God’s Topsy-Turvy Kingdom

(our guest blogger over this advent season is Rev. Hannah Hawkinson, child of the church and pastor of St. Timothy’s Lutheran Church in Skokie, Illinois. These devotionals appear in the November/December edition of Gather, the magazine for the women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

God is turning a world torn apart by conflict, right-side-up.

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!” So begins Mary’s song of praise, a song that we today call the “Magnificat.” For many of us, this holy song is a familiar and favorite one–and for good reason! It’s one of our most central texts during the season of Advent–one that our church returns to year after year.

Because Mary’s song is so familiar, it’s easy to miss just how revolutionary it is. At its core, the Magnificat is a song about God’s mighty acts in the life of a young woman–a young woman who happens to be pregnant out of wedlock. This song proclaims God’s justice and peace in a world torn apart by war, conflict and violence. It declares that God is turning the world upside-down–or perhaps, right-side-up.

As we journey together through these four weeks of Advent, let’s encounter Mary’s sacred, subversive song with fresh eyes and ears and hearts. Let’s also explore other stories of God’s topsy-turvy work across generations.

Week 1: GOD WHO SEES (Read Luke 1:46-48a and Genesis 16:1-6)

The first week begins with Mary’s proclamation that God “has looked with favor on the lowly state of God’s servant” (Luke 1:48). What a radical statement from Mary–a young woman who is likely no older than 13 or 14, and in an incredibly vulnerable position. Mary is pregnant and unmarried. Her fiancé Joseph would have had every right to break off their relationship and shame her publicly. It is a precarious moment. Mary’s life and livelihood hang in the balance as God’s people force her to the margins. Yet she proclaims that God has “looked with favor” upon her, smiled upon her, and is with her amid her vulnerability. Where God’s people may look upon her with shame, pity and even disgust, God looks upon her with joy, celebration and pride.

Thousands of years earlier, Hagar has a similar encounter with God. She, too, finds herself in an extremely vulnerable position, pregnant and utterly alone. Enslaved by Abram and Sarai, she has been forced by Sarai to conceive Abram’s firstborn child. As soon as Hagar become pregnant, Sarai, riddled with jealousy, treats her even more “harshly” (Genesis 16:6). Abused and enslaved by God’s people, Hagar flees into the wilderness.

In this precarious moment, when Hagar is at her most vulnerable, God finds her. God calls her by name and declares God’s favor. “Now you have conceived and shall bear a son,” God proclaims, “and you shall call him Ishmael, for the LORD has given heed to your affliction” (Genesis 16:11). In response, Hagar boldly declares God’s power and grace by giving God a name. She is the only person in all of scripture to do this! “You are El-Roi,” Hagar proclaims–the “God who sees” (Genesis 16:13).

Talk about turning the world right-side-up! God who sees looks with favor, not on the most powerful in our midst, but on the most vulnerable–those whom we as God’s people fail, reject, and marginalize. Thanks be to God, God is at work beyond our failings, turning the world right-side-up. God invites us to join in this repair work, to repent of our sin and to rejoice in God’s boundless love. God’s topsy-turvy work is our work as well.

Reflection Questions:

Can you think of a time when you were vulnerable or afraid, and you encountered “God who sees”? What was that experience like? How did it feel?

Who are the Marys and Hagars in our midst today? Who has the church rejected and forced to the margins?

In what ways can we, as God’s people, listen to and learn from others who have been marginalized? Can we follow their lead, as we seek to make things right?

Hannah Hawkinson

God’s Topsy-Turvy Kingdom

(our guest blogger over this advent season is Rev. Hannah Hawkinson, child of the church and pastor of St. Timothy’s Lutheran Church in Skokie, Illinois. These devotionals appear in the November/December edition of Gather, the magazine for the women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

God is turning a world torn apart by conflict, right-side-up.

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!” So begins Mary’s song of praise, a song that we today call the “Magnificat.” For many of us, this holy song is a familiar and favorite one–and for good reason! It’s one of our most central texts during the season of Advent–one that our church returns to year after year.

Because Mary’s song is so familiar, it’s easy to miss just how revolutionary it is. At its core, the Magnificat is a song about God’s mighty acts in the life of a young woman–a young woman who happens to be pregnant out of wedlock. This song proclaims God’s justice and peace in a world torn apart by war, conflict and violence. It declares that God is turning the world upside-down–or perhaps, right-side-up.

As we journey together through these four weeks of Advent, let’s encounter Mary’s sacred, subversive song with fresh eyes and ears and hearts. Let’s also explore other stories of God’s topsy-turvy work across generations.

Week 1: GOD WHO SEES (Read Luke 1:46-48a and Genesis 16:1-6)

The first week begins with Mary’s proclamation that God “has looked with favor on the lowly state of God’s servant” (Luke 1:48). What a radical statement from Mary–a young woman who is likely no older than 13 or 14, and in an incredibly vulnerable position. Mary is pregnant and unmarried. Her fiancé Joseph would have had every right to break off their relationship and shame her publicly. It is a precarious moment. Mary’s life and livelihood hang in the balance as God’s people force her to the margins. Yet she proclaims that God has “looked with favor” upon her, smiled upon her, and is with her amid her vulnerability. Where God’s people may look upon her with shame, pity and even disgust, God looks upon her with joy, celebration and pride.

Thousands of years earlier, Hagar has a similar encounter with God. She, too, finds herself in an extremely vulnerable position, pregnant and utterly alone. Enslaved by Abram and Sarai, she has been forced by Sarai to conceive Abram’s firstborn child. As soon as Hagar become pregnant, Sarai, riddled with jealousy, treats her even more “harshly” (Genesis 16:6). Abused and enslaved by God’s people, Hagar flees into the wilderness.

In this precarious moment, when Hagar is at her most vulnerable, God finds her. God calls her by name and declares God’s favor. “Now you have conceived and shall bear a son,” God proclaims, “and you shall call him Ishmael, for the LORD has given heed to your affliction” (Genesis 16:11). In response, Hagar boldly declares God’s power and grace by giving God a name. She is the only person in all of scripture to do this! “You are El-Roi,” Hagar proclaims–the “God who sees” (Genesis 16:13).

Talk about turning the world right-side-up! God who sees looks with favor, not on the most powerful in our midst, but on the most vulnerable–those whom we as God’s people fail, reject, and marginalize. Thanks be to God, God is at work beyond our failings, turning the world right-side-up. God invites us to join in this repair work, to repent of our sin and to rejoice in God’s boundless love. God’s topsy-turvy work is our work as well.

Reflection Questions:

Can you think of a time when you were vulnerable or afraid, and you encountered “God who sees”? What was that experience like? How did it feel?

Who are the Marys and Hagars in our midst today? Who has the church rejected and forced to the margins?

In what ways can we, as God’s people, listen to and learn from others who have been marginalized? Can we follow their lead, as we seek to make things right?

Hannah Hawkinson

Thanks-giving

Today’s blog is written by Pastor Jen.

Sometimes, gratitude is instinctive. A knee-jerk response to when things are going well, or a crisis is averted, or something surprises us and fills us with thanks.

We have been reading Anne Lamott’s wonderful little book, “Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers” during staff meetings for the past few months, and here is some of what she has to say about “thanks”:

“most of the time for me gratitude is a rush of relief that I dodged a bullet […] Or ‘Oh my God, thankyouthankyouthankyou’ that it was all a dream, my child didn’t drown, I didn’t pick up a drink or appear on Oprah in underpants with my dreadlocks dropping off my head.

It is easy,” she writes, “to thank God for life when things are going well. But life is much bigger than we give it credit for, and much of the time it’s harder than we would like. It’s a package deal, though.”1

Which brings me to my next point: sometimes, gratitude is a practice. A discipline.

A thing we have to bring ourselves to do, when it isn’t our instinct, things aren’t going well, we aren’t overflowing with thanks.

I thought about this a lot over the past week.

Generally, I love Thanksgiving week. I love how things slow down at church, at school or at work. How people spend much more time in the kitchen – my favorite place – putting the extra effort in to make (or purchase, or reheat) a wonderful, abundant feast for their people. How the Christmastime race to get gifts is absent, and the focus is on table-setting and menu-planning and people contributing what they can.

Last year, I was fully in the spirit, preparing to host Thanksgiving for some of my oldest friends and their family; making pies, dry-brining a turkey, tearing up bread for stuffing, stewing cranberries for sauce. I was cooking and cleaning and loving every minute of it.

But this year, I was working my way through boxes of Vicks-infused tissues. Moving from couch to bed and back again. Refilling my humidifier, rubbing essential oils into my skin, emptying my pantry of soup. Wondering if I should get a chicken to roast on Thursday because I might just be alone, not having the energy to go find friends or being worried about infecting them.

It was hard to be grateful.

But the holidays can do that to all of us – whether we’re fighting off a cold or flu, or not. We can often hold memories of what this time of year could be, or was, or dreams of what it should be. These almost mythical scenes of a peaceful family gathered around a full banquet table, snow falling outside can dog us down and leave us unhappy, comparing what things are to what we’d rather they were.

It’s hard for anyone to feel grateful when that happens.

And yet…

There is still so much to be grateful for.

As Anne puts it, in her trademark honest way, “So many bad things happen in each of our lives. [….] We are hurt beyond any reasonable chance of healing. We are haunted by our failures and mortality. And yet the world keeps on spinning, and in our grief, rage, and fear a few people keep on loving us and showing up. It’s all motion and stasis, change and stagnation. Awful stuff happens and beautiful stuff happens, and it’s all part of the picture.

In the face of everything, we slowly come through. […] And at some point, we cast our eyes to the beautiful skies, above all the crap we’re wallowing in, and we whisper, ‘Thank you.'”2

She goes on to talk about how gratitude is a response that changes us, that prompts us to action, to share what we have because we realize we’re blessed and thankful for it.

But sometimes gratitude can just help to heal us when we’re in a bad spot. Get us through a rugged week, or a rough holiday season.

Because no matter how low things seem to sink, there is still something to be grateful for.

This week, I found it in a friend who still lets Zoe come over to play while we’re treating her for ringworm.

In the act of making a pie, and listening to the parade.

In the difference that a few Christmas lights can make to a heavy sort of darkness.

And all of that allowed me to breathe deeply again; to find a moment of peace; to look up and out and beyond my muck.

I hope that you might find it too: something to be grateful for, and a reminder that we will, however slowly, come through.