Luke 1:46-55, Justice

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=96 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="14a64661egerdp.jpg"> <div> <B> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="525" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="HSIDES" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=CENTER HEIGHT= 50 WIDTH="60"><div> <A HREF="home.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Welcome to Faith"><U><B><IMG SRC="06125250.png" border=0 width="37" height="37" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> </tD> <tD VALIGN=CENTER><NOBR><div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#66334C" FACE="Arial" ><B>Faith Lutheran Church</B></FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#66334C" FACE="Arial" ><B>      |    </B></FONT><B> H</B><A HREF="home.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Welcome to Faith"><U><B>ome</B></U></A></div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> </TABLE></B></div> <div> <A HREF="calendar.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Calendar"><U>Calendar</U></A>   |   <A HREF="findfaith.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Finding Faith"><U>Finding Faith</U></A>   |   <A HREF="prayercard.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Prayer Card"><U>Prayer Card</U></A>   |   <A HREF="sermons.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sermons"><U>Sermons</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id32.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Life in Faith"><U>Life in Faith</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id39.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Special Services"><U>Special Services</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Related Links"><U>Related Links</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="14a64643.jpg"> <div> <I>Sermons</I></div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700c84c336600.png" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Luke 1:46-55, Justice</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id77.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mark 16:18, To Be Continued"><U>Mark 16:1-8, To Be Continued</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id31.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ten Commandments"><U>Ten Commandments</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id86.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Luke 13:1021, Sabbath Rest"><U>Luke 13:10-21, Sabbath Rest</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="grace.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="John 1:118 Grace"><U>John 1:1-18 Grace</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="grace46.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="John 6:121, Eating All Natural"><U>John 6:1-21, Eating All Natural</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id67.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="John 20:1931"><U>John 20:19-31</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id51.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Acts 9:120, Conversions"><U>Acts 9:1-20, Conversions</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id46.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mark 9:3848, Fatal Distractions"><U>Mark 9:38-48, Fatal Distractions</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id30.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="John 15:18"><U>John 15:1-8</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="grace54.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mark 10:1731"><U>Mark 10:17-31</U></A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=384 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="14964643.jpg"> <div> <I>Luke 1:46-55, Justice</I></div> <div> <I>Magnificat</I></div> <bR> <div> It is probably not news to you that the Bible is a complicated book. It tells a long and varied tale of people's struggles and joys in their relationship with God. It speaks to our minds and hearts, notoriously fickle organs. We are not just recipients of the word, we are participants in its understanding.</div> <div> For that reason, it is important to trust our intuitions about scripture. We have all sorts of analytical tools we can apply to readings. Historical research, study of narrative, word studies in Greek and Hebrew, centuries of scholarship. But the Bible is nourishment to the soul. It's a hearty meal, not to be thinned by too much pretension. We need to pay attention to how it feels when we read or hear a passage. That feeling is important information. The weird stuff, the scary stuff, the comforting stuff, and the joyful stuff. That's what rightly hooks our attention. </div> <div> So we are hooked by the song of Mary, the Magnificat, that makes up today's Gospel reading, a song of scary, comforting, joyful words.</div> <div> Though the church favors Mary with a feast day, it does not give her much news space in scripture. She has a major role but small mention in the Gospel lives of Jesus. We don't know much about her. By every measure of status and power of her day-family heritage, property ownership, gender, vocation, income, education, age-Mary was at the bottom. She was an odd pick, people would have thought, to be the mother of a king, a messiah, a savior. The notion that Jesus' mother was a virgin would have raised few eyebrows then. Stories of virgin birth were common. The notion, though, that an insignificant young girl from an insignificant tiny town was the mother of God would have been shocking.</div> <div> Yet who better to sing about the problems of privilege than someone deprived of privilege? Who better to sing about justice than someone who is a victim of injustice?</div> <div> We are drawn to Mary's song even though, by the world's standards of wealth and education, we are nearer the opposite end of the scale from her. We are a powerful, wealthy, proud nation, presumably the ones Mary says are now to be scattered and sent away empty. Why do we take such pleasure in hearing this song, then, as I think we do, singing it with her? Why do we find and take so much joy in it?</div> <div> This is a song about justice. Justice in the large. Justice is a good, strong, Biblical word, a close cousin to the words Forgiveness, and Love. The world was created good. So God pronounced it in Genesis chapter one. Good for all creation. Yet there seems to have been a glitch somewhere. Things are out of kilter. People suffer at the hands of others. People ignore the suffering of others. We do not treat all people as the children of God that they are, our brothers and sisters.</div> <div> Justice is the restoration of the imbalance between people, an imbalance that we have made, or have let happen. Mary sings for the oppressed, not the oppressor; for the poor, not the privileged; for the helpless, not the powerful. In Mary's time, as in ours, the rich and powerful have many opportunities to speak. They don't need Mary's voice, too. </div> <div> What we hear in Mary's song-and why it so charms us instead of scaring us-is that Mary sings of justice. And that we, like all of creation, long for a just world. We know it is not right for some to have so much while others have so little. We know it is not right for whole populations to succumb to AIDS while others get elective full-body MRIs. We know it is not right for those who have power to intimidate into silence those who do not. </div> <div> Justice is restoration. We should not confuse it with revenge, or retribution, or punishment, which at best are flimsy tools. Criminal justice, or bringing people to justice, or meting out justice, rarely restores the relationships-personal or national-that people break. Revenge is sweet, but it is not good, nor is it Christian.</div> <div> Nor is justice simply equal access to resources. Justice is not an even playing field where the strong compete with the weak. Justice is making the world as good for the weak as for the strong. As good as God created it. Justice is making the results right, not just the opportunities.</div> <div> Justice is the foundation for what people most admire in us as a nation: generosity, self-giving courage, tolerance, open minds and open borders and bigheartedness. Justice is the foundation of the most remarkable-and disturbing-parables of Jesus. The story of the field hands who all get paid the same, the story of the good Samaritan who gives of himself, the story of the dissolute son who is celebrated when he returns home. Justice has nothing to do with just desserts: justice serves the unworthy as well as the worthy. We are all saints and sinners, both. We are justified by grace.</div> <div> When Mary sings her song, she sings of a just world. That world is hard for the privileged to achieve because doing justice means taking risks. Justice is risky. The privileged have much to lose. In a just world, we risk that a guilty person go free rather than an innocent be punished. We risk that someone who speaks out against something we hold dear might inflame people's passions. We risk our possessions, our convenience, our lives and even the lives of those we love, so that others might suffer less. </div> <div> To do this takes a kind of courage that is hard to come by. We cannot just suck it up. It starts instead with God. It starts where Mary starts her song: My spirit rejoices in God my savior, who looks on me with favor, Mary says. We can be brave, but we are not fearless creatures by construction. When Jesus greets his disciples, he tells them: fear not. That "fear not" is more than a fantasy only if we "fear not" because we find God trustworthy.  Trusting God, we can act with courage to work for justice, to live lives in pursuit of justice, to work-to say it another way-for God's kingdom.</div> <div> Injustice is not just pain for the lowly, but for the world. We do find ourselves persuaded to trade justice for safety, but not without dismay and even disgust at ourselves. If we are creatures built in God's image, creatures of goodness and hope and compassion, then injustice is like a fiery poison in our veins. Mary's song is not a condemnation of us. It is a song of joy. It is a song of one who sees the end of her sorrow-and the world's-like someone who is finally recovering from a long, debilitating, near-fatal disease. It is a celebration of a new world. A possible world. Our good world. </div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>