From Rebellion to Revolution

Advent 4C; Genesis 3:1-15; Zephaniah 3:14-18; Luke 1:26-56 - St. Paul’s 12/24/18 - Jim Melnyk “From Rebellion to Revolution”

It’s an interesting opportunity – spending the morning in the final hours of Advent, with Christmas Eve only a day away.  And yet we are asked to hold on to the waiting for just a while longer – to stand in the midst of God’s unfolding promise one last time – to consider yet once again the story of humanity’s pathway through a field of brokenness – and to remember once again Mary’s words of Godly revolution – her manifesto against humanity’s inhumanity toward itself.  Ours is a story that begins with creation, with relationship, and with rebellion; and it ends with Mary’s call to revolution.

If we turn our pages back to the first stories of our faith in the book of Genesis we read of our creation in the image and likeness of God.  We read about a God who strolls through the garden in quiet communion with the whole of creation – including our mythical mother and father. We read of humanity’s first rebellion.  Creation is newborn and already the stage is set for the coming of Emmanuel – God with us.  Created for relationship – gifted with reason and choice – the human will proves too strong.  Relationship with God and each other is broken through the reach of human pride and the act of defiance.  Choosing to walk away the first time is a struggle, yet each next time seems to come more and more easily.  It is this broken trust in God’s promise – the fear of having less than the other – of having less than God – it is the inability to believe God’s promise – that tears at the very fabric of creation.

The human creatures rebel against their Creator – a story we act out time and time again.  Humanity finds itself broken, alone, unable to trust one another and live together in God’s peace and love. And yet ever and again we seek a path back to the presence of God – a way back into the heart of God.

Centuries pass between the time of the mythological parents of the human race and the final days of Judah.  Like the rest of the world, Israel has struggled to be faithful followers of their Creator God.  And yet time and again like any human being Israel turns her back on the promise of God.  Time and again the religious elite and political leaders turn their backs on God and their neighbor.  As the prophet Amos tells us, they sell the righteous for silver – the needy for a pair of sandals.  They trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth.  They push the afflicted out of the way – push the broken-hearted to the margins – to the edge of life – time and again.  As Jacob Marley asks Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, “Is its pattern not familiar to you?”

And yet – and yet the prophet Zephaniah holds out promise for God’s people.  Zephaniah proclaims comfort and consolation for Israel – and through Israel, for all people.  “Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel!  Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!  The Lord has taken away the judgments against you.”  Here is the promise of God.  Here is the promise of new life – the promise of a festival day – a people renewed with God’s love.

If we were to look a bit further in Zephaniah’s decree, would see the promise that is acted out in the life and ministry of Jesus.  “I will deal with all your oppressors at that time,” says the Lord.  “And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.”

Messiah comes for all of God’s people – the promise of God for all people – for all time.  Throughout history God hears the cry of the poor and the oppressed – and God calls each of us –  God’s own people – to remember God’s love for all humanity – and to live and act in that love.

And so, we come to Mary.  Child of God.  Old enough to marry then, though barely old enough to date in our world.  Mary is a product of God’s Torah – God’s teaching.  She is a child of the prophets.  Like all faithful Jews, she carries the hope of God in her heart and soul.  God’s promise of hope for the poor and oppressed is carried in her heart even as God’s promise will find a new beginning within her womb.

The call of God comes to the most unlikely people.  Always has – always will.  Gabriel finds himself standing before Mary – proclaiming God’s dream for a new beginning – for a rebirth of faithfulness in the human heart and soul.  And Mary, to God’s great delight, says, “Yes!”  Now the promise of Emmanuel is made real in the powerlessness of a young woman in first century Israel.  Yet, Mary’s choosing God’s promise to be born within her is power as the world has never known it before – and it comes to her at great cost. As author and artist Jan Richardson puts it, “Mary's audacious yes propels her onto a dark way. She sets out on a path almost completely devoid of signposts or trails left by others; she chooses a road utterly unlike any she had ever imagined for herself” (Synthesis Today, 12/18/2018).  Richardson asks, “What must it have been like to walk a way she could hardly perceive, while carrying within herself—in her heart and womb and bones—a light unlike any the world had ever seen? (ibid)

This is Scripture’s evolution of revolution – the movement that begins with such great promise in the garden, is seemingly dashed on the rocks, and then born again in the human heart throughout the ages: From Abraham to David; from David through the Prophets; and from the Prophets through Mary and the coming of Jesus.  In Mary and the life she carries within her womb, God proclaims the promise of power to the voiceless and the oppressed.  Good News will be proclaimed to the poor, the outcast and the hungry.  Those who delight in their own power – those who will not listen to the cry of the poor and powerless will be cast down – they will be cast down!  And we – we the people of God – we are invited to join in Mary’s manifesto of God’s life-giving consolation.

And lest we think these words of Mary are anything but revolutionary, “some countries — such as India, Guatemala, and Argentina — have outright banned the Magnificat from being recited in liturgy or in public” (D. L. Mayfield, Washington Post, 12/20/2018).  In fact many churches leave the second half of the Magnificat out completely – and if you look at our bulleting insert for today it’s bracketed – which means I have the option of leaving it out as well.  But we won’t silence Mary.

Mary’s willingness to carry the Word of God within her is the icon of our faithfulness to God.  Mary’s willingness to proclaim words of revolution and freedom for all of God’s people is the dream of God made incarnate in this world and is our clarion call as children of the Living God and followers of Jesus. As the twelfth century mystic Bernard of Clairvaux put it, “Divine love so penetrated and filled the soul of Mary that no part of her was left untouched, so that she loved with her whole heart, with her whole soul, and her whole strength, and was full of grace” (Synthesis Today, 12/17/2018).

Believers in every generation need to hear and heed Mary’s call.  We are called by God to join in the ages-long evolution to revolution on behalf of all God’s people – all God’s people!  Even as we prepare to step forward and kneel by the baby’s manger-bed, we know in our hearts that we must find our way to move beyond the star and the straw.  We must become the voice that proclaims the dream of God for all creation.

Come, thou long expected Jesus,

born to set thy people free;

from our fears and sins release us,

let us find our strength in thee.