Sunday, December 2, 2012

12/23/2012 - Fourth Sunday in Advent - Luke 1:39-45

Instead of a traditional homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent, I will present a conversation between a priest, the Virgin Mary, and a peasant from Chile.  I used the analysis of the Magnificat from Robert McAfee Brown's book Unexpected New: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes as the foundation of this homily, and then adapted it to my own experiences and research from when I visited Chile and Argentina in the summer of 2003 on the Fulbright-Hays program for teachers.  I am having youth from the parish read the parts of Mary and the peasant.  The Gospel reading of Mary's visitation to Elizabeth, Luke 1:39-45, will be proclaimed by the priest.  And then the Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55 will be read by Mary.


Luke 1:39-55
During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, "Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.  Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled."

And Mary said: "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For he has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him. He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things; the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped Israel his servant, remembering his mercy, according to his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever."


12/23/2012 - 4th Sunday Advent – Luke 1:39 - 55

Reader: We usually look at the Gospel from our own perspective, of how it speaks to us in the reality of our own lives.  Today, the fourth Sunday of Advent, we hear of the visitation of Mary to her cousin of Elizabeth.  We hear Mary sing the Magnificat in response to the greeting she receives from Elizabeth.  What if we look at Mary from a different perspective than our own today?  What if we saw Mary’s visitation to her cousin Elizabeth from the perspective of a poor peasant farmer in Chile in a conversation with his priest, and of how the Virgin Mary herself might respond to them. Let us use our imagination to hear today’s Gospel from a different perspective, perhaps a perspective very different from our own.

PRIEST: Today's Gospel brought to mind a conversion I had with my friend, Joe, before he was ordained a priest.  He was planning his first mass and wanted to have the Magnificat sung at it.  But, when he came to the phrase, “The rich will be sent away empty,” he decided he was going to change the words. Instead of the rich being sent away empty, he wanted it to be the arrogant, the proud or the haughty.  You see, Joe didn’t want to offend his sisters who would attend the mass.  They happen to be quite wealthy.   

MARY:  Why would someone want to change my words?  Why can’t they just hear what I have to say? 


PEASANT: Hey, Father Lincoln.  Could I talk to you about today’s Gospel reading?  When I heard it this weekend, it reminded me of September 11.

PRIEST: Why would Mary’s Magnificat remind you of the terrorist attacks on September 11 in the United States?

PEASANT: No, not the attacks in New York on September 11.  That's so far away from here. I thought about what happened in my own country of Chile, on September 11 back in 1973, when our President Salvador Allende was killed by the military coup of General Agosto Pinochet.  President Allende was concerned about the poor of our country, just like the Virgin Mary in the Magnificat.  That's what came to my mind.  

MARY:  Now this conversation is getting very interesting.  Let’s see how he understands what I expressed in my visit to my cousin Elizabeth, how he connects it to his life. 

PRIEST:  Let's look at the Magnificat, Miguel. How does it help you better understand Mary and her situation?

MARY:  I was in quite a predicament when those words came out of my mouth: I was pregnant, alone, and scared. I wonder if they will understand the desperation of my situation.

PEASANT: I look at the Magnificat, and I think about the  woman who said those words: “The Lord... has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness.”  When I see the image of the Virgin Mary in the Cathedral in Santiago, I see a beautiful, refined woman with a crown, with gold rings and jewells on her fingers, dressed in a beautiful blue dress embroidered in gold.  In reality, Mary was a lowly handmaid, a member of the poor in Nazareth.  She was engaged to a local carpenter. 

MARY: Yes, I was a poor Jewish girl wearing the same type of clothing all the young women in my village wore.  There were blisters on my hands from the hard work I did all day long.  It was not an easy life.

PRIEST: In the Magnificat, Mary tells us what God is doing for her, what He is doing for Israel.  He chose a poor, humble servant as the mother of his Son.

PEASANT: Exactly, Father.  Mary would have been like me and the poor of my village who work our fingers to the bone in order to make a living.

MARY: What I was saying in the Magnificat was that the lowly were being lifted up, that those on high were being cast down.  That's what God was doing in his selection of the mother of his Son, in choosing me for this special task.  And it was all God's doing.  It was all God's plan. 

PRIEST: You know, Miguel, Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth in obedience to the Angel's instructions.  She did so out of love and charity. Mary responded to Elizabeth with praise for God.

MARY: My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.

PEASANT: I believe Mary praises God because he has turned the world upside down.  You would have thought that our powerful God would have chosen the mother of his son from royalty.  He could have chosen a princess or a young woman from a rich family.  God's message in choosing the Virgin Mary was that he pays special attention to people like me – to the poor, the oppressed, and the hard working people of the world. 

MARY: Yes, God raised me up, and all generations now call me blessed.  Who would have imagined such a thing? 

PEASANT:  Father, Mary proclaims that God has put down the mighty from their thrones.  What does that mean to me in language that I can understand?   I am just a poor farmer.  My family struggles to put food on our table.  The economic situation in the world and the political turmoil in our country can make our situation so much worse, but it is way beyond our control.

PRIEST: Miguel, think of the empires that existed in Jesus' day and how often they rose and fell – the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Romans.  We've seen it in our own day too. Many colonial empires that have come and gone in the last few centuries. We were controlled by Spain for a long time here in Chile – but that rule ended a long time ago.  Empires will come and go, but the poor, humble people of the world will always be here.
MARY: Those empires mean nothing – God's kingdom is what really matters.

PEASANT: When I hear Mary proclaiming that God has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich will be sent away empty, I see God empowering me.  By the poor having more, the rich will have less, because of course there is only so much to go around.  But, I think God expects me to work hard and to feel empowered as well.  God took the people of Israel to the promised land, but the people had responsibilities too.  They had to undertake that journey. 

MARY:  Yes, Miguel, you and the others have a hand in proclaiming God's kingdom here on earth, just as I had my special role in God's plan of salvation.  God is calling us to challenge the unjust structures that exist in our society.  God is calling us to work for peace and justice.  

PRIEST: We all are called during Advent to rejoice at the coming of our Lord.  We are to joyfully give thanks for God’s presence in our lives.  Mary gives thanks in the Magnificat.  What God did for Mary shows the great love he has for us all – the rich & the poor – everyone.

PEASANT:  Yes, Father.  That is what I like about the joyful celebrations we have at our parish.  I give joy and thanks to a God who liberates the poor like me, who humbles the arrogant and the powerful by showing them that they are not the ones in charge, because it is really God who is in charge. 

MARY:  No one else in the world loves the Magnificat as much the poor of Latin America. I sometimes hear them singing the Magnificat as they leave mass, as they go out into the world.  In fact, right here in this very church in Yazoo City, the Hispanics sing a song to me at the end of their Spanish mass every single Sunday.  The Magnificat is not just the hymn of praise that I sang while visiting my cousin Elizabeth – it is a hymn of praise for all of us. 

PRIEST: How would King Herod have reacted if he had heard Mary sing the Magnificat?

MARY: He probably would have laughed at me!  He probably would have thought that I was crazy!

PEASANT:  Well, I am certainly not laughing, and the Virgin Mary certainly wasn’t crazy.  The message of the Magnificat gives me hope.  I may struggle to put food on my table, I may not have a lot of power in my world, I may not be rich or famous, but I have a God who loves me. 

PRIEST:  I am glad you have hope, Miguel.  We will have hope together. 

PEASANT: Mary may have been a poor Jewish girl who was pregnant and scared, but I also know that now she is the Mother of our Lord and the Queen of Heaven – our mother.  That is why these words mean so much to me. 


MARY: It’s so complicated for those in the modern world to understand who I was and who I am, to understand what was going on in ancient Israel at the time of Jesus’ birth.  I hope they keep searching.   I hope they keep asking questions. Please don’t ever give up!

PRIEST:  Miguel, I thank you for sharing your thoughts with me today.  This conversation has been a blessing.  God bless you. 

PEASANT: Adios, Padre. 

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