Good News for Empty Hands--August 15, 2024

Good News for Empty Hands--August 15, 2024

[And Mary said:] 

"...God 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..." [Luke 1:51-53]

Of all the things God could be known for, God chooses a reputation for giving out free lunches to poor people who can't afford it.  Just ask Jesus' Mom.

Today is the date in the church's peculiar way of keeping time (called the liturgical calendar) when we remember Mary, the Mother of Our Lord. And personally, I have come to appreciate the chance, here in the late dog days of summer, to reflect on Mary's story and her faith, apart from the hectic bustle and schmaltz and saccharin of Christmas time, when she is often overshadowed by sparkle of angels and bathrobe-wearing wisemen in the church Christmas pageant.  Here, in a moment when we least expect it, Mary unsentimentally sings about the God who meets real people in the midst of real need.  And she sings in particular about the way God's agenda prioritizes feeding the hungry rather than helping the billionaires heap up bigger piles of money. Like it or not, and whether we were expecting it or not (I confess, I was into my twenties before I had really paid attention to the mere existence of this passage from Luke, even though I had been sitting in pews and going to Sunday School all my life), Mary teaches us about the kind of table her son (Jesus) will spread, and the kind of people who will find a welcome there.

It's all right there in these words from what the church has come to call the Magnificat (from the Latin words from the opening line of the song/poem, "My soul magnifies the Lord...").  As she reflects on the meaning of the baby she is carrying, Mary says that God's strength is shown by scattering the proud, pulling the powerful from their thrones, lifting up the lowly, and feeding the hungry with good things, while the smug and self-satisfied among the well-heeled are sent away.  It's a reversal of the usual order of the day, and surely one that turned heads and raised eyebrows among the Empire.  But to hear Mary tell it, this is how God's kind of banquet works.  God is more interested in making sure the empty-handed have something to eat than in multiplying the fortunes of the upper crust.  God is more invested in feeding the kids with nothing in the pantry at home than in nudging up the value of the stock market's closing number. Like we say to kids lining up for pizza at a birthday party, you make sure that everybody gets a first piece before anybody is allowed to pile six slices onto their plate.  And if you come to God's party expecting that you can elbow the other guests out your way and take their place in line because you've got more expensive clothes and shoes on, well, Mary has no qualms about showing you to the back of the buffet line or out the door altogether.  Mary knows that God is more concerned that everybody have a place at the table than in letting the meal become a free-for-all where the ones nearest to the platters take all the food for themselves.

When we talk about the kind of table that Jesus spreads, this is what we mean.  In the Reign of God, the priority is always going to be on making sure everybody gets something to fill their bellies and making sure even the lowliest are honored with a seat at the table, over the supposed "freedom" to heap your plate with as many appetizers as possible.  It's not to say that Jesus has a salary cap or a maximum allowable net worth if you want to go to heaven (although he does certainly warn that wealth can make it harder to access than getting a camel through the eye of a needle!).  But it is to say that if Jesus has to choose between everybody getting to eat on the one hand, and unrestrained cutthroat free rein for anybody to take more than they can possibly eat just for the sake of having a bigger pile than everyone else on the other, Jesus will always choose everybody getting to eat.  And yes, that may well mean that the hungry are filled with good things while the ones who already have filled their bellies from their abundance don't need to get extra.  They're not going to starve, Jesus promises; they just don't need to gorge themselves while others are going hungry.

If we take Mary's song seriously, it will affect our priorities, too, of course.  If we become people who sing her song, too, or if we dare to celebrate the birth and life and resurrection and reign of her son Jesus, we will come to care more that everybody get to eat than we will about demanding our "right" to amass bigger fortunes than we can possibly ever use. If we find ourselves welcomed and fed at Jesus' table, we'll care less about the unfettered "liberty" to acquire more-for-the-sake-of-having-more, and we'll see the utter beauty of Mary's vision in which the hungry poor still get to eat even if their wallets are empty. That's the kind of world Mary sang about as she carried her baby to term. It's the kind of world she gave as a lullaby to the child in the manger.  It's the kind of world that Jesus grew up to preach about when he announced God's blessing on the poor and hungry.  And it's the kind of world we step into, despite the insatiable greed of the culture around us, every time we share the bread and cup of communion.

After all, what is it that happens every Sunday around our altars, if not the free gift of Jesus' meal to people who come with nothing but empty hands?

Lord Jesus, take hold of our faithful imagination to dream of a world in which everybody gets to eat--and enable us to act in line with that vision today.