Magnificat!

Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart

Deep down, each one of us is a mystic. When we tap into that energy we become alive again and we give birth… Getting in touch with the mystic inside is the beginning of our deep service. Matthew Fox

Don’t let this one go! Make Christmas count this year in a new way. For yourself and for our world…

Reflection

Thinking about Mary, I’m probably a typical, middle of the road, Anglican; regarding her as neither overly pious nor merely ordinary. I see her as firmly rooted in her humble origins and also recognise her extraordinary courage and vision. While remaining in awe of that great young woman who said yes, still, I want her near enough to me to be able to think, well... perhaps I too might bear the life of God in the world, however peculiar or unlikely my situation. Or maybe you might. Or maybe we do!

Mary’s song, the Magnificat, is recited or sung in various prayer offices throughout the world-wide church. Luke shows her singing this song soon after the famous scene with the angel. I believe in angels. I believe in those encounters that startle and illuminate – that call us to new life. I believe in those hunches and words and visions that come to us and plant themselves so deeply that something new is conceived, and which we will need to care for with all the tenderness of a mother.

Anyway, Mary fairly runs that day to tell her relative Elizabeth, whose response draws forth that famous song. It is when we are seen and celebrated, even as we share those deepest hints of God’s presence within us, that we are emboldened to express the sort of vision this song contains. Without those intimate, human moments of affirmation and confirmation and sanctuary, we may not find the courage to say what we know, deep down, to be true, nor to stay with what we know, however crazy or eccentric the truth might appear.

So, Mary was emboldened by the embrace of Elizabeth. She was also emboldened by her reading of her sacred texts. The Magnificat echoes several biblical passages – most notably the Song of Hannah in the first book of Samuel. It can be all too familiar to many of us: but when we can look at it with fresh eyes we shall find it stunning. And subversive. And unsettling. And visionary. And embodied!

Reversing the accustomed social order, it is those who are hungry or hurting or heart-broken that show us what is most needed. We will hear good news only in solidarity with those we tend to ignore or despise or merely ‘help’. We are blessed also by ‘throwing down’ the ‘mighty’ defences of our ego and self-sufficiency and by standing with humility before the mercy and love of God - in all the ways that mercy comes to us.

Brene Brown says that to brave the wilderness, to depart from the seductive and destructive mainstream culture of our time, we must have a strong back, a soft front and a wild heart. Provocative words! It’s easy to have a strong back with a rigid front and a frozen or fighting heart. Or to have a soft front and a collapsed back - harbouring a victim or helpless heart.

But the combination of strong back, soft front and wild heart is rare and risky and radical. Mary had all three. She had a soft front – undefended and vulnerable, open to all that God would do in her and with her and through her. She had a strong back, a resolute will, strengthened by a deep sense of being loved and supported, upheld by all those who went before her or stood around her in faith. And she had a wild heart, a passionate response called out by the courage of Abraham and the daring of the prophets.

Mary must not be raised too high in our thoughts, lest she lose her vital embodying of an everyday holiness; nor brought down so low as to be dismissed as nonsense. Her response to the invitation to bear the life of God is both real and symbolic. The world needs something other than cynicism or sentimentality. Mary’s vision was gritty and glorious.

Anglican Theologian Matthew Fox puts it like this:

Deep down, each one of us is a mystic. When we tap into that energy we become alive again and we give birth… Getting in touch with the mystic inside is the beginning of our deep service.

And so, two questions to ponder:

If you were to hear one word from an angel tonight; one word that you were asked to embody and to sing into the world over Christmas and into the new year, what would that be? What of the life of God might you be called to bear and to bring forth?

And secondly, who are the people in your life who would welcome and bear witness to that wholly embodied word, the Word made flesh in you?. Who are the people in your life who bring forth your deepest song of love?

These are two themes I invite you to live with and to pray with during the remainder of Advent and then over Christmas-tide. What might you want to say yes to by way of embodying radical creativity, love, justice, peace. And who will support you in doing so?

Share something in the comments if you need us to bear witness! I’ll continue the theme of the WORD becoming flesh in next week’s reflection - taking us nicely from the birth at Christmas to the birth of a new year…

Don’t let this one go! Make Christmas count this year in a new way. For yourself and for our world.

Strong back.

Soft front.

Wild heart.

Let it be to me according to your word.

A LITURGY OF PRAYER

Opening Prayer

Close your eyes if that feels okay. Take a few slow deep breaths. Imagine an angel of God enters the room and announces that you will carry the life of God into our world today. What do you hear? Who will you trust enough to tell.

Take some time with this - now or over the next few days.

1^st Reading

Luke 1:39 – 55

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

And Mary remained with her for about three months and then returned to her home.

A Time of Silence

Suggestion: 20 mins. But take even a few minutes if you can!

Silence is not always easy. The mind is hard to quiet. If you don’t yet have a way, you might find a single prayer word or phrase - and return to it each time you find your mind wandering. Your mind certainly will wander. Don’t worry. Just gently return, repeating the prayer word. Maranatha!

Widening the Circle

Take a moment to give thanks for the grace of silence, and extend that grace to all those people and places on your heart and mind right now. Pray that across our communities and world, people everywhere would find a new courage to receive and bear Love into the world.

The Lord’s Prayer

There’s a nice version below.

Second Readings

Annunciation

This was the minute no one speaks of,
when she could still refuse.
A breath unbreathed,
Spirit
suspended,
waiting.

She did not cry, “I cannot, I am not worthy,”
nor, “I have not the strength.”
She did not submit with gritted teeth,
raging, coerced.
Bravest of all humans,
consent illumined her.
The room filled with its light,
the lily glowed in it,
Consent,
courage unparalleled,
opened her utterly

---Denise Levertov, Breathing the Water

A Blessing Called Sanctuary

You hardly knew
how hungry you were
to be gathered in,
to receive the welcome
that invited you to enter
entirely—
nothing of you
found foreign or strange,
nothing of your life
that you were asked
to leave behind
or to carry in silence
or in shame.

Tentative steps
became settling in,
leaning into the blessing
that enfolded you,
taking your place
in the circle
that stunned you
with its unimagined grace.

You began to breathe again,
to move without fear,
to speak with abandon
the words you carried
in your bones,
that echoed in your being.

You learned to sing.

But the deal with this blessing
is that it will not leave you alone,
will not let you linger
in safety,
in stasis.

The time will come
when this blessing
will ask you to leave,
not because it has tired of you
but because it desires for you
to become the sanctuary
that you have found—
to speak your word
into the world,
to tell what you have heard
with your own ears,
seen with your own eyes,
known in your own heart:

that you are beloved,
precious child of God,
beautiful to behold,*
and you are welcome
and more than welcome
here.

—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace

Blessing

And so, like Mary, may we consent to the Word given to us, this Christmas. May we find for ourselves those who provide sanctuary to even the most unlikely in us; and may we be that sanctuary to others. And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us now and always. Amen.

Music:

Here’s a wonderful version of Mary’s great song by a group of women who say their yes daily in prayer and community. Listen prayerfully while you ponder the questions below.

Question for the Week: for Journal or Comment

What of the life of God might you be called to bear and to bring forth in the new year?

And who will support you in doing so?

The New Zealand Anglican Lord's Prayer

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever.
Amen.

Jim Cotter