A sermon preached on the Fourth Sunday of Advent
These are the rules of Whamageddon: it runs from 1st December until midnight on 24th; you “win’ if you haven’t heard “Last Christmas”; you’re out if you accidentally or intentionally hear Wham’s pop classic.
Thanks to Jeremy Vine’s lunch time show on Radio 2, I was knocked out of Whamageddon early on. You may have heard it everywhere - car radio, supermarkets, pubs and cafes, but not at our Christmas Fair.
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away
Some would say that this song, written by George Michael in the bedroom of his childhood home when visiting his parents, has a timeless appeal.
This year to save me from tears,
I’ll give it to someone special.
His fellow band member Andrew Ridgeley called this refrain ‘beguiling’ and ‘wistful’: somehow ‘distilling the essence of Christmas into music’. He continues, saying: ‘Adding lytic which told the tale of betrayed love was a masterstroke and, as he did so often, he touched hearts’.
In a way, this Sunday of Advent is all about hearts and songs. The Gospel that we hear today is so familiar that we might be moved to call it ‘beguiling’ and ‘wistful’; a story that in some way distills the essence of Christmas.
Today we hear of two pregnant women in their first and second trimesters greeting each other: there is energy and exclamation in this encounter; movements of unbridled joy in hearts and wombs.
For each of them, pregnancy brings not only physical sensations and changes, but also intrigue and speculation. Mary left Nazareth in haste, perhaps wondering what Joseph would do; Elizabeth was at home, wondering if her husband would speak again.
Hearts had been given away not in romantic infatuation but in love so deep that it is both mysterious and scandalous.
Yet here, there is the call and response of hearts that have been touched by love. In the company of her pregnant cousin, Mary finds both sanctuary and delight in the face of uncertainty.
These women embrace and so enfold each other’s stories. As John leaps in utero at the nearness of Jesus in Mary’s womb, this human loving shifts to be a moment of worship, a moment of blessing.
Here there is overflowing joy and renewed trust; here, hope bubbles up with awe and wonder. Hearts are opened and given away in a love which moves from fear to communion, from promise to fulfilment.
Elizabeth’s words of blessing are but the beginning: as she affirms Mary’s faith and trust, when labour is still many months off, the good news of God’s Word of love made flesh is magnified in a song of praise.
On Mary’s lips, there is a new song. She finds her voice. A voice which picks up the cries of prophets throughout the centuries: she sings of God’s strength, generosity and mercy; she cries out for the poor and broken hearted.
This is a song of hope and change. It names the ways in which the human heart can be turned in on itself in pride and self-reliance; it names our misdirected desires for wealth, and the ways power can be misused.
This is a song of hope and change: it names the way God’s blessing and love reverses the status quo. She described the honour given to the humble and the raising up of the lowly. The world she describes will be marked by the justice and mercy brought by the child she carries in her womb.
This determined and courageous young woman - makes her voice one with the prophets. She does so not as a future hope but with the confidence of present reality. The God of whom she speaks has acted to raise up and fill, to bring down and to send.
This is song of describes what healing and salvation look like: as relationships are transformed; as imaginations are enlarged; as resources are redistributed. God’s compassion is embodied in human flesh and in networks of community; all this for the sake of the flourishing of the whole of creation.
Human lives magnify and amplify the loving purposes of God.Hearts are given away, but not betrayed; when lives are freed from tears; when next year brings the unfolding mystery of God’s love.
In her song Mary sees the world as God sees it: she amplifies God’s love and invites us to magnify it in our own hearts.
What then will our song be?
We are to make Mary’s song our own - committing ourselves to feed the world and banish fear; embracing the lonely, vulnerable and fearful; challenging those gifted with economic and social capital.
The prophet Micah denounced dishonesty in business and superficial religion; he challenged the abuse of power and the exploitation of the poor. He looked forward to a time of peace - when we could set aside our reliance on military might and the false gods of wealth.
And foretold that this work of redemption would begin in a small place; in a city which was home to a small clan. In Bethlehem, this marginal place, blessed Mary will go into labour. In this city her firstborn child - God’s own beloved Son - is born.
Peace breaks in in the cries of an infant; in a babe at his mother’s breast.
Blessing is found in the fruit of Mary’s womb.
We are blessed by God’s love dwelling with us in flesh of our flesh.
We bless as we become receptive to that gift, and channel that love.
Our world cries out for that gift of peace and love: a world of universal credit and food banks; a world of environmental degradation and refugee crises; a world of homelessness and zero hours contracts.
We respond to cries: singing increases our capacity to act; the Spirit strengthens us to seek justice, compassion and peace. We commit to Mary’s manifesto of struggle and change with hope and courage.
The body Mary carries in her body is God with us. That body will teach and heal, console and provoke. That body will be beaten, mocked and lifted up on a cross. That dying body destroys death and brings new life. In broken bread, we are fed, restored and strengthened by his body; we become his body, receiving dignity and purpose.
We sing out in places of vulnerability and fear; we stand in solidarity with suffering and anxious. As his body we cry out for those seeking healing and hope; we act of those seeking justice and peace. May our lives be blessings of love.
This Christmas will we give God our heart; will God work in us to open hearts to those around us.
© Julie Gittoes 2021
