Luke 1:46-53
“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.”
Today is the Fourth Sunday in Advent and the theme for this week is Love. The words I just read consist of the opening lines of the poem we commonly know today as Mary’s Magnificat – her response to the angel Gabriel’s announcement that “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and therefore a child will be born who will be holy and will be called the Son of God.”
I can remember thinking, when I was younger, that Mary took this news awfully calmly and with no questioning at all. It was only as I got older and became more familiar with the writings of the Old Testament prophets that I understood that Mary had been raised to be prepared for exactly such an occurrence.
The Hebrew people of New Testament times knew their ancient scriptures. They didn’t live among the thousands of distractions that we have today. The people Mary came from were poor. They went to the Temple and they heard the readings, over and over ..... and learned them – especially those that spoke of hope for the poor.
Here, briefly, are just a handful of prophecies that Mary was most likely raised with.
Mary may have been surprised that she was the one chosen, but she likely would not be at all surprised that it would be someone exactly like her – someone from the poor, the unnoticed, the power-less. Her words here are simply the prelude to the words we would hear years later from the Sermon on the Mount, particularly the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth... Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
God is God of all people – absolutely -- each and every one of us is child’s beloved child. Even the people we don’t like. But the tenderest urges of God’s heart turn toward the poor – they always have.
The Old Testament prophets, speaking for God, have always decried the greed and selfishness that allowed the comfortable to accumulate while the poor lived with less and less. Even the kings of that time were not exempt from public chastisement for their wrongdoings. The beloved David was publicly humbled and forced to atone for sending Bathsheba’s husband to die in battle so that David could possess her for himself. Being king did not protect him from God’s judgment.
How different this seems from the kind of secular worship so many people seem to hold for the rich and powerful today – actors, popular singers, and more lately billionaires – whose bad actions get shrugged off and whose greed never appears to be satisfied – always wanting more and more – while others live in squalor and children go without.
It is astonishing to me the number of people on social media who immediately leap to the defense of the wealthiest among us whenever a suggestion is made that perhaps they should share some of their obscene wealth with those who have so little. I truly try not to be judgmental, but how can they live in peaceful comfort while others suffer? Where did they learn to not care?
When we actually read the prophets, or the New Testament story of the life of Jesus – not just the words he said, but the life he lived – we see that he lived, presumably by choice, among ordinary people who worked for their living, and that he constantly interacted with those who could not even work. While he did interact with the rich, he did not show them any particular deference above what he offered to anyone. He did not accrue wealth or possessions – instead, he gathered people to himself.
This is the Love that we find on this fourth Sunday in Advent, and on any Sunday of the year if we are listening for it. It is not that God loves the poor more than the rich. It is that God repeatedly tells the poor that they are worthy of both the world’s goods and of God’s love. God also reminds the rich that their wealth will buy them nothing in God’s realm and that they need to let go of their greed so they can receive the love God wants to offer them.
There is no admiration of the rich in Mary’s song. In fact, there is rejoicing that God has brought down the rich and “filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” Mary’s God recognized the needs of the poor and sought to organize the world so that their needs were cared for.
This can be a hard lesson for many today because we, as a culture, value status and wealth. Nonetheless, we often hear that “money is the root of all evil,” but that is not the correct quote (which is from 1 Timothy by the way). The scripture here reads “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”
Money is not intrinsically evil. Money is a tool, an object. It is the love of the power and the possessions money can buy that causes us occasionally to overlook those with neither money nor power.
As followers of Jesus we are called to building a world based in equity – sharing what we have with those who have not, and receiving from them what they can share with us -- God’s love. Not greedily gathering for ourselves but gathering in order to share with others.
On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, this Sunday of Love, may we hear the message and value all our brothers and sisters above the world’s wealth, that our souls, too, may lovingly magnify the Lord.
Amen
I can remember thinking, when I was younger, that Mary took this news awfully calmly and with no questioning at all. It was only as I got older and became more familiar with the writings of the Old Testament prophets that I understood that Mary had been raised to be prepared for exactly such an occurrence.
The Hebrew people of New Testament times knew their ancient scriptures. They didn’t live among the thousands of distractions that we have today. The people Mary came from were poor. They went to the Temple and they heard the readings, over and over ..... and learned them – especially those that spoke of hope for the poor.
Here, briefly, are just a handful of prophecies that Mary was most likely raised with.
- From Isaiah: The promised one would come from the line of Jesse, the father of King David. “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a branch will bear fruit. The spirit of the Lord will rest on him.”
- From Micah: That he would be born not among the high and mighty in Jerusalem, but among the poor in tiny Bethlehem: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”
- From Isaiah, again: That he would be born of a virgin: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and you will call him Immanuel.”
- And Isaiah, again: That he would not have been recognized as anyone important. “Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”
- And lastly, that his mother would be unmarried: “Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; do not be discouraged, for you will not suffer disgrace; for you will forget the shame of your youth, for your Maker is your husband, and the Lord of hosts is his name.”
Mary may have been surprised that she was the one chosen, but she likely would not be at all surprised that it would be someone exactly like her – someone from the poor, the unnoticed, the power-less. Her words here are simply the prelude to the words we would hear years later from the Sermon on the Mount, particularly the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth... Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
God is God of all people – absolutely -- each and every one of us is child’s beloved child. Even the people we don’t like. But the tenderest urges of God’s heart turn toward the poor – they always have.
The Old Testament prophets, speaking for God, have always decried the greed and selfishness that allowed the comfortable to accumulate while the poor lived with less and less. Even the kings of that time were not exempt from public chastisement for their wrongdoings. The beloved David was publicly humbled and forced to atone for sending Bathsheba’s husband to die in battle so that David could possess her for himself. Being king did not protect him from God’s judgment.
How different this seems from the kind of secular worship so many people seem to hold for the rich and powerful today – actors, popular singers, and more lately billionaires – whose bad actions get shrugged off and whose greed never appears to be satisfied – always wanting more and more – while others live in squalor and children go without.
It is astonishing to me the number of people on social media who immediately leap to the defense of the wealthiest among us whenever a suggestion is made that perhaps they should share some of their obscene wealth with those who have so little. I truly try not to be judgmental, but how can they live in peaceful comfort while others suffer? Where did they learn to not care?
When we actually read the prophets, or the New Testament story of the life of Jesus – not just the words he said, but the life he lived – we see that he lived, presumably by choice, among ordinary people who worked for their living, and that he constantly interacted with those who could not even work. While he did interact with the rich, he did not show them any particular deference above what he offered to anyone. He did not accrue wealth or possessions – instead, he gathered people to himself.
This is the Love that we find on this fourth Sunday in Advent, and on any Sunday of the year if we are listening for it. It is not that God loves the poor more than the rich. It is that God repeatedly tells the poor that they are worthy of both the world’s goods and of God’s love. God also reminds the rich that their wealth will buy them nothing in God’s realm and that they need to let go of their greed so they can receive the love God wants to offer them.
There is no admiration of the rich in Mary’s song. In fact, there is rejoicing that God has brought down the rich and “filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” Mary’s God recognized the needs of the poor and sought to organize the world so that their needs were cared for.
This can be a hard lesson for many today because we, as a culture, value status and wealth. Nonetheless, we often hear that “money is the root of all evil,” but that is not the correct quote (which is from 1 Timothy by the way). The scripture here reads “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”
Money is not intrinsically evil. Money is a tool, an object. It is the love of the power and the possessions money can buy that causes us occasionally to overlook those with neither money nor power.
As followers of Jesus we are called to building a world based in equity – sharing what we have with those who have not, and receiving from them what they can share with us -- God’s love. Not greedily gathering for ourselves but gathering in order to share with others.
On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, this Sunday of Love, may we hear the message and value all our brothers and sisters above the world’s wealth, that our souls, too, may lovingly magnify the Lord.
Amen
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