in an email to let Will know.

The response was not only immediate, and - although Will was initially somewhat confused - was totally accepting. In correspondence that then followed, Will made the suggestion that the two of them once again embark on a cross-country road trip, visiting local hang-outs along the way, but this time with Harper in her new female identity.

And they do so. Harper, with a deep voice and mature male facial features has difficulty passing as a woman in most of the places they visit. With a celebrity as well-known as Will Ferrell as a foil and a camera crew following them, they fortunately don't encounter any overt hostility (which unfortunately is not reality for others). But the social media posts that follow in their wake of their visits are less than accepting:

•  "So what is that UGLY THING sitting across from Will Ferrell?"

•  "Well, I guess I should've expected that Will Ferrell would join the rest of the Hollywood elite, trying to make us think freaks are normal."

There is, and I suspect always has been, so very much hatred directed as those we don't understand, at those considered the "other" in society. And right now, much of that hatred is being directed at our transgendered brothers and sisters. Hundreds of pieces of legislation across the country currently target them, even restricting their right to healthcare. And that has given folks with formerly hidden prejudices license to say awful things and to commit acts of cruelty and even violence. Suicide - already significantly higher among people with gender dysphoria - has skyrocketed.

While watching this film I had a realization, and one that I will admit made me less than comfortable. I remembered an incident a few years back in which I was meeting with a volunteer from an organization I was working with. A trans woman, who much like Harper, with a deep voice and husky build, couldn't easily pass as a woman.

She asked that we meet for lunch; it was the middle of the afternoon and we were seated at a table just a few yards away from the only other occupied table in the restaurant. I recognized one of the two men at the other table as a transitional deacon awaiting to be ordained a priest. I didn't know him well, but had been introduced to him a few months earlier and was present when as part of his process he had been interviewed by the diocesan Standing Committee.

I'm now ashamed to admit it, but I was hoping he didn't recognize me. I knew him to be a married man with a wife and several young children, a guy who had been raised up from a very conservative congregation to pursue ordination, and someone who worked professionally in what I considered a "real man's" job. I didn't know how he might react to seeing me with my lunch companion.

When the two of them finished lunch, they shook hands and said goodbye. The deacon then came over to our table, called me by name and shook my hand. I introduced him to my companion Sylvia. To his credit, he asked if he might sit down and join us for a minute as we finished our coffees. He then engaged in conversation with both of us, showing absolutely no discomfort with her or with the situation at all.

I tell this story because I realized in that moment that - despite being a gay man - I held my own prejudices regarding the broader LGBTQ community of which Sylvia and I were both a part. And I felt shame having projected my own prejudices onto that young deacon. I had determined that he was the one who would be unaccepting, but it was totally on me. Looking into a mirror can be hard.

I used to dislike having to recite the anti-prejudice prayer we use here that falls at the end of the Prayers of the People. But one day it dawned on me that when we ask God to "free us from any other prejudice that defiles us," that prayer is directed squarely at me and the prejudices I hold buried deep inside - some I'm not always even conscious of.

I don't know about you, but I need to be here saying that prayer every week.

Elizabeth held no prejudice. Elizabeth was Mary's salvation. Elizabeth should be revered and heralded as one of the bravest women in the Bible, and every woman who has been given the name Elizabeth should shine with pride to be carrying the name of someone with such strength of character, such willingness to accept others for their own inherent godliness and goodness, such willingness to provide protection despite what others in society might think of her for doing so.

Elizabeth who accepted Mary immediately. Elizabeth who lifted from Mary's shoulders the weight of feeling society's shame and judgment. Elizabeth who - as Mary's ally - helped her entirely transform the negativity with which she likely thought of herself into a proclamation: "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God!"

Thanks to Elizabeth, Mary was finally able to see the divine in herself and in her life.

The late Bishop John Shelby Spong once wrote: “Christmas is not about the past; it is about a present hope. It is not about angels or shepherds or stars; it is about a birth of the divine in our lives.”

Who are those today who we know, those we see but don't know, those unable to see the divine in their own lives? Who in any way are being shunned by society, those who are being told they are somehow less than the rest of us, and certainly less than a perfect child of God?

And who is calling us to be an Elizabeth to them?

Amen.