"Delight Can't Wait" - Luke 1:46b-55 (December 15, 2019)

Luke 1:46b-55

And Mary said,
’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.
He 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 for ever.’

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“My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn.”

These beautiful lines that form the refrain of our opening hymn are a perfect pairing with today’s passage from Luke’s gospel.  There have been many times since finding out that we’re expecting a child that Tricia and I have done the ritual I’m pretty sure every first-time expecting couple does:  looking at each other with a mixture of excitement and fear, saying to one another, “Everything’s about to change.”  Or, to put it in more liturgical language, “the world is about to turn.”

Mary knew that everything was about to turn, because she knew that what was happening to her was not business as usual.  She was a poor brown-skinned teenage girl from a marginalized community in the Middle East, soon to be a refugee escaping the wrath of a cruel politician.  And God had chosen her.  Why?  We don’t know.  We don’t know any more than we know why God chose Abraham, Paul, Peter, or Elizabeth.  But God chose Mary and Mary knew it.  It’s pretty hard to miss when an angel shows up out of the blue one day and informs you and you’re pregnant and it’s not with your fiancee.  Mary knew that things were about to change in a big way.

And so, Mary does what the church does when things are changing, we sing.  We sing when people are born.  We sing when people die.  We sing when people are baptized, when they are married, when they are ordained, when they are sad and happy and everything in between.  Mary sings because singing is a natural human response when God is on the move.

Mary sings and in so doing joins a list of other women in the Bible who sing when God does something big:

In the Book of Exodus, Miriam sings when the God saves the Israelites by destroying Pharaoh’s army in the depths of the Red Sea.

In the Book of 1st Samuel, Hannah sings when God gives her a child after years of infertility.

In the Book of Judges, Deborah sings with joy when God gives the Israelites victory over their enemy, the Canaanites.

And now, in the Gospel of Luke, Mary joins the chorus by singing of what God is doing in the song that we’ve come to call the Magnificat.  She visits her relative Elizabeth, who has also become miraculously pregnant, growing in her womb a baby John the Baptist that just can’t help but leap with joy when Mary enters the room.  The two women, one young and one old, share a moment together that can only be had between two expectant mothers.  And in that moment that is pregnant with wonder, another song is born as Mary opens her lips and sings.

Barbara Brown Taylor has said the following of today’s passage:  “‘My soul magnifies the Lord,’ Mary sings right there in Elizabeth’s living room, ‘and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.’ Elizabeth and Zechariah are the first to hear her song, but it is not just for them. It is also for her, Mary, and for the Mighty One who has done great things for her. It is for Gabriel, who first gave her the good news, and for all who will benefit from it—for the proud and powerful who will be relieved of their swelled heads, for the hungry who will be filled with good things, for the rich who will be sent away empty so that they have room in them for more than money can buy. Her song is for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—for Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel—for every son and daughter of Israel who thought God had forgotten the promise to be with them forever, to love them forever, to give them fresh and endless life. It was all happening inside of Mary, and she was so sure of it that she was singing about it ahead of time—not in the future tense but in the past, as if the promise had already come true. Prophets almost never get their verb tenses straight, because part of their gift is being able to see the world as God sees it—not divided into things that are already over and things that have not happened yet, but as eternally unfolding mystery that surprises everyone—maybe even God.” 

Mary was a young prophet, probably around the age of climate activist Greta Thunberg who was selected a few days ago as Time Magazine’s person of the year.  Often, men in power don’t like to listen to young girls like them.  We don’t always like to listen to prophets like Greta, or prophets like Mary, because they sometimes tell us things that upset the way things are.  

Mary did not sing because God was carrying on business as usual.  Mary’s song was a song of thanksgiving because God is getting read to stir the pot!  Her song is a song of thanksgiving because God’s gonna trouble the water.  Her song is a song of thanksgiving because the fruit of her womb has made these promises so real to her that she can’t even speak of them in future tense but, as Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us, in the past tense.  Because prophets have this uncanny and, frankly, dangerous ability to see the world not as it is but as God wants it to be.  But when young girls like Mary sing their truth, they can get publicly ridiculed by the powers that be, as we saw happen this very week in the news.

But, you and I have a different option to take.  Instead of bullying young women who bring us God’s truth, we can join their song.  We can sing our own Magnificat which bears truth to the radical, subversive love of God that is soon to be born in our very arms.  We can choose to sing not only the Magnificat of the first chapter of Luke but we can also sing of the Magnificat in the 35th chapter of Isaiah.

You have to suspect that Mary was familiar with the words of Isaiah 35 because they fit in perfectly with the poetry of her Magnificat.  The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom.  The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.  Waters shall break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.  The lame shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the speechless will sing for joy.

Both Magnificat’s, both in Luke and Isaiah, speak of the delight of the divine reversal that is about to happen.  The world is indeed about to turn.  In fact, when we put on our “prophet hat,” we must admit that the world has already turned.  We just don’t always act like it.

But today’s passages remind us that there is delight to be found when we embrace the change that God ushers in by the very presence of God’s one and only child, in flesh and bones just like us.  There is delight, - delight that cannot wait - within the songs that young women like Mary, Miriam, Deborah, and Hannah sing.

There is a song that must be sung because, as Henri Nouwen has said, “You are the place God chose to dwell.”  You don’t have to be a young girl like Mary to have God dwell within you.  God has chosen each and every one of us to dwell within.  That is the truth of Advent and the truth of Christmas.  That is reason to sing.  That is the source of our own Magnificat’s.  Because delight can’t wait - and so we sing.

In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of God’s children say:  Amen.

"Worshiping a Wounded God" - Luke 23:33-43 (November 24, 2019)

Luke 23:33-43

When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. [[ Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’]] And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!’ The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, ‘If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!’ There was also an inscription over him, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’

One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’

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Well, here we are - the last stop on the liturgical calendar.  After journeying through a very long period of “green” during Ordinary Time, our final destination before beginning a new liturgical year is always Christ the King Sunday (or Reign of Christ Sunday, depending on who you ask).  Next week, when we gather back in this room for worship, the sanctuary will look much different.  We’ll switch to hues of blues and purples among the greens that will hang around us.  But before we sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” or “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” we have one final stop.  Before we anticipate the wondrous birth of Jesus, Christ the King Sunday is an opportunity to observe the end of his life - or, more specifically, what the Romans Empire thought would be the end of his life.  I like to see Christ the King Sunday as reminding us who it is that we are so soon to be welcoming among us as a tiny little baby, swaddled in cloth in Mary’s lap. Today, we are reminded that there is only one King, only one Savior, only one person who can truly save us. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about kings this past week while this sermon percolated in my brain.  I’ve been thinking about King Friday XIII from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.  I’ve been thinking about King Richard in Disney’s 1973 animated classic, “Robin Hood” (since Tricia and I have recently subscribed to Disney+ and have been feelings rather nostalgic lately).  But one king that sticks out in my mind is King Henry VIII.  

King Henry VIII was the King of England from 1509 until his death in 1547.  You may remember him for his six wives.  You may remember learning their fates in school: “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.”  That first marriage to Catherine of Aragon - or, rather, Henry’s attempt to annul it - was the reason for the birth of the Church of England.  Since the Catholic Church would not grant him a divorce from Catherine, he just decided to go ahead and start his own church and name himself - not Jesus Christ - as the head of it.

I’ve also been thinking about King Henry VIII because the bible that he commissioned was in this very room a few weeks ago during Michael Morgan’s historic bible presentation.  Some of you may remember the intricate wood carving on one of its pages.  In the middle of the page are the four gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Bordering the left and the right of the page are the 12 tribes of Israel.  At the very top middle of the page is a depiction of God which is rather tiny - about the size of a dime.  Then, right below God, taking up no less than a full third of the entire page, is an enormous depiction of King Henry VIII (which tells you a bit about what he thought about himself).

All this is to say that this reminds me that history has given us a long list of kings with, shall we say, overinflated egos.

But you and I don’t worship a king like that.  We don’t worship a king that stays removed in an ivory tower.  We don’t worship a king who has made his power through coercive means.  We don’t worship a king who who is safely removed from the suffering and despair of the world around us.

We worship a very different kind of king.

We worship a wounded king.  We worship a wounded God.

We have all heard the story before. The story of Jesus being placed on trial and sentenced to a criminal’s death by crucifixion. The long and arduous walk carrying the cross to Golgotha, the place of the Skull. The nailing of his arms and legs to a cross where he would hang, in agony, between two criminals who deserved their punishment. 

Not once, not twice, but three times as he hangs on that cross is Jesus told to save himself.  In cruel mockery, the soldiers, the crowd, and even one of the condemned criminals hanging next to him shout out for him to save himself.

And you know what, I think Jesus could have done just that.  Surely a God so powerful as to create the entire world had the capacity to, in an instant, escape the physical and emotional pain being inflicted upon him.  But unlike any other king who would go to extreme measures to avoid appearing vulnerable or weak, our King made a different choice.

Our King decided to remain on the cross and die.

And that decision makes all the difference.

We worship a God who is not afraid to show us his wounds.  Think of it, when the resurrected Jesus appeared to the disciples in that upper room in John’s Gospel, he does not present himself unblemished.  Instead, he displayed his wounds, even inviting Thomas to touch them to prove their realness.  

We worship a wounded king.  We worship a wounded God.

And we follow that God because even in the midst of God’s wounded-ness, that same God assures us that we will be in God in paradise.  Because when the crucified Jesus said that to the criminal hanging next to him, he speaks to every one of us.  

We are wounded but God loves us just as we are.  And God compels us to stand in solidarity with others around us who cry out in pain as Jesus did from the cross.  We follow a King who is intimately present in other people’s suffering because that same God is acutely aware of what that suffering feels like.

And that vulnerability is power.  

That kind of vulnerability is a power that cannot be bought with money or acquired through the strongest army.  It cannot be found in political sway or social media influence.  That kind of power is reserved for one person and one person only:  Jesus Christ.

I’ll end this sermon with the following words from Brené Brown on the power of vulnerability:

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”

So let us follow the path of our wounded God, share in God’s vulnerability, and care for others in theirs.

Friends, all praise and glory to our King who reigns eternal, our one foundation.

In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.  Amen.

"Well, THAT Escalated Quickly: Part 2" - Luke 9:28-43a (March 3, 2019)

"Blessings and Woes" - Luke 6:17-26 (February 17, 2019)