“An Eye For The Lowly”
Luke 1:46-55
Beloved, it’s Christmas again! This is that special time of year when
expectations are high. But
so is anxiety for too many people.
They (we) are anxious because there is so much that is contradictory
about what Christmas means and what it requires of us, and we are pretty well
convinced in our heart of hearts that there is little we can do to meet all the
expectations, especially the expectations that others have of us. When this
sacred day comes so close to the Sabbath, we are presented with a special
opportunity to re-assert the reason and the true meaning of the season, in the
midst of all the other definitions and purposes that are floating around. Let us go first to the source of the
occasion, the birth of Jesus, and the circumstances surrounding his coming into
the world.
Mary, the lowliest of servants as
she characterized herself, gave birth to Jesus in a manger among livestock
because there was no room for her and Joseph in the inn. From the beginning,
through the demonstration of the very circumstances of his birth, we are put on
notice that Jesus’ life and the focus of his concern would be like no other
known in human experience. As the son of man, his life and ministry was to
shine the light on the purpose of human life and its place in the divine scheme
of things. Ours is but a temporary
sojourn. We are born, then we die; but the power and presence of our creator
continues. In the time we have on
the earth, interspersed with a few good times and bad, we are called to allow
our lives to be used for God’s purposes, to allow our personalities to reflect
the holy spirit of God, in the context of human community.
Any power or status or enduring
worth we appear to have is only temporary, and the very value we have, the
meaning we have is found in our relationship with and dependence upon God. In recent weeks in Bible Study, we have
studied the nature of sin, and we have concluded that sin is fundamentally
having a higher opinion of ourselves than we ought. And all the things we customarily think of as sin are but
symptoms of our larger failing---that of being drunken with pride. If we are stricken with this moral
illness, if we have a really bad case, we can expect to meet a tragic wall
sooner than later. Thus the
expression, “the bigger they come, the harder they fall.” In the end, no matter who we are and
what we have, we are all subject to the same fundamental human conditions of
mortality, aging, loss, sadness, failure, abandonment, lovelessness, the
inability to control the inevitable.
When we face these existential
realities, nothing can prop us up except the love and strength of an
all-knowing and ever-present God. And God’s love and strength are most readily
available to those who are conscious of their weaknesses and their low station,
and are inclined to ask for help.
Mary sings (The Magnificat) her
song of praise, being fully conscious of her powerlessness and expressing her
expectation that the one who is to come will be her source of strength; that he
will be her rescuer; that he will be her shield and protector from the
proud---the sinful, from those that are full of themselves. “He will
scatter the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He will bring down the
powerful from their thrones, and lift high the lowly. He will fill the hungry
with good things, and send away the rich empty.”
It is enticing to think of the rich
as the absolute rich, people of a certain class as defined by material wealth
and maybe accident of birth, but I rather like to consider them the allegedly
rich---the rich by their own illusion.
Because I say again, no matter what your current earthly circumstances,
they only last a little while. No
matter how high you or I may be flying at the moment, we will all one day sing
the blues.
As a deeper examination of the
scripture and especially the teachings of Jesus will convey, it is not as much
what we have in our hands that will determine our fate as what is in our
hearts. After all, Nicodemus, as
indicated in John 3, was a distinguished member of the ruling elite, but he
humbly sought guidance from Jesus about his own access to salvation. Joseph of
Arimathea was was a man of immense wealth, and like Nicodemus, a member of the
Sanhedrin. Yet he was the faithful follower of Jesus who gave up his burial
plot so the Master could be buried.
At least the rich young ruler in Mark 10 came to ask “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” even if he
thought the price was too steep to pay.
Even Luke, the gospel writer and the chronicler of the early church in
the Book of Acts, the only Gentile with writings in the canonized scripture,
was an accomplished physician and a man of means. The fact that these men were “rich” in the earthly sense,
but were able to recognize their vulnerability is the essence of the spirit of the
godly search.
Each of us are subject to become,
in James Weldon Johnson’s words, so drunk with the wine of the world that we
forget God. But if we can dare
humble ourselves and acknowledge in the deepest parts of our being that we are
nothing without Him, that we are incomplete without Him, that we need him to
give us meaning and purpose, that our fate (now and forever) is in His hands,
we will be turning toward Him, and He will be turning toward us!
He has an eye for the
lowly. This doesn’t
mean there is no hope for the proud and the puffed up, for the judgmental and
the intolerant, but just watch and see the camel squeeze through the eye of the
needle, and you will know the “rich” man’s
plight.
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew
5:3-12), Jesus tells us his preferences in human demeanor and spirit, beginning
with these words, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for
theirs is the kingdom of God.”
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