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A couple of weeks ago, Lizanne and I were in fits of laughter as we watched what I am sure is destined to be a classic episode of ‘Absolutely Fabulous’. More like ‘Absolutely Hilarious’! Now if you know anything at all about ‘AbFab’, you will know that Eddi is not only a very bad mother, as her daughter Saffron is never slow to remind her, but now she has become a nightmare of a grandmother too. If you add into the equation Eddi’s outrageous friend Patsy, the scene is set for all kinds of horror. So when this terrible pair took Saffron’s child to the zoo, we knew something awful was going to happen. The most hilarious scene was when the baby needed its nappy changed. They found the baby-changing facility in the toilet, put the baby on it, and waited - waited for this magic table to do its stuff and change the nappy. When nothing happened, they discussed the possibility that the contraption needed money, or that perhaps if they tipped it up back into the wall, the baby would emerge nice and clean. In they end, they really did change the baby. They arrived back home with somebody else’s! One of the nightmares every good mother has is that she is perhaps a bad mother. Something like that is true, I guess, with fathers as well. How much guilt can we ordinary mortals carry about our mistakes as parents? I suppose if we are to be truly good parents, a condition is that we are all too conscious of our mistakes. The church has long held up Mary as an icon of motherhood. I have to say that there isn’t really an awful lot of evidence for this in the Bible either, but it is a thought which has to come if we are to take on board any notion that Mary was, for instance, the mother of God. But the church has never been shy about building on flimsy foundations when it suits. Leaving that aside, there can be no doubt that Mary’s role as a good mother has been very much to the fore in what little teaching the church has given about parenthood. Of course, the other side to the way the church has used Mary is as a punishment and a form of control. I doubt very much whether using the ‘Hail Mary’ as a penance did very much to endear her to generations of Catholics. Of course, penance is meant to be good for the soul, but my suspicion is that for any thinking person, it would produce a double image of Mary in the penitent. Of course, there is much more to Mary than all of that. The words which we have heard this morning, the words of the ‘Magnificat’, are so powerful as to make us flinch if we stop to think about them. They are, indeed, Kingdom words - uttered, Luke would have us know, before the Messiah was even born. Whatever Jesus was about, it was about Kingdom values, living life in the Kingdom way, the new way, God’s way. And Mary is really and truly giving a foretaste of this in these words. Of course, to be really true, these are not really Mary’s words at all. If you look at the Song of Hannah in the 1st Book of Samuel, you will see that there is more than a passing resemblance to the Magnificat. This was one of the Psalms of Judaism, albeit not in the book of that name. So Mary would have known it as a song of faith, and was simply singing well known words, applying them to herself as being taken from lowliness to greatness. But, once again, there is more. Mary’s exaltation is typical of the new order which is to open out for the whole people of God through the coming of her son. And we, here at St John’s, Dumfries, at the end of the year 2003, are the inheritors of that new order. There is still more. Not only are we the inheritors of the new order. We are also the guardians of it, committed to making it know that God has indeed inaugurated a new order for all humanity. When we sing the Magnificat at Evensong, those who know will tell you that there are two verses which we always sing with a greater emphasis, because we sing them in unison - no choir harmony. The organ gives the signal by its sound, and we sing: “He hath shewed strength with his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek.” That is God’s way, the new way, the new context in which Christians still are called to live. Now, to me, that is scary stuff. We are living in a world which, at present is dominated by the most powerful nation that ever was. Now I fully realise that there are some, perhaps even this side of the pond, who think this is a thoroughly good thing, and that we can all sleep safely in our beds because of it. But really, what do we, who quite rightly are being called to ‘fly like eagles’- what do we have to say about that? In spite of the use of that much vaunted word ‘justice’, I for one am sceptical about whether or not we live in a world which is ruled justly. Still I do not see justice for the lowly and the hungry, for the weak and the downtrodden. I do see very often an arrogance of power which masquerades as justice, but I also see that it is very selective. And in this week, when much has been made of the capture of that most tyrannical and bestial of men, Saddam Hussein, I fear that even he will not receive justice, but rather that revenge will prevail, and the two are not synonymous. We as Christian people are entrusted with telling the good news of the Kingdom to a world which, as St Paul reminded us, is waiting to hear it. If we can pitch it just right, we are pushing at an open door. People’s lives can change by living the Kingdom way. Where there has been misery, there can be joy; where there is hunger there can be food aplenty; where there is poverty there can be abundance. But it won’t come by us sitting on our hands and waiting. That is what theologians call ‘heresy’. It will only come by us coming to our senses, singing Mary’s song and meaning it. It is almost 2004. Make your New Year’s resolution now, that you will take the Kingdom message seriously, and that you will do all you can, under God’s power, to not only live in that way yourself, but proclaim it to everyone by action as well as by words. If you are not sure what that message is, read Luke’s gospel, for it is there put clearly. I do believe that it will make a difference. And then we really will ‘fly like eagles’. |