Luke 1:46-55

47 

    In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.

48 

He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant.

    Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favored

49 

        because the mighty one has done great things for me.

Holy is his name.

50 

    He shows mercy to everyone,

        from one generation to the next,

        who honors him as God.

51 

He has shown strength with his arm.

    He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.

52 

    He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones

        and lifted up the lowly.

53 

He has filled the hungry with good things

    and sent the rich away empty-handed.

54 

He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,

        remembering his mercy,

55 

    just as he promised to our ancestors,

        to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.” 

One of the unexpected treats of my time at Trinity has been connecting with our preschoolers.  This started almost as soon as I arrived, when I joined Brian in greeting the 1 and 2 year old classes whenever they walked past our office on their way to the playground.  This past Spring, a few chance encounters with our then-four-year-olds ensured they were comfortable enough with me that they began threatening to take me “To jail” whenever they saw me. This fall, routine maintenance of the Pumpkin Patch ensured I frequently encountered our current three and four year old classes on the playground.  The three year olds were curious about the pumpkins, and eager to touch the rotten ones.  The four year olds continued the tradition of threatening to take me to jail, and added a new threat: putting me “In the trash can.”   

These experiences, and others here at Trinity, have often prompted me to reflect on my own childhood.  And in a recent conversation with my parents about my church experiences as a kid, I found myself remembering something I had not thought about in years, my time in choir.  At an age not much older than our preschoolers, I was a member of our church’s cherub choir, which was led by a quiet, caring man who wore the kind of thick glasses everyone in the 90s seemed to have.  When I aged out of the Cherub Choir, I traded in red robes for blue ones, and graduated to the Youth Choir, led by a stern woman with a doctorate.  I will never forget the time when we were struggling in a rehearsal, and she tore into us for not properly enunciating the T in ‘Out’ during one specific song.  On performance day, that T became the loudest consonant of all time, and everyone at church commented on how well prepared we were.  She pushed us hard, and we responded.  And through public performances, with the support and encouragement of church members, I gained sufficient self-confidence to believe that I had a pretty good singing voice.  

Time passed.  My family grew distant from that congregation, and left a few years later.  Eventually, I started Middle School.  And if you want proof of the doctrine of original sin, I would refer you to your 6th, 7th, and 8th grade experience.  My particular middle school focused on the arts and sciences, and when I entered sixth grade, many of my classmates had received formal musical training.  They would walk around our hallways singing disney songs, or the latest hits by the band Green Day.  I have always loved music, so I often joined in.  But when I did so, my classmates would ‘offer their feedback’ on my vocal gifts.  I was terrible.  Horrible.  Tone deaf.  The worst singer they had ever heard in their lives.  I continue to love music.  I have never quite found it within myself to sing confidently in public again after that experience.  

That experience was tough for me.  It has given my life a before-and-after, quality.  Before it, I sang freely.  Since then, my relationship to music has been permanently changed.  It’s a wound I’ve never quite healed from.  Looking back, I understand why that happened.  We human beings have always struggled with empathy.  This is true today, and it was true 2,000 years ago.  In the world of the Roman Empire, life was brutal and hyper-competitive.  The strong preyed on the weak, concepts like charity and universal human dignity were unknown, and all relationships came with an expected quid pro quo.  Growing up in that world, Mary would have known all too well what this meant for her.  Before she sang her Magnificat, Mary was a young woman stuck under the boot-heel of an oppressive, patriarchal society, marginalized because of her age, her ethnicity, and her gender, and valued mostly for her ability to bear children.  As a person, she was effectively invisible.  Today, it’s remarkable how little has changed.  We continue to make each other invisible, defining the poor by their poverty, convicts by their crimes, the old and the young by their age, men by their income, and women by their bodies.  We do these things because we are afraid.  When I was in Middle School, we reduced each other to our flaws and insecurities to help us hide from the fact that we too were flawed and insecure.  Even today, we continue to live under the Empire, still so afraid of not being seen, that we cannot stop looking past each other.  

This past Thursday, our preschoolers had their annual Christmas music showcase.  Starting at about 10:30, the sanctuary began to fill with family members of our three and four year olds.  And at 11, the preschool teachers began to lead their kids in.  First came the three year olds, meandering in and taking their place on the chancel steps before belting out the lyrics of “Go tell it on the mountain” and other Christmas hits.  Then came the four year olds–a bit more poised, but still tiny and wild–and some of them were in costume, and arranged themselves into a nativity scene, before they too began to sing.  And as the kids sang, their classroom teachers knelt in front of them and led them through the various hand motions and lyrics of each song.  And each time there was a pause in the music, the kids looked out into the sanctuary, eyes wide and searching.  

And as they looked, the people in the sanctuary looked back at them.  And parents and grandparents smiled and waved and gestured wildly to make sure their children could see them.  And the children saw their parents and waved back, smiling from ear to ear.  And as they returned to the music of the next song, some of the parents joined their kids in the hand motions.  Each time the music paused, the kids looked out again, and each time, their smiles grew wider, as they realized that, while they had been trying so hard to sing, their parents had indeed been watching.  And at one particular moment, as the music wound down, one of the kids stood in the place of our praise band and our choir, and shouted out “Hi Daddy!” at the top of her voice.  

Watching all of this, I felt that I understood more deeply than ever why Mary sang.   Deep down, there is a small child in all of us who longs to receive what those parents gave to their children.  And I felt that when Mary said joyfully of God “He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant” that she was celebrating for all of us, because in the midst of a world which treats us as if we are invisible, the God of the universe sees you, and is coming to help you with your pain.  As Mary’s Magnificat comes closer and closer to its day of fulfillment, so too is the day approaching in which God will come into our midst to heal the wounds we carry, and free us to sing like a child, once again.  “Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere.  Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born.”  Amen.