Thursday, December 22, 2011
Luke 1:46-56

Ah, the Magnificat.

Honestly, when I was reading it just now - it's the first time it's sounded ridiculous to me. I know it's like THE prayer, besides the Our Father and other such standards, but...what?

Until the end, what is Mary talking about? True, God has often chosen to be His greatest prophets and messengers the lowliest of people, but the hungry are still hungry. Of course, "filled the hungry with good things" isn't "gave them food."

Which makes it the perfect thing to be inspired to say when you see Elizabeth - who was righteous but without the public perception of her honor for so long. She, certainly, was hungry and finally given good things. And, looking again, it's really only the feeding the hungry that isn't accurate given the Old Testament, so I guess I overreacted.

I do that sometimes.

So: "He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty."

We hear that story all the time these days - the noble spirit of the working poor, the inspiring faith of the third world nations, versus the soulless vacuum of the wealthy and endless hypocrisy of first world nations. The poor, the hungry, are closer to the desert, where God speaks more clearly. To keep with our running metaphor this Advent.

Which is a beautiful design of God's, of course, because everybody can be poor. It's kind of the opposite of the Hindu caste system where only those at the very top can really access the divine. You have to work your way through lives and lives of good behavior to be worthy or reaching out to touch God.

No, our God is there - all you have to do is have nothing, either by virtue of unlucky birth or renouncing it. All you have to do to see Him more clearly is surrender the power of all of the things of this world that are always getting in your way. The simplest way, of course, by getting rid of them wholesale. Probably the only certain way as well.

But there is another way to read "the hungry." It's the only Beatitudes issue - "the poor" versus "the poor in spirit." Those who hunger and search for righteousness. But, those who are described as "hungry for righteousness" have a lot in common with those who reject the things of this world. A focus that erases all the distractions, a singularity of purpose that can be almost as frightening as the desperation that often accompanies poverty. And those who are hungry, God speaks to clearly. He fills them with good things. He chooses them.

The lowly. All we have to do is get on our knees.

It's an enormously generous, beautiful system God set up - that He is closest when we are on the bottom. Because everyone can go to the bottom, where not everyone could climb or there wouldn't be a movement touting percentages. So we can all have God dramatically in our lives. We can all choose that. He is everyone's God. He wants everyone to come to Him.