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August 15, 2010, Mary Mother of our Lord.

MLC, Ocean View, NJ. Pr. Hartmut Fege, D. Min.  Luke 1.46ff. “Mothers of God”

 

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I were invited to a Christmas in July Celebration. The invitation came from friends who have a large family.

Throughout the year we have enjoyed attending the birthdays of their children, kindergarten and middle school graduations, Thanksgiving, baby showers and 4^th of July parties… and now Christmas in July.

I have to admit I went off on a diatribe about how this was one too many – I said something like what would happen if everyone started celebrating Hanukah in July or Kwanzaa or Ramadan… ok, Ramadan might fit into August.

I have had the privilege of having two weeks off from preaching and as I was getting ready for today I looked at the liturgical calendar and I couldn’t believe my eyes – Lk.1.46 which we know as the Magnificat… Mary’s Christmas song!

OK God, you win!

August 15th - I added up the months…

In the 6^th month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth… but that doesn’t add up.

Six plus three equals November.  I noticed the footnote. The 6^th month refers to Elizabeth’s pregnancy. So, we have a Christmas of sorts in August. Just when we need it most.

In vs.56 we are told that Mary remained with Elizabeth about three months and then returned home to Nazareth… a 70-mile hike.

In other words Mary was there to witness the birth of John the Baptist.

So we have a birth announcement on the 3^rd Sunday in August.  Renaissance paintings of the Annunciation show a young girl seated and dressed in blues and satins, silks with manicured nails.

We forget that Mary was in her teens… just a girl with no experience with men much less angels. 

What possible significance can this talk of divine birth announcements and an aria called the Magnificat, taken from the Latin “Magnify”, have for us today?

It helps to remember that we live 2,000 years after the event.

There are many Bible scholars who remind us that Mark’s gospel was the first and it has no Christmas stories, no “Magnificat” no angels and shepherds keeping watch over their flocks or a Bethlehem stable. 

They suggest that Matthew and Luke added these events as a reminder that God, and not Caesar, has the last word about the history of the world. 

That Jesus not Caesar is Lord.

It helps to remember that at the end of each Gospel reading, we hear “Gospel of the Lord…” Not the gospel of Obama or Christie… if you know what I mean.

These words are more than the poetic utterances of a First-century Jewish teen… more than the consummate editing of an Evangelist.

They are the words of God for our time as well. It helps to recall the political and cultural context of the time in which Jesus lived.

Mary sings her Canticle and uses words like “the proud who are scattered”

The “powerful who are brought low”

The “lowly who are lifted up”

The “hungry who are filled with good things”

“The rich who are sent away empty”.

Who are these people? 

Please let us not sentimentalize or spiritualize these images.

In Jesus' day as in our day the “proud, the powerful, the rich” are the ruling class.

In that time the Romans and those like Herod and others made their living at the expense of the poor, the vulnerable, the politically and culturally disenfranchised…

Raymond Brown, John Crossan, Elaine Pagles and Marcus Borg have written about the disparity between the haves and the have-nots of Jesus' day.

I have heard far too many sermons in which the words of our text for this day was sentimentalized or spiritualized…

Mary’s words are prophetic words – words that cut like a sword into the status quo of her world. They were words that have called forth the timid and the fearful to speak out on behalf of the poor and the weak.

I think of Dorothy Day founder of the Catholic Worker Movement who said “the greatest challenge of the day is: How to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us.” 

“If I have achieved anything in my life it is because I have not been embarrassed to talk about God.”

Last Sunday Henry told us about how men of means left the world of wealth and the status quo of the Catholicism of their day and preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Then there was Sister Teresa of Calcutta… 

I once heard her speak in Charleston, South Carolina.

She is barely 5 feet – and she pointed her finger at us “shame, shame, shame... the richest country in the world killing the unborn as if they had never existed…”

Mary the Mother of God continues to live in each of us if we become God-bearers to others… the incarnation continues in those who speak Christ to others.

Their names probably won’t mean anything to you. But these people ought to have some modicum of recognition.

Jason Anderson

Aaron Dale “Bubba” Burkeen

Donald Clark

Stephen Curtis

Gordon Jones

Roy Wyatt Kemp

Karl Kleppinger

Blair Manuel

Dewey Revettee

Shane Rashto... Adam Weise.

They are the 11 workers who were killed when the Deep Water Horizon oil rig burnt and sank in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20^th.

Most of the 11 were in their 20’s and early 30’s. They had families, their deaths have pretty much been forgotten, drowned out by our country's cavalier ethic of “drill baby drill.”

And don’t forget the 17 others who are lying in burn clinics and rehab centers.

The price they paid for BP’s rush to complete this well.

The Theo-Tokos, the God bearers of this world should be screaming not only at the corporate callousness with regard to human life, which makes the American workforce expendable.

People didn’t die in the Gulf; they were killed by the rush of corporate greed for oil…

It would be sad enough if that incident were the exception.

If we had the time and stomach I could cite you a  list of Corporate transgressions that either killed, maimed or injured thousands more in the past five years…

Look at the picture on the cover of today's bulletin again.

Deciding to say “yes” to God does not mean that you are not afraid. 

It does mean that you will not let fear dominate your life with the “what if’s.”

So you say “yes” to the angel.

You say “Here I am, let it be with me according to your word.”

And you become one of Mary’s people… the Theo-Tokos who is willing to bring God to the world. 

We are all mothers of God, wrote Meister Eckhart, a medieval mystic of the Dominican Order who Pr. Ireland spoke about. Von before your name in Germany meant… nobility.

What good is it to me he said, if this eternal birth of Jesus does not take place in myself?

What is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace?

What good is it for me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I don’t also give birth to him in my life and culture?

Greetings favored ones! The Lord be with you – don’t be afraid. For nothing is impossible with God. Amen