(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on December 23, 2018, Advent IV)
Inconceivable News
In the scene that precedes
today’s scripture, the angel Gabriel visits Mary and delivers the inconceivable
news that she will conceive and bear the Messiah, the future king of Israel and
savior of the world. Before
Gabriel leaves, he shares another piece of inconceivable news. Mary’s relative Elizabeth, who is into
her later years and thought to be barren, has already conceived. “Nothing,” Gabriel says, “will be
impossible with God.”
As soon as the angel leaves, Luke
tells us, Mary leaves too. I
imagine that’s because she can’t stand still with the news she has just
heard. I imagine she’s about to
explode with confusion and wonder and curiosity. She can’t keep all this inside. She has to share it.
And whom better to share it with than the other woman with inconceivable
news?
So Mary leaves and goes “with
haste” to a nameless town in the hill country to visit Elizabeth. When the two mothers-to-be see each
other, I imagine mayhem breaks loose: Elizabeth waddling and Mary running and
the two crying out congratulations and “can you believe it?” and the rest of
the country folk wondering what’s gotten into this odd couple, this child not
yet a part of the real world and this senior who’s already past it. It’s inconceivable. What could women like them have to be
excited about?
Why Fear Mary’s Song?
Moments later, Mary spills her
feelings. She breaks into song,
magnifying the Lord, rejoicing in God.
Little does she know that her song, memorialized in scripture, will be
repeated for centuries to come, that it will become a beloved prayer in the
church, prayed regularly, even daily, all over the world.
Not everyone, however, has loved
Mary’s song. You might be
surprised to learn that during the British colonial rule of India, Mary’s song
was outlawed from being sung in church.
In the 1980s, the Guatemalan government banned any public recitation of
Mary’s prayer. In Argentina also,
when the mothers of the disappeared began to display Mary’s song on posters
throughout the capital city, the military dictatorship outlawed any appearance
of the song in public.[1]
Why? Why would world rulers and dictators fear the words of a
vulnerable, teenage girl from two thousand years ago? Why would the hearsay of two nobody
women in a no-name mountain town in Judea trigger a tremor in the hearts of the
most powerful?
In a Word: Love
In a word: love.
Mary never says the word “love”
in her song, but she doesn’t need to.
It’s behind every word she says.
It’s in the body of her unborn son, whose life and death and
resurrection will show us the flesh-and-blood reality of love.
Love, according to Mary’s song, “looks
with favor” upon the marginalized.
Love “lifts up the lowly” and “fills the hungry with good things.” In other words, love looks out for
others. Love proclaims that
everyone matters, and especially those whom the world treats as though they
don’t matter. Is it any
coincidence that the story begins with Mary and Elizabeth, two women on the margin
of their society, which itself is on the margin of a powerful empire? Love has lifted them up, of all people.
But that’s not all. Love—in the words of Mary’s song—also
“scatters the proud in the thoughts of their hearts” and “brings down the
powerful from their thrones” and “sends the rich away empty.” How? If Jesus’ life is any indication, love simply bankrupts
power. It doesn’t trade in its
currency. It doesn’t play the game
of merit and achievement, control and command. It doesn’t give special status to the rich or the strong,
the respectable or the beautiful.
It doesn’t acknowledge the lines of power: battle lines, border lines,
division lines between us and them.
Love walks around ignorant of these lines, its arms wide open. And for anyone to receive its embrace,
they must leave their throne, their riches, their pride behind: they too must
open their arms.
A Picture of Love
“Scattering the proud” and “sending
the rich away empty” and “bringing down the powerful”—these words of Mary
conjure up in my mind a strong champion, a sort of Robin Hood figure who uses a
clever combination of force and trickery to right the wrongs of the world. But I know that the love that Mary
proclaims, the love born from her, looks different than that.
I know a tall, strong man, a
colossus of a person, seasoned in both life on the streets and life in the
boardroom. He can get his way just
about anywhere, if not with his assertive demeanor, then with his fists. He’s a powerful man.
One day, though, that all
changed. At least it did for an instant. You see, a son was born to him. And his son with gurgled cry and arms
wide open scattered the thoughts of his heart, emptied him of all his other
ambitions, and brought him down to his knees. And as he was brought down, he cradled his son and lifted
him up.
I don’t know a better picture of
love. The lowly lifted up, the
powerful brought low.
Perhaps this is the secret of
birth. Perhaps this is part of the
reason that Isaiah in his prophecies keeps going on and on about the world
being saved by a child. Perhaps this
is part of the reason that we celebrate not just Christ as an adult teaching
and healing, but Christ as a helpless baby, showing us the secret of love from
the very first day he is born.
For when love enters our world,
this is exactly what we see: the lowly lifted up, and the powerful brought low.
“With Love, Nothing Is Impossible”
And the good news of Advent, if
we would believe it, is that the love Mary sang about was not only born two
thousand years ago. This
lowly-lifting, power-toppling love is still being born among us today. Whenever our puffed-up pride or lofty
aims are thrown off balance by the cry of another, whether it be a baby’s cry,
or a spouse’s, or a friend’s.
Whenever mighty governments are stopped in their tracks by the pleas of
people falling through the cracks.
Whenever our self-content spirits are rattled and made weak with worry
for another person and we drop our pursuits to reach out to them. Whenever strong nations are haunted by
their hurtful histories and moved to dress the wounds of those who have
suffered. Whenever the
self-centered thoughts of our heart are scattered and we find ourselves
thinking and feeling from another person’s point of view.
In all these ways, the
lowly-lifting, power-toppling love that Mary sang about is still being born
among us today. And so still today
the good news of Gabriel echoes, “With God, nothing will be impossible.” Which is to say, “With love, nothing is
impossible.” For as Mary knew, as
the dictators in Argentina and Guatemala knew, this love that lifts up the
lowly and brings down the powerful is stronger than rulers and empires,
stronger than grief or despair, stronger even than death.
Prayer
God of love,
Whose helplessness
Is more powerful
Than we know:
Although we are never quite ready
For your arrival,
Even so we pray,
“Be born in us.”
Topple us in our power,
Lift us up where we are lowly.
Transform our world
By your love.
In Christ who shows us
The flesh-and-blood fullness of love:
Amen.
[1] Jason
Porterfield, “The Subversive Magnificat: What Mary Expected the Messiah to Be
Like,” http://enemylove.com/subversive-magnificat-mary-expected-messiah-to-be-like/,
accessed on December 17, 2018.
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