Sunday, 20 December
2015 |
Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:39-55
The Lord has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly. So sang Mary.
We certainly see
this kind of role-reversal in the Old Testament. At the time of the prophet
Micah, the land of Israel was sandwiched between two world powers: Egypt to the
south, and Assyria to the north-east. But Assyria was the major aggressor, and
sought to expand its territory, swallowing up all before it. And so, at this
time, the eighth century bc, the
history of the people of Israel in the north of the land, and the history of
the people of Judah in the south, is largely about international relations: Can
we hold off the Assyrians? Shall we just give in to them? Shall we ask Egypt
for protection? What shall we do? What should
we do?
Some of the prophets
urged the people to turn to the Lord
for help. But the people refused to listen. When the leaders of Israel and Judah
saw the enemy approaching in their chariots, the ancient equivalent of a tank
regiment, their first thought was not, ‘Let’s turn to the Lord for help’, but, ‘Make treaties,
rally the troops, prepare for war’. But Assyria was a force awakened in the ancient
Near East, and none could resist – not least Jerusalem, the capital of Judah.
As we heard earlier,
Micah prophesied that a ruler would soon be born in Bethlehem who would deliver
the Lord’s people from imperialist oppression. The king of Jerusalem was a
waste of space and a travesty of a monarchy supposedly based on David. And so,
from outside Jerusalem – in fact, in Bethlehem, the birthplace of King David
himself – from Bethlehem there would arise another destined to be the true King
of Israel, another who would show the pathetic, weak-willed kings of the people
precisely how the job should be done.
The Lord has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly. So sang Mary. And for
Micah, the powerful king of Israel, and the powerful king of Assyria, were
about to be thrown from their thrones, and a man from the most insignificant
clan in the land of Judah would instead be lifted above those born into power
and wealth and privilege.
Ah, Terry, I hear
you say. Ah, Terry, thank you for the history lesson, but let’s get on with the
sermon now, there’s a good chap. I hear you. But let me just point out one
thing about what I’ve been saying so far: Apart from the slightest mention of
an unnamed woman giving birth, it’s all been about men. The prophet Micah, a man; the King of Assyria, a man; the
Kings of Israel and Judah, two men; King David, a man; and the promised ruler
from Bethlehem – another man, albeit, presumably, quite a special one (and I
don’t mean José Mourinho, either). But where are the women?
The Lord has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly. So sang Mary. But apart
from her warbling away like an X-Factor
finalist, where is the evidence that the Lord has brought down the powerful, has
lifted up the lowly? If we accept that women and children are representative of
the lowly in a patriarchal society – that is, in a society where the rules are
made by men for men – then how is God
bringing down the powerful in order to lift them up?
Today’s Gospel
reading from Luke – another man, of course – gives us some clues as to how God
is acting slowly but surely to turn our corrupted patriarchal world upside
down. Notice that the major players in this passage are two pregnant women (one
elderly, the other young and unmarried), and two unborn babies – and only one
of these babies is even mentioned here by Luke. The men are conspicuous by
their absence. The priest, Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband, has blown his chance
of being centre-stage at this point in the story. You’ll recall that he found
it difficult to accept that his aging wife would conceive, and so he was
rendered mute (and possibly deaf as well, as the Greek can mean both things)
until the birth of his son. Zechariah’s voice is silenced; and, unexpectedly,
Elizabeth’s voice is heard:
This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favourably on me and
took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.
Here we see God
beginning to reverse the perceived natural order of things: the person who had
a voice is silenced; the person with no voice is heard.
And what of Joseph,
the man engaged to Mary? He’s not mentioned at all. It’s all about Mary and the
baby she’s carrying. Mary has already accepted her destiny – or, if you prefer,
her fate – that she will give birth to the Son of God, the ultimate fulfilment
of Micah’s prophecy about a future ruler. And so she hurries to visit her
relative, Elizabeth. She makes an arduous five-day journey from Nazareth in the
north of the land to somewhere just south of Jerusalem (a distance roughly the
same as from Penge to Peterborough). Now the angel Gabriel had told Mary that
the elderly Elizabeth was pregnant, but Elizabeth herself had not been told
that Mary, too, was expecting. This is why what happens next is so
extraordinary: As soon as Elizabeth hears Mary’s voice, the unborn baby in her
womb suddenly moves – ‘leaps’, says Luke. Somehow, her unborn baby, who will
grow up to be John the Baptist – somehow, her unborn baby John knows who Mary
is, and is already doing what he is called to do. He is pointing to Jesus.
There’s more, of
course. Luke tells us that Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. The
presence of the Spirit helps her to see that Mary is pregnant with, as she puts
it, ‘my Lord’. But the Spirit also helps Elizabeth to know that her own unborn
baby, John, leapt for joy. John’s
movement in the womb was not down to badly timed indigestion on Elizabeth’s
part, but baby John’s response to the Spirit showing him that this
insignificant woman, Mary, would give birth to the one who is to rule in
Israel. This one would be great to the ends of the earth, and Mary is his
mother. The Lord has brought down the
powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly. So sang Mary. And
through these two women, and through these unborn babies, God was beginning
slowly but surely to overturn the tables of patriarchy and imperialism and the
natural disorder.
I’ve spent quite a
bit of time trying to get into our two passages today. And I hope you can see that
the story of Elizabeth and Mary flows quite naturally from Micah’s prophecy.
Micah’s prophecy is about hope, and
Mary’s pregnancy is that same hope being given definitive shape in the person
of the unborn baby Jesus. And so now let me say something about what all this
means for us.
First of all,
there’s the matter of Micah’s prophecy. While we, as Christians, should
recognise Micah’s prophecy to find its ultimate fulfilment in Jesus, we should
also bear in mind that the original hearers of Micah’s prophecy quite possibly
would have had no real clue as to what it meant other than hope. The Assyrians
are breathing down the necks of the kings of Israel and Judah; the situation is
hopeless; but somehow, the Lord
promises hope. There is salvation and deliverance just around the corner!
But if we do accept
Micah’s prophecy as ultimately pointing to Jesus, then we also need to accept
that the original hearers did not live to see this prophecy fulfilled. If
Micah’s prophecy was spoken around 700 bc,
then that’s seven hundred years between its utterance and its completion in the
birth of Jesus. That’s a long time to hope. And if we probe Micah’s prophecy
further, then it could be argued that his prophecy is still not entirely
completed, for we do not yet live secure, and Jesus is not yet recognised as
great to the ends of the earth. Nonetheless, Jesus is risen and ascended; he is
sitting at the right hand of his Father; and this is the foundation of our
hope.
And this mention of
Jesus’s resurrection leads me to admit that, at the moment, despite God acting
slowly but surely to reverse the brokenness of this world, all we have is this hope. But it’s enough. Why? Because it is hope
that God will finally achieve the impossible and restore the entire world.
Because Mary’s son, Jesus, was born into the old, fallen creation but
resurrected into the new. Because in Jesus, God has promised one day to make
all things – all things – new.
Elizabeth knew this: that’s why she was sure God had taken away her disgrace.
The unborn baby John knew this: that’s why he leapt for joy in the womb. And
Mary knew this: that’s why she could sing, The
Lord has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.
Is this a song we can sing with Mary?
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