Sent to Liberate

Luke 1:39-56

December 6, 2015 • Mount Pleasant UMC

Sermon Study Guide

Christopher was just about to turn a year old, and we had waited that whole first year before giving him any chocolate. Somewhere we had been told that’s what good parents did, so that’s what we did. So for his first birthday party, we had a big surprise planned for him: his own chocolate cake. Of course, he had no idea what was really going on, and had this sort of quizzical look on his face when we sat him down in his high chair with everyone surrounding him, staring at him, cameras ready. Then, the big moment, We put the cake on the high chair tray for him and stood back. As we sang “Happy Birthday” to him, he sort of looked around at us, then at the cake, but quite sure what to do. Finally, he stuck his hand into the cake and brought a handful to his mouth and we knew in a moment we had a hit on our hands. He loved the cake, and he showed us that by not only smearing it all over his head and face, but also throwing his hands (and, by default, pieces of cake) into the air and letting out a squeal. For me, that still remains the best picture of what the word “celebration” means: hands in the air, crying out for joy.

What does “celebration” look like for you? It’s an important question to ask this time of year, because we all talk about “celebrating” Christmas, but, as I said last week, a whole lot of us arrive at the big day exhausted, having given every bit of energy we have to parties and gift exchanges and other observances, not to mention fixing a big meal for our families. “Celebrating Christmas” seems sometimes like an oxymoron. So part of what we’re doing during this Advent season, these four weeks of preparation, is trying to slow down and remember why this baby whose birthday we are celebrating was sent in the first place. Knowing why is important if we’re going to be able to really celebrate, but it’s also important because the Gospels say that as he was sent, so we are sent. What Jesus was sent to do then, we are sent to do today. And so last week, we talked about how Jesus came to reconcile, to heal the broken places and broken relationships in our world. This morning, we turn to a story about Jesus’ mother, Mary, as we listen for the ways Jesus was sent to liberate.

Luke alone tells us about the announcement of Jesus’ birth to this young virgin girl in Nazareth. Mary, most scholars believe, was probably around thirteen years old, certainly not more than fifteen, and she was probably uneducated and poor (Hamilton, The Journey, pg. 21). Six months after her relative Elizabeth is told she’s going go have a baby, the same angel who announced that birth visits Mary and tells her she’s going to have a baby, only this one will be conceived in a supernatural way. And, as crazy as that sounds, Mary, who is obviously a very mature thirteen, accepts the angel’s promise and says, “May your word to me be fulfilled” (1:38). Before we rush past that statement, let’s think for a moment about what that means for Mary. All the things she, of course, had no idea about at that moment. This baby will be born far from her home. When he is twelve, she will lose him for three days. When he is thirty, she will think he has gone mad. And three years later, she will lose him again for three days in Jerusalem, only this time he will be murdered as a criminal and buried in a borrowed tomb. It won’t be until the resurrection that she gets a glimpse of why all this has happened. Mary is not signing on for an easy life; going along with God is not a guaranteed path to an easy life. But it’s the only life that matters.

Soon after the announcement (Luke doesn’t tell us how long after), Mary goes to see her relative Elizabeth. I suspect Mary needed to get out of town, because the rumors were bound to have started. Mary needed the comfort and the wisdom of her older relative, Elizabeth, but I also suspect that Elizabeth needed Mary (Hamilton 65). Only these two women could really understand what was happening to the other. So Mary heads south to Ein Karem, a journey that would not have been easy. It wasn’t just hop in the car and drive there. Mary would have traveled by foot, which would mean a journey of about nine days across three mountain ranges (Hamilton 62-63). That ought to give us some idea of how badly Mary needed to be with Elizabeth. And remember, there are no text messages and no Facebook posts, so Elizabeth would have no idea that Mary is coming. Yet, when she arrives and she calls out, John leaps in Elizabeth’s womb, causing her to give Mary a benediction, a blessing: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!…Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (1:42, 45). And that blessing causes Mary to sing.

Mary’s song shows her deep devotion and love of the Scriptures, because most all of this song is drawn from the Old Testament, from the psalms as well as from another mother’s song in 1 Samuel (Bock, NIV Application Commentary: Luke, pg. 65; Wright, Luke for Everyone, pg. 15). It’s a song that sort of breaks into two parts. In the first part, verses 46-49, Mary is celebrating. I don’t know if she has her hands in the air and is singing loudly or not, but she’s certainly giving thanks to God for what is happening in her life. This baby she is carrying will be a source of blessing and mercy to all generations, and I want to pause a moment on that word “mercy” because it’s an important one. The Old Testament background for that is the word hesed, a word that’s difficult to translate. Basically it means that the one who owes me nothing gives me everything. One translator uses the phrase “loyal love,” and the Bible often renders it as “lovingkindness.” My Old Testament professor, Dr. John Oswalt, defined it this way: “the God who could fry you loves you.” Mercy, grace, getting what we do not deserve. Mary sings that she is only the first who will be blessed in that way by this baby she is carrying. When we deserve death, Jesus gives life. When we deserve punishment, Jesus gives forgiveness. Mercy. Life. Hope.

There’s something else curious here that we need to notice for a moment, in verse 47. Mary sings, “From now on all generations will call me blessed.” Now, that sounds like an arrogant thing to say, doesn’t it? It sort of sounds out of character for this rather humble woman. But, again, some of what is meant is lost in the translation. Mary is recognizing what is true, that she is blessed to be the model and representative for what it means to receive God’s grace and mercy. She is no one special, yet God has showered her with blessing. She is from a poor family on the wrong side of the tracks, and yet God chose to use her. In some respects, Mary is reminding us that God chooses the least likely, and that if God can use her, he can use us as well when we allow our hearts to be transformed by his mercy, this love that we don’t deserve. We call her “blessed” not because she’s better than us but simply because she was the first to receive the mercy of Jesus. She was the first one to be saved (cf. Bock 66).

So that’s all in the first part of Mary’s song, but there’s a change of tone at verse 50, as Mary begins to focus on what is to come in the future. She’s still celebrating, but it reads a bit more somber. Mary is not a prophet, nor the daughter of a prophet as far as we know, but the Holy Spirit speaks through her here to remind us of the truth we want to focus on for the rest of our time this morning: Jesus is sent to liberate. And liberation is very clearly on Mary’s mind in the latter part of this song. In fact, the way she sings it (and this is a weird grammatical point), it’s as if these promises are so certain that they have already taken place. She’s telling us what will happen, not what might happen. Because God is on the move, these things will (not “might”) take place (cf. Bock 66). So what sorts of things is she singing about?

Scattering the proud…bringing down rulers…lifting up the humble…filling the hungry…sending away the rich…blessing Israel and fulfilling his promises to Abraham’s descendants. Mary is singing about a radical reversal, an upending of the way things work. Those who are in slavery to “the way the world works” may have given up hope for a change, but the one who is coming will be on their side, seeking to set the world to rights, to make the world the way it ought to be. Undoubtedly, Mary is singing more than she knows as these ancient words roll of her tongue, but she is clearly focused on the liberating power of her son, Jesus. When he comes, the impossible will come true. All will be upended. All will be made right (Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 41).

To liberate means to set something free, to release someone or something from whatever binds it. We talk about a country being “liberated” from a dictator, or we could talk about the way people were and are “liberated” from slavery. It’s providing freedom to those who are captive, and in fact, that’s exactly the way Jesus described his own mission. You may remember the story, as told in Luke 4, when Jesus is asked to read the Scripture at his hometown synagogue. It’s always a dangerous thing to preach or lead worship at your home church; those people know you too well! But Jesus is asked to read the closing Scripture at the Nazareth synagogue, so he turns in the scroll to what we know as Isaiah 61 and reads this: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (4:18-19). Then he sits down and tells them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (4:21). Jesus defines his own personal mission in the same way his mother defined it even before he was born: to liberate, to set free those who are bound, who are captive. (And here’s why preaching at home is dangerous. These folks tried to run Jesus off the side of a cliff because of his brief sermon!)

Mary sings and Jesus preaches and both tell us that the Gospel is good news to those whose life circumstances are stifled economically, socially, physically, mentally and in any other way. The Gospel is the message that calls us to meet people where they are, to see past their circumstances, to notice who they really are, to listen for how God is inviting us to be a conduit of unconditional and welcoming love. This is the good news that frees people from the things that bind them. The good news came through Jesus to liberate those in captivity (cf. Acevedo, Sent, pg. 40).

And so Jesus did that by casting out demons, doing what was necessary to remove any evil influences that might be in people’s lives. Jesus did that by challenging the power of the world, and even calling out some religious power for what it really was: abuse. Jesus did that by taking little children, those who were nothing in that world, and wrestling with them on his lap, even to the point of telling the adults that unless they became like children they would have no part in the kingdom of God. Jesus liberated by being present to those who were in the midst of grief, who were captive to their sin, who had leprosy and were shut out of the community, who were shunned because of their job, who were bent and broken by physical disabilities, who were bound up in their self-righteousness. All of those and more Jesus came to liberate, to set free, so that they could enter into the life that really is life. Jesus was sent to liberate, and so are we. “As you sent me into the world,” Jesus prayed to his Father, “I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18).

Sometimes we look at liberation as tackling big issues, and we begin to either be afraid or believe we can’t do anything about it. I mean, we’re just one person. That’s one of the reasons I love the traditional holiday film, It’s a Wonderful Life. Frank Capra’s classic is a parable in many ways, all about the power of one life to make a real difference. George Bailey’s father died just as George was getting ready to leave for college, and he left his business, the Building and Loan, in the hands of the Board of Directors. The old miserly banker, Mr. Potter, moves in to close down his chief competition, but when he calls the people of the community a “rabble,” George Bailey has had enough. Take a listen.

VIDEO: “It’s a Wonderful Life”

“Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so.” Because of Peter Bailey, and George after him, people were liberated from poverty and hopelessness. One life—yours—can make a difference when you follow a savior who was sent to liberate, who was sent to see the world turned upside down, or maybe we might say right side up—made the way it was intended to be.

Two stories, two experiences during my time in Terre Haute, stand out in my mind as lived-out examples of this sort of liberation. A couple of weeks ago, I was the devotion guy at Upward Basketball. I had a great time with each group of kids as we tried to put straws into potatoes, and then, just for good measure, we tried to balance M&Ms on the end of the straws. Yeah, harder than it sounds! Anyway, I watched a lot of basketball that day, and to be honest, I was getting sort of tired by mid-afternoon. That’s when the Challenger League took the floor. For those of you who don’t know, the Challenger League is made up of youth and young adults who have physical and other challenges in their lives. Or, as I sometimes think of it, they’re kids who are trapped in bodies that don’t always work the way they should. They’re people whom far too many people overlook. But on the basketball floor, they had a great time. They helped each other, and no matter who got a basket, everyone cheered. My heart was especially taken as I watched one young man get the ball, put it in the hands of a teammate in a wheelchair and roll her down the court, where he then helped her make the basket. And it didn’t matter who actually got it through the net, as far as she was concerned, she had made the basketball. I kept thinking: what a great picture of the church, liberating others to be who they really ought to be! That is how the world ought to see the church—but do they? Couple that with the wonderful ministry of Grace Unlimited here at Mount Pleasant, and I believe we’re being sent to provide liberation in some significant ways.

The other experience that comes to mind is this summer when I visited at the 14th and Chestnut Community Center and learned that it was formerly a United Methodist Church. I know for many years that building did important and significant ministry in that neighborhood, and what a great thing it is that it’s still being used by God to reach out to the kids in that area. Some of them are captives to poverty, or to a violent home life, or to hunger or any number of other life circumstances. And yet, though the volunteers from here and other local churches, from the donations from groups and individuals, Pastor Bill Felts has built a Jesus-style ministry of liberation. Help with food through the pantry. Help with homework. Giving kids a drive to be more than they think they can be. Experiencing the love of Jesus Christ and knowing that he is always on their side, no matter what life might throw at them. Yesterday, we got to host a Christmas party here for the 14th & Chestnut kids, as we’ve done for several years now, and what a blessing it is for us, in some small way, to follow in Jesus’ footsteps to liberate the captives. As he was sent, so are we, and he was sent to liberate.

Now, I know it’s somewhat frightening to join Jesus on this mission. I think, despite the way we read Mary’s attitude as confident, there had to be some great fear in her heart as she said yet to this calling. For us, the questions are very practical: what if I’m rejected? What if I can’t control what happens? What if I can’t fix the problem? But joining in Jesus’ mission doesn’t mean we come to fix it; we come to shine his light and seek to do the best we can do. Deep problems won’t be fixed overnight, and those in captivity aren’t likely to be freed in a single action. It will take time, patience and perseverance. Or, as one author put it, “Joining in Jesus’ mission to liberate means overcoming, by the grace and unconditional love of God, our own self-doubt and fear, our need for control, and our need to fix or manipulate outcomes” (Acevedo, Sent, pg. 51). It means to give up our fear and walk with Jesus the liberator, to be willing for God to work through us as Mary was (Acevedo 48).

This morning, we’re going to gather at the communion table and be reminded that Jesus was sent to liberate all people. All people are welcome at the table because Jesus came for all. To receive this bread and this cup is to receive his liberation in our lives and to declare that as he was sent, so are we. This meal we share in this Advent season is a gift of hope, a reminder of the savior who came that we might be free. In that spirit, in that hope, let’s celebrate at the table of the Lord.