Gospel Luke 1:39-55
The holy gospel according to Luke, the first chapter.
Glory to you, O Lord.
Mary didn’t waste a minute. She got up and traveled to a town in Judah in the hill country, straight to Zachariah’s house, and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby in her womb leaped. She was filled with the Holy Spirit, and sang out exuberantly,
You’re so blessed among women, and the babe in your womb, also blessed! And why am I so blessed that the mother of my Lord visits me? The moment the sound of your greeting entered my ears,
The babe in my womb skipped like a lamb for sheer joy. Blessed woman, who believed what God said, believed every word would come true!
And Mary said,
I’m bursting with God-news;
I’m dancing the song of my Savior God…
I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now. The Gospel of the Lord.
Mary’s song bursts out of her. She cannot contain it. As she says in the Message translation, “I’m bursting with God-news; I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.” I love this translation because sometimes music just grabs you. Hum a line from Hark the Herald Angels… and I’m singing the whole song. Play a few bars of a swing tune – and my feet are moving. Songs can inspire us, uplift us, and bring us great joy or move us to tears. Whether it is the notes, the songs, the melodies or maybe the silence in-between… but somehow music can create space in the human heart – where it wasn’t before.
Music like this can inspire action. There’s a scene in the movie Casa Blanca in which the Nazi soldiers commandeered the piano in a saloon and are playing and singing the German anthem. The saloon was filled with a variety of people – many of whom were there because they were trying to escape the war and they feared German occupation of that country. Most of them had become uncomfortably silent at the sound of the takeover of the music in the salon. But one man, Lazlo, a leader in the resistance movement, goes up to the band and tells them to play the French national anthem. He directs the band and begins to sing – and suddenly – all of the French nationalists stand and with tears in their eyes proudly sing their anthem. None of them would have dared to stand up and speak about their resistance to the occupying army. But they all stood up and sang.
This is just a scene in a movie. But music has always been a part of resistance movements. Spirituals were the backbone of the freedom movement for slaves during the civil war and songs of freedom like “we shall overcome” opened hearts and minds, providing strength and unity to those marching for peace with the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Mary’s song is a radical resistance song – but with one big difference. She proclaims God’s kingdom – as if God had already transformed the world, feeding those who are hungry and lifting up the victims while putting bullies in their place. She sings with confidence that the God who opened the womb of her cousin Elizabeth and who placed a child within her – not only could – but had already put into place what was needed to accomplish God’s Kingdom.
The world did not magically change in the way that a Disney film might portray it -- with a wave of a wand and sparkling and glistening stars. But the world did change – God came into the world in human flesh…as a little vulnerable baby. And that…changed everything.
Like a prophet who sees the world through God’s eyes, Mary, in her song, proclaims the ways in which God’s kingdom changes and transforms the world. Filled with the Holy Spirit, she has a vision of the end of the story and is given eyes to see the justice and righteousness of the world that God is creating – not only for her, but for all God’s people.
But that is not the world that she lives in. She lives in a community that is occupied by a military force and is filled with corruption, violence, inequality and injustice. As Simeon will tell her, a sword will pierce her heart. And yet… she sings. She sings a song of hope and expectation, confidently counting on God to bring in God’s kingdom.
Like Mary, we too can sing songs of hope and joy and expectation even though we don’t live in a perfect world either. Our world is full of disease, corruption, violence, inequality and injustice, just like hers. But we also know that the problems of this world are no match for the love of God in Christ Jesus. Like Mary, we can trust in the promise that God will “pile on the blessings” – and be with us always.
And so… I want to invite you to sing today – with your masks on – because God’s realm has not yet rid our world of disease. Yet, still we sing. Sing out to proclaim the transformation of our world by God who has already come and is already at work. Sing out with joy for what God has done – and for what God has promised to do and will do. For, like Mary, we can trust that God will accomplish all that God intends. And this – is Good News. Thanks be to God who makes it so. Amen.
Sing
Notes from a flute
or a Medieval recorder.
Madrigals sing
bringing calm to disorder.
Notes, songs, harmonies
– the silence in-between –
create spaces in the human heart
open to new scenes.
Deep yearnings cry in new songs
while tyrants silence the arts.
Yet, deep, deep, deep in the underground
A new sound is being born.
So sing, Oh, blessed Mary,
radical zealot, gentle mother;
sing of the Time of Jubilee
coming in our newborn brother.
Sing blessed Mother.
Magnify the Lord.
Sing of longed-for justice.
Embody God’s new Word.
“The haughty rich now brought low;
the humble poor lifted high;
no more vast inequities!”
Your cry up to the skies.
Sing, blessed Mary,
become a new song;
birth earth’s longed-for Messiah
who rights our every wrong.
Teach us, Oh Mary,
the song of new birth,
so all of us can embody
God’s peace here on earth.
@A Poem a Sunday – December 14, 2015 – Kenn Storck
: Copyright@A Poem a Sunday by Kenn Storck used by permission.