advent

Mary, Magnified

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 22, 2024. The scriptures are Micah 5:2-5a, Hebrews 10:5-10, Luke 1:39-45, (46-55), and Canticle 15 (or 3).

In an interview in yesterday’s online NYTimes, scheduled to be in print on Christmas Eve, Nicholas Kristof talks with Elaine Pagels, the professor of history and religion who raises eyebrows with just about every book. Professor Pagels is, for me, a model Episcopalian—with almost equal parts faithful and skeptical. Her forthcoming book, Miracles and Wonder raises questions about a number of the Christian miracle stories, but the one that makes the headline in the newspaper raises questions about the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Pagels looks at early rumors of Jesus’s father being a Roman soldier, as always, Pagels, argues that each of the Gospels has its agenda, and especially with Matthew and Luke, that agenda is to explain unsettling questions and rumors about Jesus’ parentage.

That the Virgin Mary makes headlines is no surprise. The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, whose celebration was last week, is championed by anti-abortion activists on one end of the spectrum and by those in solidary with Palestinians, on the other. In September, the Vatican finally released a measured and uncommitted opinion on the ongoing appearances of Mary in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

A couple of months ago in Chihuahua, Mexico, the Virgin Mary appeared in a very 21st century way on the wall of a parking deck so that everyone coming or going from the Chihuahua Cathedral would see her. Activists hung a banner that showed a version of Our Lady of Guadalupe, but around her head was a black-and-white kaffiyeh and her cloak was decorated with tiny watermelons. Beneath the image were the words, “Mi hijo es Palestino,” “My Son is a Palestinian.” The image was a reminder of the way in which the Virgin Mary turns up wherever and whenever there are people who are oppressed, mistreated, ignored, or forgotten.

Far from being the meek and mild Mother of Jesus some traditions might cast her, Mary has created complications, disruptions, questions, and challenges since the beginning.

In describing my own move from the Presbyterian Church to the Episcopal Church, I sometimes make a long story short by explaining that my first theology class in seminary used a textbook by the Anglican priest John Macquarrie. I noticed a footnote about a group called the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and I began to read, and pray, and study about Mary. I began to feel as though the Virgin Mary was a part of what was urging me on, continues to pull me closer God in ways that are sometimes disruptive, often surprising, but always lead me to a deeper faith and sense of God.

Mary is a powerful figure. Not only as Our Lady of Guadalupe, or Medjugorje, Fátima, Lourdes, or a folk-hero of Catholic and Orthodox piety. But some believe (and I agree with them) that Mary might be the best hope forward for us to be in conversation and prayer with people of other faiths. For Jews, she is Miriam. Christians know her as the Mother of Jesus who gave him birth and witnessed his death. Muslims know her as Maryam, and in the Quran, there is an entire chapter named for her.

Mary sings in our place of humility and neediness in her song, Magnificat, the Latin shorthand for the beginning of, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” She begins by singing, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” but really, the Lord has magnified Mary. This is a theme that runs through today’s scripture lessons—this idea that God takes what’s small, insignificant, or weak, and God magnifies it—enlarging and creating more than was ever imagined.

In the first reading the Prophet Micah singles out Bethlehem, tiny Bethlehem. “From you shall come forth the ruler in Israel. And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth.”

The second reading is from the Letter to the Hebrews, a kind of poetic argument about the ways in which Jesus is both high priest and perfect sacrifice, who accomplishes salvation for us in a way that nothing else can. Hebrews argues that no amount of offering from us, no amount of sacrifice or work or good deeds or perfect living will ever accomplish what was accomplished by the simplicity and purity of Christ’s faithfulness to God. God is more pleased by the simple act of faithfulness than the complicated scheme of temple sacrifices and offerings.

Far beyond the scriptures we read today, the Bible recounts over and over again how God favors the small and insignificant. Israel was not the mightiest of the nations. Moses was not the most likely to lead the people of Israel out of bondage. David was not the most likely to be king. Sarah was not the most likely to be the matriarch of an entire people. Great things were not expected from Jonah the prophet, Ruth the Moabite, Ezekiel or Esther, and many others.

Mary’s song in today’s Gospel sings with eloquence the song of God’s reversals, of God’s ability to turn everything upside-down and inside-out. The lowly and ignored are seen and appreciated. The mighty are put down and the left out are lifted up. The hungry are fed and those who are full are sent away. God remembers. God shows mercy. God magnifies.

I wonder in what ways we are being called to be like Mary and to magnify the Lord even as we are aware of the way that God magnifies our efforts and prayers? What can we do to lift up the lowly, to help feed the hungry, to offer healing to those who hurt? The scriptures today invite us to do at least two things: First, we can extend the love of God to those who might feel small or insignificant.   And second, we can remind ourselves of God’s ongoing work of lifting up, no matter how far down we might feel sometimes.

Shannon Kubiak Primicerio is a writer who wrote a great little book a few years ago called God Called a Girl.  She writes

Mary was a nobody, yet she found favor and blessing with God.  How many times do we look in the mirror and find a nobody staring back at us?  We often limit what God can do with our lives because we think our upbringing, our appearance, or our life is not a sufficient tool for the hands of God to use….[But] if Mary really was a nobody, all  it took for God to make her “somebody” was one miracle on a lonely day when she was just going about her daily business… God called a girl. And that girl changed the world.  The same God is calling again, and this time He’s calling you.” (God Called a Girl, p. 14-19, passim)

May we sing with the Blessed Virgin Mary the song of God’s reversals, of God’s surprises, and of God’s magnifying love, that we may do our part to magnify the Lord.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Moved by Joy

A sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 15, 2024. The scriptures are Zephaniah 3:14-20, Philippians 4:4-7, Luke 3:7-18, and Canticle 9.

The Third Sunday of Advent is nicknamed Gaudete Sunday. We light the rose candle, some churches have rose vestments they wear today, and in others, today is the only Sunday in Advent when flowers are allowed on the altar. And, you guessed it, they’re usually roses.

The day takes its name from the Latin minor propers of the day that sing over and over again, “Rejoice! Gaudete!” We hear it in English in our scripture readings, in our music, and perhaps even a little in the air:  Rejoice. It’s almost Christmas!

Last week, the scriptures asked us to prepare—to make room, to clean out, and to get ready for God to do something new. 

This week, the scriptures add another piece:  Prepare for Joy! Get ready not only for what God is going to do, but for the joy that breaks in along the way.

We hear about preparing for joy in our first reading, as the prophet Zephaniah prepares the way for a future of hope. He can preach about what’s coming because he’s filled with the confidence of God. “Rejoice and exult with all your heart,” Zephaniah says, because our God is a God of deliverance and forgiveness. Whatever has happened in the past is over and done. New life is coming. “God will rejoice over you with gladness,” the prophet says. “God will renew you in his love; will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.”

Zephaniah is showing the people of Israel that one way of living into joy is by moving out of the past.

I recently heard a nurse talk about when she did this—when she helped prepare the way for someone, in that same way as Zephaniah, and as John the Baptist. This nurse worked in a drug rehab center and people came in and went out, so one rarely knew what the long-term outcome might be. But she remembered this one man that the other nurses avoided. He was angry and almost violent, and nothing they did seemed to help him move forward. One night, when everyone was just about at their wit’s end, this nurse remembered a left-over cake in the nurses’ lounge. She got a piece, found a candle and put it on the slice and lit the candle, and then she got the other nurses and staff to join her as they went into the difficult man’s room. They sang “Happy Birthday.” The man was so stunned that he didn’t even have a chance to tell them this was not at all his birthday, and the nurse I know explained to him: “This can be the first day of a whole new life for you. The past is over and done, gone forever. Today begins a new life, if you’ll have it.” Through tears and in shock—at least for the moment— the man seemed to catch a glimmer of the possibility. That nurse had helped prepare the way. She didn’t know what the results would be, but she had done her part.

In the Gospel, John the Baptist shows us that another way of living into joy is by doing the small things right in front of us.  John’s words can sound scary and foreboding at the beginning, a little like he’s throwing a bucket of ice water in our face:

“One is coming,” he says, “who will baptize not only with water but with the Holy Spirit and with fire…” and “His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”  But then the very next sentence is, “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”

Good news?  What’s the good news that we’re going to be baptized with fire, and one is coming whose job it will be to separate out the good stuff from the junk and will throw all the junk on a fire?  But John gets our attention to wake us up from the past.

John gets really practical.  The crowds ask John what I might have asked John, “Ok, so what do we do? How do we live faithfully? Especially when times are confusing and the bad seem to get more prosperous while the good are steadily losing ground.  What do we do?”

More good news from John:  Do the simple, faithful thing that’s right before you.

Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

John the Baptist, with all of his slightly scary talk about the end of times and the beginning of new days, of one who is coming who will sort things out and given people their due—when it comes down to it, the way we prepare for God’s coming more fully into our world is through simple acts of kindness and mercy.

And so, we prepare for joy by having the courage to move out of the past, and by doing the little things right in front of us, but also by allowing for God to surprise us.

Last Thursday was the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and you might have seen some of the gatherings or processions around town as people carry images of the Virgin Mary, flowers, candles, and make their way to churches and shrines. The stories around Our Lady of Guadalupe are filled with joyous surprises, but they all begin with a simply, indigenous man in 16th century Mexico named Juan Diego.

It was in 1531 that Juan Diego, Juan was walking on the outskirts of what would become Mexico City. There, he say a vision of the Virgin Mary. But she looked different. Mary appeared as a mestiza, a mixed race young woman and she asked Juan to go to the Bishop and ask permission to build a little house, a place where people could come and meet Mary’s son Jesus. This first appearance was on December 9, but Juan had trouble convincing the bishop. Then also, Juan’s uncle was dying, and Juan felt like he needed to tend to him. And so, after some coming and going, trying and failing, Mary gave a sign. She told Juan to go to a particular hill, and there he would find roses in full bloom.  He went, found the roses, and gathered them up in his work apron, his tilma. He went back to see the bishop.

But again Bishop Zumárraga doubted, but then Jean unfurled his tilma, and out fell all the roses, but even more, on the garment there appeared the vision of the Virgin Mary—as a mixture of the well-known Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, that would have been recognizable to Europeans, but also with the unmistakable darker skin and features of an indigenous woman, recognized by the people who had long inhabited the land.

The symbol of the Virgin of Guadalupe would become a central point for people of mixed backgrounds and histories to find a common welcome to the little house, the place of welcome, where they could meet Jesus in a new way.

Juan Diego was clear that his mission was to relay the news—first to the bishop, but then as a protector of the house, the chapel outside Mexico City, where for days leading up to last Thursday, and still, people are celebrating God’s surprising and joyful grace in Jesus through Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Our job is to prepare—like Zephaniah, like John the Baptist, like the Virgin Mary in scripture and through Guadalupe, and to keep forging ahead in joy, like Juan Diego so that there can be a space, a place, an openness, a peace, in which Christ can be born again.

John the Baptist proclaims, “One who is more powerful (than us) is coming …. And he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” We have that Holy Spirit. At our baptism we receive the Holy Spirit who protects us from any harm. Who strengthens us for whatever lies ahead. Our baptism, the ongoing presence of the Spirit, and the power of Christ in community, empower us to turn again and again to God.

As we move through these days of December, may God show us how to prepare for joy—to move out of a frozen past, to do the little things right in front of us, and to be open to God’s surprise, whenever it comes.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Preparing the Way

A sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent, December 10, 2023. The scripture readings are Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13, 2 Peter 3:8-15a, and Mark 1:1-8.

Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City

As I’ve moved around the city over the last week or so, people ask me a similar question in small talk: “Are you ready?  Are you ready for Christmas?”  I resist giving a short sermon of the meaning of Advent as a season of waiting and preparation, and usually respond by saying something like, “I’m getting there. Things are on the calendar, and we’re moving right along.”

I’m not ready—I’m not sure I’m ever really “ready.” But I’m preparing. And it’s especially for that reason that I love the focus of this Second Sunday of Advent. It’s about preparation.

“Prepare the way of the Lord,” the voice in Isaiah says.  God will send a prophet who will sing a song of comfort and mercy. Prepare a place for God, he says. The mountains and valleys will be cleared, the rough places smoothed out. Things are going to get cleaned up and thrown out. It may not always be pretty. But in the end, fear itself will be banished, making room for God and the Word of God. Isaiah’s word begins and ends with “Comfort. Comfort, my people.”

That prophet “who is to come” that Isaiah talks about does come in today’s Gospel. He comes in the form of John the Baptist. This strange looking and sounding John comes as a voice (a little bit like Isaiah’s voice) crying in the wilderness: repent, get ready, something good is coming. He is preaching repentance, but notice that he’s asking, pleading, hoping for people to repent not for the sake of holiness, but in order to prepare. “Prepare the way of the Lord,” he says. “Clear way,” “make room,” do what you need to do, but prepare.” Though I love all the great hymns of Advent, I think an appropriate song for the day would come from Tony’s song in West Side Story:

Something’s coming, something good, If I can wait!
Something’s coming, I don’t know what it is, But it is gonna be great! ….
It’s only just out of reach, Down the block, on a beach, Maybe tonight . . .

Maybe this morning or this afternoon. So get ready.

John understands his job as making the announcement, getting people ready, warming up the crowd. But notice how clear his is about his job. He prepares, but he’s very clear that another will come, Jesus, who will accomplish the work of God. This is a crucial piece to Christian discipleship, I think—understanding what we’re called to do, and what we’re NOT called to do.

The task for us, as Christian disciples, is to follow in the work of John, to prepare the way for God’s coming, but to also understand the scope of our calling. While we do our part, it’s God’s job to finish things. The work is ours, but the results belong to God. The outcome belongs to God.

Yesterday, parts of the Church celebrated the Feast of San Juan Diego. I’m partial to Juan not only because of his name, but because he reminds me that my job—our job, really—is to prepare.

It was in 1531 that Juan Diego, an indigenous man, walking on the outskirts of what would become Mexico City, was met by a vision of the Virgin Mary. Mary appeared as a mestiza, a mixed race young woman and she asked Juan to go to the Bishop and ask permission to build a little house, a place where people could come and meet Mary’s son Jesus. The first appearance was on December 9, but Juan had trouble convincing the bishop. Then also, Juan’s uncle was dying, and Juan felt like he needed to tend to him. Finally, in the fourth appearance, Mary gave a sign, that if Juan went to a particular hill, he could find there some roses in full bloom.  He went, found the roses, and gathered them up in his work apron, his tilma. Again, the bishop doubted, but then Jean unfurled his tilma, and out fell all the roses, but even more, on the garment there appeared the vision of the Virgin Mary—as a mixture of the well-known Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, that would have been recognizable to Europeans, but also with the unmistakable darker skin and features of an indigenous woman, recognized by the people who had long inhabited the land.

The symbol of the Virgin of Guadalupe would become a central point for people of mixed backgrounds and histories to find a common welcome to the little house, the place of welcome, where they could meet Jesus in a new way.

Juan Diego was clear that his mission was to relay the news—first to the bishop, but then as a protector of the house, the chapel outside Mexico City, where right now, millions of pilgrims are heading to celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Tuesday.

Our job is to prepare—a space, a place, an openness, a peace, in which Christ can be born again.

As people who try to live and function in what we call the “real world,” this is hard because we like results. We like to achieve, to prove, to finish. We set goals and we like to realize them. But the spiritual world moves in a different way. God is in charge of the way things turn out. We work. We pray. We hope. We do our part, but then we come to a point of having to let go, of waiting in faith and watching as God continues to work, and God’s will unfolds.

We can prepare our children for the world, but we can’t control the way they turn out.
We can prepare our bodies for aging and for stress, but there’s a point where we have to trust in doctors and science, and pray for God’s healing.

Especially in this season, we can look and learn from our own busy lives. For example, I can cook a meal, set a perfect table, have everything just right—but that doesn’t insure that people will get along, that the conversation goes well, or that people will enjoy the time they spend together. I can do my part, but then have to let go.  I can give someone the perfect gift, but that doesn’t ensure that they will respond the way I imagine.

On and on the list might go as we enter this season of almost unlimited expectations, with each one—if we’re truthful, we’ll admit that we reach a point where it’s just not up to us. People we know and people in this room are preparing for all kinds of things—visiting relatives, trips away, changes in work, retirement, uncertainty, marriage, the birth of a child, a medical procedure…. And people are doing their part—they’re getting things in order, cleaning up, covering the details, checking off the list. But the good-though-sometimes-difficult-news is that the outcome is up to God.

John the Baptist proclaims, “One who is more powerful (than me) is coming …. And he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” We have that Holy Spirit. At our baptism we receive the Holy Spirit who protects us from any harm. Who strengthens us for whatever lies ahead. Our baptism, the ongoing presence of the Spirit, and the power of Christ in community, empower us to turn again and again to God.

As we click off the days of December, may God be with us in our preparations, and in our letting go.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.