Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year C(A line-by-line textual commentary
is at the end. It's a little dense, but I think you're up to it.)
Psalm.
80:1-7 (or Luke 1:46-55, the Magnificat)
Hebrews
10:5-10
Background on Micah
Of the two readings above that we
are focusing on, the moneymaker this week is the passage from Luke, the one
that most of your people will mistakenly believe is a sweet Christmasy heart
warmer (though you can dissuade them of that later). But before we get to it,
we have to spend at least a little time with the words of Micah, who, while
calling for a standard militarist messianic solution for a major military
crisis of Israel, nonetheless drops some critical lines about the coming of
king who was later identified with Jesus.
But you, O Bethlehem
of Ephrathah,
who are
one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is
to rule in Israel,
-- Mic 5:2.
Micah
was written during one of the many sieges of Israel, and it’s not at all clear
which one this is referring to. One guess is Sennacherib’s attack on Israel in
701 bce, and Micah in
5:1 sound like that: “Now you are walled around with a wall; siege is laid
against us; with a rod they strike the ruler of Israel upon the cheek.”
However, the word used, “siege,” sounds like words of a century later, when it
was Babylonia doing the attacking (cf. 2 Kings 24:10; 25:21; Jer. 52:5),
so that could be the one.
More
important morally and theologically is that while this crisis is happening,
there is great turmoil within the city of Jerusalem. Crime, corruption,
stealing. The rich have taken all of the good land squeezing the poor onto
smaller and smaller plots on which to live. One will come, he says, who is a
shepherd; he will bring peace to this mess and will feed the sheep in the midst
of them. Luke (and others) will later say that that “shepherd” is the little
guy born in the manger in Bethlehem.
The obscurity of the characters
These two passages (Micah and Luke) are nicely paired with
one another. The first one, from a little obscure prophet named Micah,
highlights a little obscure town that no one had heard of called “Bethlehem,”
and he says that one of these days someone great is going to come from there
and rule over all the land. He even references, briefly, the mother, saying
that he will appear “when she who is in labor has brought forth.”
Then in the New Testament, there are these two equally
obscure women—one quite old and barren, the other little more than a child (by
today’s standards) around thirteen—who are both nobodies and both chosen by God
to bear great children. “He has looked with favor on the lowliness of his
servant.”
And Mary is “betrothed” (as we used to say) to this other
little kid named Joseph, who is just as unknown and just as obscure as she is.
And when he finds out that she’s pregnant, he plans to cut and run (not really
a great moral giant for the church today), but an angel comes to him and says,
“whoa, stop, the baby in Mary is not yours,” and he says, well, um, I kinda
knew that part,” and the angel says, “no, no, what I mean is that the baby came
from the Holy Spirit (a.k.a., “God”). The little guy in Mary’s womb there is
the son of God, so go on back to her now and play like you’re the daddy because
that’s what God wants you to do,” and to give Joseph credit, the story says he
does that.
When Mary hears
from an angel that she is to give birth to a child, what she does is to run
away. Quite possibly she ran for her life, because there is some historical
evidence that when unmarried women were found to be pregnant they were stoned
to death. She runs to Judah to another obscure town (which Luke doesn’t even
bother to give us the name of) to talk to her cousin, Elizabeth, about the
whole mysterious and strange occurrence. Elizabeth is evidently pretty old and
had been barren for a good many years, and thought she’d never have a baby of
her own. But as it happens (that pesky Holy Spirit?) now she’s gotten pregnant
herself with a little baby she’ll name John who, as it turns out, will later
baptize a gaggle of people (including Jesus), threaten the state, and get himself
killed for it--but that’s getting ahead of the story.
When
Mary gets there and the two of them greet each other, John jumps up and down in
Elizabeth’s belly and Mary breaks into song (don’t mothers always?), with this
incredible and magnificent, and political and radical, song, about what her
coming son is going to be doing to this messed up world. (Let’s just be glad
that our politicians don’t know their Bible, or else they would turn against
their high-rolling benefactors and change our immoral tax laws forever.) She
says:
52
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
53
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
Preaching thoughts
What caught my eye about this is that this story in Micah is
of a Shepherd who will come from the most bland, obscure, “nobody” location,
Bethlehem, and wind up feeding the sheep and standing for global peace.
There are lots of examples of this. Remember the story back
in 2009 of an equally obscure Susan Boyle? The would-be singer who looked and
dressed plain and dumpy and was way passed her prime, but had a voice that
angels would be jealous of. Simon Cowl, the host of “Britain’s got Talent,” sneered
at her in the beginning, but then later publicly apologized for his behavior.[1]
We often overlook the most important things in life. And the
Christmas Season (let the record show that I didn’t say “Christmas,” but the
“Christmas season”) encourages
us to do that. It encourages us to put everything we’ve got into fake smiles
and fake rejoicing so that the true meaning of Christmas gets lost. It forces
us to look the other way.
It
does that in two ways:
First, the commercialization of the Christmas season works
very hard to keep us from realizing that there really is supposed to be
something important going on inside this season. We get a lot from the media
about how this is a season of caring or giving, but very little about why that is so (with the exception of
Fox news, which in the interests of being fair and balanced, gets full-bore “CHRISTIAN”
during this season).
Second, the Hustle and bustle
of Christmas. We get so tied up in the many tasks of Christmas, that we
forget to experience Christmas. The writing of our Christmas
letter, the gathering together of all of our addresses (you pull them together
from all of the cards from last year. You got about eighty cards last year from
people you barely know, but they wrote you, so this year you need to be nice
and “Christmasy” and write back to them.
(And
how do you write something personal about the daughter of your son-in-law’s
cousin?).
So,
you pulled off the corners of all of their cards from last year…didn’t you, I
know you did that…and you saved them for this year. And then you have to take
them all out and make this big huge database of all of their addresses. And
last year about twenty of them bounced and came back because some of these
suckers move so often that you’d think they’re in a witness protection program,
so you go online, one at a time, and look them up on “addresses.com,” and write
them down one at a time.
And
then you have to sit down and write that Christmas letter that is supposed to
go in it. And if you have a family, you know what kind of nightmare that is.
You say, “well, little Johnny was a hit singing in that school play,” and
Johnny says, “don’t’ tell them about that, that was embarrassing,” and Sally
says “don’t tell them I have a boyfriend, because he’s such a dweeb and I just
broke up with him,” so by the time you get it finished it’s a letter written by
a committee with veto power and nobody likes it, but you’re in a hurry and you
have to get it done, so you do it anyway, and you run it off on your home
printer and when it comes out, you see that the paper was in crooked and all of
them lean to one side, but you say, I have GOT to get this done, so you use
them anyway, and you have to write little personal notes on each one of them,
saying, “Hi there Bob and Alice, and how’s that little Bobby doing ?” So you
fold each and every one of them one at a time and you stuff them into the
envelopes and haul three boxes of them down to the Post Office, but you did it
on a Saturday and you get there at 2:30 and the post office closes at 2:00 and
you have to drive all the way across the state to the next Post Office, to get
them to take your cards. And when you get home you remember that Bob and
Alice’s little boy is actually named “Ralph,” and Larry and Sally broke up two
years ago because Larry was seeing Alice, and none of them will probably ever
speak to you again, but you don’t care because it’s late and you want this to
be the “right” Christmas. (gasp for air.)
Did
you hear about the woman a couple of years ago –true story—who forgot to do her
cards until the last minute and rushed out to buy three boxes of cards and
brought them home and filled them all out and addressed them and sent them off
and when she got home she was exhausted and she relaxed in her chair with a glass
of wine and listened to a little Dana Pelkie jazz CD, and she picked up one of
her cards and said, that’s nice, I’ll actually get a chance to read what I sent
to people, so she picked up the first one and it said: “Just a little card to
say…a special gift is on its way.”
I
once got so stressed out in shopping at the last minute that when I had
finished the day (rushing from store to store, beating back other purchasers,
and fighting for elevators and escalators in the malls), and had gone out to my
car, I put my presents on top of the car and drove away and left them
behind…(Perhaps it’s because “God looks out after preachers and fools” but
someone I knew saw what happened and called me later to tell me he had my
gifts.)
Do
we occasionally forget why we are here on earth? Have we forgotten the meaning
of Christmas? Have we forgotten who was at the end of the star the Wise Men
were chasing?
Sometimes
a little child will lead us to “know” the important parts of the season. There
is a story of the parents who were in a big rush to get Christmas all done up,
and they told the kids that under no uncertain terms were they to get out of
bed until daybreak on Christmas morning. Then they snuck around and placed
baseball bats, and bicycles, etc. under the tree, and went to bed. About four
in the morning their little seven-year-old rushed into their room saying
“mommie, I saw it. Quick come quick.” The parents grumbled but got up, deciding
that the surprise was ruined, so they might as well get all of the kids up so
that some could see their toys since one had already done so. So, they hustled
all the others up and brought them down stairs. But the little boy ran right
passed the tree and went over to a window and said, “see, see, there it is in
the east. It’s the star. I saw it.”
A possible sermon conclusion
A
friend of mine down on the North Coast tells about the time last December when
he and some others were in a meeting in Boston that ran over time, and they
weren’t going to be able to get back to their homes in time for supper. They
ran down to the Park Street Station (right in the center of the city, next to
Boston Commons) and rushed down the stairs to the train but knocked over a
fruit stand in their way. There are dozens of little stands like that around
the station, and it’s sometimes hard to navigate through them when you are
running. All of them ran on but one man who disgustedly stopped and helped pick
up some of the fruit. He saw that some of it was bruised, so he gave the boy
behind the counter money for it. Then he saw that the boy was about ten years
old and blind. He could have gotten away without being seen. He paid the boy
and said, “here, take this ten dollars for the damage, and I hope we didn’t
spoil your day” and he wished him a Merry Christmas. The Boy was dumbfounded.
Said, “Mister, are you Jesus?”
He
stopped in his tracks, and wondered if somehow, inadvertently, he had been.[2]
Textual
comments on the two readings
Luke 1:39-45
39 In
those days Mary set out[1] and went with haste[2] to a Judean town in the hill country,[3] 40 where she entered the house of
Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.[4] 41 When[5] Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped
in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and
exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you[6] among
women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why
has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord[7] comes
to me? 44For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the
child in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who
believed that there would be[8] a fulfillment of
what was spoken to her by the Lord.”[9]
The Magnificat[10]
46 And
Mary[11] said,
“My
soul magnifies the Lord,
47
and my spirit[12] rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for
he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for
the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
50 His
mercy is for those who fear[13] him
from generation to generation.
51 He
has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He
has brought down the powerful[14] from their
thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;[15]
53 he
has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He
has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according
to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
56 And
Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.
Micah
5:2-5a
siege
is laid against us;
with a rod they strike the ruler of
Israel
upon
the cheek.
A
Ruler from Bethlehem
2c But
you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans of
Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to rule in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days.
3
Therefore he shall give them up until the time
when she who is in labor has brought
forth;
then the rest of his kindred shall return
to the people of Israel.
4
And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of
the Lord his God.
And they shall live secure, for now he
shall be great
to the ends of the earth;
5
and he shall be the one of peace.
[1] “Arose”
(anastaôsa). Luke is very fond of this word, sixty times against
twenty-two in the rest of the N.T. Robert Gundry believes that Luke
is implying that mary was sitting when the angel came to her and so she had to
literally get up to run to see Elizabeth, enhancing the sense that all of this
was done in great haste. (Commentary on the New Testament: Verse-by-Verse
Explanations with a Literal Translation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson
Publishers, 2010), p. 225.)
[2] “Haste.”
Often overlooked detail. Why did she run so quickly? The standard interpretation
is that she ran because she was excited to share the Good News. Nancy Kraft,
however, at “Liberal Lectionary Exegesis,” says, “Luke tells us that Mary was
in a hurry when she left Nazareth and headed for the hills. And it’s no wonder.
She is pregnant and unwed. She has disgraced her family and her fiancée. No one
wants to have a thing to do with her. Some historical evidence tells us that a
woman in Mary’s position might well have been stoned to death, or maybe even
burned. She has to get away. So, she runs.”
http://liberallectionaryresources.com/Advent%204%20Year%20C.html
[3] “Judean
town in the hill country.” Luke doesn’t give the name of the town, just that it
is generally a town of Judah. Judah is about three days walk from Nazareth, so
it is at least that far away, and probably a little farther.
[4] “Two
women, not only kin but now drawn by a common experience, meet in an unnamed
village in the hills of Judea. The one woman is old and her son will end an old
era; the other is young and virgin and her son will usher in the new” (Harper’s
Bible Commentary, ed. James Luther Mays (San Francisco: Harper &
Row, 1988), p. 1016).
[5] “When.”
Actually, there is a word here left out of almost all contemporary
translations. “The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, "it happened
that"), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in
contemporary English and has not been translated” (NET).
[6] “Blessed
are you” (εὐλογέω, eulogeo). Perfect passive participle. “To ask
God to bestow divine favor on, with the implication that the verbal act itself
constitutes a significant benefit—‘to bless, blessing.’” Louw/Nida, Greek-English
Lexicon of the New Testament, 2nd ed. (New York: United Bible Societies,
1996), p. 441.) Note that this is the word upon which our English, “eulogy” is
based. This is the first Blessing in the NT.
[7] “‘Lord’
is Luke’s most characteristic title for Jesus and his favorite address to him”
(Oxford Bible Commentary, ed. John Barton and John Muddiman (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2001), Luke 1:39.
[8] nrsv note: Or believed, for
there will be. The word at issue is hoti. It is not
certain whether hoti here is “that” or “because.” It makes
good sense either way. See also 7:16.
[9] This is
the first beatitude (“blessing”) in the New Testament and it is similar to the
last one in the Gospels spoken to Thomas to discourage his doubt (John 20:29).
[10] “This
psalm (Luke 1:46-55) is one of the few praise psalms in the NT. Mary praises
God and then tells why both in terms of his care for her (Luke 1:46-49) and for
others, including Israel (Luke 1:50-55). Its traditional name, the
"Magnificat," comes from the Latin for the phrase ‘My soul magnifies
the Lord’” (NET).
[11] nrsv note: Other ancient
authorities read Elizabeth
[12] “My
spirit” (to pneuma mou). It’s interesting to wonder if there
is a theological distinction between “Spirit” here and “soul” (psucheô)
in verse 46. The argument is that the soul is the principle of individuality
while the spirit is the point of contact between God and humans. This is known
as the “trichotomous” theory of human nature (body, soul, and spirit). It’s not
clear, however that Luke (or his sources) had anything that complicated in
mind. Even the distinction between intellect, emotions, and will is challenged
by some psychologists. It is more probable that they are simply synonyms in
parallel clauses, following good Hebrew poetic form.
[13] “Fear”
(phoboumenois). Dative of the present middle participle. Here it is
a reverential fear, not fear of harm, cf. Acts 10:2;
Colossians 3:22. The bad sense of dread appears in Matthew 21:46; Mark 6:20;
Luke 12:4.
[14] “Powerful”
(dunastas). Our word “dynasty” comes from this word. It comes from dunamai,
to have power, to be able.
[15] “Lowly”
(tapeinos, ταπεινόομαι). Those of the
lower classes. “To live in circumstances regarded as characteristic of low
status” (Louw / Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based
on Semantic Domains, p. 739.)
[16] Ch 4:14
in Heb
[17] Cn
Compare Gk: Meaning of Heb uncertain.
c Ch 5:1 in Heb
[1] Lauren
Meechan . "Susan Boyle 2018: Simon Cowell admits he ‘hates his guts’ for
how he treated BGT star." Express.co.uk. 24 Aug. 2018. Web. 19 Dec. 2018.
<https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/1007906/Susan-Boyle-2018-Simon-Cowell-audition-Britains-Got-Talent-news-latest-pictures>
[2] Adapted from Homiletics.com,
which took it from, Janet Ruffing, Uncovering Stories of Faith:
Spiritual Direction and Narrative [Paulist Press, 1989], p. 95.)
