Sermon on Magnificat

December 23, 2012
Please pray with me. Gracious Lord, bless the speaking and bless the hearing, that your Word may take root in our hearts and bear fruit in our lives, for the healing of the world you so loved, and to the glory of your holy name, Amen.

       A few weeks ago, our congregation was blessed to host the women and children of Mary’s Place, who as you know are in transition and in the process of finding permanent housing. We usually have up to 15 mothers and children, of varying ages and backgrounds. This time, the lovely group was comprised of six mothers and their seven daughters, and one little boy. Though the baby boy’s name was Frederick, his mom kept jokingly referring to him as Carlos, and finally, toward the end of the week at dinner one evening, one of the other daughters asked, “his name is Frederick, why are you calling him Carlos?” His Mom said, “you haven’t heard that story yet? Well…” She then began to tell us the story of her son’s accidental re-naming. Every morning, when Frederick wakes up, she sings her son a song. It’s to the tune of Frére Jacques, and went something like this, “Good morning, Good morning, Frederick, Frederick, how much we love you, how much we love you, God knows, God knows.” So, of course, given the close quarters of sleeping in churches around Seattle, the others had heard Frederick’s mom sing him this morning song. At this point in the story, one of the other Moms in the group, who had come to Seattle as a refugee from Africa, began to look embarrassed and got up and said, “the language! the language!” Apparently, since she was still becoming accustomed to American English, she thought that at the end of her song, instead of singing, ‘God knows,’ ‘God knows,’ Frederick’s mom was singing, ‘Carlos,’ ‘Carlos.’ J We all laughed at the mishap and happily called him Carlos for the rest of the evening.

Little Frederick turned one year old the day before they moved on to the next church, so Donna and Sharon, who cooked that night, also provided a cake and ice cream, and the group of us sang Happy Birthday to Frederick. As the whole room looked toward him and serenaded him, he smiled back at us, and looked happily to his mother. It was a beautiful moment, not because we sounded like angels or everything was on silver, because it wasn’t, but it was beautiful because this was an unlikely group, mothers and daughters, Seattleites and Somali refugees, Lutheran church ladies and a Vicar, who came together like a sort of family to sing to a little boy, to celebrate his first year of life and wish him blessing in the years to come. In some way, we were continuing his mother’s song: Frederick, Frederick, how much we love you, how much we love you, God knows, God knows.

       Frederick’s mom sang him a song of blessing, and woke him every morning with this reminder: “you are loved, by me, and by God;” no matter where their transitional housing would lead them, and no matter where Frederick’s life would take him, he had been blessed with his mother’s song.

I think singing to our children is probably a universal phenomenon, present across all cultures, but I was recently told of the practice of singing to children in a certain tribe in Africa. It’s based on this account from a book by Jack Kornfield called A Path With Heart:

       “There is a tribe in east Africa in which the art of true intimacy is fostered even before birth. In this tribe, the birth date of a child is not counted from the day of its physical birth or the day of conception, as in other village cultures. For this tribe the birth date comes the first time the child is a thought in its mother’s mind. Aware of her intention to conceive a child with a particular father, the mother goes off to sit alone under a tree. There she sits and listens until she can hear the song of the child that she hopes to conceive. Once she has heard it, she returns to her village and teaches it to the father, so that they can sing it together, inviting the child to join them. After the child is conceived, she sings it to the baby in her womb. Then she teaches it to the old women and the midwives of the village, so that throughout the labor and at the miraculous moment of birth itself, the child is greeted with the song. After the birth, all the villagers learn the song and sing it to the child when it falls or hurts itself. The song becomes a part of the marriage ceremony when the child is grown. And, at the end of life, his or her loved ones will gather around the death bed and sing this song for the last time.”

            A mother’s song is not just a song: it reminds us that we are loved, that we are truly valued members of the community; this song gives us purpose in our lives, and holds us to our truest selves, even when we fall and fail. The result of a mother’s love and the song of God she hears in the quiet, this song blesses the child with love and with purpose.

Today, in the Gospel lesson, we hear the words of Mary’s song, while her unborn child Jesus, the Messiah, is nurtured in her womb. Her song is one of praise to God who has blessed her, though she is a young, pregnant, unmarried teenager in a rural town in the middle of nowhere. We sang these words for our Psalm to Marty Haugen’s rendition of the Magnificat, “You have looked with love on your servant here, and blessed me all my life through.” It’s a sweet song, one that would be sung by a young girl, who is in awe that God has looked with favor on her, and chosen her to be a vessel of the Divine.

But Mary’s song is not just about the God who has looked with favor on her, but goes on to sing of the God who is both merciful and strong, who humbles the arrogant and puffed-up, who lifts up the lowly, who brings the powerful down from their thrones, who fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty. Every part of her song here refers to some portion of the Old Testament, and Mary is not singing this song to a God who has done all these things in the past, but a God who does them always, and who, in this moment, has now chosen her to be a participant in God’s mission in the world. Here, to my mind, the song picks up momentum, develops a pulsing rhythm, and is sung not in the sweet melody of a young girl, but with the strength of a full choir, a deep harmony from thousands of years of witness to the amazing grace of God. The communion of saints joins in, and a bass drum maintains the choir, the heart beat of the Holy Spirit, giving life to this song of love and justice. Mary’s song gives life to the Christ child, resonates through his life and passion, and then picks up with the body of Christ: 2,000 years of witness and praise. The song of God’s steadfast love, of God’s mighty justice, is now the church’s song; we take up the melody. And just as Mary found herself all of a sudden, and for no special reason, a bearer of divine love in the world, we, too, are given a place in the choir, with our own song, that God has placed deep in our hearts. We become part of God’s ongoing work to reconcile all things in Christ and to restore creation to wholeness.

I met a woman recently who was singing in a small group, providing worship leadership: she sang the high descant with this sonorous voice, you know those notes that even sopranos have to work to squeak out. Her name was Nirvana, and I don’t think she came from a Christian background. She told us afterward that one day, after a stressful week of work, she walked into that church and felt at home, so she stayed. And through the music in that place, she began to sing. Actually, what she said was, “the voice – just - came,” and as she remembered this, tears streamed down her cheeks. She didn’t say my voice, she said the voice, because she wasn’t singing her song, a song she made up and decided to sing, but rather the song that had been implanted deep within her by God her Creator that had now sprouted and emerged to the surface. She was taking her place in the choir, literally, but also in God’s great choir of saints in the world by using her voice to promote healing and sing of God’s miraculous, saving love.

Mary sang this song to her unborn child, whose birth we celebrate tomorrow evening. This song that blessed the work of her Son and gave Jesus purpose and passion in his ministry goes on, through the disciples of Christ, through the communion of saints, through this place and others all around the world. It may be tempting to put in ear plugs and run away from the song, to do life the easy way, rather than swim against the current of a world full of hatred, greed, and violence, but the song of love, peace, and justice remains because it’s God’s will for the world. And when we find ourselves in the silence and in the darkness, like Mary did one winter night, unexpecting, the song will sing to us, and remind us what our true calling is and guide us to fulfill it.

My prayer is that this Christmas season, no matter how despairing we are, however many losses we have experienced this year and are all too aware of, that we might hear the song of blessing that Mary sings  in our own lives, that we know ourselves to be truly loved and valued, that we take our place in the choir as bearers of God’s love and justice in the world. For God who created us is faithful, abounds in steadfast love, and will lead the song until that day, when all things will be made new. Thanks be to God, Amen.