Mary’s Protest of Love
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Gate Pa – Year C - Advent 4 2021
The Sermon
1. Advent 4 – Love
This last year has mostly been ok. But since August is has been tough. Delta has changed the game and we are having to learn to live with Covid. The rules have changed and vaccine mandates and vaccine passes have changed how many of us are navigating our way through all this.
I wonder then what today’s theme of love offers us. And I wonder how we hear Mary’s protest song in the midst of all this?
2. This moment
Today’s gospel story and psalm are a rare and radical glimpse into an intimate moment between two women. That in itself is a radical thing. The only males in this story are yet to be born, and only John plays any active role – he leaps for joy.
So, we have this rare and remarkable story that just focuses on two women. It is not often that happens in scripture.
Both are pregnant. That both unites them and holds them apart.
Elizabeth’s pregnancy has been hoped for, for so long. And now when all seemed lost, this pregnancy brings an end to her disgrace and source of shame. She can now hold her head up in the community.
In contrast Mary is almost too young, And her pregnancy brings disgrace. Or at least that is how this story is normally read. But Luke is much less clear about this than Matthew. Matthew makes a point of this. Luke barely mentions it. Except, as soon as Mary says “I am the Lord’s servant. Let it be with me just as you have said….” and the angel leaves her, Mary gets up and hurry’s to Elizabeth. Reading between the lines there is a sense of Mary needing to leave her conservative little village for a while. Maybe to let things simmer down. Maybe to just have space to work out what all this meant and what to do with it all in the company of a wiser member of her family who is also pregnant.
What unites them both is that they are both pregnant with their first child, with all the uncertainty and wonder, fear and hope, unknowing and joy in that. If we drag back far enough some of us might remember some of that.
They also both know their child is a gift of God. Maybe that is what leads Mary to go there. Both know at some deep level that their child will play an important role in the life of the people of God. Which just amplifies all that wonder and worry and unkowing.
3. Hesed – Covenantal Love
On this fourth Sunday in Advent, with our theme of love, we might also pay attention to another thing that unites them. Their common faith as Jews. And as such they would have prayed the shema at the beginning of each day, and at the end of each day.
We know this well
“Hear, O Israel, the L-rd is our G‑d, the L-rd is One.”
It carries on –
“Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever.
You shall love the L-rd your G‑d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you today shall be upon your heart….”
In her last book, Wholehearted Faith, Rachel Held Evans spends some time exploring the importance of the Shema. She quotes the 11th century Rabbi Rashi, revered as one of the great interpreters at the Hebrew scriptures. He emphasized that the Shema instruction is rooted in love. Love is the root of its instruction and love is the fuel for its action. She says that “Roshi taught that humanity's heartfelt obedience had to be motivated by love, not by fear or some other feeling. The one who acts out of love cannot be compared to the one who acts out of fear. He wrote if one serves his master out of fear, when the master sets a great burden upon him, this servant will leave him and go away. And perhaps that's why the Hebrew word “hesed” appears 248 times in the Hebrew Bible. Hesed is a covenantal love. A profound and committed and long term love. A kind love but not a romantic love.”
Bible scholar Darrell L. Bock describes Hesed as “wrapping up in itself all the positive attributes of God: love, covenant faithfulness, mercy, grace, kindness, loyalty–in short, acts of devotion and loving-kindness that go beyond the requirements of duty.” It describes acts of loving kindness between people, our attitude towards God, and God’s attitude towards this world and humanity. It is a big word. It is the theme for this Sunday – love.
Held Evans goes on to say about the Shema, “that's the kind of love that God had for our ancestors. And had for us. But we're so often too busy to even notice. So notice, the prayer says. Notice that you are surrounded by, infused with, and kept in life by love. God’s love. That beating heart of the universe. And once you notice that divine love, what choice do you have but to pay attention to the one who loves you. If you truly believe that you are loved with that kind of love what else could you possibly want to do but listen.”
In praying the Shema twice each day, Mary and Elizabeth, like all those have and do pray this prayer, were invited to pay attention to God’s knock you off your feet love.
4. Magnificat - Marys Song
So in this moment we are privileged to witness in our reading from Luke this morning, we are witnessing two women who are paying attention and listening. Elizabeth is the first to be filled with the Holy Spirit in Luke. And her words open the space for Mary’s incredible response.
These words, which we know as Magnificat, have been sung at evensong for hundreds years. That makes them very familiar. And in some ways that is a problem. Maybe we miss the point because it is so well known.
This is the song of a poor girl in a difficult situation. A poor girl from a poor village, in not a great area, in a land under occupation. It longs for the day when God’s justice and peace is restored. For when the occupation will end.
It stands in the tradition of the songs of Miriam and Deborah. It echoes Hannah’s song which we recited a few weeks ago. And just like her song, it links what happening to them with God’s hesed, and the ancient hopes that have been, and are being, and will be fulfilled.
This is not a nice song. It has at various times been banned by authorities who did not want the poor to sing that God has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations; has pulled the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. That God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty-handed.”
This is a protest song. This is a rebel song. This is a deeply subversive song. It should be sung with care.
5. Bursting with God-news
Mary’s song is written in a tense that is best described as either a generic truth or habitual truth of action.
It is a description of the nature of God as seen in the past, found in the present, and to be looked for in the future. It is a generic truth about God and a description of how God habitually acts.
And it is all about God’s hesed love.
In Eugene Petersons “The Message, he paraphrases the opening lines of Mary’s song as “I’m bursting with God-news; I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.”
After the last 20 or so months, I wonder how many of us are bursting with God-news? I can’t say that I am much in the mood for dancing. If I am honest I am struggling to just get to Christmas and am looking to the new year wondering what might be next.
But I am not sure that Mary’s song allows me to stop there. Christmas is really about bursting with God-news. It is an invitation to join the dance.
It is an invitation for us to notice that we are surrounded by, infused with, and kept in life by love. God’s hesed love. That beating heart of the universe. And once we have noticed this hesed love, what choice do we have but to pay attention to the one who loves us. And once we do that, then we can join that dance which might seem so far away today.
How does Mary’s song help you to see God’s hesed love at play today?
What God-news might you be invited to burst with?
How might we join the dance of the song of God?
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