Luke 1:46b-55 (NRSV)
My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and
holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from
generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has
scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their
thrones,
and
lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and
sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in
remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to
Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
Year A
Third Sunday of Advent
December 11, 2016
Cross~Wind
December 12, 2010
Crossk~Wind
Title: A life-Giving Christmas of Joy
Pre-Message: What is the difference between joy and
happiness?
Post-Message: “Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose
warm and our intelligence a glow.”
(Helen Keller)
Joy
Today, I
want you to consider your deepest prayer related to joy for this Christmas. Why
is joy important in your life?
Joy is the
name of a person. Almond Joy is the name of a candy bar. “Joy” is a movie, a
very nice one, I might add. “Joy to the World” is a favorite Christmas hymn and
a song by Three Dog Night. You have heard the sayings. Joy is an inside job.
Choose joy every day. I choose joy.
This
season seems to focus on that … or does it? Is there a difference between
rejoicing, having joy, and the forced seasonal happiness so many expect us to
have during this time of year? Too many people experience too stark of a
contrast between their lives at this season and the rest of the year.
I am not a person who tends to
display to others the things that give me joy. Yet, joy may not always show
itself in smiles and laughter. It at least suggests the things in which you
have inner happiness and delight. Such joy is not simply on the surface. That
in which we have joy reveals the things that matter to us. Your deepest joy can reveal your unique gifts
and passion. “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10). That in
which you have joy can strengthen you for the journey of life. Joy reveals your
life aim. Do you have joy in the wrong things?
What brings you deep joy? We are
asking you to write down your prayer for joy. My prayer for joy for myself is
that I might have a joy in the right things. My prayer for Cross~Wind is that
it will find joy in the Lord. My prayer for our community and nation is that
people will find joy in the things that really matter, such as hope, peace, and
love, especially for our families, friends, and places of work.
Introducing the text
I am going
to share with you a song of Mary, called the Magnificat. Elizabeth, the mother
of John the Baptist, has just visited Mary. She refers to Mary as “blessed
among women” and that the child she is caring, Jesus, is blessed as well. The
Council of Ephesus in 431 refers to Mary as “Mother of God,” and the statement
has its basis here. The child she carries is the Son of God. God blesses her
because of what we learn in 1:38, that she believed the word given her by the
angel. Her whole self, soul and spirit, find joy in God, who is her Savior. Mary
becomes a model disciple in her belief and in her receiving the gift of the Son
of God. In 1:38,
Mary refers to herself as “servant of the Lord,” in verse 43, that she is the
mother of the Lord, and in verse 48, where all generations shall call her
blessed. The song of Mary has a pattern similar to that of I Samuel 2:1-10, the song of Hannah, another
woman who is surprised by her pregnancy. The song displays the humility of
Mary. The point in this song is that everything happening to Mary is a result
of who God is. Luke has portrayed Elizabeth and Mary in the pattern of women in
the Old Testament of heroes born miraculously to women who should not be able
to conceive children. Very quickly, however, the focus shifts from Mary to what
God is doing. The song itself will show that God has a prejudice, we might
carefully say, for the weak, the lowly, the sinner, rather than the wealthy,
powerful, and righteous.
Introduction
During this season, the
circumstance that often makes us happy is gifts, the stuff we want, or the
stuff we want to give.
Comedian George Carlin has a
classic routine on one can find on YouTube.
A
house is just a pile of stuff. You can see that when you’re taking off in an
airplane. You look down; you see everybody’s got a little pile of stuff. All
the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up.
Wouldn’t want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff.” Especially the
shiny stuff. “That’s what your house is a place to keep your stuff while you go
out and get … more stuff!”
When we fill up our
houses, we go out and rent storage lockers. For more stuff.[1]
We have grown so accustomed to
surrounding ourselves with stuff.
Sermon Approach: The celebration of stuff
The holiday season can be a
spiritual time. If it is, it will be a life-giving season. Yet, it can also be
a celebration of stuff. It starts the day after Thanksgiving, when more than
100 million Americans participate in the shopping rush called Black Friday. It
accelerates through Advent, as people max out their credit cards buying presents
for family members and friends. It reaches a crescendo on Christmas Eve, as
people check off the last items on their shopping lists. Then it continues the
next week as people snatch up even more stuff at after-Christmas sales.
Retailers depend on the holiday season for their financial health because this
quarter of the year produces most of — or all — their profits.
Christmas has become an important
chapter in the American story of stuff.
Application
Mary
rejoices because she learned a simple truth: The good stuff that God gives is not really stuff.
We need to pay attention to this
passage because we know the gifts we receive at Christmas do not provide us
with lasting happiness. Sure, it is fun to give and receive presents, but where
does most of that stuff end up? In closets, bookshelves, cabinets, garages,
counters, cupboards, attics and basements. DeNeed Brown (Washington Post, March
27, 2010) writes:
“We
are in a stuff crisis. We are either consuming it, acquiring it, complaining
about it, cleaning it, moving it from store to car to house to garage to a Pod
parked in the driveway. We are worried about it. Bored about it. Happy about
it. Our stuff has become our baggage.” - DeNeed Brown (Washington Post, March
27, 2010)
Who needs more baggage? When you say
a person has “a lot of baggage,” you are not offering a compliment. If you have
a lot of baggage, you are loaded with guilt, shame, anger, and resentment that
dominate your behavior today. You do not want to go through life with baggage.
You do not want “stuff” to be your baggage in your life.
It may be time for us to write a new
chapter in the story of stuff. As I do so, I want to use the word “stuff” in a
different sense. I have been using it to refer to material things. Sometimes,
however, we use the word to refer to the essence or core of something, such as
when we refer to the “stuff” of life. I have just two things along these lines
that I want to tease out of Mary’s Song.
First, if we do write a new chapter
in the story of stuff, let us write a chapter on the joy of the stuff of salvation.
The word “salvation”
is one that we often use in a narrow way, as if it refers only to salvation
from hell. Yet, in the Bible, the word suggests wholeness, meaning, and
fullness of life. When we baptize, we are not saving you from Hell. We are
inviting you to identify with Jesus, to participate in his life, to hear the
call of Jesus in your life, and to allow Christ to live through you. This will
mean that you have a relationship with Christ.
Mary starts her song with the words
“my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” God has gotten her attention in a
way that has attracted her, so that God has become what she desires. She zeroes
in on salvation, thanking God for saving her from a life of insignificance,
meaninglessness and despair. She knows that stuff cannot save her.
Let me assure you – a piece of
jewelry, a new outfit, a new video game, not even a sports car, will make this
a life-giving Christmas of joy. Stuff does not have the power to lift your soul
and spirit, your whole self. .
Mary knows the truth: “[T]he
Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name” (v. 49). God
alone can give our lives significance, meaning and hope … if we open our hearts
to the truly precious stuff that God is offering us.
For Mary, and for us, the “great thing” she finds God has done is in
the gift of a child.
New Testament scholar Alan Culpepper says, “The joy of the mother will
be the job of the son.” He means by this that everything Mary includes in her
joyful song becomes a line in the job description of Jesus the Messiah. You
see, our fascination with stuff is not new. Even in the first century, people
were fascinated with stuff, and Jesus was trying to break its hold on the
people then. Jesus launches his ministry by announcing that the Spirit of the
Lord has anointed him “to bring good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18), and
he goes on to warn people about the danger of riches: “Be on your guard
against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of
possessions” (Luke 12:15). In the parable of the rich fool and elsewhere,
Jesus makes crystal clear that destruction will come to those “who store up
treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God” (Luke 12:21). In all
his teachings, Jesus echoes the song of his mother, Mary, who says that God’s “mercy
is for those who fear him from generation to generation. … [H]e has filled the
hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:50, 53).
Jesus is still trying to break the
hold stuff can have on our lives. When we are so attracted to God, when we see
the beauty of the Lord, and thus are rich toward God, good things will fill us.
This is the message of the story of stuff, revised and expanded by
Jesus the Christ.
Second, we need to write a chapter
in the story of stuff that writes of the stuff of service.
Acquiring more stuff,
and the wealth, power, and prestige that it often means, is not the path to a
life-giving Christmas of joy. You will need to learn the joy that comes in
serving.
Mary sung it well:
he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely,
from now on all generations will call me blessed.
…
He
has helped his servant Israel,
in
remembrance of his mercy,
For Mary, she was
“only” the servant of the Lord, as are we. At its best, Israel could only be a
servant. “You gotta serve somebody,” said Bob Dylan. The witness we provide in
this world to Jesus is nothing more nor less than that of service.
Conclusion
If we are
going to make this season a spiritual time, if it is to be a life-giving
Christmas of joy, then we will need to learn of the stuff of salvation and the
stuff of service.
Mary’s song
can teach us that we need to focus on the right stuff.
Elisabeth
Elliot once wrote:
Faith is the
willingness to receive whatever [God] wants to give, or the willingness not to
have what he does not want to give. From the greatest of all gifts (salvation
in Christ) to the material blessings of any ordinary day (hot water, a pair of
legs that work, a cup of coffee, a job to do and the strength to do it), every
good gift comes down from the Father of Lights. Every one of them is to be
received gladly and with thanks. Sometimes we want things we were not meant to
have. Because he loves us, the Father says no. Faith is willing not to have
what God is not willing to give. Furthermore, faith does not insist on an
explanation. It is enough to know his promise that he will give what is good;
he knows so much more about that than we do. —Elisabeth Elliot.
Post-Message: “Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose
warm and our intelligence a glow.”
(Helen Keller)
Going deeper
Luke 1:39-56 is the story of Mary visiting Elizabeth and the
Magnificat. The text is unique to Luke. After the announcement of the birth of
Jesus to her, Mary went unchaperoned and alone to Judea to visit the home of
Zechariah and Elizabeth, the latter being in seclusion for five months. When
Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the child in her womb leaped. We find
here that the child in the womb of Elizabeth, as special as he clearly is,
displays humility in acknowledging the superiority of Jesus. The Holy Spirit,
making its presence felt for the first time in this quiet, elderly woman,
filled Elizabeth. She offered a loud cry, calling Mary blessed among women, and
blessed is the child in her. An interesting similarity is in Judges 5:24, “Most
blessed of women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, of tent-dwelling women
most blessed.” In Judith 13:18 (a text of about 150 BC), we read, “O daughter, you
are blessed by the Most High God above all other women on earth.” She wonders
why this has happened to her, that the mother of her Lord has come to her. Karl
Barth notes that the basis for the affirmation in the Council of Ephesus in 431
affirmed Mary as “Mother of God.” [2] Given the standing that Elizabeth had as the
wife of a priest, she shows her willingness to humble herself. Luke relates
again that the child leaped for joy. Further, blessed is she who believed that
there would be a fulfillment of what the Lord spoke to her, a statement similar
to John 20:29, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to
believe.” Barth stresses that the beatitude pronounced upon Mary refers to her
belief, given the content of 1:38, that she believed the word given her by the
angel. She is “blessed” in light of her faith, not because of it.[3]
For Barth, this passage leads to a discussion of Mary as representing
the human race in receiving the gift of the Son. He is willing to go there,
even wondering why Mary is the one chosen as a female in contrast to the male,
especially since the story of the birth of Jesus literally excludes a male
role. Both God and humanity are involved, and thus, the story says something
about the role of humanity. Yet, he wants to avoid any trace of Mariology. The
story does not mean, in typical Barth fashion, that humanity has openness
toward the work of God. He stresses, then, that behind wicked human history
there is still hidden a good human being, worthy of communion with the divine.
For him, no plane exists upon which the meeting between God and humanity can be
possible or real except in virtue of the mystery of the divine mercy. He
stresses that for the Protestant reformers, Mary had no more aptitude for God
than other human being. He rejects any notion of the goodness of the creature
and its capacity for God.[4]
In verses 46-55, we find the Magnificat, a song that bears similarity
to the piety of the anawim, the poor saints within Judaism. It resembles hymns
of praise, such as Psalm 33, 47, 48, 113, 117, 135, and especially 136. The
closest pattern, however, is I Samuel 2:1-10. The song displays the humility of
Mary in response to the declaration from Elizabeth. The point in this song is
that everything happening to Mary is a result of who God is. Luke has portrayed
Elizabeth and Mary in the pattern of women in the Old Testament of heroes born
miraculously to women who should not be able to conceive children. Their
counterparts are Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah. In fact, Luke is drawing
on similarities between Hannah and Mary, as well as Samuel and Jesus. Both John
and Jesus prove to be worthy of the divine intervention that produced them.
Luke 1:47-55 (NRSV)
My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my
spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
[Note that here, soul and spirit refer
to the whole self offering praise to God. Karl Barth suggests that when Mary
magnifies the Lord and rejoices in God, it is part of the notion of the beauty
of the Lord attracting people to do so. God, who stoops down to humanity whose
heart is “wicked,” becomes an object of desire, joy, pleasure, yearning and
enjoyment. In a sense, the fact that God must be the object of joy confutes and
overcomes the desperate condition of humanity. To speak of the beauty of the
Lord in this way is to speak of divine glory. When we speak of the beauty of
the Lord, we are explaining divine glory. It is to say how God enlightens,
convinces, and persuades us. It describes the shape that the revelation of God
takes place. God has this superior force, this power of attraction, which
speaks for itself, which wins and conquers, in the fact that God is beautiful.[5]]
48 for he has looked with favor on the
lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will
call me blessed;
[We can see here that one could not make
such a statement hardly if it were not for the early Christian worship source
of this song. We can see that in Jerusalem, at least some of the family of
Jesus received high honor after the resurrection, including Mary and James in
particular. Given the Old Testament background of this song, it suggests that
quite early, the church wanted to make a theological and biblical statement as
to the origin of Jesus.]
49 for
the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the
thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from
their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good
things,
and sent the rich away empty.
[Karl Barth refers to the “prejudice”
that God has in ignoring the high, mighty, and wealthy in the world in favor of
the weak, meek, and lowly. An extension of this notion is the ignoring of the
“righteous” for the “sinners,” and of finally ignoring Israel for Gentiles.[6] Barth
stresses that although this verse suggests the exercise of divine
power, we are not to think of blind, brute power working causally and mechanically.
God does not make of human beings a mere spectator or puppet. Rather, such
power is the liberating power of the divine Word, opposed to all compulsion. It
is the power of the free grace of God revealed in Christ. When Christ exercises
divine power on humanity, it is so that humanity may breathe, live, rise, and
stand with Christ. It is the power in which God illuminates humanity as the
light of life, enlightening the understanding, so that people recognize their
own freedom. Faith itself has its roots in recognition, and therefore
obedience. Such attachment by a human being to Christ is what makes one a
Christian and distinguishes such a person from others.[7]]
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our
ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants
forever.”
[As Karl Barth puts it, it is this merciful and redemptive
visitation of Israel by God in faithfulness to God and to the people, that
forms the subject-matter of this hymn.[8]]
To conclude the passage, Luke
informs us that Mary remained with Elizabeth for three months. She then
returned home.
[Karl Barth emphasizes that the
ministry of the angel in Luke accomplishes the desired result of its mission,
namely, that human creation breaks out in praise of God who has willed this and
begun to accomplish the coming of the reign of God. To praise the mercy of God
is to have people who look and move willingly and readily to the One who comes,
as earthly creatures who have appropriated what is said to them even though
they know that they are in no position for what is said to come to them and
actually to happen. They have responded to the mystery of divine grace. The
angel announces such a mystery of grace, in spite of all its improbability. God
has actually brought home the divine Word to Mary. She is obedient to her
heavenly calling in accordance with the incitement of the angel. The song
confirms that the fact that there has taken place a visitation of the earthly
creation by God and the heavenly creation.[9]]
[Karl Barth, of course, will
want to stress that Martin Luther in his exegesis of the Magnifcat the
greatness of Mary consists in the fact that all the interest is directed away
from herself and to the Lord. It is her low estate in 1:48 and the glory of God
that encompass her.[10]
Barth will also take this occasion to discuss the role of Mary in the history
of salvation. He refers to 1:38, where Mary refers to herself as “servant of
the Lord,” and then to verse 43, that she is the mother of the Lord, and to
verse 48, in which all generations shall call her blessed. He then refers to
Roman Catholic dogma of Mary as mediatrix corredemptrix. For him, it is too
much to build so much dogma on so little. She has to be told of the reign of
her Son and receive grace, and she herself only refers to herself as a servant.[11]]
[1] The Family Circus Sunday comic, August 29, 1999 has
the family at the beach. The children, wearing personal stereo headphones, are
digging in the sand, using all manner of toy steam shovels and other construction
equipment. A sign propped up beside them reads “Digging to Australia.” Father
and mother are sitting in beach chairs off to one side, with grandmother beside
them. Dad remarks to Mom, “We used to do the same thing with only a pail and
shovel.” Grandma says, “I used to do the same thing with only a seashell.”
[2]
(Church Dogmatics, IV.2 [64.2], 71)
[3]
(Church Dogmatics, IV.2 [64.3], 189)
[4]
(Church Dogmatics, I.2 [15.3] 195)
[5]
(Church Dogmatics, II.1, [31.3] 654)
[6]
(Church Dogmatics, IV.2 [64])
[7]
(Church Dogmatics, IV.3 [71]
[8]
(Church Dogmatics, IV.2 [64])
[9]
(Church Dogmatics, III.3 [51.3] 503-504)
[10]
(Church Dogmatics, I.2 [15.2], 140)
[11]
(IV.3, [71.4], 603)
