Our text for this morning is about two women who come together to tell their stories. They are cousins, distant cousins. Elizabeth, the city cousin, Luke says, lives in the hills of Judea. Her husband, Zechariah, is the priest in the Temple. It must have been a big city to have a temple. Perhaps it was Jerusalem, and if so, then Zechariah would have been one of the priests assigned to the Temple in Jerusalem. Which would mean he was a man of some importance. It says they lived in the hills of Judea. That sounds to me like some upscale neighborhood. So Elizabeth and Zechariah were people of status and wealth and culture, sophisticated people.

Mary was not. Mary was the country cousin from of all places, Nazareth, a town with a bad reputation. In past sermons I have, from time to time, trie…