Luke 1:39-55

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

And Mary said,

‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
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.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

As we bring to a close a year that has had among its most controversial moments debates over whether or not we, as a society, should believe the testimony of women and girls, today’s scripture leaves us alone in a room with one elderly woman and one young girl, both with a testimony that flies in the face of logic. There are no men present; both Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah and Mary’s fiancé Joseph are nowhere to be seen. The only two males in the room are present only in utero.

It is time for us to listen to the inexplicable testimony of two women, both of them impossibly pregnant. One of them, Elizabeth, is a post-menopausal elderly woman who has miraculously found herself with child. Her husband couldn’t believe it either and his reward for laughing at the news of the angel was to become mute for the duration of the pregnancy confirming once and for all that sometimes the best thing for us men to do is to shut up and listen to the women around us! The other woman, Mary, is a young girl, most likely a teenager, who is presumably a virgin and, therefore, has also found herself miraculously expecting.

Both women have found themselves caught in nothing less than God’s plan to redeem all of creation.

The scripture doesn’t tell us the reason for Mary’s visit to her older cousin, Elizabeth. All we’re told is that she made this journey “in haste” and, quite possibly, alone. There is no mention of her fiancé joining her and so we’re left to wonder why she made it such a priority to make the journey to visit her relative. Perhaps she was excited by the news of her pregnancy. Perhaps she was horrified what people would say when they learned that she was pregnant out of wedlock. Maybe she was only a few years into puberty and was scared about the changes her body was about to endure. Maybe she just needed a fellow woman to share her story with because all the men around her refused to believe her story.

In many ways, the two women couldn’t be more different. Mary was young. Elizabeth was old. Mary was a virgin. Elizabeth had presumably been married for some time. But both were inextricably bound together by two holy children, one named John and the other Jesus. But their time to speak has not yet come; John and Jesus still have some growing to do before they exit the womb. For now, we’re left with the testimony of their mothers.

Elizabeth is the first to speak, uttering the words that would be recited by billions of Catholics over the years.

‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

Elizabeth is smart. She knows better than to doubt her young cousin that has risked so much to travel to her home. She paves the way for the child growing in her womb and begins the work that he will continue - pointing to the fruit of Mary’s womb.

And, thus, Mary’s song begins. She sings for God’s creation is in her core and she recognizes its awesome power.

In a way, Mary models for us the very foundations of what it means to be a follower of Christ. Ours is the task of magnifying the ways the Lord is at work in our lives. For God has found favor with us, for some crazy reason, and has decided to call us to service. The Mighty One has done great things for us and that means that we must sing a song ourselves. A song unabashed with joy. If the song stopped right now, then no one would have a problem with it. But the song continues and takes a dramatic turn toward the subversive.

His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
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.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

The second half of Mary’s Magnificat is not as nearly harmless as the first half. All the sudden, God is showing strength and scattering those who are proud. Those that are powerful have been cast down from their thrones and in their place the lowly have been lifted. The hungry have been filled with food and the rich have been sent away with nothing.

Friends, make no mistake of it: this is the rhetoric of revolution. This is the kind of talk that strikes fear in the hearts of those in power. It’s the kind of talk that leads to the end of slavery. It’s the kind of talk that leads to the Women’s Suffrage Movement and the Civil Rights Movement. It’s the kind of talk that leads to gay people achieving the right to get married. It’s the kind of talk that leads to the #MeToo movement.

It’s dangerous talk. But this is no new revelation.

In 1517, the same year as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther was tasked with the weighty job of translating the Bible from Latin to German so that the common folks could read it. However, Luther decided to leave today’s passage in Latin because he was worried the German princes would take offense at the notion that God would lift the lowly and bring down the powerful.

A few years later, the English Protestant theologian Thomas Cranmer did the same when tasked with translating the Bible into English. He did this because the royals were worried that such language would incite rebellion among the commoners.

On Sundays such as this, especially with Christmas Eve looming after the next sunset, it is all too easy to slip into a nostalgic reading of today’s text and read it more like a Hallmark Card than the revolutionary text that it is.

Some of you may remember the song “Do You Hear the People Sing” from the great musical based off the book by Victor Hugo. In it, the people sing the following:

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the songs of angry men?
It is the music of the people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Today’s song from Mary’s lips has much more in common with this revolutionary song from Les Mis than it does the gentle tones of Silent Night. It’s not a song of relaxation; it’s a song of resistance. But, perhaps unlike this song from Les Mis, Mary’s song is not a song born out of anger at what is but rather out of joy of what will be; a future that God is bringing to fruition through the gift of God’s only child.

It’s a song that tells the powerful that time is up because there’s a new sheriff in town. An unusual sheriff, granted, in the form of a newborn baby. But this child is not coming to lord his power over the people by oppressing them, but by liberating them. And that’s good news for some. And it’s scary news for others.

So friends, the next time you hear the words of Mary’s Magnificat, don’t say “awwwww,” say “wow!” Don’t settle in for a long winter’s nap; get up and do the work of the Gospel. Sing the song and sing it so loudly that those who need to hear it can’t ignore its call for justice.

Sing loudly, my friends, because there’s far too much injustice in this world for Mary’s song to be silenced. How are you called to pick up the banner and sing her testimony? How can we, the people who are Beaumont Presbyterian Church, sing that song in new ways that address the realities of the new world we live in? How can we take that melody and make it our own? Can the people outside of this sanctuary hear us singing?

These are questions we will ask of ourselves in the years to come. But for now, let us stand in awe of these two women, Elizabeth and Mary, and marvel at their courage for singing a song that very well could have led to their deaths. Because as they are singing this song, King Herod is somewhere not too far off plotting of ways to murder this baby in Mary’s womb for the very reasons that Mary is singing in the first place.

So friends, let us draw deep from the well of Mary’s courage. And let us sing her song.

In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.

Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Sermons

Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

"Do You Hear The People Sing?" - Luke 1:39-55 (December 23, 2018)

Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing