Well, here we are, it’s the third Sunday
in Advent, and it’s about that time of year when many of us start to feel a
little battered down with all the stress of the holiday season. I mentioned to my husband a few nights ago that
it kind of feels like I have one of those news tickers running through my head--
only instead of news headlines, it’s my holiday to-do list: finish Christmas
shopping, bake Christmas cookies, put up the Christmas decorations, plan
Christmas dinner, write and send the Christmas cards… And then of course it cycles back to the
beginning, and continues to replay over and over and over again. Perrhaps some of you know how this feels.
Well for our tired and haggard souls, the
Gospel of Luke this morning offers us a wonderful pre-Christmas gift. The Magnificat--
Mary’s song of jubilation upon finding out that she is pregnant with the child who
is to be called Emmanuel— God with us. It
is a text that Christians have cherished for centuries. Scholars have analyzed
it. Mystics have ruminated on it. Christians of all backgrounds have used it as
a text of praise and devotion. We read
it often during the season of advent, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of
Christ. And this morning, I would like
to offer the idea that if we take a moment to slow down, and let God speak to
us anew through these timeless words, we can find fresh meaning in the Advent
and Christmas season-- a rekindling of the true meaning of Christmas for our
spirits.
The first step in this undertaking Is to
take a closer look at the words themselves and to remember the scene in which
they originally occurred. Here again are
the words of Mary’s song:
“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… 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.”
Many of us may be used to hearing this
text set to beautiful music by Bach or Vivaldi or Rachmaninoff. But the original scene was not nearly as
tranquil or conventional. Imagine what
it must have been like for someone like Mary to receive this message of God’s
salvation. As Mary herself proclaims in
the initial words of her song— she is amongst the lowly. Not only is Mary poor, but she is a woman. Not only is she a woman, but she is unmarried
and pregnant. And to top it all off,
Mary is a Jew living under the oppression of the Roman Empire. In every way possible, Mary represented “the
least of these.” And yet it is to Mary that the angel discloses God’s plan of
salvation. It is through Mary— the lowly servant— that God will be made
incarnate through Christ. It’s a
remarkable moment in scripture-- one of those moments when the lowly truly are
lifted up. When God turns the world— and
the way we understand the world to be— completely upside down. The coming of the Messiah is proclaimed not
by high priests in the temple in Jerusalem, not by great Kings, but by a poor
unwed mother in the small town of Nazareth.
A town which, by the way, people felt that nothing good could come out
of.
The Christmas story, after so many
years, has a tendency to become rather “precious” in our minds. We imagine a sweet scene of the Holy Family
on Christmas Eve: the beautiful baby Jesus amongst the gentle animals in the
stable, with wise men and shepherds arriving at the scene to pay homage. But in the midst of that sweet and familiar
story, we forget how— in its original setting— it was a story that was truly astonishing
and even a little bit shocking.
To stop and consider this text in all of
its original implications, we are reminded of what a truly remarkable and history
altering event that that first Christmas really was. It’s also a reminder to us that maybe, just
maybe, Christmas can be that again.
So the question for us then becomes: how
is this text inviting us to change the status quo of our world, here and now? In this season of Advent, where is God calling
us to turn our world upside down-- to reverse the claims of empire-- and to
experience Christmas as the world changing event that it once was?
Well, this morning, I would like to
offer four possibilities on how we might begin to answer that question. They are possibilities that come to us from a
movement called the Advent Conspiracy.
Some of you may have heard about this movement-- I wrote about it in the
church newsletter a few weeks ago. It’s
an online campaign that began a number of years ago when a few Christians got
together and decided that they wanted to do Christmas differently. Basically, the Advent Conspiracy has this to
say about Christmas:
“What was once a time to celebrate the
birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and
shopping lists. And when it’s all over,
many of us are left with presents to return, debt that will take months to pay
off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose.
Is that what we really want out of Christmas?”
The Advent Conspiracy calls us to
remember the truly astonishing and counter-cultural message that the Christmas
story once was. To seek our own
“Magnificat moments”, and to help us find new purpose in an age-old
celebration. And here is how they
suggest we do it:
Worship fully.
Spend Less.
Give more.
Love all.
We begin by worshipping more fully. Andrew Purves notes that before we get to the
radical reversals that are part of what make this text so famous, there is
Mary’s reaction to God’s act of salvation. “My whole being proclaims the greatness
of the Lord”, one translation of the text reads. Mary’s whole being is moved to worship
God. During the Christmas season, when all
the tasks on our to-do list threaten to overwhelm us, it can be easy to forget
about God. It’s possible for church to
become just one more obligation that we must attend to. But it’s important for us to continue to be
intentional about making room for God-- not just on Sunday-- but every day, Not just in church, but in every corner of
our lives. There’s a reason why so many
of the Advent texts are about staying alert and staying awake. Because it’s so easy, particularly during
this time of year, for us to stop paying attention, and to miss God. To miss out on our own Magnificat moments-- to
miss out on opportunities to experience God in our lives or to be a part of
God’s actions in the world. This Advent,
we are invited to make more room for God.
We are invited to take our inspiration from Mary herself, and to worship
God with our entire being. To worry less
about what we will buy, and think more about why we give in the first place.
Which brings me to the second step in
the Advent Conspiracy— which is to spend less.
In our culture, consumerism has become in many ways the new empire. And if there is one thing that Mary’s song
does, it calls us to cast down empire— to bring down the powerful from their
thrones. It calls us to recognize when
empire gets in the way of meaningful and fulfilling lives. With all of the emphasis in our culture on Black
Friday, and Cyber Monday, and shopping our way through Christmas, it’s no
wonder we feel so haggard and stressed out.
All of our time and energy and money is going towards building up an
empire that has no real bearing or meaning in our lives. Did you know, for example, that Americans
spend approximately 450 billion dollars every year at Christmas? With such a staggering number, we have to ask
ourselves: is that money really enriching our lives? Is all that spending really
bringing us more joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment?
In the Magnificat, we read about how the
birth of one small child has the power to upset empire and totally reverse the
status quo. The good news of the gospel
is that God continues to work in the world, and that all of us are called to be
in partnership with God in that work. We
too can upset the status quo— we can overthrow the empire of consumerism and
cast off the power that materialism has over us. Like Mary, we too can proclaim a counter-cultural
message that has the potential to change the world we live in. This Christmas, we can spend less, and we can
give more. And that is the third step in
the Advent conspiracy— to give more.
What if we were to take the all the money
we saved by spending less on gifts we don’t need, and gave some of that money
away to people who are hurting, or homeless, or hungry? What if we were to live out the words of our
text today— to lift up the lowly and fill the hungry? What if we were to buy one less present this
year, and instead, gave that money to a local food bank, or a homeless shelter,
or an organization like Heifer International that works to eliminate poverty
all over the world? What if we saved
that money, and put it in the offering plate on Christmas Eve, when it will go
towards feeding the hungry here in our own community of Norwich?
There are countless ways we can spend
less and give more. But of course giving
more doesn’t just have to do with money.
It’s also about giving more of ourselves, and more of our time, to the
people in our lives. To worry less about
perfect decorations or every little detail of Christmas dinner, and instead, simply
cherish the time we get to spend with those we love. Because at the end of the day, the heart of
the Christmas story is about relationship.
It’s about a God who cares for us so much that God chose to walk among
us in order to enter into deeper relationship with us. “The Magnificat offers us a theology of hope”—
says theologian Gustavo Gutierrez— “because it speaks to us of a God who comes
to meet us where we are.” The heart of
the Christmas story—and indeed the heart of Christianity itself-- is
incarnation. Meaning that the divine
realm come to meet the earthly realm.
Spiritual meets the physical. God
meets us in relationship. And we meet
God in our relationships with others.
Worship more fully.
Spend Less.
Give More.
And finally, the last element of the
Advent conspiracy is to love all. Theologian
Nancy Sell writes that Mary’s Magnificat is an invitation to love-- to see all
people as equally loved and gifted by God--- to see all people as made in the
image and likeness of God. It is a text
which transcends any and all barriers of discrimination and proclaims justice
for all people regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or economic status. “The proud will be cast down from their
thrones”—our text proclaims boldly—“and the lowly will be lifted up.”
This text has a lot to say to us in a
world where there are so many divisions, and such a large and growing gap
between the rich and poor. Say what you
will about the occupy wall street movement, but one thing they get right is
that it isn’t right for a few people to have so much when so many people have
so little.
But again, the good news of the gospel is
that when God comes to meet us, everything can change. And that is exactly what Mary proclaims in
this passage. The old order of life is
displaced, and a new order is created in its place. The old has gone, the new has come, and
nothing will ever be the same again. Advent
means this: God is incarnate in our world, and in us, and we are meant never to
be the same.
This Christmas we are invited to open
ourselves up to God’s incarnation in the world-- to worship fully, to spend
less, to give more, and to love all. We
are invited to open ourselves up to the act of God doing a new thing-- to be a
part of that new thing-- to let it change us-- and to let it change the world,
yet again.
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