Luke states with exquisite and unmistakable clarity that God will not hesitate to silence those with power, and give a bullhorn to those without power, even ensuring that—if need be—the creation itself will speak justice into the world.
Luke 15:11-32 serves as a warning instead of model to imitate.
Jesus couldn’t tolerate the unjust practices of Herod, nor could he remain a silent spectator to all the injustices Herod had been doing. Instead, at that very moment he swears against Herod with an f-word.
We look for revelations on the mountain tops—among the most powerful and famous. God’s politics of reversal, on display throughout Luke, call us to re-center this search in the valleys and level places, in the face of the child and the plea of a father.
Both in Jesus’ baptism and in the later giving of the Spirit through the laying on of hands in the early Church, we see significance accorded to touch. This importance given to touch—to the tangible—summons us into the realm of human and bodily connection and engagement with others.
Despite the limited historicity of this text, I like to think that it is the Magnificat, not the fiat, which shows why Mary was the mother of Jesus. It takes a prophet to raise one.
The Magnificat is a song that disrupts both gender and hierarchical spaces. It is a song of anticipation and a song of realization. And as we meditate on this song during advent, we meditate on the nature of advent that is both a time of anticipation and realization. Advent is an ambiguous space that invites us to anticipate and realize the erasure of differences here and now.
“Can’t the disadvantaged be advantaged without disadvantaging us? Does their uplift necessarily have to entail our own loss?”
Compassion and solidarity make for a powerful bond between God and humanity.
Panic leads us into the fruit of the flesh rather than living out the fruit of the Spirit. It distorts the Christian message and often leaves us like burning husks on the side of the road.
True stewardship is about the shift in perspective from climbing up a tree to serve one’s own ends to climbing down to serve others.
The only true way to achieve success—even success in bringing justice to those who seek it, redistributing wealth towards the poor, and divesting oppressive hierarchies of their power—is to place our faith in God’s will for the world, and to follow God’s will for our lives, no matter where it leads.