December 18 - Advent 4, Year B (RCL)
“Christmas
is for children,”
sang Glen Campbell in 1968.
And he brought to mind
a brightly decorated tree with tinsel and bubble lights,
and a family in pajamas
excitedly exploring
their stockings.
And Christmas in church
is a time for Victorian sentimentality,
for rosy cheeked angels
and stumbling shepherds
and a sweet and blessedly silent baby Jesus
asleep in the hay.
It’s still six days
until Christmas Eve,
six days left
of this season called Advent,
this time of preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ.
And if Christmas is for children,
Advent
is for adults.
In the fourth century, Advent became a time for fasting;
for many centuries, the season focussed on the four last things: death, judgement, heaven and hell.
Those have become less of an emphasis over recent years,
as the focus has turned more to hopeful expectation,
but we’re kidding ourselves
if we thought that lets us off the hook.
Because the season might be more hopeful,
but the hope it holds
is not simply the hope of a baby,
but the hope of a new world.
And nowhere is that clearer
than in the canticle set for today,
the words we read where we would normally have a psalm,
the words spoken by the pregnant Mary
when she visited her cousin Elizabeth,
words of celebration
and prophecy
and change.
Mary begins conventionally enough,
recounting the enormous sense of blessing
that she has experienced.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
And then she continues
with what sounds like
a recitation
of all the good things
that God has done for God’s people.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.
Except,
except
it’s not really true.
Because if you look at what was going on
back in the first century,
the rich were rich
and the poor were poor,
the hungry were hungry
and the well fed well fed,
the mighty still had their thrones
and the lowly sat in the gutters.
Mary seems
to have got it wrong.
There’s no evidence
of the mighty cast down
or the lowly lifted,
the hungry filled
and the rich empty.
But no,
what Mary was doing
was drawing on
the tradition of the prophets,
naming
the world
as God would have it be,
where justice
is at the very heart of society,
where inequality
is banished.
Listen to the words of Isaiah:
Cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:16b-17)
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin? (Isaiah 58:6-7)
Or 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? (Micah 6:8)
Mary is calling on the traditions of the prophets
and naming the world as God intends,
naming a world renewed
with the coming of Jesus Christ.
Remember how Jesus himself described his mission?
When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’” (Luke 4:16-21)
The birth of Jesus
the coming of God among is
was going to bring about something new - God’s kingdom come
on earth,
as we pray in the Lord’s prayer,
God’s kingdom come on earth
as it is in heaven.
A world transformed,
a world where everything
is turned upside down,
everything
is changed.
And all by the imminent birth
of a baby.
Mary speaks
as if it has already happened,
and it has, in God’s time.
Because once the baby was born,
the end was assured.
God’s kingdom will come.
We just live in the time in between,
waiting
for that kingdom
in all its fullness.
And not just waiting.
Because the way God works
is to work through us.
We are the ones
who will bring about that kingdom.
We are the ones
who share in the mission of Christ.
We are the ones
called to be in the business
of turning the world
upside down.
And if we don’t, someone else will,
following the call of God,
and we’ll
be left behind.
Mary’s words are dangerous.
They’re inflammatory.
And they are
the word of God.
One of the places
you can see people
trying to work out
what it means
to share in this work of God, this work of Christ,
of bringing about God’s kingdom,
is in what’s happening with the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Yesterday
a bishop, a priest and a bunch of protestors
were arrested
as they occupied a piece of land
belonging to Trinity Wall Street.
They wanted a place
to set up camp
for the winter,
rather than traveling to church basements in the boroughs
each night to sleep.
Trinity owns a piece of land - actually, Trinity owns a lot of land -
but this land is vacant right now,
waiting for Spring to come and with it some outdoor art installations.
Occupy Wall Street wanted to use the land to camp on,
and to set up a kitchen to feed homeless people, and a free medical clinic.
And Trinity said no.
Now Trinity has a great record
of working for justice.
They fund some amazing initiatives,
and they have offered meeting spaces to the Occupy movement.
But you have to notice the contrast -
after 9/11
they opened their chapel to first responders 24/7
not caring about the damage that might be done by fire boots on pews,
and dust and mud and ash.
But when Occupy Wall Street asked them allow putting some porta potties outside that same chapel
and a priest offered to clean them himself, they said no.
It was that same priest
who was arrested yesterday
on Trinity's land.
The issue here
is not about who is right and who is wrong.
I suspect it’s a bit of both, on both sides.
The issue is,
how will we be part of this amazing thing
that Mary proclaims,
the incredible transformation
that will be the kingdom of God
on earth.
What might it look like
for us?
And what are the things holding us back?
Are we beneficiaries of the system as it is?
Are we afraid of what we might lose?
Are we scared that the world as we know it
might change?
It’s easy to forget
how profoundly disturbing
the gospel of Jesus Christ
is.
How profoundly disturbing, and how profoundly promising.
God has done great things for us,
and calls us to do great things
for him, in Christ’s name.
So that we can say, with Mary,
Our lives proclaim the greatness of the Lord,
our spirits rejoice in God our Savior;
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servants.
From this day all generations will call us blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for us,
and holy is his Name.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010