Speak with Confidence for Love, Mercy, and Justice
And Mary said,
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the lord,
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
The Almighty has done great things for me,
And holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
In every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
He has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
And has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
For he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers,
To Abraham and his children for ever.
She was a young girl from a small town, engaged to a carpenter, and living under the weight of Roman occupation. Her people–hungry, oppressed, afraid–yearned for deliverance from a system that saw them as insignificant.
Mary knew: the world, as it was, was not the world that God dreamed it would be.
She experienced the visitation of an angel who told her about the life she would live…and that changed everything. Then she visited her cousin, and her soul proclaimed the greatness of the Lord. Mary spoke these words with confidence, as though their promises had already come to pass–about filling the hungry with goodness, lifting the lowly, upending the violent and exploitative mighty for a world overflowing with love, and connectedness, and hope for God’s people.
In recent days, I heard about ICE officials in southern Ohio removing an immigrant from their home in an area adjacent to a school. They broke windows and used tear gas, leaving the house unlivable. I heard of children so traumatized by fear that they had to seek medical attention. I participated in a call with community and state-wide leaders seeking to care for immigrants in crisis. These leaders made plans to attend to peoples’ physical safety, to ensure that they have access to food, to find them emergency housing.
Our neighbors and friends and colleagues have been harassed and detained without rule of law, without compassion, and without respect for the dignity and holiness of every member of God’s human family that we affirm each time we remember our baptism.
Like Mary, we see the people who have been cast down, the hungry people who struggle to be fed, the need—the continuing, heartbreaking call—for mercy.
Beloved of God, the world, as it is, is not the world that God dreams it will be.
Young Mary lived in a context not wholly unfamiliar to us today, as we, too, live within systems that oppress, exploit, and separate us from one another. Mary sings a song of courage—not because she has no fear, but because she trusts God enough to proclaim boldly the holy message of love, mercy, and justice for the whole world.
In this season, as we look toward the coming of Christ into our midst once more, I pray that we too will speak with confidence about God’s mercy and strength, about hungry people being fed, the lowly being lifted, about God’s promises, fulfilled—as we work together with God’s help to make it so.
May God bless you this Christmas and always.
The Rt. Rev. Kristin Uffelman White
X Bishop
Diocese of Southern Ohio
.
St. Mary's Waynesville 