Today is the Fourth Sunday of Advent.\u00a0 Four tapers burn on our Advent wreath, and many of will begin in earnest to prepare for the holiday later this week.\u00a0 It\u2019s not Christmas yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If your family\u2019s custom is to set up a Nativity Cr\u00e8che you may do so, including the animals and the Holy Family. The baby Jesus figurine, however, must remain in the box until Christmas Eve after Mass. The shepherds will arrive at dawn on Christmas Day, and the Magi have to wait until Twelfth Night, or January 6th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For three weeks now, we\u2019ve been hearing the prophetic voices warning us of what\u2019s in store for us; last Sunday we heard John the Baptist call us a \u201cbrood of vipers.\u201d\u00a0 Today we turn out attention to Bethlehem and the meeting of two very different women.\u00a0 In some places, the hymn by Bishop Philip Brooks, \u201cO Little Town of Bethlehem,\u201d will be sung as the processional out into the world; but it\u2019s not Christmas yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prophet Micah was active in the southern kingdom of Judah during the middle of the 8th century BCE. The northern kingdom of Israel was about to be conquered by the Assyrians and Judah was about to become a vassal state in order to preserve their way of life for a little while longer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Micah tells us that God is about to turn things upside down in the lives of the people of Judah. In order to preserve the status quo with the Assyrians the nation of Judah had to pay tribute in order to keep the Assyrian army from marching in. This tribute was paid through exorbitant taxes most heavily leaved on the poor and disadvantaged (if this sounds familiar \u2026). Micah tells us that God\u2019s people will be taken back to a different time and promises the restoration of David\u2019s throne. However, we will not return to Jerusalem the home of King David, but to Bethlehem the home of the shepherd and peasant David. It will be a restoration of God\u2019s justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our Gospel recounts the meeting between two marginalized women. Mary is young, she is betrothed but unmarried, and pregnant \u2013 this put her not only on society\u2019s fringes, but in potential mortal danger under Jewish law at the time. Elizabeth is older, though married, she was past child-bearing age and barren, thus on the margins of society. Mary has just had her encounter with the angel Gabriel announcing that she will conceive and give birth to a son. Now, she off to see her cousin Elizabeth who is now six months into her pregnancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two women greet each other, and the child in Elizabeth\u2019s womb leaps for joy. Elizabeth calls Mary \u201cBlessed\u201d and Mary responds with her hymn which is traditionally known as the Magnificat from the Latin opening \u201cmagnify,\u201d or as we have it now, \u201cMy soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. (BCP, page 119). This hymn is traditionally sung at Evening Prayer as the response to the first reading from Scripture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This hymn makes the idea of Mary as a meek and mild woman a lie \u2013 this is a statement of strength, specifically feminist strength that calls into question the social norms of her day. During portions of the last century, this hymn was prohibited by several totalitarian regimes because of its subversive message. It\u2019s ideas are nothing new, Hannah\u2019s Prayer (I Samuel 2: 1 \u2013 10) is another example of the notion that God\u2019s desire for justice places everyone on the same level no matter what their race, economic status, sexual orientation, or political affiliation. Both Hannah\u2019s Prayer and the Magnificat describe God acting in history to bring about his desire for justice and love in the human community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mary, along with Elizabeth and Hannah, are envisioning a world turned upside down. The one who will accomplish this is God, and that plan is in motion and there\u2019s nothing we can do to stop it. Today\u2019s Gospel is intended to give us hope that the world for which God long, for which we pray to come among us, is indeed taking place, and eventually we will find our world turned upside down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, we have to wait \u2013 it\u2019s not Christmas yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s Not Christmas, Yet. Today is the Fourth Sunday of Advent.\u00a0 Four tapers burn on our Advent wreath, and many of will begin in earnest to prepare for the holiday later this week.\u00a0 It\u2019s not Christmas yet.\u00a0 If your family\u2019s custom is to set up a Nativity Cr\u00e8che you may do so, including the animals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homily","tag-sermon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediatormicanopy.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}