SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2024 | ADVENT - Fourth Sunday of Advent (C)

Notes

Good morning,

Ah, the fourth Sunday of Advent and Mary’s worshipful protest song! Because that is what it is and it is excellent. It is clear that Mary wasn’t chosen just for her obedience, but she also had true devotion and kindred spirit. She understood that God desires power and wealth to circulate amongst the people, not accumulate in the hands, bellies, and purses of the few.

In Kaleidoscope Institute we call that The Cycle of Gospel Living, where blessings should flow from those that have them to those that do not have them and then, after some time, the process is supposed to reverse. A much different understanding than late stage corporate capitalism, where wealthy are becoming wealthier on the labor of the poor that are getting progressively poorer and disempowered. The powerful sit on their thrones being carried by the rest of us. That is not the Lord’s way in the least.

Mary lifts up the things that God actually want and what Jesus will exemplify in his teaching and practise: mercy for those that fear God, scattering of the proud, casting down of the powerful, lifting up of the lowly, filling up the hungry, and sending the rich away empty. I am not saying it is a manifesto, but I am not NOT saying it is a manifesto. Hmmm…

Mary knows that the birth of Jesus is about much more than the naked eye can perceive - it is a fulfillment of God’s promises in more ways than one. It is a world shaking event and Mary is owning up to it!

It’s about liberation according to God’s will. A bit like the release of Captain Paul Watson from a prison in Greenland after Japanese government got him on the Interpol’s red list because he spent years stopping their “research ships” from illegally hunting endangered whales. Or perhaps the release of the many political prisoners in Syria such as Tal al-Mallouhi, a young woman that was imprisoned at 19 years old for posting poems on political and social issues. It is about justice out of this world, a bit like the one for Gisele Pelicot in France, where her ex-husband and 50 other defendants were sentenced for various degrees of rape and sexual assault against her, when she was under tranquilizers planted by her ex-husband.

It is about daring to imagine a world, where school shootings do not happen on a daily basis, where the livelihood of many federal employees is not used as a political bargaining chip for passing legislation year after year, or perhaps one, where nations are not deadlocked with each other in an endless succession of pointless and costly wars. The coming of a savior, born to a seemingly ordinary woman in humble surroundings, marks a challenge to how things are in the world - the power of death, the powers to be, and evil spirits.

Mary in her song is foreshadowing what Jesus will set out to do, in obedience fulfilling God’s will he believes in through the power God is giving him. There can be, of course, only one Jesus, but it represents the plan God has for us as well:

we know God’s will (to love our neighbor as we love God and ourselves)

we profess our faith in God’s will

we are called to be obedient to it

and God empowers us to do our part through many means

Jesus showed us the way, told us the truth, and gave us life - as we are heading towards the celebration of Christ’s birth, let us be like Mary - believe that God’s will is good, we are called to it, and it will be realized. Merry almost Christmas! Amen.