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Sermon - The Fourth Sunday in Advent (C) - 20th December 2009
St Aidan's Anglican Church West Epping 8:30am
Readings: Micah 5:2-5a; Song of Mary; Luke 1:39-45
One part of the Sydney Morning Herald I always enjoy is the obituary page. Usually these obituaries are very well written, and almost always they are fascinating. Just as I enjoy reading biographies, there is much pleasure to be found on the obituary page. There you read of such fine people, who have lead outstanding lives. Some people achieve so much in life and you wonder when they had the time to sleep, because what they have done is so remarkable. And we might think that what the world needs is more people like that. When things go wrong, what we need is a strong leader who will get us out of the trouble or the difficulty.
But that’s not the story of the Bible. Over the 1500 years of history that the Bible covers, it tells of times of great successes, great leaders, and great achievements. But it also tells of very low times, times when it seems that the people of God will be wiped out. Sometimes things get so low you wonder how the story of the Bible could possibly continue on. Things are so bad, how could there possibly be another chapter to the story.
Several times the Bible plumbs those depths and at these times we don’t find strong leaders suddenly emerging. At these low times the Bible tells a very different story. Rather than everything depending upon a strong man, the story focuses upon a weak woman, often an older woman, and a woman who is barren. Its as if the story focuses upon the weakest person imaginable, a person of the lowest social status, even though these women should never be underestimated. And it will be this person that God will use in his work of restoring his people, his creation.
We have an example of this in the first book of the Bible. When we get to Genesis 12 the emphasis is upon Abraham and how God will use him in God’s work of blessing the world. From this one man God will produce a great nation, their numbers will be greater than the stars in the sky or the sands on the sea shore. And yet, though he is married to Sarah, they have no children. The story continues and they are approaching their hundredth birthday, but Sarah has produced no child. There is no hope of blessing from God. In the end, we are left with an elderly barren woman and we may ask, “Is this how the story will end?” And, of course, it takes nothing short of a miracle for her to produce her son Isaac. This is beyond human achievement. The point of the story is that God will bless the world but the fulfilment of that promise does not depend upon and human intervention. The fact that the story can continue at all is a gift of God. It all comes from him.
Then we move forward in history by about 500 years. Eli was the priest at Shiloh. But he was getting old. His sons were stealing the sacrifices and they were living immoral lives. The worship of God had been completely corrupted. What future would there be for Israel?
And then we are told of Elkanah who was married to Hannah. They sacrificed on a yearly basis but Hannah’s grief was that she had no children. The misery of her life is told against the background of the miserable state of the spiritual life of Israel. One wonders how the story can continue. Yet again, miraculously, Hannah produces a son and his name is Samuel, who becomes a great leader for Israel.
In I Samuel 2 we have Hannah’s son which expresses much the same ideas as Mary’s song which we know as the Magnificat. But in both songs the emphasis is not on the child that will be born but upon the power of God who directs the course of history. Both songs focus upon God putting things right again. So no matter how strong an army becomes they are never strong enough to overpower God. Rather the might are brought down while the hungry and the needy are fed. Its as if everything is put back into balance again. Those who have become too strong are defeated. Those who have suffered and been oppressed are raised up. In other words, God’s justice will prevail on earth. Times of suffering will come to an end and there will be no power on earth that can resist the power of God. And so Hannah’s story is followed by the story of the faithful ministry of Samuel culminating in the anointing of David and King. But of all the people God uses, all this is achieved through the faithfulness of one barren woman.
So we come forward in history another 1000 years. Israel was under Roman occupation. Several uprisings had attempted to get the Romans out. But each time the rebellion was crushed. Rather than removing the Romans, the very existence of Israel was under threat. Who would rescue Israel? How will the story of Israel survive? And then Luke tells us about two women; one an older barren woman; the other just a teenager. Yet this is the focus of Luke’s gospel. In the midst of Israel’s turmoil everything comes down to these two women.
First we have, the older woman, Elizabeth, who had had no children. Yet miraculously, she was now pregnant with John. Yet it seems that even her baby responded when Mary came to visit to tell her amazing story of her miraculous pregnancy. Perhaps of all the women Mary knew, there was only one who was prepared to believe stories of miraculous pregnancies. Yet these two marginalised insignificant women were carrying John the Baptist and Jesus himself.
And then we have Mary’s song, the Magnificat. Notice that it is so similar to Hannah’s song. Mary blesses God and thanks him for not forgetting her. Yet she immediately widens that out to claim that this is how God always behaves from one generation to the next. she is convinced of the inherent goodness of God whether it involves her life or all of Israel. She reflects Hannah’s song, claiming that God brings down rulers and lifts up the humble and feeds the hungry. Its seems that there is something inherently wrong with being rich and powerful and that just is best expressed by bringing down the powerful and exalting the powerless. There is the idea that behind every great fortune lies a great crime.
Of course these were the days that knew little of democracy. The Herodian family had no claim to power yet they had taken it through force. It was a society where the powerful took all the wealth. There was little justice, and Roman law was more directed towards maintaining their control over the population. But God will not allow this to continue. God will bring his justice to the earth, even though we are not told when. However, Mary is declaring that God has begun to act. With her pregnancy it is a sign to the world that God has remembered the promises he made. Mary takes the story back to Abraham 1500 years before. Even the promises that God made way back then have not been forgotten. Rather, God will act to fulfil them and it all starts with this new baby. This is the beginning of God putting the world right. This is the message of Advent.
And as we look at our world today we realise the need for justice is greater than ever before. We now have over a billion people in the world living in the worst of poverty. We have tens of thousands of children who die every year from hunger alone. Yet there is not lack of food in our world. As we enter this Christmas season, as we engage in the frantic activity of gift giving, let us express our Christian discipleship in remembering the poor, and the homeless, those with few resources to celebrate anything. There are plenty of charities that give us the opportunity to do this. And so it is a time for us to be involved in God’s activity of bringing justice, of putting the world right, of remembering the humble and filling the hungry with good things. As we follow Christ into the new year. This is our path of discipleship.