Advent IV

Sermon for Hope Episcopal Church
Worshipping with St. James’ Lutheran Church
Houston, TX
By The Rev. Martha Frances+
Year C Advent IV
24 December 2006

Text: Luke 1: 39-45 [46-55]
Other Readings: Micah 5: 2-5a; Canticle 15; Hebrews 10: 5-10

Welcome to the 4^th Sunday of Advent. Tonight will be Christmas. And today we focus on Mary the mother of Jesus as we prepare for the celebration of Christ’s coming among us. When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary in what we call the Annunciation, her immediate response to his invitation to her was that although she didn’t see how she could be the mother of Jesus since she was still a virgin, she was willing to do whatever God willed for her.

Mary’s next action was to connect with an older relative, her cousin Elizabeth, who was also pregnant for the first time. Isn’t that typical of a teenaged girl, to seek comfort & advice from an older woman? And what an incredible situation for them each to find themselves in: Elizabeth finally birthing the longed-for son, John the Baptist, a half-century after usual child-bearing years; & Mary, just past childhood herself & still single, preparing for the birth of God’s own son.

We know, just as Mary does, that Elizabeth is pregnant also, but Elizabeth has had no angelic visitation to tell her about Mary’s pregnancy, yet when Mary arrives & greets Elizabeth, John leaps for joy in his mother’s womb, & Elizabeth interprets that action as his greeting to Mary’s child whom she calls “my Lord.” John the Baptist’s leaping in Elizabeth’s womb might remind us of Rebekah’s twins Esau & Jacob who struggled in her womb. It was the younger twin Jacob who gained his father’s blessing & became the leader. Likewise, Jesus, the younger cousin, became greater than John the Baptist.

Elizabeth’s response is a Holy Spirit-inspired oracle or song of praise honoring Mary, both because Mary is carrying the Christ child, but also because she is willing to allow God to use her for such a special purpose. Mary responds to the Word of God as a disciple eager to do God’s will. It is Mary’s faith which Elizabeth praises the most. Elizabeth shows her humility in relationship to this younger cousin when she asks what she’s done to deserve the honor of greeting her Lord’s mother. Of course, the answer is that neither Elizabeth nor Mary has done anything to deserve the honors given to them. The Spirit chooses whom it will & only waits for the chosen ones to say yes.

Then, of course, Mary responds to her cousin—but also to all of us who may speculate on the significance of such out-of-the-ordinary happenings. The praise psalm with which Mary bursts forth is usually called the “Magnificat” because of the first word of the hymn in Latin. Let’s look today at the amazing hymn that Mary sings, not praising Elizabeth or either of their babies but rather praising God through whom all the exciting changes in hers & Elizabeth’s lives are happening.

In the first half of the Magnificat, Mary takes a look at herself & recognizes that God’s choice of her to be bearer of the Messiah is an incredible gift. Hers is a joyful psalm of praise for a God whom she’s encountered personally & whom she calls her Lord & Savior since he has chosen her, a young peasant girl, to bear this special child. She highlights her lowly position by calling herself his servant; Mary thinks of herself in solidarity with the poor. And when she says that all generations will call her blessed, the honor is due to God’s use of her, not because of any goodness that she has exhibited but rather because of the trust which God has placed in her by relying on her to fulfill this task. She restates when she says that God has done great things & it is God’s name which is holy. She takes no credit herself.

The second part of the Magnificat expands this incredible choice which God has made in having the peasant Mary bear God’s son. Now Mary recognizes that God’s ways are indeed not the ways of humans & that what God has begun in her, God will continue by turning the usual priorities of the world upside down. She says that God’s mercy is available for those who fear him now & in the future. “Fear” here really means “honors with great awe” or “recognizes God as sovereign.” God showers mercy on those who recognize & honor God as sovereign. One of the ways we recognize that God is in charge of our lives is to come together as we do today to worship God, to offer praises as well as prayers to God in the midst of a faithful community. Our sharing worship as two faith communities is part of God’s work of reconciliation in the world. Regular worship helps us keep our perspective in remembering that God is God & we aren’t.

When Mary speaks of God’s showing strength with God’s arm, we are reminded of all the times in the Old Testament that God acts decisively either to provide for the chosen people or to chastise them when they are behaving like everything is up to them. After all, isn’t that where we get in trouble many times; when we think that God can’t act without our brilliant minds to decide what’s best? Mary says that God’s response to our arrogance is to scatter the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. I’ve seen many a drug addict or alcoholic who stumbled just when he or she thought their way was better than God’s & tried to outdo the recovery program. How often do we have to have the thoughts of our hearts jumbled before we realize that God really does know best & wants us to respond instead of rebel?

We might argue with Mary when she says that God has brought down the powerful from their thrones & lifted up the lowly. We might say that the powerful still look pretty powerful to us & that we still feel pretty ineffectual. Two things are important to understand here. First, even though Mary describes God’s actions on behalf of the poor & dispossessed as already having been accomplished, we know that in many ways, we will not see such an upheaval in our world until the end of it when Christ returns in glory. Mary uses the past tense to affirm her certainty that that is how God acts. In addition, if we affirm that God’s ways are not ours & that God’s priorities often seem opposite our own, why do we believe that God will turn our lives & that of the wealthy upside down in the areas that WE want God to. Perhaps our part in all this is to get in touch with what areas of life God removes powerful from their thrones & that may not be in the areas we would choose.

I don’t know about sending the rich away empty, but as Christians, we are called to fill the hungry with good things. For 4 years I served an Episcopal mission in Midtown Houston, Lord of the Streets, where we served about 250 people a hot, sit-down breakfast after service every Sunday morning. That was often their only hot meal on weekends & the only meal where they didn’t have to stand in line all week. Teams from various churches, schools, & civic organizations cooked & served each Sunday starting before 7:00 a.m. To most of those homeless parishioners, we would be considered rich even though we feel pretty ordinary. What we know is that those teams certainly fulfill God’s call to care for those who are needy.

The last part of the Magnificat is a reminder that Israel was God’s first chosen people & that God promised Abraham land would be given to him & he would have descendants as numerous as the stars. The New Testament writers saw those faithful to Christ as the New Israel, so we are all Abraham’s descendants. Mary sings that the original covenant is expanded to all faithful people in her song of praise. The incredible promise in the last part of this song tells us God will continue to be faithful to us; ultimately, we have nothing to fear.

“What?” you might say. “What if I die?” The writer to the Hebrews tells us in today’s epistle reading that Christ’s offer of his body once for all means Christ has conquered death &, further, God is faithful to us even when we die. This holiday season is a bittersweet time for me, my first Christmas without my loving husband Bill who loved Christmas with childlike wonder. What I have to declare to you—& remind myself of—today is that Bill died knowing he was moving into God’s waiting arms. He had no reason to fear even death for God was with him. I rejoice in that affirmation every time I celebrate the Eucharist.

The verse left out of today’s Gospel lesson is a narrative comment: “And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home. I cherish this last sentence because it reminds me that this story really is about 2 human women getting their needs met as they prepared for their sons’ births. Mary’s return to Joseph & to have the baby Jesus reminds us what the celebration tonight & tomorrow are all about: God came to earth & dwelt among us as a human who knew life as we know it fully, with all the struggles & joys, pains & glory. Come back tonight to celebrate the coming of Christ with your church community. Let us give thanks for these 2 human mothers & the gifts they gave the world by their faithfulness. Amen.