The Promise of Justice

Transcripts are computed-generated and may not be 100% accurate.

Thanks, Jon. It’s a little sparse in here, but that’s because it’s Christmas week, and we hope that all those who are missing tonight, if you’re listening online, Merry Christmas to you and peace to you wherever you are. Tonight is week four of Advent, our last week of this great series on the four promises. Does anyone remember the four themes? If you can name them all, I’ll give you a piece of candy. Jack, can you do it? Okay, well, the themes are the Promise of Truth, the Promise of Compassion, the Promise of Restoration, and this week, the Promise of Justice.

As we move into the Christmas season, I can’t help but think that unfortunately, the big-C Church has really made Christmas and Advent season docile—way more docile than it was ever meant to be. We sing those words, “holy infant, so tender and mild,” but the Christmas season, the Christmas message, and the energy and spirit in which Jesus was born wasn’t really very tender or mild. There’s a joke online that says the implication of having a holy infant so tender and mild is that somewhere there is a cursed child, so chewy and spicy, which could describe the antichrist. 

But actually, I think that the Magnificat, which is our text tonight—Mary’s prayer as she finds out she is to carry the Christ child—is incredibly spicy. It is not mild, it is not tender, it is not sweet and soft. It is clear, biting, and cuts to the heart of the justice of God. Her words are uncomfortable for some. They are meant to be uncomfortable for the powerful. So tonight, to have that text read, I want to invite up Lily, who is going to do a dramatic reading of Mary’s words. I thought it would be more fitting for someone who shares much more of Mary’s life experience than I—a teen girl in the community.

[Lily] Our text is Luke 1:46-55. And Mary said, “With all my heart, I glorify the Lord; in the depths of who I am, I rejoice in the Lord my Savior. He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant. Look, from now on, everyone will consider me highly favored because the mighty one has done great things for me. Holy is his name. He shows mercy to everyone from one generation to the next who honors him, who honors him as God. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations. He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones and lifted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty-handed. He has come to the aid of his servant, Israel, remembering his mercy, just as he promised to our ancestors, to Abraham and Abraham’s descendants forever.”

This message might be short because Mary’s words sort of speak for themselves. She makes it clear who God is. Mary is rejoicing in God, not because there’s this spiritual joy that God is coming to save the souls of the people of Earth, but her words are proclaiming and declaring and rejoicing in the promises of God—the God that she has been taught of her whole life, that she has believed in her whole life, that she knows to be true. And she is rejoicing because the justice of God, as Gabriel has delivered the news to her, is finally being fulfilled. That the tangible and material needs of people who are being completely ripped apart by empire are going to be met by God. It’s not a nice spiritualism. It’s not simple sweetness and joy. It is a rejoicing that true liberation, true freedom, will be felt by Mary and those who, like her, are being marginalized, disenfranchised, and torn apart by the powers of empire.

Mary’s song, or Magnificat, is just the Latin for “magnify,” that’s why we call it that. But her song is not just a song; it is a prayer. And it’s not just a prayer—it is a prophecy. And it’s not just prophecy; it’s also a statement of faith. It is a theological statement for the world. Mary is proclaiming that finally, after all the suffering, after all the darkness, after all the pain, death, and destruction, God has heard the cries again of his people. And God will finally make good on this long promise that for generations and generations of exile and rebellion, will finally come true.

I remember when I was four, I think four or three, my family stopped attending church. I remember going to a Christmas service at a large church off Highway 100 in Edina, and I remember sitting in the pew, and the kids were doing the Christmas pageant. There's nothing I hate more than a Christmas pageant, I’ll be honest with you. That’s why we don’t do one here. And I remember having the kids walk to the front and listening to the lines. The only real line in there is Joseph knocking and saying, “Do they have room at the inn? My wife is pregnant, and we have nowhere to go.” But Mary says nothing.

As I grew older, I went to other churches, and I saw other Christmas pageants, and I thought, “Surely that was just that one representation of the birth of Jesus.” But no, in Christmas pageant after Christmas pageant, only the little boy playing Joseph gets to say, “Do you have room at the inn? For we have nowhere to go. My wife is pregnant, and she’s having a baby.” Mary is quiet the whole time.

I thought, there’s no way that this woman says nothing. The entire Christmas story, where does Mary speak? And they were just hiding it from me. They were hiding the Magnificat. I think it’s so telling that in churches all over this country and churches all over the world this week, they’ll have little girls role-play as Mary, being silent, giving birth, and holding a baby. 

But much fewer churches—very few, I would guess—will have little girls get up and play the role of Mary shouting the justice of God, saying that the powerful are going to be ripped down from their thrones, and that the rich are going to be sent away empty-handed, and that the low will be brought high and the poor will have their needs met. Very few churches, I would guess, will ever have little girls get up and shout those words. 

Too often, this world has become about making things docile, about making them approachable, about making them acceptable to so many that the words of God lose their bite and lose their meaning. Too often, Christmas becomes the same old rote thing over and over. And so, of course, people have forgotten the reason for the season.

It’s not simply that a Savior is to be born to save your personal soul. Sure, there is internal change that is important, and grace for the way that we are as people is important too. But Mary’s words make it clear that the reason for the season is not a spiritualism that will come solely for the personal saving of your soul, but that a disruptive, rebellious God is to come to earth, to dwell with us, especially in the material oppression of people who need a material Savior. Jesus’s ministry and Mary’s words in the United States have often lost their urgency. 

I was sitting in the fall, talking to a table full of folks who had just started seminary. It was Maggie, my friend Cole, my friend Jayna, and myself. I wanted them to talk about what brought them to seminary, what was driving them to want to spend their time that way. Because let me tell you, few and far between would choose that. As we sat at that table, I heard visions of the justice of God that need to be made known loudly to more people outside of these doors. The tangible material solidarity with people in their communities who are suffering was part of what drew them to want to study more of God's work in the world. What drew them to seminary was not the promise of any type of job—after all, we know that this line of work is going out of business—but the sense that they wanted to articulate better and move with more strength and purpose to meet the needs of justice in our world.

I thought of Mary's words that hearken back to other women in the Bible’s words. Hannah, in First Samuel, says very similar things to Mary—a turning of tables, a balancing of scales, a flipping upside down of the world to be right side up with God. I thought of the story of Ruth and Naomi, whose story illuminates the dignity that God seeks for the hurting, displayed to us. In the story of two women, the role of Miriam, who actually shares the same name as Mary—Mary’s Hebrew and Aramaic name is Miriam—means, in one definition, rebellion or to rebel. Miriam’s role in Exodus 2 offers her dignity through Batya, as the women work in tandem in the Bible to bring justice and reveal to others the inbreaking of God’s justice in the world.

And as I sat at that table, having dinner at Gai Noi, I especially listened to Maggie's story of being called to go to seminary when so many people in her life had not said that they believed in women's ability to be ordained, to be behind the pulpit, to give prophecy to the world, to reign in God’s justice on earth as it is in heaven. I thought of Mary's words—the Magnificat—because if the Magnificat is not a good enough piece of evidence about the clarity of women’s role in the church, I don’t know what else could be.

So tonight, on the eve of moving into the Christmas season, I want to offer us that without Mary, there is no Christmas. Not just in the natural-born, biological sense, but in the sense of justice. Without the experience of a mother who is deeply anti-empire, who remembers the suffering of her people, who was taught all of the things before Jesus’s birth, who could convey the sense of worldly suffering others are experiencing to this child as he grows—in many cases, without Mary’s sense of faith in God, Jesus might not necessarily have had the connection to the lives of others in the way that he did.

Is it possible that God picked Mary, not just as this small docile, quiet woman who could birth a child and just raise him well, but as an activist who God knew would ensure that God come to earth as Christ would have the best chance at ensuring a disruptive, rebellious sense of ministry antithetical to the powers of the empire as possible? I think so. I don't think he randomly found or chose this random woman. I think God knew inside her faith, her sense that faith is rooted in justice. 

So without Mary, we don't have Christmas without Mary. We don't have so many parts of the story. Even though she's not represented, Mary is there from birth to death, despite the fact that she's only explicitly named around four or five times, she is part of the entire gospel story. She is part of raising up a Savior in truth, compassion, restoration, and justice. God came to earth as a child, I think, not just because God wanted to have the same biological body parts as you and I, but because I think God wanted to ensure that part of the Christ experience on Earth was having a mother. To convey, to guide, to be clear: “This is the way of faith.This Is the tangible way we show up for our neighbor. This is the way of walking towards the needs of others instead of solely with spiritualism.” 

At the wedding in Cana, Mary points out to Jesus that the woman who's hosting the wedding will be deeply shamed if Jesus doesn't step in and he says, woman, this is not my time. And she pushes him. She says, “No, you will do this. It's not an option.” You know what that's like to have your mom ask you to do something? And you're like, “But I, but I, but that's not my dishes.” “Yeah, I'm not asking.” We all know what that's like to have a mom that says, “Yeah, I wasn't asking.” Mary pushes Jesus to say, “This woman will not leave here publicly shamed. We will step in. You know you can help. I don't care if it's not your time. You will free this woman of her shame.” Mary steps in. 

And so back to the Magnificat, Mary is I think where all of what this church even so believes is hinged on the Magnificat, Mary's prophecy song, faith statement, theological prowess. Mary's words here in Luke, so greatly should guide how we move in this Christmas season. Without Mary, there is no gospel. 

Without women, there is no revolution in our world. Women are greatly represented in almost every social movement for democracy and freedom globally. My home country, this past couple weeks, has been having a little bit of a hot moment. If anyone's seen South Korea was fighting for, its fighting for its life there for a hot minute and disproportionately represented at every single protest to ensure that the government remains free and democratic were young women, teenage girls and college women, as well as middle-aged women and women in their eighties, women who have survived war, and girls who are just starting to understand their place in this world that so greatly needs justice. 

When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, women globally—Afghan women—were the ones leading the charge. Cody mentioned a couple weeks ago that in the AIDS crisis, at the peak of people dying day after day after day, in quick succession, it was women who were there to hold their hands, to wipe their tears, to hold them, and to provide them medical care—queer women. 

In movement after movement, you will see the strong leadership of women. And at the same time the clear inbreaking of God's work. Because when and where there is injustice, there is the inbreaking of God. I'm gonna end my sermon tonight with a video to remind us of the very many women who have been emboldened by the power of their creator to move us towards a more just world.