Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Mary's Victory Song - The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Mary's Victory Song - The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
Sermon from the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel for the Fourth Sunday of Advent.
Today's readings are:
Micah 5:2-5a Hebrews 10:5-10 Luke 1:39-45, (46-55) Canticle 15Readings may be found on LectionaryPage.net: https://lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Advent/CAdv4_...
Mary's Victory Song
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
The Final Sunday of Advent, December 19, 2021
Please join me in the spirit of prayer.
Gracious God, you inspired Mary to give us your word and the Magnificat. Bless us whichever way our journey is going, whether we are being cast down or raised up, emptied out or filled up, help us know that it is a blessing to arrive with our neighbor in that place called enough.
In Christ's name we pray. Thank you.
My wife and I love every sort of music. If you know my wife Allison Bowden, she can sing large parts of Britten's Ceremony of Carols by heart and she's a big fan of Parliament Funkadelic, so that's how our family rolls. In fact we have a game we play with music which we call "Next line please." I will sing a line to her and she'll sing it back, like the next line in the song, so an easy one - and you can join in if you want, I will not sing, we will just recite -"Shake it up baby now" (The congregation responds: "Twist and shout.") "Ain't no mountain high enough." (The congregation responds "Ain't no mountain low enough.") "Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner." (The congregation responds: "but he knew it wouldn't last." and so on...)
Now finally, "my soul magnifies the Lord" (The congregation responds: "the spirit rejoices in God, my savior."
In a world without exclamation points - that is, the ancient world - you repeated things to make your point. If you wanted to explain and exalt and emphasize, you said it twice in a row. So Mary is saying essentially, "rejoice again, I say rejoice in our faithful God." She is singing a song, a prophecy of exaltation, of joy, of fulfillment and I want to spend time with it this morning. We've had it twice already. We might say, "that's a lot, Jared." We had it in the psalm position and we had it as part of the Gospel which was optional, but I wanted to do it as many times as we could.
I wanted that because the song of Mary is something I would like us to have by heart and I believe it's also something that's extremely good for our hearts, because in it Mary is teaching us. Mary the apostle, Mary the prophet, Mary the theotokos, the bearer of God's teachings, is telling us how to recognize what our God is doing and who our God is. In fact she is teaching us who our God is by telling us what God does so we can discern the movements of God in our own lives in our own world. She is teaching us that our God is faithful and true and comes through on God 's promises so we can have confidence, we can have hope and we can be humble in our service with our Lord.
Now, the song of Mary is a victory song. She is singing a victory song in a long tradition of woman prophets in Israel. She's in the heritage of Miriam who sings a wonderful victory song after the deliverance at the red sea. She's in the tradition of Deborah from Judges who sings a victory song. She's in the tradition of Hannah who sings a victory song after she is miraculously able to be pregnant, probably the closest to Mary's song. Mary has sung a victory song for what God has already achieved, what God has already accomplished, and it's an odd way she does it.
It involves a special grammar. Now I grew up in the 70s when schools did not believe in grammar. They thought it was oppressive to our cool little souls, so they didn't teach it to us, so I had to do a lot of research this week, but the Magnificat is written in a verb tense that we don't have in English. It's written in a Greek verb tense called aorist a-o-r-i-s-t. We translate it into past perfect which doesn't quite do the job, but the past perfect is all those verbs in there: "has shown the strength of his arm, has scattered the crowd in the conceit of their hearts." I like that translation better. " has cast down the mighty from their thrones, has lifted up the lowly, has filled the hungry with good things, has sent the rich away empty."
In the Greek what all this verbiage means is that this has been accomplished and continues. This has been done, the victory won, and the work continues. God 's work is ongoing and secured by God 's action. That's what makes it a victory song because otherwise we're asking Mary for the footnotes. "When has God done that, when has God done that, when has God done that?" God has done it in the incarnation itself.
In the conception of this child, God has acted decisively to change the history and path of the world. God has acted decisively to reunite God with humanity, to do God 's eternal purpose which was to harmonize humanity with God. This is accomplished in this incarnation and we talk so much about the cross and the resurrection of how God does God 's word but the incarnation is the first stitch. It's the essential beginning of how God makes peace with humanity, how God makes shalom, and I use that word intentionally because it's so much richer than peace. God makes peace with humanity, overcomes our hostility.
I want to pause on that for a minute because this is essential to what the Bible teaches. The history of the Bible is a history of God offering and humanity rejecting, of humanity living in opposition and hostility to God, and we might think to ourselves, "well I'm not hostile to God, I have good intentions, I have a high regard for my own innocence." But the story we live in is a story of rejection of God 's good authority, the rejection of God 's just and loving authority and when you reject God 's Godliness that is hostility. Ask any parent of a teenager. And it's that hostility, that resistance and reluctance and rejection that we bring to this relationship that God overcomes through God 's power by knitting us together forever in his life through the incarnation. This is the first stitch and that is the glorious good news of this story. I want to underline it in a certain way by a practice I have of every year looking out for where do I see the Magnificat? Where do I see how God has shown the strength of God 's arm, where do I see how God has scattered the powerful in their conceit, how has God cast down the mighty, how has God lifted up the lowly and filled them with good things, how has God sent the rich empty away both in the world and in my self?
Well staying on the theme of music one of my favorite recording artists gave me something that looked like the Magnificat this year. He's a wonderful singer-songwriter, if you don't know him, named Jason Isbell. He has a great song called 24 frames which I just adore. I will once again resist singing it to you but the lyric is amazing theologically. He says, "you thought God was an architect now you know he's more like a pipe bomb ready to blow. All you've built was just for show. All gone in 24 frames."
He is a brilliant songwriter but in the country music world which tries to claim him, he is what we might call a burr in the saddle. He has done amazing work challenging the sexism and racism of the country music establishment. So right now he recently had a seven night residency at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Now this is the holy temple of country music. A seven night residency with Amanda Shires, his wife, and what did he do? Every night he picked out an African-American country recording artist who was a woman to open for him. He raised up the lowly, but he doesn't look at it that way. He says each one of these women should be a headline. Each one deserves to be a headliner except for the resistance of racism and country music which we recall was created by segregationist producers who wanted white root's music to sell opposed to black root's music.
Using his influence Isbell has facilitated a raising up and he has challenged those in power to be cast down. He goes even farther. A famous country singer Morgan Wallin famously this year was caught on tape using the worst racial slurs you could think of, and this caused rightly a huge scandal and a major pause in his career as it should have. A leader in this was Jason Isbell making sure there were consequences and making sure this was an opportunity for country music to confront its racist history and present, and here's what Jason Isbell said.
He is a wonderful guy. He's been through recovery and he really doesn't suffer fools and he just said, "look, we are not persecuting Morgan Wallin. He is not being harmed. He is still a multi-millionaire. We are taking him off a pedestal and we are bringing him down to the sidewalk where the rest of us live, where the rest of us learn hard lessons and repent and return to the Lord."
Bring the mighty from their thrones, send the rich away empty, concrete vision of what God is doing as Mary teaches us in the Magnificat, we are invited to join in. We are invited to be a people who facilitate this leveling action of the Magnificat where the rich are sent away empty, the mighty come down from their thrones and the poor are elevated to meet them in this level place called enough.
We are called to be part of that gracious action, that prophetic action and we are called with confidence, with hope and humility that our world desperately needs from us. We are called with confidence because it is accomplished in the coming of Christ. We are called with hope because God is true to God 's promises as Mary tells us. We are called with humility because anything that is done well is only done in God 's power and with God 's help.
Amen.
Permission to podcast/stream music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-701187 and CCLI with license #21234241 and #21234234. All rights reserved.
Video, photographs, and graphics by the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.stmartinec.org
View all episodes
By St. Martin-in-the-FieldsSermon from the Rev. Jarrett Kerbel for the Fourth Sunday of Advent.
Today's readings are:
Micah 5:2-5a Hebrews 10:5-10 Luke 1:39-45, (46-55) Canticle 15Readings may be found on LectionaryPage.net: https://lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Advent/CAdv4_...
Mary's Victory Song
The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel
The Final Sunday of Advent, December 19, 2021
Please join me in the spirit of prayer.
Gracious God, you inspired Mary to give us your word and the Magnificat. Bless us whichever way our journey is going, whether we are being cast down or raised up, emptied out or filled up, help us know that it is a blessing to arrive with our neighbor in that place called enough.
In Christ's name we pray. Thank you.
My wife and I love every sort of music. If you know my wife Allison Bowden, she can sing large parts of Britten's Ceremony of Carols by heart and she's a big fan of Parliament Funkadelic, so that's how our family rolls. In fact we have a game we play with music which we call "Next line please." I will sing a line to her and she'll sing it back, like the next line in the song, so an easy one - and you can join in if you want, I will not sing, we will just recite -"Shake it up baby now" (The congregation responds: "Twist and shout.") "Ain't no mountain high enough." (The congregation responds "Ain't no mountain low enough.") "Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner." (The congregation responds: "but he knew it wouldn't last." and so on...)
Now finally, "my soul magnifies the Lord" (The congregation responds: "the spirit rejoices in God, my savior."
In a world without exclamation points - that is, the ancient world - you repeated things to make your point. If you wanted to explain and exalt and emphasize, you said it twice in a row. So Mary is saying essentially, "rejoice again, I say rejoice in our faithful God." She is singing a song, a prophecy of exaltation, of joy, of fulfillment and I want to spend time with it this morning. We've had it twice already. We might say, "that's a lot, Jared." We had it in the psalm position and we had it as part of the Gospel which was optional, but I wanted to do it as many times as we could.
I wanted that because the song of Mary is something I would like us to have by heart and I believe it's also something that's extremely good for our hearts, because in it Mary is teaching us. Mary the apostle, Mary the prophet, Mary the theotokos, the bearer of God's teachings, is telling us how to recognize what our God is doing and who our God is. In fact she is teaching us who our God is by telling us what God does so we can discern the movements of God in our own lives in our own world. She is teaching us that our God is faithful and true and comes through on God 's promises so we can have confidence, we can have hope and we can be humble in our service with our Lord.
Now, the song of Mary is a victory song. She is singing a victory song in a long tradition of woman prophets in Israel. She's in the heritage of Miriam who sings a wonderful victory song after the deliverance at the red sea. She's in the tradition of Deborah from Judges who sings a victory song. She's in the tradition of Hannah who sings a victory song after she is miraculously able to be pregnant, probably the closest to Mary's song. Mary has sung a victory song for what God has already achieved, what God has already accomplished, and it's an odd way she does it.
It involves a special grammar. Now I grew up in the 70s when schools did not believe in grammar. They thought it was oppressive to our cool little souls, so they didn't teach it to us, so I had to do a lot of research this week, but the Magnificat is written in a verb tense that we don't have in English. It's written in a Greek verb tense called aorist a-o-r-i-s-t. We translate it into past perfect which doesn't quite do the job, but the past perfect is all those verbs in there: "has shown the strength of his arm, has scattered the crowd in the conceit of their hearts." I like that translation better. " has cast down the mighty from their thrones, has lifted up the lowly, has filled the hungry with good things, has sent the rich away empty."
In the Greek what all this verbiage means is that this has been accomplished and continues. This has been done, the victory won, and the work continues. God 's work is ongoing and secured by God 's action. That's what makes it a victory song because otherwise we're asking Mary for the footnotes. "When has God done that, when has God done that, when has God done that?" God has done it in the incarnation itself.
In the conception of this child, God has acted decisively to change the history and path of the world. God has acted decisively to reunite God with humanity, to do God 's eternal purpose which was to harmonize humanity with God. This is accomplished in this incarnation and we talk so much about the cross and the resurrection of how God does God 's word but the incarnation is the first stitch. It's the essential beginning of how God makes peace with humanity, how God makes shalom, and I use that word intentionally because it's so much richer than peace. God makes peace with humanity, overcomes our hostility.
I want to pause on that for a minute because this is essential to what the Bible teaches. The history of the Bible is a history of God offering and humanity rejecting, of humanity living in opposition and hostility to God, and we might think to ourselves, "well I'm not hostile to God, I have good intentions, I have a high regard for my own innocence." But the story we live in is a story of rejection of God 's good authority, the rejection of God 's just and loving authority and when you reject God 's Godliness that is hostility. Ask any parent of a teenager. And it's that hostility, that resistance and reluctance and rejection that we bring to this relationship that God overcomes through God 's power by knitting us together forever in his life through the incarnation. This is the first stitch and that is the glorious good news of this story. I want to underline it in a certain way by a practice I have of every year looking out for where do I see the Magnificat? Where do I see how God has shown the strength of God 's arm, where do I see how God has scattered the powerful in their conceit, how has God cast down the mighty, how has God lifted up the lowly and filled them with good things, how has God sent the rich empty away both in the world and in my self?
Well staying on the theme of music one of my favorite recording artists gave me something that looked like the Magnificat this year. He's a wonderful singer-songwriter, if you don't know him, named Jason Isbell. He has a great song called 24 frames which I just adore. I will once again resist singing it to you but the lyric is amazing theologically. He says, "you thought God was an architect now you know he's more like a pipe bomb ready to blow. All you've built was just for show. All gone in 24 frames."
He is a brilliant songwriter but in the country music world which tries to claim him, he is what we might call a burr in the saddle. He has done amazing work challenging the sexism and racism of the country music establishment. So right now he recently had a seven night residency at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Now this is the holy temple of country music. A seven night residency with Amanda Shires, his wife, and what did he do? Every night he picked out an African-American country recording artist who was a woman to open for him. He raised up the lowly, but he doesn't look at it that way. He says each one of these women should be a headline. Each one deserves to be a headliner except for the resistance of racism and country music which we recall was created by segregationist producers who wanted white root's music to sell opposed to black root's music.
Using his influence Isbell has facilitated a raising up and he has challenged those in power to be cast down. He goes even farther. A famous country singer Morgan Wallin famously this year was caught on tape using the worst racial slurs you could think of, and this caused rightly a huge scandal and a major pause in his career as it should have. A leader in this was Jason Isbell making sure there were consequences and making sure this was an opportunity for country music to confront its racist history and present, and here's what Jason Isbell said.
He is a wonderful guy. He's been through recovery and he really doesn't suffer fools and he just said, "look, we are not persecuting Morgan Wallin. He is not being harmed. He is still a multi-millionaire. We are taking him off a pedestal and we are bringing him down to the sidewalk where the rest of us live, where the rest of us learn hard lessons and repent and return to the Lord."
Bring the mighty from their thrones, send the rich away empty, concrete vision of what God is doing as Mary teaches us in the Magnificat, we are invited to join in. We are invited to be a people who facilitate this leveling action of the Magnificat where the rich are sent away empty, the mighty come down from their thrones and the poor are elevated to meet them in this level place called enough.
We are called to be part of that gracious action, that prophetic action and we are called with confidence, with hope and humility that our world desperately needs from us. We are called with confidence because it is accomplished in the coming of Christ. We are called with hope because God is true to God 's promises as Mary tells us. We are called with humility because anything that is done well is only done in God 's power and with God 's help.
Amen.
Permission to podcast/stream music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-701187 and CCLI with license #21234241 and #21234234. All rights reserved.
Video, photographs, and graphics by the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 8000 St. Martin's Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19118. 215.247.7466. https://www.stmartinec.org