What Annunciation Stories Reveal: God's alignment with the marginalized

This Sunday we look at the 5 annunciation stories in the Bible, and celebrate the hope these stories reveal, specifically for marginalized people. Womanist theologian Wilda Gafney's research reminds us how God is most concerned with those at the bottom of the world's hierarchies: women, the enslaved, foreigners... Hagar being the one who fits them all. Jesus has shown us how God identifies and opts into our struggle in the world, as a human.   It is here that the Advent story gets its power and meaning. This is a reason for hope in a fractured world.  God has chosen to come into the world, in the most un-glorious, un-sanitary and un-expected way. And bring us peace.