Luke 1.46-55
Introduction
• Protestants shy away from RC/Orthodox excesses, but M really is important.
• The Magnificat may be the Bible’s greatest song of faith and the clearest expression of the heart of the gospel.
What God has done for Mary (v46-49)
• Becoming pregnant as an unmarried teenager was no joke. M was also given a huge responsibility that she must have felt incapable of carrying through.
• Bitter, fearful and overwhelmed?
• No, she responds with praise and thanks, and an “unrealistic” confidence that God will bring about untold good through her:-
“From now on all generations will call me blessed.”
What God “has done” for others
• M also sees the wider implications of what God has done for her. She sees that God’s mercy will actually extend to all who fear (revere, respect) him for all generations.
• The series of past tenses in verses 51-54 seem puzzling/optimistic. Has God really scattered the proud, brought down rulers, filled the hungry etc?
• Mary is speaking prophetically, with the eyes of faith and with a deep understanding of God’s priorities and purposes – justice, compassion, a breaking down of pride/riches and other barriers to fellowship with God.
• Mary knows that SOMEHOW, the new life that God has put in her womb will bring about the answer to pain, suffering, evil and injustice.
How is Mary an example/inspiration for us?
• Mary’s relevance to those of us living today goes way beyond devotions to paintings, carvings or statues of an idealized, saintly woman. It comes down to our deepest fears, needs and insecurities and shows us the way out.
• Perhaps you can think of a time in your life when you were anxious, uncertain, overwhelmed. Perhaps something like that is going on for you now.
• When you are in that kind of place it makes a difference if you are a person who shares the faith of Mary. A person who can say “my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.”
• = A person who believes that God performs mighty deeds and fills the hungry with good things. A person who believes that God has put his new life in them, his Holy Spirit, to transform the way they act and cope and live.
• OR, perhaps you can think of an “insoluble” world problem – AIDS, economic meltdown, terrorism, the extreme poverty of much of the world’s population.
• When we think about these problems it makes a difference if we are Christians, people who share the faith of Mary.
• = people who believe that God is all powerful and that he values justice, integrity, peace and love above all things. That he has come into the world in the form of a human being in order to radically change the way things are and has poured out his Spirit to enable us all to live in a new way, a way which advances the influence of the Kingdom of God on earth, day by day. It makes a difference!
Not so easy?
• You might be thinking it is not so easy to have the faith of the New Testament’s Mary, or even the faith of a vicar, a religious professional!
• This is where the Church comes in. You are not alone! Mary herself had Joseph to support her and later, after the trauma of the cross, she was part of the earliest Church community (Acts 1.14).
• The Bible makes it clear that the Church is not just a random collection of individuals who happen to hold similar religious beliefs! We are here for each other; we are meant to be dependent on each other.
• I’m very happy to see this mutual support in prayer and action already happening fairly strongly at St G’s (…examples?) and I’d be happy to see a lot more of it!
• Together we can grow in the faith that Mary had in the Son of God who she was carrying in her womb when she sang this great song of praise.
• Together we can praise God for his past, present and future mercies and live in a new way which transforms the world into God’s Kingdom.
Let’s take on board the Magnificat as our song, our hope, our prayer by saying these words together now, with confidence… Luke 1.46-55!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
The Rich Fool - Luke 12.13-21
Luke 12.13-21
Jesus told this parable in response to a man who wanted more than his legal share of the family estate. The man tried to recruit Jesus as an ally of his covetousness – instead, Jesus warned of the danger of all kinds of greed. The words with which he prefaced the parable speak directly and powerfully to our consumerist, materialist society:-
“A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
One useful way of analysing the parable which follows is to think about what the rich fool remembered and what he forgot.
What he remembered
The first thing he remembered was himself! This was a man whose life revolved around himself, his comfort, his security, his possessions. We can see this simply by noticing in his little speech how often the words “I” and “my” come up. (Read vv 17-19). He planned for himself a life of ease and enjoyment, without any other consideration whatsoever. It has been said that Jesus came to abolish the words “I” and “mine” from life and replace them with “we” and “ours”. Through this parable Jesus condemns all for whom the word “I” is the most important in the language.
The second thing he remembered was this world with all its wealth and attractions. He had no concept of any other world beyond what he could see and touch. From that perspective his plan made perfect sense. Accumulate and store as much stuff as you can, then sit back and enjoy it for many years to come.
What he forgot
A clue to what this man forgot can be found in Jesus’s summary of the law (Matthew 22.36-40).
He actually forgot the most important things of all.
Firstly he forgot his NEIGHBOURS. Faced with the dilemma that his land was producing more crops than he had room to store, the rich man could have looked around and seen many less fortunate or capable people and shared some of his abundance with them. (Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan – anybody in need is our neighbour). But this idea was just not on his radar.
Again his idea of enjoyment was to eat, drink and be merry - no thought for feeding others, or bringing enjoyment to them.
Secondly he forgot his own MORTALITY. Dying that night was not part of his plan (nor anyone’s) but it happened to him and it could of course happen to anyone. He had lived as if he were immortal…
Thirdly he forgot GOD – he forgot who the giver is, who the owner is (our life and possessions are only ‘on loan’) and he made plans for the future without reference to God. We are reminded in James 4.13-15 of the foolishness of this.
As he sat back and poured himself another aperitif, he congratulated himself on his cleverness and good fortune – then to his surprise he heard God’s verdict on his life … “you fool!” and learned to his horror that his life was over.
Finally he forgot that a man’s life consists not in what he has but in WHO HE IS. He worked hard at building up a store of things he could not take with him beyond this life and neglected to develop the attributes which do live beyond death…
As we are reminded in Micah 6.8 “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.”
Not just individuals
All of this warning against living a selfish and greedy lifestyle could be applied to NATIONS as well as INDIVIDUALS. If an individual can be a rich fool, so can a nation, or a group of nations, or a whole cultural system, a way of life.
Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions… Don’t the words of Jesus speak to us today? Has there ever been a society more anxious and obsessed about food, drink and clothing? A society which has rejected the truth that God is the provider; a society where people strive and struggle but are never satisfied. A society which exploits poorer and weaker societies by every means possible, but whose material riches are matched by its spiritual poverty.
Make Poverty History campaign reminded us that 800 mil people in the world go hungry each day and a child dies of starvation every 3 seconds (remember the powerful finger click illustration).
We may be poor and dreaming of a more comfortable life.
We may resent other people who have the things we deserve.
Or, like the man in the parable, our barns may be bursting and we may be considering building bigger ones – but surely instead we have a corporate as well as an individual responsibility to change things; by praying, by giving and by campaigning for justice.
There are encouraging signs of changing attitudes but we must not let them be a flash in the pan.
Remember, Jesus told this parable to everyone present, not just the rich. Because its not about what we have, its about what we DESIRE.
May we understand and truly believe that our lives do not consist of the abundance of our possessions.
May we be people who do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God.
And may we seek first the kingdom of God and his justice.
Jesus told this parable in response to a man who wanted more than his legal share of the family estate. The man tried to recruit Jesus as an ally of his covetousness – instead, Jesus warned of the danger of all kinds of greed. The words with which he prefaced the parable speak directly and powerfully to our consumerist, materialist society:-
“A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
One useful way of analysing the parable which follows is to think about what the rich fool remembered and what he forgot.
What he remembered
The first thing he remembered was himself! This was a man whose life revolved around himself, his comfort, his security, his possessions. We can see this simply by noticing in his little speech how often the words “I” and “my” come up. (Read vv 17-19). He planned for himself a life of ease and enjoyment, without any other consideration whatsoever. It has been said that Jesus came to abolish the words “I” and “mine” from life and replace them with “we” and “ours”. Through this parable Jesus condemns all for whom the word “I” is the most important in the language.
The second thing he remembered was this world with all its wealth and attractions. He had no concept of any other world beyond what he could see and touch. From that perspective his plan made perfect sense. Accumulate and store as much stuff as you can, then sit back and enjoy it for many years to come.
What he forgot
A clue to what this man forgot can be found in Jesus’s summary of the law (Matthew 22.36-40).
He actually forgot the most important things of all.
Firstly he forgot his NEIGHBOURS. Faced with the dilemma that his land was producing more crops than he had room to store, the rich man could have looked around and seen many less fortunate or capable people and shared some of his abundance with them. (Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan – anybody in need is our neighbour). But this idea was just not on his radar.
Again his idea of enjoyment was to eat, drink and be merry - no thought for feeding others, or bringing enjoyment to them.
Secondly he forgot his own MORTALITY. Dying that night was not part of his plan (nor anyone’s) but it happened to him and it could of course happen to anyone. He had lived as if he were immortal…
Thirdly he forgot GOD – he forgot who the giver is, who the owner is (our life and possessions are only ‘on loan’) and he made plans for the future without reference to God. We are reminded in James 4.13-15 of the foolishness of this.
As he sat back and poured himself another aperitif, he congratulated himself on his cleverness and good fortune – then to his surprise he heard God’s verdict on his life … “you fool!” and learned to his horror that his life was over.
Finally he forgot that a man’s life consists not in what he has but in WHO HE IS. He worked hard at building up a store of things he could not take with him beyond this life and neglected to develop the attributes which do live beyond death…
As we are reminded in Micah 6.8 “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.”
Not just individuals
All of this warning against living a selfish and greedy lifestyle could be applied to NATIONS as well as INDIVIDUALS. If an individual can be a rich fool, so can a nation, or a group of nations, or a whole cultural system, a way of life.
Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions… Don’t the words of Jesus speak to us today? Has there ever been a society more anxious and obsessed about food, drink and clothing? A society which has rejected the truth that God is the provider; a society where people strive and struggle but are never satisfied. A society which exploits poorer and weaker societies by every means possible, but whose material riches are matched by its spiritual poverty.
Make Poverty History campaign reminded us that 800 mil people in the world go hungry each day and a child dies of starvation every 3 seconds (remember the powerful finger click illustration).
We may be poor and dreaming of a more comfortable life.
We may resent other people who have the things we deserve.
Or, like the man in the parable, our barns may be bursting and we may be considering building bigger ones – but surely instead we have a corporate as well as an individual responsibility to change things; by praying, by giving and by campaigning for justice.
There are encouraging signs of changing attitudes but we must not let them be a flash in the pan.
Remember, Jesus told this parable to everyone present, not just the rich. Because its not about what we have, its about what we DESIRE.
May we understand and truly believe that our lives do not consist of the abundance of our possessions.
May we be people who do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God.
And may we seek first the kingdom of God and his justice.
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