December 18, 2011 – Occupying Bethlehem
Phil Blackwell
“Occupying Bethlehem”
Luke 1:46b-55
I offer two recent conversations to frame our understanding of Mary’s “Magnificat,” the ancient song of praise ascribed to her as she sings of being blessed by God with the glory of bearing the Savior of the World.
The first one was a few weeks ago as I sat at the head table for the Indiana Society of Chicago. I graciously had been invited by one of our members to offer the invocation, and now during the salad course I talked to the gentleman to my left, who is running for the Republican nomination for senator against Richard Lugar in the next primary. He now serves as the state treasurer.
I asked him for his “elevator speech,” advising him that I was giving him only four floors to give it. “I won’t need that much time,” he said. “I have three points.”
I do not remember the first two he offered, but his third was, “Get the jackboot of governmental regulations off the necks of small business owners.” I responded, “You know, ‘jackboot’ is not an objective term.”
Politics in our society can be important, but it never will be noble enough to cradle the hopes of the human spirit. And when it is reduced to inflamed rhetoric, “the jackboot of governmental regulations,” it injures us as a nation. He did not want to talk policies but politics, power not process.
The other conversation was a few days earlier when Wendy and I sat with three non-organizers of the “Occupy Chicago” movement. These earnest young people had come to us to ask if their group could spend the winter in our building, transform the Chicago Temple into Valley Forge. I said, “No,” and explained how the building worked as a multi-use facility, how the church owns it but really occupies only about 13% of the square footage, and how we host about 90 events a week in that 13%. We offered to talk to some of our United Methodist colleagues around the city to see if they had any available space. And we suggested that maybe we could join with the Northern Illinois Conference and Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary to host some public discussions of the central issues raised by the G-8 and NATO summits in Chicago in May.
I then offered the suggestion, without their request for it, “Maybe you should think about sharpening your message so that people can know, in a sentence or two, what you are all about.” “Elevator speeches” can be useful.
“We don’t want to do that,” one of them said. “We represent so many concerns and ideals that we don’t want to reduce it to a single thing.”
“Well,” I responded, “how about, ‘We believe that American democracy is not about “freedom from,” but “freedom for”? We are calling for everyone to flourish under our system of government, not just a few.’ That makes sense to me.”
“But, we are much more complex than that. We get together as an assembly every night, and everyone gets to speak with an equal voice. We have so many opinions. I mean, look at the Bible. There are so many different things in there that you cannot summarize it in a sentence or two.”
“Actually,” I said, “someone asked Jesus to do that, and he did. ‘Love God and love your neighbor; in these two commandments are contained all of the law and the prophets.” It is hard to see the crest of a young idealist fall, but it did.
Which simply is to say, you have to know what song you are singing and how to sing it so that others can sing along. Mary knows her song:
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;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”
Where have we heard this song before? If we turn back to 1Samuel in the Old Testament we read at the beginning of the second chapter, Hannah, Samuel’s mother, sing,
My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God. . . .
There is no Holy One like the Lord, no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God.
Hannah sings because she was a barren old woman who now is expecting the birth of a child. Mary sings because she is a young girl not yet married who also is expecting the birth of a child. Both of these are miracles in their own way.
This is to say that the song which praises God for unexpected blessings can be sung in all generations. New life grows where it is least expected. The hymn we will sing in a few minutes, known for its brooding tune and irregular rhythm, actually is a song of wonder.
Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as those of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter, when half spent was the night.
A rose blooms at night in the dead of winter . . . who would have thought this was possible? All things are possible with God. A rose ever blooming out of season, when least expected.
Mary sings the lovely first verse of her own song, and all is well; if only the song ended there! But Mary goes on to sing the second verse.
(God) 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 empty away
The rose that is blooming in Mary’s womb is a rose of revolution. She sings as if it already is accomplished.
Mary’s song was the anthem of 2011. Whom did Time magazine choose as “The Person of the Year” for this past year? “The Protester,” on the cover a face shielded by a headscarf. The Arab Spring. It is possible for us to theologize today that God has scattered, God has brought down, God has lifted up. In all times and places God’s intention is to turn everything, not upside down, but right side up. Hannah sang the song of revolution in the days of old; Mary sang it at the turning point of history; we sang it just a few minutes ago, “My soul gives glory to my God. My heart pours out his praise. God lifted up my lowliness in many marvelous ways.” In all times and in all places, in season and out of season, this is the song of faith, faith in a God who will make things right.
Mary and Joseph occupy Bethlehem, along with a few thousand other interlopers who have come to town for the census. That is Luke’s version of the nativity story. According to the prophesies of old, the Son of David, the Messiah of God’s people, would be born in Bethlehem. Luke, looking back over several decades to write the story of the good news in Jesus Christ, understands that the family lives in Nazareth in the north. The census becomes the occasion for them to be in Bethlehem when the baby is born. Matthew, for his part, looking back over the same stretch of years, suspects that Mary and Joseph actually lived in Bethlehem. So in his version, Jesus is born at home.
But with Luke, these weary travelers find a birthing place out back of the inn in a stall surrounded by animals. That might have been the best place to have a baby. This “inn” in Bethlehem was not The Hilton or Four Seasons; most likely, it was a single room serving as a shelter for dozens of passers-through, most of them camel jockeys sleeping off a long ride on the dusty road. It would be no place to give birth. No, there would be more privacy, more serenity, more understanding in the hay among the animals out back.
The birth itself is represented by a single sentence in Luke: “While they were there,” occupying Bethlehem, “the time came for her to deliver her child.” That is it. The Savior of the World is born. “It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter, when half spent was the night.” The rose of revolution now was in bloom.
The angel summons the shepherds to come and see, the shepherds, a disreputable group really, disbarred from giving testimony in the law courts because they were judged to be unreliable. They always were feeding their sheep on someone else’s land, was the suspicion. Yet, there they serve as witnesses to this unlikely miracle at an unexpected time in an improbable setting. Here is the scene of awestruck glory sung in the first stanza, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
But, remember the second stanza. This is not a lullaby with which to rock a newborn infant to sleep. For this newborn infant is a challenge to the way the world runs. This is Pax Christi being born to take on Pax Augusta. Here we have the Holy Family occupying Bethlehem because of the stringent regulations of a foreign power, the “jackboot” of Caesar Augustus on their necks, one might say over salad. The peace of Christ has come into the world to challenge the peace of subjugation, of force, of war.
If we jump to Matthew’s nativity story for a moment, we find all of the tumult of the second stanza. Herod and all of the power brokers are petrified that they might lose their sway over others. No one in power can rest easy at Christmas, not if they know Mary’s revolutionary song.
We sing a lot of songs at Christmastime. “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” “The Little Drummer Boy,” “Up On a Rooftop,” “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” but world, watch out when we get to the “Magnificat:” “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 empty away.”
Watch out in Washington. Watch out in Springfield. Watch out across the street in City Hall. Watch out in Iowa and New Hampshire and all those political battlegrounds. God’s sense of power is not our sense of power. God’s sense of what is right is not our sense of what is right. God’s sense of which way is up is not our sense of orientation.
Our God is a disorienting God who tells the power-mongers that all bets are off, all under the table payments are voided, all backroom deals are now out in the daylight for all to see.
And God trusts that when we see the truth, when we people of faith see what constitutes real power, when we know the song of the seasons, both verses for all times and places, things will be set aright. We will join God in dismissing the proud, unseating the powerful, elevating the humble, feeding the starving, and relegating the rich to the end of the line. “It is only right,” says God. “What do you think Christmas is all about?”
Watch out for Mary and her song! In all times, in all places, in all cultures, it is a sweet song of turning things right. She knows that her child will do that. There is a rose blooming midwinter, a rose of revolution. It occupies Bethlehem and all the world. And the angel of the Lord approaches witnesses as unreliable as we are and beckons, “Come and see.” Amen.
Philip L. Blackwell
The Chicago Temple
December 18, 2011
Add to Google