We did not actually cancel worship on the 20th of December (not the 10 AM service anyway) - but no one came due to the weather... so now, a bit delayed, is the sermon that would have been on that day - and actually was: I preached it to myself!
I've always been a fan of music
Some of my earliest memories are of singing – my mom tells me I used to sing myself to sleep when I was a baby – and listening to Sesame Street records that told a story, that invited us in – to sing along, to dance, to laugh, to imagine we were there with them, that we were a part of whatever was going on .
So it makes some sense that I would like musicals. The Sound of Music, West Side Story, Singing in the Rain – where the story is told through song & dance – telling the story in a different way – and while I know some spoken quotes from all of those shows, I can sing you whole songs from memory...
But not everyone likes musicals – they require a certain willing suspension of disbelief. I mean really, who responds to a situation by bursting out with song out of nowhere? And usually they start dancing too – these whole elaborate numbers & everyone just instinctively knows where to go & what to do & what words to sing and the harmony & counter- melodies and all that – it could never happen. People don't do that in real life.
But that's kinda what happens here in the gospel -
Mary's had a run-in with the angel Gabriel, who tells her she's gonna have the Son of God,
the one who will be the savior of his people.
And Mary, young, teenage, unwed Mary, says, “Okay! Sounds good to me!”
and Gabriel leaves
& off Mary,
young, teenaged, unwed mother-to-be Mary,
goes from way up north in Nazareth of Galilee,
some distance down to an unnamed town in the hill country of Judea
– quite a ways south –
and Elizabeth, her cousin,
her much older cousin who is also expecting
– feels her baby (John the Baptist, btw) leap in her womb.
Elizabeth blesses Mary, amazed at all that is going on,
and Mary,
well she does what anyone of us would do -
she starts to sing!
Luke says, “and Mary said...”
so maybe she herself did not actually start to sing,
but even so,
she comes out with this amazing poem that has since been set to music
countless numbers of times;
it's been used in evening prayer for centuries
One of the pastors at our clergy Bible study this week asked if we had it memorized
– as a Psalm to sing –
and I had to say no –
but I do know the version we use here at St. John's for Advent evening prayer
– the Holden Evening Prayer version -
and it's a beautiful song:
My soul proclaims your greatness, oh God,
and my spirit rejoices in you;
You have looked with love on your servant here & blessed me all my life through...
Beautiful.
And like much good music in my life, it has sunk down in me.
It reverberates long after I stop singing it.
It echoes.
It wells up.
It sings itself within my heart and my mind.
Like those Sesame street records of old,
like the musicals I have come to know & love,
it has taken up residence within me;
it invites me in
– to sing, to pray,
to enter into Mary's story
& hear it, to sing it as my own.
It does it the way all good music does,
without my even really noticing it.
I know the words, but I don't give them much thought.
Except once in a while,
like when they show up in the lectionary,
and I read them instead of singing along,
and I realize again that these words of Mary are not just a song of praise.
They are a song of sedition.
They words that could get a young, teenaged, unwed mother-to-be killed.
Because this is not just a song between a young woman & her God.
It is not just a song about their personal relationship.
This is not just a song that gives thanks to God for doing great things for Mary,
for looking on his lowly servant with favor & blessing her.
Mary goes on to sing this song of a God who turns the world upside-down!
God shows strength with his arm,
God scatters the proud,
God has brought down the powerful & lifted up the lowly.
God has filled the hungry, but has sent the rich away – empty.
This is not a sentimental little song you'd find printed on the inside of a Hallmark card
This is a protest song!
This is a song against the powers that be!
Sing these words in the midst of an oppressive regime,
and you're likely to find yourself accused of treason or rebellion or worse!
And read the words to this ancient Christian anthem
even in a democratic nation proud of its unalienable right to free speech,
and you might start to get a little uncomfortable.
Not because you are worried that you'll be hauled off to jail,
or accused of stirring up rebellion,
but because you start to wonder whose side God is really on,
because you get to thinking about who the proud are in this world;
who the powerful are;
who the rich are.
And it might dawn on you,
citizen of the most powerful country of the world,
resident in the richest nation on the planet,
as it stands here near the beginning of the 21st century
after the birth of this savior we have so longed for,
that the people Mary is singing about God overturning
are people like
us.
This colossal role reversal that she celebrates –
that the church has celebrated down through the centuries –
that Christians have celebrated in the millennia since Luke 1st wrote this gospel down –
This is a role reversal that will upend not just those people we choose.
It's a role reversal that will upend us too.
It'll pull the rug out from under our feet.
It'll take away our certainty about all of those things we have used
to make us feel confident,
to make us feel secure,
to make us feel safe.
This song,
springing forth from the mouth of a young, teenaged, unwed mother-to-be,
sings,
as so many of our readings have this Advent season,
of the end to life as we know it.
But it sings of a new beginning:
The beginning
Of life as God has intended it to be since the beginning of time,
Where the valleys are filled and the mountains are made low;
Where the crooked are made straight and the rough ways smooth.
A new beginning
Where the hungry are fed,
And the lowly are lifted up,
Where the imbalances and injustices of our world are made right.
And it starts here & now,
as God chooses the young, the insignificant, the vulnerable
to bear the only Son of God,
to bring forth the Savior of the world,
and she breaks forth in song!
Reminding herself, reminding us of what God has done,
and is doing,
and has promised to do,
in a world that needs to be –
Not turned upside down –
but finally,
amazingly,
turned right-side up!
Through the grace and love of God
entering the world
in lowliness,
in poverty,
but also
in great,
unending,
love.
May this be the song of our hearts.
It is calling for us to enter the story,
and make it our own.
Amen.
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