Skip to main content

Introduction to Worship for 12/11/2016

By

Luke 1: 39-56

More than any other female, Mary has indelibly marked Christian and Western history and culture, bearing the Christ child as well as all manner of gifts and baggage about the feminine ideal. For the Christian tradition, the Magnificat (which takes its name from the first word of the Latin text) is the great New Testament praise song of liberation. With elegant power and directness, Mary preaches as the prophet of the poor.

In Luke’s gospel, as Mary arrives, Elizabeth’s unborn child – who will be the prophet John the baptizer – leaps for joy at Mary’s greeting. Mary responds to this blessing by singing the glory of God’s powerful love that has chosen her to carry the Christ child. She sings because God acts with justice and mercy to lift those who are considered lowly and feed those who are hungry. 

The Magnificat is revolutionary, with a long history of being banned by various church or political bodies. As recently as the 1980s, the government of Guatemala forbade public reading of it, as did the government of Argentina in the 1970s. Franciscan Richard Rohr notes the Magnificat is an elegant example of Jesus’ teachings about the obstacles to the coming reign of God. Rohr calls these impediments the “three p’s”: power, prestige, and possessions. Mary sings at seeing how “the proud,” “the powerful,” and “the rich” will be “scattered…brought down…sent away empty.”

Mary sings of joy and justice. Her courage to say “yes” and her belief that God will never abandon the promise to be with us is a profound witness of faith. Mary bears witness to the love of God and God’s transformative vision that exceeds our conceptions of power. What is this deep love and joy birthing in us today? Where are we thirsty for life and justice? Where might we be “a stream in the desert” for others?

Family activity (can be adapted to families of all ages)

  • Do you believe God is working this way in the world? How so? 
  • How would you rewrite these words so you could sing them, or say them to a child in your family, or your neighborhood right now?
  • How might we free Mary’s song and the birth narratives from pre-conceived notions and assumption in order to hear them with radical power and wonder for our time?
  • Where do you see the spirit of Mary alive within you and/or in our midst?
  • In what situations does your heart beat with justice as did Mary’s?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction to Worship for 9/24/2017

By
Bless the Water: This week our creation theme is Water. As an introduction to the theme, we will be looking at the beginning of the second creation story in Genesis. Genesis 2:4b–14 In the first story (Genesis 1:1––2:3), water is there from the beginning, and creation is an act of separating everything else from the waters, and then bringing life to the land—after light and darkness and planets and the sun and moon are brought forth.      In the second story, the land has already been created, and there is a stream that waters all of the land. God creates the human from the land, and we can’t grasp the pun in English, but adam (human or man) is made from adamah (humus or earth). We’re probably most familiar with verses 8 & 9 in this text, when God creates a garden and puts adam into the garden with the green and growing things, including the tree of life and the tree of good and evil. But then the author describes the four rivers that surround the garden, a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Introduction to Worship for 9/25/2016

By
1 Timothy 2: 1-7 With the community addressed in 1 Timothy, we are reminded that God’s people pray in all circumstances. We are urged to pray for everyone, including political leaders, so that all people may live in God’s reign of peace and wholeness – shalom. God’s wise ways lead and encourage us as we seek to live prayerfully as members of the Body of Christ and also citizens of our own countries. Prayer is part of living faithfully as citizens of God’s realm. God’s people are called to pray for peace and justice for all people. What does it mean to pray in Jesus’ name for leaders? How might prayerful living strengthen us to work for justice, even as we pray for God’s shalom? Family activity (can be adapted to families of all ages) What is your favorite way to pray? Take a few minutes to reflect on this and think about one of your favorite prayers. You might think about when and where you like to pray, too. Draw a picture of prayer – either a picture of them praying or a ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Introduction to Worship for 4/2/2017

By
Hope Against All Hope There are disappointing moments in life, times when it seems as though there may be no hope. And then there are those times when we are, literally, beyond hope—times when it would appear that, no matter what, there is no going back. Our story this week reminds us that with God the impossible is, at best, a slight inconvenience. As Paul points out in Romans 8:11, “if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, [this same Spirit] will give life to your human bodies also…” John 11:1–45 The story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead can stretch the limits of our believing. But getting hung up on whether or not the story took place as written can distract us from the great point of the story. We know that John presents us with stories that are not in the synoptic gospels, and which (such as turning massive amounts of water into wine at Cana) seem questionable. But John’s points are not confined by fact; they are about something much more...
Post a Comment
Read more