At the turn of the 18th century, Christmas could be a very dangerous time for ordinary common folk like us. Back in those days, it was customary for bands of young men to go door-to-door, demanding food and drink and in exchange provide a song for the household’s entertainment. If nothing was given, the gang was as likely as not to break in and ransack and trash the house, as well as stealing whatever they found that they might want. The Christmas holiday was often just another excuse for thugs to run rampant on society.
In 1828, New York City established its first professional police force. The city government felt that it was necessary that they respond to a Christmas riot.
What a far cry from what we celebrate today. Even for those who only celebrate a secular holiday it is still a time of food and family, of gifts and decorations, of music and celebration. Yes, there are those who still live closer to the turn of the 18th century Christmas or 1828 New York City, pre-police Christmas. But, for most folks in our society it is a great day of celebration.
For we in the Church, the secular celebrations are also a part of our celebrations, but Christmas is much more. Christmas is a time for singing because it is a celebration of a birthday. Whenever a person has a birthday, friends and family join in singing, “Happy Birthday to You.” We have our Christmas anthems, solos and carols. Radio and television keep the Christmas music and songs in our ears from before Thanksgiving to Christmas day. In our lesson this morning we have a young woman’s song about being a mother. Suppose we had to compose our personal song of Christmas. What would we sing? Let’s take a look at Mary’s beautiful Magnificat.
Today’s lesson is more than Scripture. It is a song, it’s Mary’s song. It is Mary’s song of praise, a song of thanksgiving to God for God’s calling her to be the mother of our Lord. The lesson is a song of joy. It is a song of gratitude. It is a song of mercy. And, it is a clearly song that is about social change.
I Mary begins to sing. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed.” Those are the words of a joyful heart. Those are the words of a woman who is joyful because she is living her life as God’s servant. Mary’s song is a song of joy.
The great classical cellist Pablo Casals, in his life story entitled Joys and Sorrows, tells readers his first memory of attending worship on Christmas Eve when he was five-years-old. He walked to the church in a small village in Spain, hand-in-hand with his father, who was the church’s organist.
He said that as he walked, he shivered. The shivering was not, however, so much because the night was cold, though it was quite cold. Pablo was shivering because the atmosphere that evening was so electric and so mysterious.
“I felt,” Pablo said, “that something wonderful was about to happen. High overhead, the heavens were full of stars, and as we walked in silence I held tightly to my father’s hand… In the dark, narrow streets, there were moving figures, shadowy and spectral and silent, too, moving into the church, quickly and silently… My father played the organ, and when I sang, it was really my heart that was singing, and I poured out everything that was in me.”
“It was really my heart that was singing.” I think Mary could identify with that. When we sing praises to God we sing from our hearts. We sing with joy. Yes, Pablo Casals was only a small child. Yes, Mary was still a young girl. But, it seems to me that they have something to teach us about singing from our hearts and singing with joy. When we become adults, all too often, we tend to lose our joy. We don’t sing with joyful hearts. We need to relearn. We need to sing a song of joy.
II Mary continues, “for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” She is singing a song of gratitude, a song of thanksgiving to God. Here is a young girl, who isn’t married, and pregnant with God’s baby. Who would believe her? Here is a young girl, in a life-threatening situation.
Moss heart spent his life as a Broadway playwright and director. In his autobiography Act One, An Autobiography, Hart describes on particular Christmas Eve at the turn of the century when he was ten and the family was living in New York City. Because of their poverty Moss was surprised one special night a few days before Christmas when his father said, “Let’s go downtown and set out on a walk down to 149th Street, a part of town where push carts full of toys were lined up for shoppers.
Moss knew his dad was going to try to buy him a Christmas present, but he also knew that his dad had very little money (later he figured that his father might have had seventy five cents in his pocket). As they walked by these carts, Hart said he saw all sorts of toys he wanted. But after his father asked the price, the two of them would move quietly to the next cart, his father putting his hands in his pocket and fingering the coins. So it went from one cart to the other. Nothing the youngster wanted could be purchased for what his father had been able to save.
Hart looked up at his father and saw a look of despair and disappointment in his eyes that brought him closer to his father than he had ever been. Hart said that he wanted to throw his arms around his dad and say, “It doesn’t matter… I understand… this is better than a chemistry set or a printing press… I love you! But instead we stood shivering beside each other for a moment and then turned away from the last two pushcarts and started silently back him. I don’t know why but the words remained choked up within me. I didn’t even take his hand on the way home nor did he take mine. We were not on that basis. Nor did I ever tell him how close I felt to him that night. For a little whole the concrete wall between father and son had crumbled away and I knew that we were two lonely people struggling to reach each other.”
Moss Hart regretted never saying anything to his father, though he was grateful for his father’s effort. He never let his gratitude show. How true that is for so many of us.
Today in Yellow Springs, Ohio, people are still receiving Christmas presents from ex-slave Wheeling Gaunt, who was born in 1812 and who died in 1894. Just before he died, he deeded nine acres of land at the south edge of the village to the town of Yellow Springs, the proceeds of which were to buy perpetual Christmas gifts for poor widows, which the village continues to do to this day. Ten pounds of flour and 10 pounds of sugar arrive at the home of every widow in town just in time for holiday baking, thanks to this former slave.
There is a plaque in town dedicated to him. On it is an inscription that reads, “Not what you get, but what you give.”
We need to let our gratitude show in how we live our lives. As people of faith our gratitude should show in the song of how we live our lives in faith.
III Mary’s song is also a song of mercy. Listen to her words. “His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.” Mary knows that she finds forgiveness, she finds mercy in God and that this blessing is God showing mercy not only to her, God is showing mercy to every generation to come through the birth of his Son.
The thing is, we all need mercy in our lives. We all need to have God’s love and forgiveness alive and at work within us. For we who love God, mercy is a very real fact of life. And, it should be the same mercy we share with those in the world around us.
In Willa Cather’s Christmas story “The Burglar’s Christmas” we find just such mercy and forgiveness. The story portrays a young man, the proverbial prodigal son, who had moved away from his family back East and was in Chicago. Without food for many days and without friends or family he decides on Christmas Eve to steal some food from a house. He had never stolen before but thinks that he is owed some food at least on Christmas Eve. When he breaks into the home, however, he finds that he has burglarized the house of his parents, who had recently moved to Chicago. His mother catches him while stealing, and he confesses all to her and to his father.
The young man prepares to leave, but his parents ask him to stay. “We’ll make things right,” they say.
He looks up at his mother with a questioning look on his face. “I wonder,” he asks her, “if you know how much you are pardoning?”
“O, my poor boy,” she replies, “much or little, what does it matter? Have you wandered so far and paid such a bitter price for knowledge and not yet learned that love has nothing to do with pardon or forgiveness, that it only loves, and loves, and loves?”
I am not sure I really agree with that sentiment. I think that love has everything to do with pardon, forgiveness, and mercy. And, because God loves us, God has mercy on us and through the gift of Jesus Christ, we who believe have that mercy. Mary knew that. But more importantly, Mary understood that.
IV Finally, Mary’s song is a song about social change. The Magnificat concludes saying, “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. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
God provides, but we must always remember, we the Church are God’s hands and feet in the world. God uses us to provide the hungry with good things.
I read a story the other day about a hungry child who prayed earnestly one Christmas for food and toys, but nothing happened. She a cynical friend about her prayers, who then asked her with a sneer, “What happened to this God of yours? Why didn’t he hear you and answer your prayers?” To that the child gave a very simple answer, “O, I am sure he heard me and told someone to bring me a Christmas gift, but I guess they just forgot.”
There is more to the little girl’s story than just some kind of childish naiveté in her reply. You see, the problems of the world are not the fault of God, but are because we do not fulfill our part in our partnership with Him. Like Mary, we are called to be partners with God and when we accept that challenge we learn that it is a privilege to follow God’s direction and be God’s servant. Perhaps we too should be like Mary, singing a song of social change to the world.
Rose Marie Berger, wrote in Sojourners magazine about her favorite childhood memory of Christmas. She tells the story of how her father built a small manger from scrap wood. Every evening during Advent her parents asked her and her brothers and sisters what acts of kindness they did that day. For each good thing they did, they could put a piece of straw in the manger. The warmth and welcome of the baby Jesus on Christmas depended on the quality and quantity of the kindness they showed to others during the Advent season.
Joy, gratitude, mercy, and social change are a part of our calling as Christians. We often to more this time of year, but our calling extends beyond the Christmas holiday, our calling is a part of our lives every day. I can’t help but think that Mary didn’t just sing the Magnificat to God, in my heart I know that singing praises to God was always a part of Mary’s life. May the same be true for us, not only during the Christmas season, but with the songs of our hearts and the songs of our service to God and neighbor every day of our lives.
