First Congregational Church UCC, December 17, 2023
Luke 1:39ff – In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant. Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name; indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. He has come to the aid of his child Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Why did Jesus come? Why do we rejoice?
There’s no doubt that, by his coming, he has made a way out of no way, made a way for us to be in right relationship with God and our world, made it possible for us to understand ourselves as saved. We learn that, not only by hearing and reading the stories, but in our Christmas carols… in the words, for instance, of O Little Town of Bethlehem, when we sing
. . . so God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven. . . .
or think of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’s lines,
Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth.
And if that were all Christ did by becoming human, being born as a baby, weak and powerless, poor and despised, it would be wonderful. But we are blessed to know that Jesus’ gift to us is more than that.
Or maybe it would be more accurate to understand that the gift of Jesus in our world, in our lives, is much more, much better than just something for each one of us individually.
Because Jesus creates community. Jesus gives us a world where people help one another. Think about it. If all Jesus were about were our individual destinies, life would be a lonely affair, with each one of us mostly just concerned about ourselves. But we are not left there, maybe surrounded by all the best stuff, but with no one to be with.
No, Christ saves us, for sure, but saves us for a purpose, for the building up of the world. There is no where in the Bible that states this more clearly than in today’s Gospel reading, Mary’s song, the Magnificat.
When Mary and Gabriel spoke together, as Luke tells the story, Gabriel tells her she will bear a son who will rule over the world. And then when Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, Mary tells us the rest of the story. Ruling the world is not about political power or wealth, it is about the power to change the world, to transform a world of greed and self-protection into a community where all are important. Mary says that Jesus is about feeding the hungry, about throwing down those who seek to make the world all about them.
Being saved by Jesus is only the beginning of our lives as Christians – Mary tells us the rest of the story. We are saved to be actors in creating this new world, this great community. One of our favorite carols, O Holy Night, tells us the story this way:
Truly Jesus taught us to love one another:
His law is love and his gospel is peace;
Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother,
And in his name, all oppression shall cease.
The carol It Came Upon the Midnight Clear also names this call, in a verse which is omitted from our hymnal:
And you, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way, with painful steps and slow;
Look how, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing,
O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.
Christmas Joy is so much more than candy canes and family dinners. It is the gift of a life which has meaning and purpose, even if we ourselves are poor, or struggling, or insignificant. Because we follow Jesus, we know how to help create goodness wherever we are.
Now, some folks have worldly power and use their faith in wider corridors. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of RI, who attends Central Congregational Church in Providence, is working to fight climate change, to nurture and sustain a livable world in our future.
Before I went to seminary, I worked for US Senator Robert Stafford of Vermont; a faithful member of Grace UCC in Rutland, Vermont. Senator Stafford changed the lives of millions when he created the Stafford grants for higher education.
And in that same church there was a woman who was a checker at a local grocery store. She used her gift of friendliness to speak a word with every person who came through her line because, she knew, some of those folks spoke to no other person the whole week long. You don’t have to walk in the halls of power to change the world for one person.
While I will always say that one part of this is practicing simple kindness – holding doors open, taking turns, letting a parent with a toddler go ahead of you at the grocery store – what Jesus calls to is neither simple nor easy. It means we have to look at our world, look closely and carefully to see the places where justice and community are missing, opportunities for us to practice our faith. It means spending time to identify the skills and gifts we have to offer. It’s not just about finding out what a neighboring church is doing well and then copying it.
Imagine that you know that children in your town do not have food when school’s not in session. What could the church do? In one town, they worked with the school to come up with a plan that could work, and began to put together weekend backpacks, filled easy-to-prepare food for kids.
Another church I worked with looked around and realized that many children in a neighboring city, had no books. They put together a project to provide a new book for every first grader, just in time for spring break. That worked for them because they had connections with the school and adults who knew what books to purchase.
Another church took on two responsibilities at their local elementary school: they provided a continuous supply of mittens and hats and also a supply of snacks –in recognition that some of the kids did not have mittens, hats or much food – and in recognition that the church had a busy group of knitters who were looking for a good place to give away their products.
What do people need? What skills, gifts might we have to help with that need? That’s the more challenging edge to the call of Jesus to live out our salvation. It’s filled with promise, with goodness and mercy, running over with the satisfaction of helping God to create a world filled with good.
This is what Jesus calls us to do in response to his great love for us. We are saved, and saved to be people of love, people of community, people who serve their world and help it to be better, stronger. If Jesus gives us salvation, we give him in return, the service of our lives. And the goal of our service is to create communities of love, justice and acceptance.
That is the true gift and purpose of Christmas. Let us, then, share Christmas Joy with all, this year and always.
Amen.
© 2023, Virginia H. Child
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 