Magnificat
Luke 1:46-55
December 12, 2016, First Presbyterian Church of Holt
On the Wednesdays we have Committee Meetings here at church we have a time of devotions based on the scripture for the upcoming Sunday, and so this past week we reflected on this text. I can’t name who it was exactly, but someone said upon reading this passage what stood out to them was the word “magnifies” and that this magnification brings Christ more clearly into view. Christ more clearly into view. This image has stayed with me throughout the rest of this week.
You see, the word “magnificat” comes from the Latin for “magnify,” so of all of the parts of this song, the magnification of God is at the heart of it. And there’s something about this season for me that could use a bit more clarity. I turn on the radio and hear of all the ways I could be spending money or events I could be attending. I open Pinterest or Facebook and see all the traditions I could be establishing with Calvin and David, or the perfect display of food that I could bring to my family’s celebration. If I’m not careful I spend a lot more time looking at to do lists than looking to the savior whose birth we are remembering.
What would it look like for our souls to magnify the Lord?
For Mary it meant giving her full self in service of God’s kingdom. I don’t believe it was simply a matter of surrender, rather it was an act of co-creation, a divine collaboration of God’s incarnation and Mary’s humanity. She refers to her lowliness and acknowledges how worth is transformed in God’s economy: power brought down, lowly lifted up. Jesus comes as the revelation of love from God and the revolution of justice for Mary and all God’s people.
We magnify the Lord through our own collaborations with God, seeking God’s will and acting out of the creative capacity that God has given us. Our acts of love and justice make space for God’s kingdom to be manifest in our communities, families, and individual lives.
This past week at our presbytery meeting we had the absolute delight of hearing the stories of two seminarians moving through the ordination process from the status of inquirer to candidate, one of them being our own Ashley Bair. It was incredible to hear how each of them in their own way was living into the call that God had placed on their lives. Through their respective passions of justice and peacemaking, imagination and creativity, Jesus’ incarnation was magnified and God’s love for God’s people was made clearer. After hearing both people speak, one of the pastors of the presbytery was so confident in the hope of their gifts for ministry that he jokingly said, “well, I guess I can die now!”
Most, however, don’t feel a defined call to ordained ministry or are visited by an angel who spells out the ways that we will “magnify the Lord.” Given the frustrations that a lack of direction can bring us, it’s tempting to say that following God’s will was less complex for Mary.
It can be easy to take Mary’s joy at face value. She has been chosen to be the mother of Jesus, why wouldn’t she be joyful? She’s going to be celebrated for generations to come! How lucky is she? But things were more complicated than this song may lead us to believe. We know after all that she was bringing Jesus into a world that didn’t look kindly on women, or the poor, and particularly not unmarried pregnant women.
We also know that though Jesus was sinless, it was not necessarily easy to be his parent. There’s only one account of Jesus as a child and it involves him breaking away from their traveling group, staying behind at the temple, and essentially scaring his parents to death when they thought he’d been lost. I’d imagine that this wasn’t the only story of his rebellion throughout his childhood. Divinely guided or not, any parent would be stressed out trying to keep up with a child as precocious as this one story paints him to be.
And then of course, there’s Jesus’ adulthood. How different things look for Mary a little over 30 years later: her son, her beloved Jesus is arrested, mocked, beaten, and crucified. 
As Simeon tells Mary at Jesus’ temple dedication, “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel … and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:34–35). Just in that first week of parenthood I’m sure that prophecy gave her several gray hairs at the thought of it.
This soul, all too soon to be pierced by grief, is first the site of God’s magnification, bringing God close, not just through a magnifying glasses optical illusion, but through living and breathing, flesh and blood incarnation. It’s not about pointing to some divine presence in the skies, but rather pointing to our God at work in the right here and right now. In the same way, she points to how in God the lowly aren’t just comforted where they are, but they are given positions of honor and their voices are valued.
Lighting a fire with a magnifying glass
But magnifying doesn’t just provide clarity, it can also serve as a way to focus light, even to the point of creating fire. Sometimes that focused light-turned-heat looks like anger at injustice, protesting and speaking out against oppression. Sometimes it looks like creative passion, making beauty and art that bring hope or move people to compassion. And sometimes it looks like shining a light on what has been kept secret in the darkness, speaking out about abuse or shame, telling the truth about who and whose we are, knowing that the truth will set you free. All of these are ways that we, and others of God’s children, magnify God’s love, and create more light through our lives.
More Light is a phrase we as a church family know personally, as we identify as a More Light Congregation. In November of 2015, our session voted to affirm this statement: “Because we are a people who follow the risen Christ, we move that the First Presbyterian Church of Holt become a More Light Church to offer a true community of hospitality for the full participation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people of faith in the life, ministry, and witness of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and in society.”
It was interesting to me to learn of the origin of this phrase. Though the organization by that name did not come about until 1992, the phrase is traced back all the way to 1646, a full 210 years before our congregation was even founded. 
John Robinson was a spiritual leader of the pilgrims who founded the Plymouth colony. As they set sail on the Mayflower in 1646 he sent them off urging them to be open to new religious teaching, saying, “if God should reveal anything to us by any other instrument of his, to be as ready to receive it, as ever we were to receive any truth by his Ministry.” In other words, Robinson urged his congregation to follow what we as Presbyterians declare, that we are reformed, and always being reformed according to the word of God. Speaking of the limited knowledge of God by anyone teacher Robinson said: “For though they were precious shining lights in their Times, yet God had not revealed his whole will to them; and were they now living they would be as ready and willing to embrace further light as that they had received.”
Perhaps this a way that God will be magnified in your soul: through shedding light on a theology of God’s expansive love. Through acknowledging all people as God’s beloved children. Perhaps there is another frontier of compassion and justice that you are called to ignite through your magnification. Where are the powerful that God will bring down or the lowly to be lifted up? How can you collaborate with our God of justice to pair flesh and blood with the divine?
May our souls ever magnify the Lord. Amen.
Both of our scripture readings today feature a very specific type of hospitality, opening our lives and our hearts as a faithful response to God’s presence. In the passage in John Jesus says to the disciples, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” In the passage in Acts Lydia says to the disciples, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” Jesus identifies faithful action as the way to invite God’s presence to be at home with them and Lydia responds from her experience of newfound faith to invite the disciples to be at home with her.
When I read this text I wonder a bit at Lydia’s quick invitation. Though I’d like to think otherwise, I’m not so sure I’d be that fast to invite people over to stay, checking through the list in my head of vacuuming that needs to be done, sheets to be changed, and dishes to be washed. But not only was Lydia quick about it, the text also says that Lydia “prevailed upon them,” to accept her invitation. For her the priority was unquestionably the continued conversation and presence of the disciples, and she was more than willing to allow them into her house, whatever the current state, to enable that to happen.
In the book, Mudhouse Sabbath, Lauren F. Winner, a Christian converted from Judaism, speaks of the practice of hospitality throughout Jewish and Christian history, as well as how we may live it out now. She writes, “To be a hostess, I’m going to have to surrender my notions of Good Housekeeping domestic perfection. I will have to set down my pride and invite people over even if I haven’t dusted. This is tough: My mother set a high standard. Her house is always immaculate, most especially if she’s expecting company. But if I wait for immaculate, I will never have a guest.” She continues, writing, “The reality of God’s Trinitarian life suggests that…we are not meant simply to invite people into our homes, but also to invite them into our lives. Having guests and visitors, if we do it right, is not an imposition, because we are not meant to rearrange our lives for our guests – we are meant to invite our guests to enter into our lives as they are. It is this forging of relationships that transforms entertaining into hospitality.”
In the life of our congregation, we have recently taken steps to increase the reach of our welcome, with our priority placed on forging relationships. Last summer and fall we spent some time as a congregation discerning whether or not God was calling us to be a More Light congregation, and in the fall, our session voted that we would do so. More Light is an organization within our denomination, the PCUSA, that frames it’s work in this way: “Following the risen Christ, and seeking to make the Church a true community of hospitality, the mission of More Light Presbyterians is to work for the full participation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people in the life, ministry and witness of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and in society.”
If you turned on the news or spent any time on social media these past few weeks, you’ve undoubtedly run into posts, articles, and stories about the passing of legislation in North Carolina that requires people to use public restrooms that correspond with their assigned gender at birth. The response has been loud and polarizing, many highlighting hypothetical scenarios and remarks disparaging entire groups of people. When it all comes down to it, all of this bathroom talk is not really about bathrooms at all, but about fear and prejudice, on both sides. It’s about failing to see the presence of God in one another.
I heard this story once; perhaps you may have heard it too, about a monastery. As the monks were getting older and passing away, no new monks were coming into the community and eventually there were only five monks left in their order. A few miles from the monastery lived a hermit who many thought was a prophet. As the men of the monastery discussed the bleak state of their order, they decided to visit the hermit to see if he would have some advice. The five monks went to the hermit and explained their situation and he said that he didn’t know how the monastery could be saved. He said the only thing he could tell them is that one of them was an apostle of God. They were confused by this and wondered what it could mean. They were doubtful that one of them could be an apostle, and each wondered if it were true, who could it be? As they thought about this things began to change in their community. Because they weren’t sure who was apostle among them, they began to treat one another with a new kind of grace and respect, on the off chance that one of them might actually be an apostle of God. And on the off, off chance that each monk himself might be the apostle spoken of by the hermit, each monk began to treat himself with extraordinary respect. As others from the outside visited the community, they noticed the care that the monks showed one another and some decided that they too wanted to be a part of that community. Within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order of respect and grace.
In Matthew 25, Jesus says, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” The listeners in this passage are confused, asking “when did we do any of those things?” But Jesus, responds ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Throughout the past several weeks we have been preaching through what it means for us to build God’s beloved community, addressing sanctuary, vulnerability, self-awareness, brokenness and redemption, and shared life. At each step along our way I hope that it has been a chance to better understand what it means to be the beloved community and a challenge for each of us to fulfill that calling. Our word for today is accountability.
Accountability is not exactly a fun word, not one that would be highlighted in some peppy promotional video trying to get someone to buy something. “Check it out, it’s fresh, new, and comes with a side of accountability!”
Just this past week I saw parts of Governor Snyder’s hearing about the Flint Water Crisis. The word accountability was used repeatedly to establish the lines of responsibility for this tragedy and assess what action should be taken going forward.
At any point in the 24 hour news cycle we can see presidential candidates seeking to hold one another accountable for any number of actions they took part in, either explicitly or implicitly, turning the race into an overwhelming tide of vilification and hyperbole, through which no one escapes untarnished.
In our denomination, the PCUSA, we have a specific section in our constitution called the Rules of Discipline, whereby we seek to hold our members and leaders accountable to their actions.
Accountability is foundational to a functioning community of any kind, from governments to families to classrooms to churches. It serves as a covenant between all of us, enabling justice, yes, but also helping us to uphold one another into being our best selves.
Our text today serves as the opening to a world changing week, when accountability was demanded of temple sellers, disregarded by Judas, denied by Peter, deferred by Pilate, and wrongly dealt to Jesus.
But before we get to all of that, we find ourselves in the midst of Jesus and his disciples, setting out for a parade. While joyfilled, this parade is far from tame, rather it is a revolutionary act.
Not too long after this particular gathering, about 111 CE, the emperor Trajan writes in a letter to Pliny the Younger, saying, “When people gather together for a common purpose — whatever name we may give them and whatever function we may assign them — they soon become political groups.”
Indeed this was the case that day, as their support of Jesus was more than just that of a fan in a crowd. They were placing their trust in who Jesus was and the change that Jesus represented. In both Matthew and Mark’s accounts of this story, the crowd shouts, “Hosanna,” meaning “save us.” Shouted over and over, it was both a question and a plea. Can you save us? Will you save us? Why haven’t you yet saved us? They wanted revolution and were determined to hold Jesus accountable to making that happen.
Every time I read through these texts I struggle with that shift. What is it in them that makes them so fickle, so changeable? Can hate really become so loud and be so unchallenged? Why isn’t anyone stopping this?
I hesitate to say this, but it makes me think of our current political landscape, where all too often the volume of the voice bears much more weight that the content of the words and the more inflammatory the rhetoric is the more broadly it is shared not only on the news, but also in personal social media accounts.
Jesus says to the Pharisees, “If these were silent, the stones would shout out.” Why do we fall silent in the face of opposition? Why are we so hesitant to oppose the status quo? To speak justice? To hold one another accountable to the gospel we profess? Or perhaps even more challenging, how are we like those Pharisees who want that Jesus loving mob to just be quiet?
The value we place on comfort cannot be overstated here. Change is hard, especially when you are in a place of power and that change would mean conceding some of that power, even when it expands the reaches of justice in our world.
Marilyn Chandler McEntyre spoke at our most recent presbytery meeting about the importance of language, highlighting many of her theses from her book, “Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies.” In it she writes “An appropriate response to the competing claims of public voices is to take these obligations quite personally. We have been ‘called by name’ – not every one of us to public speaking, political activism in streets and on telephones, or investigative journalism, but all of us seek truth and follow after it, to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.” continuing she writes, “How much information is sufficient to allow me to take a position? To support or resist a policy that has implications for other human beings? Whose is the burden of proof? What is my burden?”
What we say and what we left unsaid both matter. As we make our way into this Holy Week, may we be ever mindful of the accountability our Gospel demands. Amen.
I’ve always loved baptisms: the words of promise, the words of covenant, the words of welcoming. It is always an honor and a privilege to perform a baptism. Every one of them is different: I’ve seen wonder and innocence in the eyes of small babies, a range of joy and vulnerability among adults and youth. There were some babies who were calm and happy in the waters, others who squirmed and cried. Each time I’ve made the trip down the aisle with the newly baptised, telling each of them how all of this congregation had just promised to watch out for them. How we as a big Christian family promise at each baptism to nurture each other in the family of faith.
We say the words “remember your baptism,” and for many, myself and many of these babies included, we are not able to remember the exact moment we were baptized. I can’t tell you whether the water was warm or cold. I can’t tell you if it had been rainy day or how many family members showed up. But, I can tell you about seeing the baptisms of many others over the years, and hearing pastors say, “remember your baptism.”
“Remember your baptism.” The echo of those words across the years are more than just trying to recall the specific event of the sacrament of your baptism. They are truly about remembering the covenant of baptism. Remembering the promises of your community to support you as you grow into faith in Jesus Christ. Remembering how you too have promised to support others as they seek to know and follow Christ. Remembering how you are part of a Christian family so much larger than all the Christians you could possibly meet in your lifetime. You are brothers and sisters in Christ, siblings in God’s family.
The Directory for Worship of the PCUSA affirms that our sacraments, including baptism, “are signs of the real presence and power of Christ in the Church, symbols of God’s action.” It also says that “The body of Christ is one, and Baptism is the bond of unity in Christ. As they are united with Christ through faith, Baptism unites the people of God with each other and with the church of every time and place. Barriers of race, gender, status, and age are to be transcended. Barriers of nationality, history, and practice are to be overcome.” And we affirm that, “through the Sacraments, God seals believers in redemption, renews their identity as the people of God, and marks them for service.”
What an incredible claim that is! We are sealed in redemption, renewed as people of God, and marked for service. We are called to be united in that baptism, in equality throughout time and beyond all earthly demographic divisions. We remember our baptism by living into God’s call on our lives, individually and as the body of Christ.
The Directory for worship says, “In Baptism, the Holy Spirit binds the Church in covenant to its Creator and Lord. The water of Baptism symbolizes the waters of Creation, of the Flood, and of the Exodus from Egypt. Thus, the water of Baptism links us to the goodness of God’s creation and to the grace of God’s covenants with Noah and Israel. Prophets of Israel, amidst the failure of their own generation to honor God’s covenant, called for justice to roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream. (Amos 5:24) They envisioned a fresh expression of God’s grace and of creation’s goodness, a new covenant accompanied by the sprinkling of cleansing water. In his ministry, Jesus offered the gift of living water. So, Baptism is the sign and seal of God’s grace and covenant in Christ.”
Through our baptism every one of God’s children enveloped in the promises of God, each one of us named and accounted for, sharing in God’s blessing at Jesus’ baptism, that each of us is beloved, and in each of us God is well pleased. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Presbydestrian 