Here I am the Servant of the Lord! And the World turned Upside Down!

Here I am the Servant of the Lord! And the World turned Upside Down!

Earlier this week, on the morning of December 24, as some were already into Christmas Eve, we Episcopalians were jumping into the fourth Sunday of Advent with both feet as we read the Gospel from Luke 1 that stopped the world in its tracks, and then, through Mary’s proclamation, turned the world upside down!

            The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most

            High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called

 Son of God. . .  Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me

according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. (from Luke 1:26-38)

After saying yes to the Lord, which she did not have to do, Mary states God’s dream for the world in some of the clearest words recorded in the Bible, while at the same time laying out Jesus’ mission and plan for all of us.

        My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; *
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: *the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him *in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, *he has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, *and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, *to Abraham and his children for ever.

Truly the angel’s proclamation to Mary and Mary’s response turns the world upside down. Even though we proclaim “love your neighbor as yourself,” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” the world teaches us, ‘I’ve got mine, you get yours,’ if you are poor you are just lazy,’ if you work hard you will have what I have.’

The evening news and our experience teach us that ‘the rich will be filled with good things and the hungry will be sent away empty.’ But, Mary and God teach us:

             “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly; He

             has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty.”

As the angel’s message convinced and convicted Mary of who she was, this season that lead us up to Christmas convinces and convicts us of who we are and of what is expected of us.

Mary’s song of praise will make most of us very uncomfortable. It will make us long for the birth of the Baby Jesus. A birth that is fun and exciting to celebrate and will not demand much of us. Yet!

But before we can get to that birth, we have to talk about turning the world upside down! We have to talk about the poor being feed and the rich sent away empty. We have to talk about what we see on the evening news, and about what is the world’s reality, and then we need to walk into God’s dream, which turns the world upside down. We, like Mary, are invited to respond, “behold, the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.”

Mary understood that her son was not sent into the world just to get us into heaven, but that he was sent to change the story of life on Earth; that he came into the world to ask the questions, sometimes through us: who deserves to eat? Who deserves to have health insurance? Who deserves safe housing and a good education? We may not find simple answers, but with God’s help we may well find intelligent solutions.

Being a child of God is not easy. Life gets complicated, but we all have our dreams. If our dreams can be merged with God’s dream, if with Mary, we can proclaim, ‘here I am the servant of the Lord,’ then we might just be like Mary, we might just bring Jesus into our world, we might just do what Jesus did.

God has a dream and we are part of that dream!