December 24, 2006

 Reversal of Fortune
 

by Rev. Dr. Jim Carlson

Luke 1:46-55

Before I begin I want to thank everyone who participated this morning, especially these wonderful children. They always make a hectic season seem a little brighter. I’m just going to speak briefly this morning because so much as already been said.

So much is said at this time of year about the meaning of Christmas. What does it mean? Yes, it’s the time of year when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. For children it’s this magical time of year when they hope and dream not only for toys, but for the opportunity to do all those special things they like to do around Christmas.

For parents it’s a time of cleaning and parties and shopping and, of course, going into debt. The media very consistently talks about Christmas as a time to reconnect with and remember the importance of family. Every movie and TV special seems to reinforce that theme.

Every year we hear preachers telling us that Christmas shouldn’t be just about gifts and materialism. It should be about Jesus. Well, fine, but what does that mean? That always drove me nuts because I never saw the connection the stories of Christmas in the Bible and the things people in the church keep talking about.

So lets ask the hypothetical question: If we were going to make this holiday about Jesus, what would that look like? And would it be all that different from what we’re doing already? How does the Bible really describe the event of Jesus being born to Mary and Joseph?

The Bible passage we read this morning tells us what Mary thought about the birth of her son. And when I show you what she said, it may surprise you. The passage we read this morning is a song, which has been named “Magnificat” by the church.

Let me get right down to the point of this song: Mary sees the birth of Jesus as a movement by God to reverse the fortunes of people in her society. The meaning of Christmas, in Mary’s mind, is that God shows special favor those who are poor and humble, and God take the rich, the arrogant and the powerful down a peg or two.

(Slide) Now, some of us may not like her interpretation of Jesus’ birth, but I don’t think anyone can deny that this is how Luke tells the story. Take a look at some of these statements she makes: Verse 52 “He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things and has sent the rich away empty.”

Now ask yourself, “What does this have to do with Christmas?” Luke would say that this is what Christmas is all about. In Luke’s mind, Jesus came to bring about a reversal of fortunes, among other things. People who are poor or afflicted or distressed find hope. People who think God forgot about them come to find that actually God has seen their suffering and God is doing something about it.

On the other hand, those who think they have no need for God, either because they think they’re just fine the way they are or because their money makes them better than other people, are faced with the reality that they are no better than anyone else, and may even be worse off than the folks on the lower rungs of society.

Is this what Christmas is about? Well, that’s what Luke thought it was about, and he wrote the Christmas story we read every year. If we claim to be people who use the Bible as our guide to living, then this idea of a reversal of fortunes should be at the heart of the event we call Christmas.

The problem is, very few people want to talk about Christmas in this manner. Christmas is a time when people who are wealthy make a great deal of money. Everybody’s buying more stuff at Christmas than any other time of year. Those who are reaping the profits would probably not be all that interested in talking about the rich being sent away empty-handed.

Churches tend to talk about family and especially the idea of Jesus dying for our sins. We like to have warm happy feelings and come away with the sense that everything is right in the world. So when someone says, “This is the time for the poor to find comfort and the rich and powerful to be humbled”, people don’t want to hear that, even if that’s what the Bible says.

We could go into a whole debate about how the rich are taking advantage of the poor or how the poor are really at fault of their own poverty. But I want to share with you the way this passage shapes the kind of ministry I do.

This week I spoke with someone who told me about a situation in another church in which a very charismatic pastor helped a church to grow in numbers and build and add programs. But because of internal struggles and conflicts of philosophy, this pastor was asked to leave by the leadership of the church.

You might ask yourself why a church would ask a pastor to leave after they had experienced so much growth. You’d think they would want to keep the guy on. But part of the reason why they asked him to leave is because he had a very particular way of doing things (which obviously was very successful), and he was not willing to deviate from that formula, regardless of what anyone thought.

This is the kind of story I have heard over and over. It happens in the church, in the business world, in government, in schools and colleges, you name it. Part of the reason why people with kind of narrow focus are attractive is because they have a specific plan that has proven to be successful in other places.

One of the problems you start running into when folks run a church this way is that this kind of leader honestly doesn’t care much about anyone else’s ideas concerning the direction of the church. The idea is that God speaks to the pastor, and the pastor tells the people what to do, and they do it. If it’s successful, then your pastor is wonderful, if it’s not, you get a new pastor.

What’s lost in all of this is the possibility that the pastor might not be the only one experiencing a sense of where God wants the church to go. Who’s going to say to God, “Please don’t speak to the people in the pew. Just speak to the pastor – he or she is your mouthpiece.”

The fact is, God speaks to each and every one of you in some way or another. I hope you’re not hearing voices, because that might be schizophrenia. We have drugs for that kind of thing.

But seriously, I would never be so arrogant as to say that my sense of God’s working in this congregation is more important than yours. And I can’t claim to lead this group unless I have spent time with you and listened to where you see God working in our congregation.

So what does this have to do with Christmas? Just this – the people in Luke’s Christmas story, specifically the poor and the humble and the afflicted, they had a sense that for once, God was attuned to their problems, their fears, their concerns, and their hopes.

They good and well that those who ruled over them, the wealthy, the powerful, the religious establishment, were not concerned at all with their plight. They had a sense that only God was listening, and that God was doing something about it.

In the same way, as a pastor I figure that if I’m paying attention to what’s going on with you, your fears, your concerns, your struggles, your hopes, then maybe I can convince you that God cares too.

If I’m more interested in getting everyone to work from my blueprint and adhere to my plan, then I can’t do that. But if you are my plan, if your development as a person, your fulfillment as a human being, and your hopes for what your church could be, then we will all have a sense that God is working, that God is doing something great, and that God is intimately concerned with not only your eternal soul, but also with your happiness today.

That’s what made this child’s birth special to Mary. That’s what gave people hope. You can have a huge church teeming with lots of young people and all kinds of programs to for all kinds of people. But unless you think that God actually knows your situation and cares about it and want to help you make it better, then Christmas is just a time for buying gifts.

I know it’s something more. God does indeed care about you. Your pains, your conflicts your heartaches, and the situations you think are impossible. God knows them. Christmas is about God doing something special to help those who are struggling. And that’s something we can all relate to.