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Song From the Underside, Luke 1:47-55 (see below)
by Rev. Cindy Weber
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To Those Who Don't Get It, from God with Love, John 1:6-8, 19-28
DG Bradley
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Preparing the Heart,
John 1:6-8,
19-28
by Rev. Randy Quinn
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Who Am I? Who Are You? John 1:6-8, 19-28
by Rev. Randy Quinn
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Anticipating Joy, John 1:6-8, 19-28
by Rev. Thomas Hall
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God Will Make A Way, Luke 1:39-55, by
Rev. Thomas Hall
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Song From the Underside
a sermon based on Luke 1:47-55
by Rev. Cindy Weber
The meaning of Incarnation: God is more taken with the
agony of the earth than with the ecstasy of heaven.
(Ken Sehested)
When I read the book of Luke, I am always amazed to hear the
revolutionary words that spring from young Mary's mouth when she visits
her cousin Elizabeth to share the news of her surprising pregnancy. And
I wonder who taught them to her: a sister, a brother, a mother, a
father…I can see her nodding off to sleep as these revolutionary words,
words that she would perhaps only fully come to understand much, much
later, were sung, and I can imagine the baby Jesus, and later the
toddler Jesus, nodding off to sleep at the sound of his mother's voice:
God has shown strength with God's arm,
the mighty put down from their thrones,
the hungry are filled with good things,
the rich are sent empty away…
While Mary couldn't have understood what those words would mean in
their entirety, it is striking to me that she, as a young girl, would
have such a deep knowledge and sense of the way that God was working
upon the earth, was coming upon the earth. But then, perhaps it's all a
matter of perspective.
As we look at the book of Luke, we see that the perspective of the
participants in the birth of Jesus was always from the underside. These
were not the movers and shakers of their society. These were not the
people that all the world was watching. No, indeed, in this story, the
good news comes to those who live on the fringes of society, to the poor
and obscure, to the oppressed. And Luke is skillful in the way that he
gets that point across.
He begins each segment of his story with a list of the rich and the
famous. This is who was in charge, he says, this is who all the world
was watching, and then he puts that up against the places where God was
working… In the days of Herod, King of Judea, he says, and then
he cuts to this obscure little couple named Zechariah and Elizabeth,
cousins of an even obscurer young woman named Mary…
Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar
Augustus…while Quirinius was governor of Syria,
he says, and then he
cuts to this pitifully poor little birthing scene with a feeding trough
for a cradle and a mother and father miles from home, where the visitors
are shepherds, amharets, the people of the land, the poorest of
the poor. Steve Shoemaker, in his book, God Stories, points out
that shepherds had such bad reputations that they were not allowed to
hold office or to be admitted to a court of law as witnesses.
"Luke's shepherds were not rosy-cheeked choirboys with treble voices,
fake beards, and paper mache' crooks. They were more like guys with a
week's stubble of beard who paint houses by day and drink their way from
bar to bar by night. Their music was more Merle Haggard than J.S. Bach.
In our day think of migrant farmers or truck drivers, or the guys who
line up on the street looking for day work. Instead of the boys on My
Three Sons, think of Larry, Darrell, and Darrell on the old Bob
Newhart Show.
"Still the earliest accounts of the birth stores agree: the first
people to whom the angels appeared and told the good news of Jesus'
birth were shepherds. And the first witnesses to the Incarnation were
shepherds, people the law of the land would not allow to be witnesses in
the court of law."
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when
Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee,
and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Itureaea and
Trachonitis, and Lysanias wa tetrach of Abilene, in the high priesthood
of Annas and Caiaphas, he says, and then he tells us how the word of
God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness…
This is who the world is watching, says Luke, but this is
where God is working, and are not not one and the same…
Today it might sound something like this: In the fifth year of the
reign of George Bush II, Anne Northup having been elected to the
Kentucky House of Representatives for her second term, and Jerry
Abramson being Mayor of Louisville, and Oprah Winfrey being the most
popular person on tv, with Regis Philbin coming in a close second, the
Word of God appeared to a Palestinian mother, or to a teenager from
Ximbaxuc, or to one of the migrant workers out in Shelbyville…
(idea
from Joyce Holladay).
Joyce Holladay says, It was a scandal. This Word overlooked the
ruling powers, both secular and religious, and went straight to the
edges of acceptability--to the wilderness. The lesson was, if you want
to understand the reign of God, look in unexpected places. Go to the
margins.
Mary was able to voice so beautifully what God was doing in her midst
because of her perspective. She was able to sing about God exalting the
humble and bringing down rulers from their thrones, she was able to sing
about God filling the hungry with good things and sending away the rich
empty-handed without batting an eyelid because she knew what it was like
to be oppressed, and because she knew who the oppressors were.
You know, many of us would take offense at these words, that is, if
they were not Mary's words. We tolerate them because Mary said them. But
we are defensive, nonetheless.
God has shown strength with God's arm,
the mighty put down from their thrones,
the hungry are filled with good things,
the rich are sent empty away…
"But doesn't God love the rich, too?" we ask. "Doesn't God love the
powerful, too?" I would venture to say that the reason that these words
make us feel defensive is because we are more in cohoots with the rich
and the powerful than we are with the poor and the oppressed. If you've
had your child slaughtered by one of the rich and powerful, as did so
many of the mothers and fathers in Ximbaxuc, Guatemala, you do not have
such a hard time with the idea of God bringing down rulers from their
thrones and sending away the rich empty-handed. If your land has been
stolen from the rich and the powerful, and if you have been forced to
live in another country for twelve years, as were the people of Ximbaxuc,
you might not have such a hard time with the idea of God bringing down
rulers from their thrones and sending away the rich empty-handed.
You see, it's all a matter of perspective. And what Luke is telling
us is that if we want to see what God is about, then we've got to
somehow learn to look at things from the underside, from the perspective
of the poor and oppressed. What Luke is telling us is that if we want to
see what God is up to, we need to look to, to listen to those who are on
the margins. And that is one of reasons that many of us have chosen this
group of people as our faith community. Because through this community,
we are able to connect with those who live on the margins, to hear those
songs of the underside.
We are gifted to be in a place where we have opportunity after
opportunity to hear expressions of pain, dreams and visions, hopes and
hurts, songs from the underside. And we need to make sure that we are
making the most of that gift, as individuals and as a church. We need to
be sure that we are taking every opportunity given to us, and making new
opportunities to listen to the oppressed, to side with the marginalized,
to stand in solidarity with those who live on the underside.
I came to the Urban Goatwalker Coffeehouse last week, and sat down
with a homeless friend. As we were talking about music, he told me that
his favorite song was "O Holy Night." I was so glad for him when Roger
sang it just a few minutes later. And I was glad for me, too, because I
was able to hear it in an entirely different way: A thrill of hope,
the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks the new and glorious morn.
I heard it through the perspective of a homeless man, one who more
than most of us knows what a truly weary world this is, one who knows
the thrill of hope that breaks into the most broken places of life.
The story that we celebrate this morning, the coming of the angel to
a young girl, the coming of One who is more taken with the agony of
earth than the ecstasy of heaven, is a story that has been so
beautified, so anesthetized, so painted and polished and fluffed that it
can be hard to recognize anymore. But still, it speaks, and there are
those who hear, those who see. May we be among them.
Amen.
