Luke
1:46-55 A
December 14, 2025
And
Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my
Savior, for he has looked with favor 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 forever.”
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There’s a man with some financial
and social difficulties and probably some learning difficulties – although he’s
been out of school for a long, long time – who drops by the church every few
months. His background is one you sort
of have to piece together over time, because he isn’t a big talker, and doesn’t
say a lot about himself. From what I
gather, most of his life he has done general labor and warehouse work, but a
few years ago (when Amazon and its competitors took over the scene), employers
started to challenge their workers develop skills that would integrate previously-assigned
tasks with distribution programming platforms designed to facilitate product
delivery. They developed innovative technical
resources to optimize their staffing costs through a leaner personnel profile. In other words, they fired people like him who
couldn’t handle computerization. He hasn’t
been able to get back on his feet very well since then. He’s a very gentle soul and has withstood far
more than he deserves to have faced with a good deal of determination and grace. Sometimes it gets to him, and I don’t doubt
it goes far deeper than he lets on.
I don’t usually mention names but in
his case I will, because it’s Elon. Yes,
this man shares a name with the richest man in the world. In fact, he had it first. Talk about irony. You can’t make this stuff up.
Jesus said not to judge lest we be
judged ourselves, so it is with awareness of my sinfulness when I say this (but
I will): I’ve never met, and never expect to meet, the other Elon; and it may
be unfair of me to judge only by what I’ve seen in the news or on social media;
but if I had to spend any real time around one Elon or the other, I know which
one I would pick. I know which one I
would trust more and which one would be a better friend. Of the two men, though, I am sure which one Mary’s
song, the Magnificat, speaks to more directly.
And I am sure that one does not drive a Tesla.
“Mary
said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my
Savior, for he has looked with favor 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 forever.’” [Luke
1:46-55]
It is a great mistake to equate either
poverty or riches with virtue or with closeness to God, although both have been
done. One of the great heresies of
modern Christianity is called the “Prosperity Gospel”. Here I’m going to rely on a definition from
the Britannica, so I don’t end up giving it my own bias. Britannica calls it,
“the
teaching that faith—expressed through positive thoughts, positive declarations,
and donations to the church—draws health, wealth, and happiness into believers’
lives. It is also referred to as the ‘health and wealth gospel’ or ‘name it and
claim it.’”[1]
There’s another,
older expression of that. It comes in
the notion that God blesses the faithful with material prosperity, so if
someone is rich they must therefore be righteous. If, however, they fall on hard times, then
that may indicate that they have sinned and God has withdrawn his blessing. There must be something morally wrong with a
man who could not change with the industry that employed him.
The
Bible tells the story of a man named Job.
He loses his wealth, and his health, and his children. His wife is so upset that she tells him just
to curse God and lay down and die. Then
his friends show up and, trying to be helpful, tell him that he must have done
something to make the Lord angry, so he should just admit his fault and throw
himself on God’s mercy. Job himself insists
that he hasn’t done anything to bring the losses upon himself, and demands that
God appear to explain it all. The scary
part, even scarier than his sufferings, is when a whirlwind bears down on him
and out of the whirlwind the Lord himself speaks and tells Job to stop assuming
he could even begin to know the way the universe works. Job backs down and shows genuine
humility. But God also commends Job for
his adherence to him in the face of all he had undergone. Then a new set of blessings is given to him, restored
wealth and new children – all of which would comfort him, though there could
never really be compensation for, or replacement of, those whom he had lost.
All
blessings come from God. Start with the
basic blessing of life itself, then add friends and health and talents and
abilities and opportunities and being born in the right place and time and on
and on. Some people possess none of
that, a few possess a small portion, even fewer possess much, and no one possesses
any of it forever, at least not on earth.
With the coming of Christ, though,
there is the beginning of justice. Mary
would know, like Job, the loss of her son.
She would be standing right there watching, present at his death no less
than at his birth. She had known the labor
pains, and she would know the emotional and spiritual pains of watching his slow
execution. She would also know how he
loved her to the end, in his own suffering asking John to care for her, doing
what little he could at that point as the poor and powerless have always done, sticking
together all the way through the valley of the shadow of death. So also she would know the joy of God’s
restoration of his life at his resurrection.
“My
soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for
he has looked with favor 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.”
Who
is rich and who is poor? It
depends. But don’t think you can tell
based on one aspect of life alone, and certainly not by a credit rating. Whom has God blessed and who has missed out
on the blessing? Who is up and who is
down? Who is full and who is empty? Is it Elon or is it Elon? Is it the one who can smile even when his
phone bill is larger than his weekly earnings or the one who cannot be happy
with just one rocket ship? Is it Elon or
is it Elon? Who is it who sees the
mighty hand of God at work and knows both his justice and his mercy? Is it Elon or is it Elon? It could be anyone or (even better) everyone.
And
when the day arrives – and it will – that we see everyone know the Lord’s ways,
may all our souls together magnify the Lord and rejoice in God, our Savior.
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