Sermon for Dec. 14, 2008: “Magnificat”
Scripture Lesson: Luke 1:46-55
We love this festive season and find such joy in celebrating the Christmas gifts of God! And far be it from me to put any damper on the celebrations. We should celebrate more and not less. Part of our celebration is to share in the great compassion of the Christ who comes again to raise us all to new and better life! “Joy to the world the Lord is come! He comes to make his blessings flow!” What a joy to share in that flood of blessing. Indeed, it is in and through you and me that the blessings of Christ flow, as the Christmas carol says, “far as the curse is found!”
Speaking of carols, hardly a Christmas comes when I do not read again or watch a film adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic “A Christmas Carol.” In many ways, this (and all of Dickens work) can be seen as a commentary on God’s cry through the prophet Micah: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
In one of the most memorable scenes from A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is confronted the ghost of Jacob Marley, his deceased business partner:
“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,” faltered Scrooge…
“Business!” cried the ghost wringing its hands… “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
“At this time of the rolling year,” the specter said, “I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raised them to that blessed star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode. Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me?”
It is widely known that no one in Victorian England did more than Dickens to speak up for the badly used working classes, or to publicize the iniquities of poverty and the suffering of the poor. But what is not so well known is that Dickens wrote out of his own experience. Dickens’ father John was constantly in debt, and in 1824 he was imprisoned in Marshalsea debtor’s prison. Charles was 12 years old when he was forced to leave school and go to work in a miserable factory making boot polish to help support the Dickens family. This personal experience of factory work and the living conditions of the poor moved Dickens to the profound compassion that was to mark his literary works.
This compassion is nothing less than the compassion of God. It is the same compassion that caused a poor unwed mother to cry out with grateful joy. On learning that the Christ was in her womb and was coming to the world through her, Mary broke out in a song – “The Magnificat”.
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
At this festive season it is good to consider Mary’s Song. Mary sings about God’s grace shown toward the “least of these” as Jesus would later say. Mary sings of a Mighty One who does great things for small ones. She sings of mercy for those who trust. She sings of the lowly lifted up. She sings of hungry filled and the servants helped. And she sings of powerful brought down, the proud confounded, and the rich sent away empty. Mary’s Song is a celebration of justice and mercy and humility and the compassion of God.
Mary sings for herself, grateful for her own blessedness. But Mary does not sing for herself alone. Mary sings on behalf of all the poor and lowly that Christ comes to lift up. Mary sings as the Matron Saint of the poor. Mary sings for political prisoners and all those who are crushed by the tyranny of unjust government. She sings for mothers who have no food to give their children, for children who have no schools to go to, for fathers who have no jobs, for all those who have no opportunity to better themselves and provide adequately for their families. Mary sings for all those who hunger and thirst for food and water and all those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. She sings for the businessman bound by self-interests, the woman crippled by vanity, the youth captive to addiction. It is to these no less than to the lowly maid of Nazareth that the Christ is to be born. It is for us all, insofar as we are captives or captors, oppressed or oppressors, victims or victimizers that Mary sings. She sings of justice and of the freedom God brings. She sings of liberation.
Liberation. There is a lovely word. To liberate, to be liberated. There is the mission of God and the meaning of Christmas. To experience liberty and to work that others may know it also, is the high calling of those who follow in the way of the great liberator, in the way of Christ.
Liberation. It is the theme of a whole movement in Christian thought and life. Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian Catholic priest is said to be the father of “Liberation Theology.” According to Gutierrez, “true “liberation” has three main dimensions:
First, it involves political and social liberation, the elimination of the immediate causes of poverty and injustice.
Second, liberation involves the emancipation of the poor, the marginalised, the downtrodden and the oppressed from all “those things that limit their capacity to develop themselves freely and in dignity”.
Third, Liberation Theology involves liberation from selfishness and sin, a re-establishment of a right relationship with God and with other people.
Surely, the Song of Mary is the anthem of the liberation movement. And if Charles Dickens were alive today, he might be a liberation theologian like Gutierrez.
If we want to understand more of what liberation and justice are about it can be helpful to think of the world as a village. You may have heard this before, but its worth repeating. Imagine the entire world was a single villiage with a population of 100 souls. Imagine that in this village the proportions of the world’s demographics were maintained. These numbers may not be exact, but they give a good picture of the situation in the village.
In the world village of 100 people:
50 would be males and
50 would be females
61 would be from Asia
13 would be Africans
12 would be Europeans
14 would come from North & South America
In the world villiage of 100 people:
2 would be Infants
33 would be Under Age 25
7 would be Aged 65 and Over
1 would be Close to Death
1 ready to give birth
In the world village of 100 people:
80 would live in substandard housing.
Of the 67 adults in the village, half would be unable to read or write
50 villagers would suffer from malnutrition.
33 would not have access to clean, safe drinking water.
24 people would not have any electricity.
Of the 76 that do have electricity, most would use it only for light after dark.
In the village there would be 42 radios, 24 televisions, 14 telephones, and 7 computers
Of the 7 computers, 4 would have an Internet connection.
In the world village of 100:
7 people would own an automobile (some of them more than one).
33% of the entire village’s wealth would be possessed by 5 people, and these would all be from the USA.
The poorest 33 people in the village would receive only 3% of the income of the village.
One way to hear Mary’s song is as a song of thanks and praise that God cares and is coming at last to fix the situation in the village. To fix hearts that let the situation become so distorted, and so to fix the village’s institutions which create and maintain the injustice. This is very good news for the village. Very good news for all, for even those who are the most privileged are made whole from the common health and wholeness of the village.
Now, at the end, comes the most important point. How will God come to fix the village? The answer must be “In and through the residents of the village itself.” Through Mary and Charles and Gustavo and you and me, God will persuade, encourage, help and empower the villagers to fix the village themselves. God appears in the village by the spirit moving in the hearts of the people of the village. And in and through these villagers God will heal the village.
The village metaphor is helpful, but the real world is where we live, and the problems seem much more difficult when we see them in scale. But, of course, if the scale of the problems is greater, so much greater is the action of God. Mary knew that what God was going to do in her child was just the beginning. And Jesus knew this too. It was for this reason that Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these…”
Now we can hear again the words of the prophet Micah. We can hear these words as the heart of the gospel. These words are the cry of God for the healing of the human race. If we hear these words and let the spirit of the words, the spirit of God enter our hearts, then we will become the healers of the earth, sharing in the mission of Christ, doing the works that Christ does and greater works… for the sake of all, for the common good. In this festive season let us celebrate with Mary the gift of Christ. Let us remember with Dickens that mankind is our business. The common welfare is our business; charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence, are all, our business. Let us hear again the words of the prophet, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Hear and rejoice with Mary. Break forth in song. Wholeness to the village! Healing to the earth! Joy to the world!
