Article
- Date:
- Sunday 19th December 2021
Year C, The Forth Sunday of Advent - Place:
- Holy Trinity, Hurstpierpoint
- Service:
- Eucharist
- Readings:
- Luke 1.39-55
Some of you may have heard me say before that I sometimes despair of our stunted social mission and wonder whether we should stop saying the Magnificat for a while to spare us from our sense of guilt and hypocrisy. For just as we should ask ourselves what every verse of Scripture means in itself and then what it means to us when we have read it, this no less applies to our Gospel today. When we say, or hear: "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" what do we think this means in itself and what does it mean to us?
Mary's prayer in thanks for her divine conception undoubtedly refers in the first instance to Elizabeth's thanks for her own conception but it also refers to the thanksgiving prayer of Hannah (1 Samuel 2.1-8) for the birth of her son Samuel who was dedicated to the Lord; so the first thing to say is that this is a prayer of thanksgiving for three children all of whom were born under sacred auspices - Hannah and Elizabeth had been barren and Mary conceived by the Holy Ghost - and who were all dedicated to the Service of the Lord.
But a complication arises because both Hannah and Mary refer to the actions of God in the past tense, as if his powers have already been conclusively exercised, almost as if his actions have brought about closure; but the simplest of contextual readings of both texts will show us that this cannot be so. At the time of Samuel's birth the Chosen People were involved in a deadly fight with the Philistines which at one point, after a military defeat, resulted in the Ark of the Covenant being taken into enemy captivity; and at the time of the birth of Jesus, Israel was under Roman control; and not only were there no signs of any tottering thrones but there was no evidence that the rich were doing particularly badly nor the poor particularly well. So what can Mary's prayer mean?
An obvious starting point but one which has to be noted, is that we have to take the prayer seriously: a prayer at such an important juncture in the story, one of four Canticles in the first two Chapters of Luke, is not trivial or merely some kind of reverent charm poetry. It is not only the heritage from Samuel that matters, it is the first and only major pronouncement by Mary. In spite of the grammatical oddity, Mary is saying that it is the mission of her son to achieve these grand ends and if we read her magnificent words in the context of the action and teaching of Jesus in the Gospels and in the opening Chapters of Acts, there is no doubt that social justice was a central tenet of the "New Way".
From "holding all goods in common" through the sustaining mission of the monasteries, to the foundation of all kinds of benevolent organisations, Christianity has always been centrally concerned with the social mission of Jesus but what are we to make of it today in our welfare state world?
Although there is an extreme reluctance on the part of formal Christian hierarchies to admit it, when pushed they will admit that how we behave morally is down to individual conscience which sounds easier than being obedient to this or that set of rules but submitting oneself to a well-formed conscience is, in fact, extremely exacting, so when we address a moral issue we have to be rigorous in separating our proper response from our selfish impulse. In that context we make decisions about how much time and money we spend on good causes. Some people use the tithe as a guideline but for some the tithe is trivial and for others impossible, nonetheless it is interesting to note that the poorer we are in the UK the more likely we are to give a higher percentage of our money to good causes and the richer we are the less we are likely to give.
But in a society with a complex tax and National Insurance system and a welfare state we also have to exercise our conscience in deciding how the mission of Jesus is best achieved through public policy so that we should view politics through a Christian lens rather than viewing Christianity through a political lens; yes, we are political animals and must be; it is part of our Christian duty to be involved in political life because to be a Christian is to be a person in community and not an individual; but we are Christians first, last and always.
Last week I asked the Members of the Growing Together house group what each would wish for the world if she or he only had one wish; and it was remarkable how similar the grand ambitions were but also how difficult it was to make a start on each wish. Nonetheless, we recognised that most of what we wanted could not be achieved instantly. We had to start with small steps and work our way towards our great objective; this even applied, to a certain extent, in tackling the urgent issue of climate control.
We are not, as Christians, in the position whereby we should refuse to do anything until we can do everything, nor should we refuse to do anything because other people are not doing what they should; love isn't contractual, it's unconditional. Nor, as I have said, should we all do exactly the same things: God has equipped some people to undertake grand designs and others to make a small contribution to networks, some are gifted with generous hearts, others with eloquence. But what we are all given is a conscience and the duty to see that it is well informed by study and an openness to the Holy Spirit in prayer. What I wish for all of us is that we are able to say the Magnificat with a clear conscience