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12/22/2024 0 Comments Dec. 22, 2024 - Singing Praise The Gospel: Part 2 Luke 46-55
Elizabeth was said to be 88 years old when she conceived John the Baptist. Mary was probably 15 or 16 when she had Jesus. They were cousins but Elizabeth was older than Mary’s grandmother. And yet one of the first things Mary does after hearing that she will bear God’s child is to go to Elizabeth, whose pregnancy she has just heard of through the Angel Gabriel. Here they are together, sharing their pregnancies -both miracles: one due to age and the other to an immaculate conception. They could have been complaining - pregnancy is challenging with nausea, sleeping issues, the discomfort of a swelling belly and feet etc. it is not always easy in your twenties or thirties - imagine it in your 80s! Elizabeth is said to have gone into seclusion for the first five months of her pregnancy. To me this says it was not an easy one. She probably had terrible morning sickness and felt both the need to hide from people when she felt this way and likely hide her pregnancy until it was really apparent, because who would believe it possible at her age? It wasn’t going to be easy for Mary either. Being an engaged virgin who shows up pregnant - well, not everyone is going to believe the immaculate conception part right away - even Joseph would need an angel to get him there. This is before the morning sickness and other issues. And yet both Elizabeth and Mary are singing praises to God for the miracle of these pregnancies. And it is not just Mary and Elizabeth who are celebrating but the six-month old fetus, the one who will become John the Baptist, leapt in Elizabeth’s womb at being in proximity to the fetus of Jesus, who at this point, might not be any bigger than a grain of rice. There is yet another miracle in this story. Line 41 tells us that “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit”. Mary did not tell Elizabeth of her pregnancy and how it came about, the Holy Spirit did. The Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth with the knowledge of Mary’s pregnancy with God’s child so Mary did not have to explain it: a blessing in and of itself. And filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth sang Mary’s praises as well, “Blessed art you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb” - words that Catholics use to celebrate Mary in the “Hail Mary” prayer: a beautiful prayer that celebrates and venerates Mary as not only the mother of God but a source of help and hope for all. “Hail Mary, full of Grace the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus, Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” A fitting prayer to an amazing woman. Elizabeth goes on to praise Mary for saying yes to this incredible task of bearing and raising God’s child, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Mary could have thought she was dreaming when the Angel Gabriel appeared to her and told her she would “bear the son of the Most High.. called the son of God” but instead, she merely asked how it was possible for a Virgin? She was informed that “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” and she accepts this. If she had any doubts about the Holy Spirit”s ability this early in her pregnancy, that ability was confirmed by two other things: the miracle of Elizabeth’s own pregnancy, and, later, the miracle of Elizabeth knowing not only about Mary’s pregnancy but the very nature of it. There is a lot to sing praises about. Mary does go on to sing God’s praises in lines 46-55: a praise song referred to as “The Magnificat” for the line “My soul magnifies the Lord.” This is no ordinary song of praise. It reveals Mary’s deep faith in God and in what is happening in her body - the birth of a savior even though she is well aware that this will not be an easy path. She also glorifies God for doing the opposite of what society would expect: scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful and uplifting the lowly, feeding the hungry and sending the rich away with nothing. While we know the word magnify to mean make bigger, the earlier use of the word means to extol or glorify. For Mary to say that her soul magnifies God is to say that she glorifies God with her very being - while her belly swells with God’s child her mind and soul and whole body from her toes to her ears is devoted to God as well. Her very existence will magnify God in all senses of the word. She goes on to say “surely from now on all nations shall call me blessed.” This is not said as a boast but out of gratitude to have been chosen as the vessel for Christ - that her very life - her “yes” to God will indeed magnify God for all the world to learn about. It is a great thing the Mighty one has done in believing in her, in recognizing her faith and ability to not only carry God’s child but raise him to do God’s work in the world. I sometimes feel that we Protestants do not always give Mary her due. We don’t light candles for her or pray to her regularly but we can recognize her not only for her faith and what she did but for what God choosing her did and does for women. God chose her for her faith, her humility, and her lineage: she, like Joseph, was from the line of David. She is the one who instructed the child Jesus in his faith until the age when he could learn from others and on his own. She is the one who guided his first miracle at the Wedding at Cana - turning the water into wine. Mary has no small role here although she does things quietly and often under the radar like many women. Mary elevated motherhood to something holy which anyone who has ever rocked a newborn in your arm knows it is. But Mary, and for that matter, Elizabeth also, showed what strong, faithful women can do at any age. They reveal and personify the Motherly, loving form of God. For God not only sent God’s son to change the world but Christ’s mother Mary to do so as well. It is Mary who revealed most of the birth and early stories of Christ’s life to Luke long after Jesus had been crucified and resurrected. Mary was living in Ephesus where she had moved with the Apostle John later in her life. Recall that John 19:27 tells us that Jesus said to John, “Behold your Mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home”. By the way, there is a replica of her stone home at Ephesus, Turkey right here in Vermont. The Our Lady of Ephesus House of Prayer is in Jamaica, Vermont overlooking Wardsboro. My husband Russ and I stumbled upon it during one of our Vermont 251 Club adventures when a woman we spoke to in Wardsboro told us we had to check it out and we were so glad that we did. It is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year as a very small chapel to reflect and pray in. There is a retreat house just up the hill from it as well. As I lit a candle, kneeling down to pray, I could feel both the power and tranquility of the Holy Mother of God. So it is only natural that Mary and Elizabeth should sing God’s praises and so should we. And while we use the term “sing his or her praises” to refer to effusive praise in spoken and even written form, it does not always mean literal singing but people have been literally singing God’s praises for a long time. Psalm singing goes back to over 3000 BCE. Singing Psalms was good enough for early Christians too. In “A Brief History of Psalm Singing” on the Gentle Reformation Blog by people in the Reformed and Presbyterian Faith, they describe singing in early Christianity. “The early church. The great church historian Philip Schaff writes: “So far as we are able to gather from our sources, nothing, except the Psalms and a few NT hymns (such as the “Gloria in Excelsis,” the “Magnificat,” etc.) was as a rule sung in public worship before the C4th… Except perhaps for 7 or 8 hymns in rhythmic prose, the Greek church of the first six centuries produced nothing of permanent value or general use. It long adhered almost exclusively to the Psalms of David, who, as Chrysostom says, was first, middle and last in the assemblies of the Christians…” One of the early church fathers, Tertullian, wrote in the C2nd describing a typical Christian worship service. He said that reading Scripture and singing psalms were the essential components. In the C4th Jerome wrote, “Wherever you turn, the labourer at the plough sings Alleluia; the toiling reaper beguiles his work with Psalms; the vine-dresser as he prunes the vine sings something of David’s.” They later note, “ The first book printed in English-speaking America was the “Bay Psalm Book”. Jonathan Edwards wrote of New England revival: “One of the most observable features of the work was the singular delight which all the awakened appeared to take in singing psalms.” So singing praises are nothing new but we have gone beyond the Psalms in our canon. The word Hymn comes from the Greek word “Hymnos” which means song of praise. The first Chirstmas Carol dates back to around the 4th Century CE and was called the “Angel’s Hymn” based on Luke 2: 14 “Glory to God in the Highest Heaven and on earth peace among those he favors” The Heavenly Host sang to the Shepherds. Although other Christmas Carols developed, they were in Latin and so not really understood and thus did not become popular until St. Francis of Assisi in the 13th Century encouraged people to translate them and sing them in other languages. The first book of Carols in English appears in 1426 in a collection of twenty five put together by John Awdlay, a Shropshire chaplain. In 1647 the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas and Carol singing as Pagan and it did not become popular again until the Victorian age. I like to think that Mary really was the first writer of a Christmas Carol because, inspired by the appearance of an angel and the work of the Holy Spirit, she sang God’s praises in “The Magnificat” at the mere idea of what was happening to her, what she had been chosen for. And while we do not know if she said it or sung it, she was still, as we say, singing God’s praises in a way that has inspired us Christians ever since and her Magnificat is often now set to music. So this Christmas and every day, let us remember Mary, the mother of God who said yes and who has become for us the image of the power of faith, motherhood and of women as a whole. Let us follow her example in singing God’s praise. Amen. Pastor Michelle Fountain
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12/15/2024 0 Comments Dec. 15, 2024: What Should We Do? Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 12: 2-6
The Gospel: Luke 3: 7-18 (Children’s Sermon - Getting the Manager Ready) We have been preparing for Christmas for weeks, maybe even months. Through the scriptures over the past two weeks, we have considered the still speaking God quietly, patiently whispering through our hearts, souls and minds, waiting for us to listen. We have learned to heed messengers paving the way for Christ in our own lives and those of others and to be messengers of Christ helping others where and how we can: allowing them to see God through our actions. Outside of church we have been busy preparing for the holiday as well. Christmas trees and decorations have gone up inside and outside of houses and buildings. In the past week I, like many of you, have written and sent cards off to folks from church as well as friends and family. I have been madly pulling out gifts purchased long ago and shopping for new ones to make sure everyone has something: wondering if the gifts for our sons are equal, if I picked out gifts that younger family members will like - who knows what a ten-year old wants these days anyway?- and then making sure I have enough wrapping paper, gift tags, boxes and time to wrap them and get them to the post office so they arrive on time for Christmas. Then there is the day itself - who will we share it with? What should we make? Can we get the house cleaned in time? There is so much to prepare for that I sometimes find myself just buying a gift to check it off the list rather than being thoughtful about it. I need to remind myself to slow down and remember that it is the thought that counts and the reason for the season that matters more than the gift. Preparing is important. In our scripture from Luke today, some of the people going to be baptized by John, wanted to prepare by covering their bases, checking that Baptism off their list of things to do, without letting it change their lives. That is why Peter referred to them as a brood of vipers - snakes. Being willing to be baptized was not enough - they had to be willing to change their lives, to get out of their comfort zones.” What should we do?” they asked him. He told them to share their extra clothes, their extra food, to be fair, kind and content with what they had. Who was he talking to? Everyone! The tax collectors came and asked “What should we do”” and he told them to take no more taxes than required. Soldiers came - we do not know if they were Jewish or Roman, there to guard or there because they wanted to be baptized but John reached even them as they asked him “What should we do?” He told them not to extort money or threaten people but to be satisfied with the wages they had. He told them all of this to prepare for Jesus. As John said, “I baptize you with water but one who is more powerful than I is coming: I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Let’s think about being baptized by the Holy Spirit and fire for a minute. We see that clearly in the story of Pentecost where the Holy Spirit appears as flames above the disciples giving them the ability to speak in other languages- giving them the ability to have their message about Jesus’ life, teaching, and resurrection understood. But that also lit a fire under them. It got them out of the locked room and working. Being baptized by fire is about being fired up. It is about being changed. It is about putting belief in Christ’s teaching - his messages about equity and justice into action. John was preparing them, having them take the first steps of fairness, sharing, and selflessness that would pave their way to Christ who would put a fire in their belly to do even more for God’s creation. John goes on to say that Jesus will separate the wheat from the chaff. Chaff is the dry scales of the wheat that cannot be eaten. John said Christ would burn them off in an unquenchable fire. Many interpret this to mean Jesus is going to separate the believers from unbelievers in this way but what if it just means we all have chaff to burn off? Might we need to burn off those To Do lists that we just check off to say we did them without thought or care for them? Might we need to burn off those parts of us that worry about stuff more than God’s creation? Might we need to burn off those worries about having to do it all or have it all when maybe doing less and having less is actually better for us? Might we need to burn off those worries about what people will think if we dress this way, or act that way? We all have chaff that needs to come off and removing that chaff is a way to make way for Jesus - to make way for joy. Zephaniah and Isaiah were both telling persecuted people, exiled people, that they should find joy in God even amid their challenging circumstances. That God, although sometimes angry with what we do, forgives. That God is there for people even and especially in those times when they feel most lost and left out, when they are oppressed. The message is that even amid life’s struggles there is joy: whether it is the joy of hope or the joy of hope fulfilled. It may not be the joy of a happy life but the joy of a happy moment - the laughter of a child, the smile from a stranger, the gratitude for a gift given, or a sunny or snowy sky that can provide joy even when we are sad, lost, ill or oppressed. There is always a way to find joy. “What should we do?” the people asked John. What should we do? We might ask. We should be joyful. We pave the way for Christ by opening our hearts to joy: clearing out the clutter of busyness, the weight of society’s or maybe even our own judgments and expectations and tossing out that chaff. We also need to toss out the chaff of our judgment of others and see them for whom they are: the beloved creations of God. We prepare for the birth of Christ by finding joy - even if only in brief moments of quiet gratitude for the little things that make us smile and for the great joy in God’s abundant love and mercy. We also prepare for the birth of Christ by spreading joy - through a card, a smile, a song, a cookie, or a helping hand. It’s not hard to find or spread joy when you have the right attitude, when you let the chaff fall off and get to your core fire of love glowing from within - that inner light that connects us to Christ. Let’s pause for a moment and think of something that brings us joy. Picture the person, the pet, the place, the action that brings you joy. (Pause) Let that joy start as a warm image or memory that radiates out through your body bringing a slight smile to your lips. Hold onto that feeling as you picture a child born in a manger who would bring help and hope; who would teach and inspire, who would heal and forgive, who would die so we could live. Feel the love, feel the joy. That feeling is what we should do to prepare for the birth of our Saviour. Amen. Pastor Michelle Fountain |
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