Sermon: 4th Sunday in Advent
19 December 2021 –
Archdeacon Mark Long
Micah 5:2-5a, Luke 1:46-55 (in place of the Psalm), and Luke 1:39-45; NRSV
Today we begin the fourth week of our Advent journey, and accompanied by Luke’s Gospel we are reminded that the Advent journey is a prophetic one in which we move progressively from a broad vision of the future towards a more specific focus on Jesus’ birth, which we will celebrate in our Christmas services at the end of this week.
We began our Advent journey with Jesus’ prophetic words of his second coming, encouraged to be awake to the signs of God’s presence in our world, to be expectant and – despite the overwhelming nature of these signs – to be hopeful. The past two weeks have focused on John the Baptist as the one who both prepares the way for what God is doing and who calls God’s people to turn from disobedience to lives of loving service.[1]
Today we are presented with Elizabeth and Mary, an encounter marked by Elizabeth’s joyful affirmation of the special blessing of God’s presence with Mary and the child she carries. It is an encounter that elicits a prophetic song of praise from Mary, which we know as the Magnificat and which has taken the place of the Psalm in today’s lection. Mary’s song of praise is intriguing in terms of our understanding of prophesy, which we often expect to be about what God is going to do, as Mary actually reflects on what God has already done, activity that Jesus’ birth and subsequent ministry will affirm. Mary’s song is prophetic in that it asserts God’s nature, and does so in a way that is likely to leave us discomforted when we look carefully at what Mary proclaims. It is not a comforting message for those who are privileged and resourced, “… the Mighty One has … scattered the proud … brought down the powerful … and sent the rich away empty.”[2] The Good News is reserved for the lowly and hungry, and we hear that “…the Mighty One has … lifted up the lowly … filled the hungry with good things …”[3]
Mary’s song is, however, more than just a comment on privilege and poverty as it also embraces faithfulness: our faithfulness to God and God’s faithfulness to us and to his promises. We hear that God’s “… mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation”[4] and that God “… 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”[5]. For me this is an important and critical point of connection, and I find myself asking, “What does this mean for me as a person of faith, as a person who seeks to be faithful and yet is privileged and resourced?” I ask it also for us as a community, and you may have asked this question at some point, too? I am aware that I all too easily mould an answer to deflect my unease, and I do wonder how much of our theology avoids this question?
What Mary’s song does do is solidly root the injustices of the day in the awareness of God and calls the faithful to ensure that their experience of God’s mercy is lived out in just action. Stephen[6] reminded us in his sermon last week that comfort, joy, hope, and peace are what we share as we wait together for the coming of Christ, and we need to reflect on what these gifts look like in the context of the Magnificat, in the context of what God has already done and in the context of what God has affirmed in the birth and ministry of Jesus. For you and me it is the need to reflect on how we translate our privilege and resources into just action in lifting up the lowly, in filling the hungry with good things, in ensuring that these gifts of comfort, joy, hope, and peace are equitably shared in our world and contain meaning beyond our own desire for freedom from constraint.
None of this is easy, and perhaps that is the first necessary step: acknowledging that it is difficult to be vulnerable, difficult to step away from our desire to protect our privilege and resources, difficult to truly acknowledge the needs of others in such a manner that their need is justly addressed. John’s baptism required honesty from God’s people, a willingness to move from being self-serving and thoughtless towards others to being loving and caring in service of others and of God. Can you and I find the courage for such honesty? And beyond such honesty, what is the depth of our desire to see our world healed? The gift of the pandemic has been the manner in which it has highlighted so clearly the rifts in our global society, and we cannot claim in any form or manner to be unaware of these fissures in our social fabric; as Elizabeth and Mary would not have been unaware of those of their own time. Today the Gospel of Luke invites us to join with Mary and Elizabeth in acknowledging and celebrating that God looks on us with favour, and calls us to build a more just and merciful society where comfort, joy, hope, and peace actually mean something because they are supported by the just actions of faithful people.
In closing, a brief anecdote and challenge from my personal guru, Irish Poet and Theologian, Pádraig Ó Tuama:
There’s an old anecdote that an order of nuns were expelled from a certain country because their morning recitation of the Magnificat was deemed to be a challenge to a dictatorial government. It’s probably not entirely true, but I think there’s truth in it nonetheless. Many orders of religious women have spoken truth to power and have found their home in the Magnificat, a prayer they pray by heart every morning. Recite the Magnificat and consider how it’s a psalm of challenge, of resistance and of hope for a changed order.[7]
And likewise, a closing prayer by Pádraig. Let us pray,
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