Reversals of Fortune
Advent 4C
Luke 1:39-55
12/20/09
Lorraine Ljunggren

        In the book and the movie The Blind Side a woman, a mother, Leigh Ann Touhy, finds herself compelled to provide shelter to a homeless teenage boy whose name is Michael Oher. Leigh Ann and her family, who are wealthy people, see Michael walking without a coat in the cold one evening after a school event and she invites him to stay the night in their home. Michael attends the same private Christian school her own children attend; he was admitted to the private school, at least in part, because the football coach saw potential in the young man's size and appealed to the Admission's Committee – after all, the school is a “Christian” school. To me the question of what it means to be called “Christian” and to live as a Christian is an important question raised by the author and filmmaker. Well, what begins as a one-night-invitation to sleep on their couch turns out to be a turning point in the lives of Michael and the Touhy family.

        Their story is set in Memphis, Tennessee, where – like all too many places in the south and north, in the east and west, racism is still a reality which robs young and old of the respect due all of God's people. Classism is another sharp focal point in the story; it is all too clear that opportunities are not equal, by any stretch of the imagination, for children, youth, and adults of any race who are rich and those who are poor.

        I believe the story asks us to consider how we humans form a conscience and how we act on the impulses we feel whenever our conscience tugs at our hearts, minds, and spirits. Underlying it all is the question of God – where is God in all the stories of our lives? In an interview, the true-life Leigh Ann Touhy said, “We absolutely know the good Lord put Michael in our lives for a reason…”

        I happen to believe that the Touhy family was blind-sided by God. Many of you know that Michael Oher became part and parcel of the Touhy family, that he graduated from Mississippi State, and now plays professional football with the Baltimore Ravens. This story – his story – the Touhy's story – are all about a reversal of fortune – and I'm not talking only about financial fortune but about riches of another kind. Michael Oher was given opportunities to live up to his potential which will continue to unfold in the years to come. The Touhy family is enriched in ways money cannot buy through a son they never dreamed they would have. We are enriched – God's world is enriched whenever people of conscience act on the tugging – on the impulses of the Spirit to do what is right, what is just, what is best in our human nature. In doing so, we help God heal the world.

        Long ago, in a town in the Judean hillside, two other women, two mothers, who give shelter in their bodies to two sons, who – through God's Spirited intervention in their lives – experience reversals of fortune of a sort; the lives of these two women, their families, and their sons enrich us to this day in ways money cannot buy.

        The first woman is Elizabeth, who is surprised in her later years to conceive a child, a son who will be named John. Elizabeth will raise her son John to be a voice crying in the wilderness in hopes of fulfilling God's dream. John will call people to live righteous lives, to do what is right in the sight of God, and will point to the son of the other woman as One Who Embodies and Reveals God to Us. Elizabeth, whose own voice echoes the prophets of her ancestors,' ends up granting wisdom to her young relative whose journey parallels her own.

        Her relative is the second woman, Mary of Nazareth. Mary is surprised as a young woman to conceive a child, a son who will be named Jesus. Jesus will take to heart what he learns of his mother's conscience and her witness to what is just. Mary, whose worldly wealth is meager but whose heart and soul are great, who will one day be called God-bearer, will teach her son that God's favor belongs to all and not only to those with privilege, power, and possessions.

        Mary, whose song in Luke's Gospel we've come to call The Magnificat and which we sing to this very day, speaks to the great reversals of fortune which are evident in God's desires to set right the imbalances in the world:

        “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savoir… God's mercy is for those who fear [who stand in awe of] God from generation to generation. God shows strength…God scatters the proud [in their conceit] in the thoughts of their hearts. God brings down the powerful from their thrones, and lifts up the lowly; God fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty of additional riches for they have what they need to live. God brings God's mercy into each present time, in keeping with the promise God made long ago to our ancestors, to Abraham and Sarah and their descendants forever.” (Lk. 1:46-55, paraphrased w/interpretation)

        Over a decade ago one writer noted, “Mary's Magnificat still comes a bit too close to home as it tells us that Christmas is not about getting what we want but about God both getting and giving what God wants. Good news of great joy and great discomfort. Beware you powerful! Hope and rejoice, you powerless!” (Glen V. Wilberg in The Christian Century, 12/7/94, quoted in Synthesis 2009)

        It is no wonder that The Magnificat has been banned by the politically powerful in various times and places as it gives to the oppressed the hope that their situation may change with God's help. And any system of power which thinks God might be on the side of the oppressed is right, needs to take note and be wary. Because God's intention is that the lowly be lifted up from whatever presses them down – whether it be the gulf between rich and poor, or the distance between races, or the gaps in opportunities between female and male, and so on and so on.

        Author Joyce Hollyday writes, “…two miraculously pregnant women basked in the secret of the quiet revolution that was to be accomplished through them. Two women incarnated the truth that, with God, nothing is impossible. Hearing of Mary's pregnancy, Joseph wanted at first to 'dismiss her quietly.' Zechariah was struck dumb for the duration of Elizabeth's pregnancy because of his doubt. Shepherds quaked, Herod raged. In the birth narratives, Mary and Elizabeth carried the faith – as well as the future. Together they nurtured a revolution. The tables began turning. The thrones began crumbling. What joy! What HOPE! (quoted in Sojourners Online)

        That joy and hope is born anew in each generation through us whenever we listen to the Spirit of God calling us, whenever we act on the impulses we feel as our consciences tug at our hearts, minds, and spirits. The tables are turned whenever we recall and act on the truth that God's favor belongs to all and not only to those with privilege, power, and possessions.

        And, lest we wonder what difference we might make, recall that Mary's Magnificat set the stage for her son to sing what the world thinks is a strange song: “Blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, blessed are the meek.” (idea John Ortberg, The Christian Century, 12/15/09)

        “…Blessed is she or he who believes, despite all evidence to the contrary, that God seeks us out, asking to be born in our lives and world. Blessed are we when we dare to believe that God chooses each of us in unique and different ways to bear God's healing spirit to the world.” (Michaela Bruzzese, Sojourners Online)

May our joy and hope be renewed as we answer God's call to enrich the world, sometimes in ways that even money cannot buy! Amen.
©2009 Lorraine Ljunggren