Quick Summary:

In the gospel reading we come face to face with two women—one married, the other single; one wed into privilege, the other living at the edge of poverty—who, for different reasons, are both subject to shame. As a pregnant but unmarried woman Mary might expect judgment, shame, even ostracism from her older kinswoman, but Elizabeth upends those expectations. Elizabeth knows from her own experience the cost of being shamed and excluded.

Elizabeth initiates a pattern of reversal as she open her arms and her home to a relative whom her neighbors may well expect her to reject. Instead of rejecting Mary, she welcomes, blesses, and celebrates her, seeing beyond the shamefulness of Mary’s situation to the reality of God’s love at work even among those whom society rejects and excludes.