Preacher's Post: Advent 4

The Word

 

Micah 5:2-5a
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-55

Mary sings her magnificat

 

Headline Words

The US steps up to the plate in Copenhagen

The US Senate shuffles around the plate

Quotable Words

 

“A blessing is the visible, perceptible, effective proximity of God. A blessing demands to be passed on; it communicates itself to other people. To be blessed is to be oneself a blessing.” ~~Dietrich Bonhoeffer 

Preachable Words

Advent 4 2009   Trinity Episcopal Church, Santa Barbara

 

 

  

Eight years ago, on a December Thursday morning in 2001, a group of young women gathered with me up in the Fireside Room. I’d heard from some of them that they sometimes found it hard to fit in at Trinity, they felt marginalized—all were young mothers, at home with infants or toddlers. It was hard to make it to church events that took place at suppertime or all day on a Saturday. They didn’t see their needs reflected in scheduling or in leadership here—maybe hard to imagine now, but most of us at that time were not young parents! So some of these women had been trying other more kid-friendly churches, where parking and child care were abundant. But they often found in those places that the theology was wafer-thin; they told me that they wanted something to challenge their minds and nurture their spirits. And they didn’t want to talk about diapers or teething.

 

So we gathered together around a lit candle and the story of Mary and Elizabeth. And then each person told her own Mary-Elizabeth story, remembering what it was like to share that kind of news. It quickly became a time of deep sharing, with memories of joy and pain; the Kleenex box was passed around the circle more than the breakfast rolls.

And the Mothers’ Circle was born. Telling stories about our personal lives, gathered around a story from the tradition, like Luke’s gospel stories, is nurturing to the soul. But then what? What happens after the story-telling? I’ll tell you now, that I sometimes found myself frustrated with the Mothers’ Circle. I sometimes found it hard to move the conversation beyond the weekly check-in, beyond the sharing of news, beyond the comforting connection that happened around the lit candle. It could be hard-going to push forward into talking about a reading or a larger issue or taking action. My question was always “What’s next?”

After all, that’s what Luke’s gospel story about Mary and Elizabeth is all about—it’s about what happens to Mary after she tells Elizabeth. It’s about “what’s next?”

 

Look at Mary: she receives a warm greeting, there is resonance and recognition with Elizabeth, and she tells her news. And where does Luke take us next? Elizabeth pronounces a blessing. “Blessed are you among women,” says Elizabeth. “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what the Lord had spoken.”

 

Blessed are you, blessed is she. Now, this is not just a nice thing for Elizabeth to say to Mary. “Oh, blessed are you…” This is a powerful theological statement. This is Beatitude language—the first beatitude of Luke’s gospel. To declare a blessing, a beatitude, is to locate the presence of God in the world. To say that something or someone is blessed is to say “God commends this.” So Mary takes it from there. She gets her cue. She realizes in that moment that she doesn’t get to rest in the welcoming embrace of her cousin. She doesn’t get to settle in for a cozy chat. Mary knows what to do with a blessing, with a beatitude. She knows ‘what’s next.’

 

She sings a song that thrusts her—and all the rest of us ever since—forward into history, forward into God’s desire for humanity. Mary pushes us forward with her odd song about an upside down world.

 “My spirit magnifies the Lord. God has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant..the Mighty One has done great things…he has scattered the proud, he has put down the mighty, he has lifted up the downtrodden, the hungry are filled up, and the rich sent away empty-handed…”

 

Mary knew a little something about the proud, about the mighty—she might not have known about a Caesar away off in Rome, or even a local Herod, but she probably knew the name of the local tax collector, and pretty likely the face of her landlord. She knew where she ranked in the mix, especially now that she was pregnant and unmarried. She knew a whole lot about the lowly and the hungry and the ones who were empty-handed.

 

And in this moment with Elizabeth, Mary knows that it is not all about her, even as it is about the world she knows. She sees with a prophet’s eye, she sees the signs of the times, and she sings a prophet’s refrain, naming God’s action in the world.

 

Look at what God does, Mary sings, look at what God commends, look at what God wants: God lifts up the lowly. God sets free the captive.

The song of Mary announces that the center of gravity in the world has shifted. Mary’s song is the clarion call, the alarm bell, of revolution, a revolution that would rock the world of Caesar.  

In time, we can only guess, she teaches her song to her baby boy, and he grows up to sing it too: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the mourning, the peacemakers, the persecuted...a song that turns upside down Caesar’s proclamation about who is blessed and who is not.

Remember, to declare someone or something blessed is to declare God’s presence in the world.  Blessings reach back to their source in God, back to their source in the creation itself, and so by their very nature blessings propel us forward with creative energy. Dietrich Bonhoeffer described this creative power: “A blessing is the visible, perceptible, effective proximity of God. A blessing demands to be passed on,” he said, “it communicates itself to other people. To be blessed is to be oneself a blessing.”

 

There’s the rub: To be blessed is to become oneself a blessing. A blessing is unstoppable. Mary receives the blessing of her cousin as she receives the blessing of the angel Gabriel, and she gives birth to the child who is to be a blessing to all people, to all time. And her son’s words and deeds carry on the promise of God’s outrageous love to the one who feels cast aside, and the promise of God’s boundless justice to the downtrodden. A blessing is unstoppable. To be blessed is to become a blessing.

So where does all this business about blessing find us, in these few remaining days of Advent, December 2009, these last few days of the first decade of the 21^st century?

 

The only way I know how to think about this blessing business is to do the very  basic work that this Advent season—and the coming Christmas season—asks of us: to make room for Gabriel, and for Elizabeth, to make some space, so that we can pay attention, to listen for the invitation to change within. You just never know who might be your Gabriel. Make room to pay attention, to receive that blessing.

 

And then take the time to travel all the way to your Elizabeth, to tell somebody what’s going on—how is it that God has caught your attention in this moment? What is this notion tugging at the edges of your awareness? What is this stirring deep within?  What is this blessing? What invitation to change can I hear?And if to be blessed is to become a blessing, what then is God asking of me? of you? What’s next?

 

Chances are, the answers will come when we do what Mary did: start singing as if our lives depended on it, singing out our blessing, singing out the ancient and always-new song about finding God in our day, in our world:

 in the Bangladeshi farmer who’s watching his crops diminish everyday as warming seas rise to drench his fields in saline;

 in the pregnant immigrant heading north in search of a home and a job;

in your sister’s struggle with addiction;

in your brother’s struggle to meet uninsured medical bills;

in your own sheer desire to be a blessing to somebody.

 

You know the places. You know the places God shows up in our world, and God calls us to show up too with some small way to care, to make a change, to join in God’s dream of transforming our world. You know the places you want to avoid this Advent, the distractions that keep you busy, the chatter that keeps you from hearing God’s call. I know mine.

 But underneath all our avoidance, all the chatter, all the distractions, God calls to us this Advent, this Christmas, with the promise of blessing. So who is your Gabriel? Where is your Elizabeth? And how will each of sing Mary’s song? What’s next?

AMEN.