Preaching text: Luke 1:46-55
A few years ago, I preached about Mary on 4th Advent, claiming that she was not this dainty little flower, quiet and submissive, dressed all pretty in blue. While she is often depicted as such, the truth is far different. No, she was a fierce fiery woman of conviction, a person of passion who was thrilled that God was on the move at last to put right all that was wrong in the world. I called her a “punk,” in all the best ways that word can mean; a rebel who was determined to tear down an unfair system to replace it with something equitable and fair. And if you doubt that assessment of her, I suggest you read very closely the Song of Mary, the Magnificat.
This piece of beautiful poetry that we often sort of “ooh” and “aww” at could very well be the first punk rock song. These words are revolutionary. They are not the thoughts of someone who is content with their lot in life. This is someone who wants to watch the world burn so that something new may emerge from the ashes of the old. “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.”
If you are someone who benefits greatly from the status quo, those worlds should very much so give you pause. The god this woman believes in is about to change everything. And she’s hungry for it. She wants it badly.
No wonder we prefer to depict her so meekly. The real Mary scares the daylights out of us.
It’s funny though, because the one piece of American culture we really get right is our fondness for rebels. Last Saturday, I watched the latest installment of the Star Wars saga, a series of movies that as much as any is a modern American myth or fairy tale. And who are the heroes of that story? “Rebel scum” according to more than a few characters throughout the saga, people who are putting their lives on the line to fight tyranny and bring freedom. And they’re not alone. Many of our pop culture heroes are cut from similar cloth. Heck, we sometimes even admire those who rebel just for the sake of rebelling. James Dean made a whole movie in the 1950s with himself as the titular “Rebel Without a Cause.”
We come to that pedigree honestly. Our nation was, of course, founded in revolution by rebels like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, people who likewise put their lives on the line to fight tyranny and bring freedom. And even today, we still pine a bit for that rebellion. We will often claim, usually without much evidence, that our government is tyrannical and we want to believe ourselves rebels against it.
But that’s usually just as much a fiction as Star Wars. It’s all pretend. We don’t really mean it. Despite all our bellyaching to the contrary, we generally benefit from what happens in Harrisburg or Washington and we like what they do or, at the very least, we don’t care. As a result we’re not all that inclined to really change things. Certainly not to the point of actually risking life and limb as did our Founding Fathers.
And that’s why Mary scares us. We don’t have that distance. The stories we read about or see on the silver screen are fictions, harmless make-believe. The adventures of our Founding Fathers are long in the past. But what Mary prays for in the Magnificat is right here and right now in the midst of every generation. God, come and put things right.
And we know darn well who God is going to recruit to help him do that: You and me, the disciples of his and Mary’s son Jesus.
Mary understands exactly what is happening here. She knows what it means to bear God’s Messiah (Popular Christmas songs that wonder to the contrary notwithstanding.) She knows her son is not interested in maintaining a status quo that benefits only a few at the expense of the many. As Jesus himself claims many years later in his conversations with the Pharisee Nicodemus, he came to save the whole world, not just a small portion of it. And we who follow Jesus, who claim through baptism and practice that we are Christians and disciples, are called into that same revolution, that same mission to transform the world.
We too are rebel scum of the best sort. Called to work to replace what is with what Christ says will be. And how do we do that? By making other disciples, and not merely those who are like us in race, language, or economics. We make disciples of all the world, the poor, the alien, the stranger, the rich, our families, our friends. And we don’t just do by talking to them, although that’s a good start. But we work by tearing down unjust systems and reforming society so that it helps a greater portion. That’s what good rebels do.
It’s what Jesus did. He healed the sick, ministered to the poor, welcomed the outcast and stranger. He gave his all to those the powers-that-be had long rejected. And it got him in trouble. His conflicts with the Pharisees and the scribes and other religious and political figures of his day were no accident. They knew what he was up to and it’s why they killed him. In doing so, they inadvertently gave us God’s most revolutionary act of all, the resurrection of Easter, rebellion against death itself. Talk about changing everything. Even the one thing that we mortals cannot overcome is flipped on its head by Christ.
Many others have followed Jesus to similar ends. As Bonhoeffer once said, “Grace is free, but discipleship will cost you your life,” many have discovered the powers-that-be are still as hostile to Jesus as ever. And that may be us too. But it’s hard to kill someone who trusts that God will bring them to resurrection on the last day. And it’s hard to stop a rebellion when the threat of death loses its sting.
Mary’s call for revolution comes to us. And what are we going to do with it? We live in a world that is profoundly unfair for many. We live in a world were the peace and grace of Christ are unknown to many. What are we going to do about that? Christmas is about a new world, about a hope, about light in the midst of darkness. We have our part to play in that. Are we going to play it? Amen.
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