|
Back to Sermon Archives
December 24, 2006
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture:
Micah 5:2-5a, Magnificat, Luke 1:39-45
“Favored Fulfillment: Beware Babes Bearing
Beatitudes!”
This morning we stick to Advent -- still waiting and watching for signs of the
promise of God to deliver all peoples longing and looking for alternatives to
this present age of violence and death. Tonight we slip ever so
mysteriously, awestruck and silent, into Christmas -- the time of deliverance
come and begun with very particular persons among particular peoples and places,
conditions and circumstances – yet deliverance offered and hope for all peoples
everywhere!
In Advent John the Baptist holds up to us the
mirror of needy/greedy self-centeredness. John helps us see the selves we have
become, and repent and reclaim the promise of who we are meant to be. Last week
we spoke of the fear of those who know we are few living well at the expense of
many who live poorly. We spoke of the fairness of God in creating, redeeming,
sustaining all things equally for all peoples! This week Mary invites us to let
our own meager souls magnify God! (It is written, -- “The term Magnificat
refers to (a) Mighty Mouse’s archenemy, (b) the lens of the Hubble Space
Telescope, (c) the heroine in the Broadway musical Cats, or (d) Mary’s
song of praise in the gospel of Luke!”)
This week we speak of the favor shown to Mary
in her lowliness, in her identification with and representation of the
sufferings of all the lowly and the hungry. We speak of the fulfillment of
God’s promise to our ancestors and for their descendants to all generations – as
many as stars in the sky and sands in the sea! – a promise of mercy and justice,
abundance and peace. We are the mirrors and magnifiers, the imagers and the
imaginers of the whole promise of God! We will not settle for anything other,
anything less than fully and freely sharing the gifts and the graces of God with
all of the children of God!
Sometimes I suspect the established church and
culture of this and all times since Constantine have never forgiven God for
choosing women at all! And especially for choosing such radical, rootsy and
revolutionary women as Elizabeth -- too old and barren! -- and Mary -- too young
and fertile! -- to give birth to the Spirit of God in the Flesh of this World!
We remember the words of another radical woman, illiterate ex-slave and preacher
Sojourner Truth, speaking to critics at a Women’s Rights Convention in 1851 --
“Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do
with him!”
Have our church and culture ever forgiven Jesus
for being born to and shaped by such a mom? Such a babe bearing beatitudes!
Bringing forth fresh revelation of God for a time in such need (as ours!) of
prophetic and pastoral vision and voice? Do we forgive Jesus for being Jesus?
Saying and doing the things he does? Expecting us to follow him? In favored
fulfillment of all of God’s promise?
Beginning with the image of God in mirrors of
our own selves? The imagination of God in magnifiers of our own souls? Jesus,
as Mary prophesies, turns us and our world upside-down! And shakes all the
change from our overstuffed pockets!
Tonight we dare re-discover “the hopes and
fears of all the years” hidden and silent in Bethlehem – of all places! “But
you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah -- who are one of the little clans of Judah! –
from you shall come forth!” Bethlehem surely as occupied and oppressed in
American/Israeli times today as in Roman/ Herodian times of Jesus. Now as
then, we still tax the poor in support of the rich. No wonder we fear --
“from generation to generation” – that God will yet scatter the proud, bring the
powerful down from on high, and send the rich empty away! Until things are made
right in Bethlehem, things will be wrong in this world.
Dorothee Soelle writes in our “Words for
Meditation” this morning how differently we may express Mary’s Magnificat today
– “the empty faces of women will be filled with life! / we will become human
beings long awaited by the generations sacrificed before us!” “the craving for
power will go unheeded / their fears will be unnecessary / and exploitation will
come to an end!” She writes elsewhere, “Jesus demands a completely
awakened self-consciousness and a completely open acceptance of others – that
is, a new way of seeing others which recognizes their hopes and fears, even when
they are not clear or where they are expressed in a misunderstandable manner –
yes, even where they are hidden and silent.”
Tonight we pay special attention – awareness,
acceptance, affirmation, action -- to all that is hidden and silent. Tonight we
reclaim a world where all persons and peoples receive vision and voice, image
and imagination.
Tonight the whole world is waiting and watching
– to see if we dare, at last, to open our eyes to truth and proclaim it! Will
we “learn to look into the eyes of each other”? as Rabbi Rami Shapiro continues
our “Gathering Thoughts” for the season. Will we see in the eyes of each other
“the Whole World and the One from Whom the whole world flows!”? Tonight we will
look at each other in awe – animals, parents, child – angels, shepherds, kings –
and us! Some will see and smile. Some will see and cry. Some will not (yet)
see at all. But all will hold tight to each other! And God will sigh a great
sigh of hope for an all-too-hurting world.
Rabbi Harold Schulweis reminds us in our “Added Words for Meditation” to believe
of every child born – “This infant comes from a world of benediction [blessing]
/ into a world waiting for benediction.” Tonight we do not wait in vain.
Tonight God gives God’s own self -- God’s own
sound, God’s own sight, God’s own soul – God’s very own substance and style! --
to all the world. As God’s Spirit is touched and tinged (some would say
tainted) with flesh, so our flesh is touched and tinged (pray God not tainted)
with Spirit. Our matter matters to God! No matter how hard
our matter may be to mirror and magnify! God’s will is to be incarnate in
us – flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood.
Fr. Richard Rohr encourages us to learn as
Jesus does from his mother – “to trust in God’s process [God’s journey of life
into faith] instead of demanding God’s conclusion.” We are surrounded with
peoples of faith today – many of us right here in the Christian faith! – who are
arrogant to believe that any one or any few of us can be ‘saved” apart from
everyone else! To think we can leap to God’s “conclusion” without passing
through God’s “process” for ourselves – for God’s very process is US! We are
the earthen vessels in whom God is revealed!
Rohr reminds us that with our little as-yet
“unmagnified” selves on our little as-yet “insignificant” journeys we, even we –
you and I – represent “a microcosm of what God is doing everywhere and what God
did perfectly in Jesus. If we are to believe the whole [the big image, the
magnified soul], we must start by trying to believe the part [our own image, our
own soul]. If we are to love God’s beginning and God’s conclusion – Jesus! –
then we must try to love God’s process – ourselves!” Truly, Jesus is “Alpha and
Omega!” Just as truly, we – you and I – are beta, and gamma, and delta, and . .
. . In Christ God says “yes” to all flesh!
Tonight each one of us feels just like
Bethlehem, Rohr adds – “too tiny to imagine greatness with in us!” Is that
right? Afraid of our own tiny selves in God’s mirror? Afraid of our own tiny
souls in God’s magnifier? Elizabeth knows the same feeling – “And why has this
happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” A deep sense of our
own inadequacy always self-betrays, self-denies, self-abandons God’s most honest
of prophets and pastors! Yet, Rohr urges each of us, “if I can recognize and
trust this little graciousness, this hidden wholeness, this child in the womb,
then my spirit will be prepared for the greater visitation, the revelation of
the Child of God” – even in my own life! My own self and soul!
How low is God willing, and able, to go for
us? It’s hard to get much lower than -- a woman in patriarchal society! a Jew
under Roman occupation! a peasant in a land of plenty! a youth in a tradition
of elders! a pregnant one at that in the time of betrothal! How dare God
“favor” such a one, not so much with “privilege” as with “response-ability,”
ability to respond to a call – a chance, a choice, a challenge, a change? How
dare God’s own “fulfillment” happen through HER? Already God’s promises are
coming true in her flesh! The poor are already exalted as she is! No wonder
Mary seeks sisterhood and support from her older, wiser, more patient cousin
Elizabeth – this very first meeting of United Methodist Women! While nobody
else can respond to God’s calling for us, it is comforting that we do not have
respond all alone. Sisters like this are with us – Emmanuel!
With God, truly nothing is impossible! What
more proof than two such subversive and scandalous women? One whispered-about
“lost cause!” One whispered-about “causing trouble!” Imagine this time of
their visit together – working in fields; growing in awareness of life/love
within and between them; sharing in their own whispers -- secrets, laughter,
tears, dreams of as-yet “unimaginable” futures; agonizing and ecstasizing in
both swelling wombs, aching backs, barking feet.
All the while reflecting in the mirrors of God
they are now, rejoicing in the magnifiers of God they are becoming. Blessed are
they who believe that there will be a fulfillment of what is spoken to them by
the Lord! Blessed are we who believe . . . . For we will need all the
sisterhood, all the support we can get. Thomas Merton encourages us toward
tonight – “Make ready for Christ, whose smile – like lightning – sets free the
song of everlasting glory that now sleeps, in your paper flesh – like
dynamite!” Make ready! Make ready . . . . Amen.
top of page
Archives
|
