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Fourth Sunday of
Advent, Year C
The Rev. Vicki K.
Hesse,
Director of the
Whitaker Institute,
Episcopal Diocese of
Michigan
St. Peter’s Episcopal
Church, Detroit, MI
Sermon Preached on December 23, 2018
May the words of my mouth and
the meditation of all our hearts
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord our strength and our redeemer.
Did you
hear that? The child leaped for joy!
When I
was growing up,
with five
siblings, my momma used to say,
“You kids
go outside and play!”
Sometimes
we would
go out to
the edge of
the
canyon behind our house and yell –
listening
for the echo back to us.
Oh, we
laughed, screamed, and giggled.
My mother
would have none of this at home.
Once we
got back, we held our tongue.
We were
taught not to be too revealing.
We were
courteous. We were quiet.
It was
not okay to be overtly
expressive
in our joy or laughter.
So when I
read about
Elizabeth’s
child leaping for joy
at the
sound of Mary’s greeting,
it made
me a little uncomfortable
due to my
complicated relationship
with
expressed joy.
Elizabeth
was filled with the Holy Spirit and
she
blessed Mary with a loud cry.
Such uncontained
extroverted outward expression!
These
days, living in Detroit,
my
neighbors yell at me from three houses down the street,
“HEY” they
wave,
“HEY
GREAT TO SEE YOU HAVE A BLESSED DAY!”
I want to
say back, hey, get a hold of yourselves!
My
neighbors… they are filled with the Holy Spirit
and
exclaim their greetings with exposed joy –
and that
seems so irreverent
in a
world today where so much seems to be going wrong.
Who can
be joyful when
·
layoffs
have been announced at D-Ham, the Hamtramck GM plant and
·
government
workers wonder if they will be paid by their employer and
·
refugees
from many countries arrive at borders only to be terrorized as they are seeking
asylum and
·
climate
change threatens more flooding and more record-breaking weather events like the tsunami in Indonesia
Who can
be joyful in all this mess?
The thing
is, however,
joy never
really has to do with
outward
appearances.
That’s
what makes joy different from
happiness,
or fun, or pleasure.
Joy does
not depend on conditions.
The only
condition for joy[1]
“…is the
presence of God.
Joy
happens when God is present,
and
people know it,
which
means that joy can erupt”
in a
divided political environment,
in a
blighted neighborhood,
in
someone’s home while delivering water.
See,
Mary’s joy erupted the minute she saw Elizabeth.
She
barely had enough time to take off her coat,
covering
her new baby bump.
We don’t
know what Mary expected,
but
Elizabeth’s jovial response and blessing
is what Mary
got.
And that
scream, laughter and giggle inspired Mary.
Mary, who
broke out in song.
And, I
like to think, she surprised herself.
Mary’s
recitation of the song of Hannah
from 1st
Samuel in the Hebrew Scriptures
(which
Mary of course knew)…
Mary’s
recitation
was a
hip-hop praise of God’s liberation,
a praise
to the God
who turns
the world upside down,
who grants
favor to someone as low as herself, a nobody from nowhere, and
who
brings down the high and mighty,
who lifts
up the lowly,
who fills
up the hungry and
who sends
the rich away.
This
spontaneous song of Mary’s,
the
“Magnificat” is one of the earliest
and most
enduring hymns of The Church.
That
surprising joy erupts when God is present,
doing
what God does,
and
people –
like
Elizabeth, like Mary, like my neighbors in Detroit –
“…cannot
contain themselves.
They sing
and dance, they jump for joy,
they open
their mouths and poetry falls out.”
That
surprising joy is the surest sign of God’s presence
that
cannot be contained.
That
surprising joy means that my heart leaps
when I
see my neighbors
and yell,
- with abandon -
for them
to HAVE A BLESSED DAY too.
In these
joy moments, our souls magnify God.
Why don’t
we express joy more often?
Perhaps
because the wounds of the world
seem
so overwhelming.
Perhaps
because we don’t know
how
to break through the political stalemate.
Perhaps
because we fear the consequences
of
speaking truth to power.
Perhaps
because discipleship is inconvenient.
Perhaps
because joy is
sometimes hidden in the
struggle of disruption,
sometimes caught
between the false dichotomy
of despair and optimism.[2]
Like the
experience of
15-year-old
Swedish high-schooler, Greta Thunberg.[3]
Greta, a
climate activist,
addressed
the UN plenary session last week
on behalf
of Climate Justice Now!
in Katowice
Poland.
In her
short speech,
she named
with Spirit’s power and clarity,
a conviction
that can sound like despair
but is
grounded something bigger –
in her
love of the earth
and her
care for generations to come.
Greta
said,
“…Until you start focusing on
what
needs to be done,
rather
than what is politically possible,
there
is no hope.
…
And if solutions within the system
are
so impossible to find,
then
maybe
we
should change the system itself.
We
[youth] have not come here
to
beg world leaders to care.
You
have ignored us in the past,
and
you will ignore us again.
We
have run out of excuses,
and
we are running out of time.
We
have come here to let you know
that
change is coming,
whether
you like it or not.
The
real power belongs to the people…”
Even in
this somber truth-naming speech,
captured
in a viral YouTube video,
her
surprising joy of possibility comes through.
Through
her voice,
inspired
by youth from Parkland, Florida
after their
school shooting,
she
passes on inspiration to others.
Through
her voice,
we can
glean the poetic pointing towards
“…another
way, a way of hope
where
circumstances that are dark or difficult
require
us to look
beyond
ourselves for rescue and relief
so that
we might hear again and anew
God’s
promise to hold onto us through it all.”[4]
I believe
that this kind of joy-through-struggle
is
grounded in the Mighty One
who does
great things and whose name is holy.
This kind
of joy-through-struggle
cannot be
contained
because
God is
the only one who can bring life out of death.
God is
the one who can
turn the
world upside-down
in
partnership with humanity.
Pause
St.
Peter’s, your soul magnifies God’s presence,
in the myriad
ways you partner with God
in
compassion and justice work:
Care for
the earth through recycling and solar panels
Compassion
for people
who
are hungry through manna meal service
Companionship
for people who are lonely through
Sunday
gatherings of prayer and the breaking of bread
Charism
of justice and dignity for all,
through
direct action and voluntary arrest.
Your
soul, St. Peter’s, magnifies God.
The only
question is
what is
being birthed now
through this
joyful leaping presence in your womb?
What can
happen
through this
loving, liberating, life-giving God,
with
your hope and blessing?
See, God
imagines a world
of mercy,
love and forgiveness
for all
generations.
Working
together with the joy of God in our hearts,
we
can invite others along the way.
We can
take risks and
proclaim
out loud the
uncomfortable
disruption that Jesus is birthing
here,
now.
We can
rejoice in God our savior.
For God
Loves you so much, and
God’s
mercy and forgiveness offers joy and liberation
for all
people, from generation to generation,
according
to the promise God made to our ancestors,
to
Abraham and Sarah, and their descendants forever.
And that
is enough to make you jump for joy!
Amen
[1] Portions inspired by Barbara Brown
Taylor, “Surprised by Joy,” The Living Pulpit, October-December 1996, pages
16-17
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