Fourth Sunday of Advent Gospel of St. Luke-1:51-53
"He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud
in the thoughts of their hearts. 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."
"The fool has said
in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Even worse, we live in a day when
people have become so arrogant because of the accolades heaped on them
from hero/idol worshipers, that they presume to accept and give
themselves praise as if to say, "I am God." You hear people saying, "We
need to elect someone who will 'save us,'" or thanking someone for
"making life or 'it' possible for them." This is the foolishness that
made the gentle Psalmist (14:1) become so harsh in her/his composition.
Upon hearing the news that she is to give birth to the
promised Messiah, the virgin mother of God acknowledges, not her own
greatness, not her own importance, not her own significance, not her own
role, but she extols God, she magnifies not Mary, not the child to be
born, but the God who will use both as a channel to demonstrate
unconditional love, by delivering humanity from a condition of our own
making.
The final call of Advent is an old call. It is a call
to turn to God and away from idolatry: the praise of human beings (any
human being) and all that human beings conceive, make and plan. No
matter how good or how great our achievements, our personalities, our
accomplishments, our status, our inventions, our creativity. The focus
of all life is the God "in whom we live, move and have our very
existence." All else leads to frustration and a denial of the God who
loves us and cares for us even as we deny God.
In this evil
time, we are surrounded by business leaders, clergy, educators,
international and local political leaders, friends, spouses, significant
others, parents, children, aunts, uncles, community leaders--all who
make the claim for their significance. They believe that have the right
to tell us to shop for things we don't need, to sing songs about
fictitious fat elves in red suits who encourage us to hit the
departments stores, the jewelry shops, the sporting goods stores and the
big boxes--all to celebrate one who was born in poverty and calls us to
simplicity of lifestyle, to forsake greed, to forsake cultural and
social climbing, to deny ourselves the benefit of status and importance,
and to elevate others as being more important and of greater
significance than ourselves,
How do we let advertising,
newspapers, Hollywood, the music industry, Wall Street and all other the
"pimps" and "pushers" of business enterprise, hijack the birth,
resurrection of the very one they deny by their practices and marketing
strategies? Do not miss the judgment implicit in the call to Advent.
Do not sit in a sanctuary or shopping mall or political gathering or
Christmas party or Hanukkah observance and allow "a fool" to make a fool
of you, and you make a fool of yourself, by letting them claim that they
or what they do or what they have done or what they promise to do,
merits the loyalty and devotion that is God's and God's alone. Do not
delude yourself that you will be happy if you just "find the right
person." No. Its the other way around. You are the right person that
GOD is looking to use, just as he chose Mary, to make a difference in
the world for good.
In our One-Year Bible reading for this same
Sunday, God speaks through the prophet Habakkuk (2:18-20)-"Of what
value is an idol, since a man has carved it? Or an image that teaches
lies? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols
that cannot speak. . . . But the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the
earth be silent before him." Mary did not trust in what she was going
to do, but in what God was going to do through her. She understood
Jesus not to be her creation, nor the creation of Joseph, but of God.
In faith she received it, by offering praise to the only God our Savior,
who through unfailing, unspeakable love has been deemed worthy of all
Glory, Majesty, Dominion and Power now and Forever.
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