Introduction:
This is the Pastor’s Blog for the Service on Sunday Dec 14th at 10:45AM. Included here is the primary Scripture of this message and the Pastor’s notes. Prior to the service it will include an excerpt of the Pastor’s notes and following the service the complete notes will be added. Also following the service a link will be provided at the bottom to Replay this service. We hope you will join us in Worship on Sunday.
Scripture: Luke 1:39-56
Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, 40 and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. 41 And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. 45 Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.”
46 And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
48 For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
49 For He who is mighty has done great things for me, And holy is His name.
50 And His mercy is on those who fear Him From generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.
54 He has helped His servant Israel, In remembrance of His mercy,
55 As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and to his seed forever.”
56 And Mary remained with her about three months, and returned to her house.
Pastor’s Message:
We are beginning the third week of our Advent season of preparation and waiting. We began by lighting the candle of hope, acknowledging that hope is what rises when life seems bleak and dark. Last week we lit the candle of peace, inviting God’s shalom to fill our lives and fill the earth. This morning we’ve lit the candle of joy. As with our other Advent words, joy is one of those words that carries more weight and depth than the way we typically use that word.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that the candle we lit this morning is pink. The third Sunday of advent is also known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is a Latin word that means “rejoice!” and the pink candle is in honor of Mary. There is an old tradition in the church that goes back to medieval times. On the Feast of the Anunciation which falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent, a pink rose was placed on the altar in honor of Gabriel’s visit to Mary. The pink candle of Advent is connected to that tradition, and reminds us that the birth of the Christ child announced to Mary by Gabriel is drawing near, and we are called to rejoice in the midst of our preparations.
We often hear the words “happiness” and “joy” used interchangeably. I was surprised this week to see that some dictionaries offer the word “joy” as a definition for the word “happiness.” Both words have been short-changed in our culture, I think. We’ve laminated the pursuit of goods and possessions over these words. Our society tries to convince us that to be happy is to have stuff, and joy is often treated as one of many possessions. “Do you have joy?” some self-help gurus ask their readers.
The writers of our Advent study have this observation about joy: “We’ve inherited the false story that joy only belongs to those with comfort, status, or certainty.”
That doesn’t leave much joy for those who aren’t comfortable or certain, does it? Too many of our neighbors are struggling to make ends meet, to have their basic needs of living met. “Joy” seems to be the opposite of “worry.” If one worries about making ends meet, then one must not have joy, right?
Well, maybe not. To be joyful in the tradition of our faith has little to do with the size of our bank accounts, our dwellings or our ability to pay the bills. If all of our Advent words – hope, peace, joy and love – are undergirded by grace, then we can move to a different understanding and experience of hope, peace, joy and love. Grace is grace, right? Grace issues forth from God’s being and presence without human rhyme or reason. It showers down on the whole earth in wave upon wave without limit. Grace is abundant and sufficient no matter how much or how we little we possess.
Which has always been the case. The existence and action of a grace-filled God has always offered a contrast to those in power who would present themselves as rulers who bring peace by violence and conquest, as did the caesars of Rome. At the time of Jesus’ birth, Caesar Augustus was credited with being the bringer of Pax Romana – the peace of Rome – through invasion, domination, and taxation. Augustus was deified and called “the son of god (with a little ‘g’).”
Into all of this ancient political and global stuff, with all of its ominous overtones and undertones, comes the ancient story of Elizabeth and Mary, two women who are pregnant with children they either didn’t expect to ever have, or not at this time, thank you.
Their story is domestic – two women marveling at their growing bellies and rounder bodies. It’s a story many women are experiencing and have experienced for millenia.
The meeting between these two women contains more than housebound idle chatter. Elizabeth and Mary have both encountered the movement of the Holy Spirit in both of their pregnancies. Elizabeth greets her young cousin Mary with elation and blessings. She sees the arc of God’s work over the ages in both of their lives as women.
After conceiving by the Holy Spirit, Mary goes to visit her cousin, Elizabeth. Elizabeth is older than Mary, and also pregnant. No one thought Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah would ever have a child, they were so old.
Beyond that, though, my guess is that not many folks noticed these two pregnant women meeting up and sharing pregnancy stories. But God noticed.
Not only does God notice, the pregnancies of these two women are part of God’s dream for turning the world upside down so that God’s dream for the world can spring forth.
After Elizabeth greets and blesses her, Mary sings of that dream. God’s dream looks very different from Caesar’s imperial might and coercion. God’s peace is very different from the peace of Rome. Pax Romana comes about through coercion and violence. God’s peace is altogether different. God’s peace comes from the bottom up through non-violent resistance, love, and connection. Joy and community arise by committing ourselves and our lives to God’s dream for all creation.
When Mary bursts into song, she praises God for scattering the proud, for bringing the powerful down from their thrones, for lifting up the lowly, and sending the rich away empty. It’s a bold song coming from a young pregnant woman.
I don’t know about you, but when I read the stories of Advent and Christmas through the lens of Mary, they take on new meaning and power. If God dreams and works from the bottom up, of course the Holy One would call on those on the “bottom rungs” of the ladder to help implement God’s dream for the world. The powerful rulers and politicians are too busy with their own schemes to care or notice, ignoring those they think don’t count.
Mary’s song – called the Magnificat and what some have called the first Christmas carol ever sung – is courageous and full of the assurance of what God is doing and will do.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who was part of the movement against Hitler and Nazism – and who was executed because of his opposition to that genocidal regime – called Mary’s Magnificat “the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung.”
Closer to home, I recall hearing a strong reaction to Mary’s Magnificat from a fellow seminary student. In our first year of seminary, we were in a spiritual formation group together. Our spiritual practice that day was to use the Magnificat for lectio divina. After we spent some individual quiet time with that scripture, our facilitator asked us for our thoughts. “Humph,” this fellow student said. “I don’t like this. She’s calling herself blessed. She sounds conceited to me.”
For the caesars of the world, Mary’s words are fightin’ words.
During the Raj – British-controlled India – the Magnificat was prohibited from being sung in church. In 1980s Guatemala, the genocidal government banned Mary’s song from being recited publically. And during the 1970s and early 80s during Argentina’s “Dirty War”, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo whose children had “disappeared” posted the words of Mary’s Magnificat on posters throughout the capital plaza. So the ruling Junta banned any public display of the Magnificat.
If one has amassed power, Mary’s song doesn’t sound like good news or spark much joy, does it? But if we love our neighbor as ourselves, we receive Mary’s song with joy, even as our hearts hurt because of the suffering of our neighbors. We let that suffering matter and transform us, even as joy wells up.
It’s a both-and. We hurt because of the pain of the world, and we experience joy because we know God is at work and that God calls us to be a part of that work.
Mary’s song – and her very story and situation – aren’t just the song and story of one pregnant teenager of long ago. Her story and song stretch into our own lives, calling us to allow ourselves to shuffle down to the bottom and out to the edges, where the Holy Spirit is rattling the cages and overturning the caesars of the world.
Every Advent I pull out a 2009 article by author and pastor John Ortberg. The title of the article is “Mary’s Carol,” and he says:
“Our world said: blessed are the beautiful. Blessed are the rich. Blessed are the successful. Blessed are the secure. Mary said that now God is going to turn everything upside down. Why would anyone listen to an unimportant peasant girl? Then a rabbi came along and he too sang the strangest song: blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, blessed are the meek, [blessed are those who mourn.]
“Where did he get his material? Could it have been from his mom? Did he learn from her that God has no intention of tolerating the injustice and greed of this world on a permanent basis? [Where] the powerful push around the weak because they can get away with it?”
So what are we to do with all of this? The challenges and the inequities and the bad politics and the violence over the centuries seem unsurmountable, unsolvable. I can’t help but wonder if some of our elected politicians ever sit in church during Advent and listen to Mary’s Magnificat, whether it’s sung, prayed, or read. What do they do with Mary’s song? Where do they put it in their beings?
The season of Advent is about preparation – not only preparing for the birth of Jesus, but also about preparing and looking forward to God’s dream becoming reality. We prepare and wait, but we do not sit still. We join our voices and hearts to Mary’s and are filled with joy at what God is doing. We commit ourselves once again to welcoming the birth of Emmanuel, God with us, who will preach and teach about God’s dream and who will begin ushering in God’s kingdom.
And it all starts with a pregnant young woman named Mary and her baby.
Let us pray:
God of surprises,
you interrupt our world with joy
and hope beyond our wildest dreams.
When we feel forgotten or despair,
bless us with your holy joy.
When our world feels barren,
bless us with the gift of possibility.
We pray as people of deep faith,
entrusting ourselves and our world
to the holy unknown,
brought to birth in Jesus, our light and life. Amen.
