ADVENT 3: JOY

Invitation: Winter Solstice

The winter solstice is very close. Days continue to grow shorter as the nights grow longer. It is only four more sleeps until the turning of the year!

The changing seasons remind us there is a rhythm to life on this planet. The seasons never fail us. The season of autumn pulls us into ever darkening days and winter holds us there. The earth tilts away from the sun and darkness fills our days. And yet every year on the Solstice, the earth tilts back and the sun reclaims control of our sky. The light returns and with it comes the heat that slowly pulls the spring of new life from the earth. Tiny buds pop up on darkened branches, tender shoots push up through the soil of yesterday and the light paints the world in greens – then pinks, purples, reds, yellows – a rainbow of colour.

At this time of year, we are invited to embrace the gifts of the winter season: a time of respite and regeneration.

The Reclaiming Tradition says, “Pausing at this still point, we reflect, receive guidance, and resource ourselves and others as we enter winter.”

As you read this Scripture passage and reflection, you may have an emotional reaction to the use of the word Israel. Please remember that Jesus was born into the Jewish tradition in the land of Israel, which at that time was a small country occupied by the powerful Roman Empire. The powerful modern state of Israel, which is attacking the occupied Palestinian territory of Gaza, is very different from the ancient Israel that we read about here.

The Good News: Luke 1:46-55 The Inclusive Bible

Mary said:

“My soul proclaims your greatness, O God, and my spirit rejoices in you, my Savior.

For you have looked with favour upon your lowly servant,

and from this day forward all generations will call me blessed.

For you, the Almighty, have done great things for me, and holy is your Name.

Your mercy reaches from age to age for those who fear you.

You have shown strength with your arm;

You have scattered the proud in their conceit;

You have deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places.

You have filled the hungry with good things, while you have sent the rich away empty.

You have come to the aid of your servant Israel, mindful of your mercy –

the promise you made to our ancestors – to Sarah and Abraham and their descendants forever.”

Reflection: “Singing in the Present Tense”

The Magnificat, the song of Mary the mother of Jesus, shines to us across the ages like a lighthouse across stormy seas. 

Mary is surrounded by troubles, in her life and in her world. Barely into her teens, she is visited by the angel Gabriel to tell her that she will bear a Holy Child, the Son of God.  Mary is justifiably puzzled about how this will happen because she is a virgin, but Gabriel assures her that nothing is impossible with God, and Mary assents with that famous line “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Confused, elated, frightened, she hurries to see her much older cousin Elizabeth, who is also expecting a baby who will grow up to be John the Baptiser, and Mary sings her song.

Randall C. Bailey, a Biblical scholar, points out that the Magnificat is one of four poems in the Bible that the writers placed in the mouths of women at key points in the history of Israel. All these women are mothers or substitute mothers, and their key role is to produce or nurture male children who will serve important roles in history. The women’s songs speak of liberation from oppression, but Bailey says “these songs are really odes to the men and the male God who empowers the men to rule.”

Mary’s body and voice, like those of Miriam, Deborah and Hannah before her, are exploited by men as vehicles in the struggle against the oppressors of Israel: the Egyptians, the Canaanites, and the Romans. 

Mary is a powerless woman in an occupied land. Our world is full of Marys. In Palestine, where the formerly oppressed nation of Israel is now the oppressor, almost 20,000 have been killed and 70% of those are women and children. Mary is all those innocent women and children. 

Mary is every one of the 50,000 – 200,000 women known as “comfort women”, primarily from Korea, forced into sexual slavery by the occupying Japanese army during WWII, 

Mary is the 582 murdered or missing Indigenous women and girls who have been documented by the inquiry in Canada, and the thousands more undocumented women and girls dead and exploited throughout our shameful history of colonization and residential institutions.

Mary is all the parents who have died of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, and all of their orphaned children.

You might be familiar with the practice of lectio divina. It is a personal, contemplative approach to hearing Scripture. I use an abbreviated form of lectio divina for my weekly morning prayer group on Zoom. As we hear the gospel reading, I invite the group to listen for the word or phrase that stands out to them.

As we listened to the Song of Mary on Tuesday, the thing that stood out to me was not all the hopeful reversals of power, all the examples of liberation from oppression. What stood out to me was that all those reversals were worded in the past tense: 

You have shown strength with your arm;

You have scattered the proud in their conceit;

You have deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places.

You have filled the hungry with good things, while you have sent the rich away empty.

I was seized with a longing to hear that these things are also happening now. Not in the ancient Biblical past, not in some increasingly uncertain future. NOW!

I want to know that God is active and working in all the oppressed places in our so, so broken world. Bringing peace to war-torn countries, redistributing wealth and resources so that all are fed, liberating oppressed people from unjust rulers, restoring women to the dignity of full participation in society, protecting innocent children. This old song of past liberation is cold comfort to me today.

And yet…and yet…

In spite of Randall Bailey’s unflinching analysis of how the voices of women are co-opted by the patriarchy in the songs they sing, the beauty of the words still speaks of hope. Sometimes the beautiful truth still shines through the shadow of its context. Sometimes mystery lurks behind the mundane. Sometimes the story of a powerless young woman bearing God into the world gives us a reason to believe that God is still here. No matter who wrote it or why, as we hear this song we know that Mary is so much more than a victim.

There are so many reasons for not believing this story, for not hearing this song. We can say, as Bailey does, that we are not actually hearing Mary’s voice, that she is essentially a puppet. We can say that it’s impossible for a virgin to conceive, or for that matter her post-menopausal cousin Elizabeth. But there is always a limit to the usefulness of cold, hard facts when we are faced with mystery. As my friend Kevin likes to say, “Magic everywhere. It’s still out there.”

The incarnation is the central mystery of our Christian faith. It means “in the flesh”, the astounding truth that God has chosen to be physically present in the world. In the gospel stories, God becomes present in our world in Jesus, and it can’t happen without Mary. 

Letting go of her preconceived ideas of what is possible and what isn’t, opening herself up to the Holy Spirit, she is able to welcome and rejoice in God’s action in and through her.   This is the basis of a contemplative spirituality, the two movements of surrender and welcome.  When we are able to do this, God delights in us and we delight in God. Mary sings her song and if we listen she speaks to us soul to soul.

She sings to us of joy, of delight in the world that Creator has made and in Creator’s presence in this world. She speaks to us of justice, of dramatic reversals that Mary names and celebrates, beginning with her own transformation from an unmarried pregnant girl living in occupied territory into a blessed woman for whom God has done great things. God has scattered the proud, brought down the powerful, and fed the hungry.  And finally, she sings that God is fulfilling God’s promise to be merciful.

In my morning prayer group, my companions encouraged me to continue to hear Mary’s song as a song of hope not just for the past, but for the present and the future. As Trisha Lyons Senterfitt says, although Mary sings in the past tense, she is announcing “how the wrongs of history will be made right…Through her song of justice, Mary calls us to be change agents for a better world for all…God’s call to us…is coming through Mary’s song.”

I would  like to close with this poem:

Revelers by Lynn Unger

Call it a spare time –

dark afternoons

and the bones of trees

rattling against the sky.

We could use more hope,

or reason for hope. The sea

is rising, and bombs are planted

in the marketplace. It might

be better to just go to bed.

It might be better to

turn out the lights and wait

for the end to come.

The only other choice

is to dance. That and to sing

sturdy songs that have held up

across the winters,

drink wine the red of blood

that had not been shed,

feast, tell tales of heroes who

strode or stumbled through

their own bleak times.

When in doubt, revel in the darkness.

Each act of celebration is a spark.

Gathered together

they call back the sun.

My Christmas longing for all of us is to welcome the love and light that is always arriving in our world.  Like Mary, delight in God’s gifts and watch for the opportunities to let go of power and fear, to let go of our preconceived ideas of what is possible, and to cooperate in the building of a new world of justice and peace.

Let us pray:

God, who breaks through the limits of mind and body, time and space, fears and uncertainties, in the pilgrimage of Advent and beyond,

Help us to empty ourselves of all that holds us back from being a Mary in our time.

Help us to let go and fall into you,

And in that embrace give birth to your limitless possibilities and transforming love.

Amen.

A Time for Silent Reflection: What will become of the dream of love and kindness? Is there still room for joy?

Lighting the Christ Candle

Jesus brings hope for the future,
peace like a river,
joy everlasting, and
love for all.

Christmas is the beginning of a new world, a better world,
that we are boldly invited to create together
as followers of the Christ child.

May it be so.

(Christ candle is lit.)
Amen.

Liturgy for lighting the Christ Candle used with permission from https://united-church.ca/worship-theme/advent-unwrapped