George A. Mason Wilshire Baptist Church th A Season for Dreamers 4 Sunday of Advent 22 December 2019 Last“Living in series, the Dream” Dallas, Texas

Luke 1:26-38, 46-55

It was the only thing that always This song is to the country of worked to quiet her. It is the Austria about what Kate Smith’s only thing that works to quiet version of “God Bless America” is him. to us—not a national anthem but a patriotic ballad. Edelweiss is a One of the pleasures of white flower that grows bravely grandparenting is seeing how in the highest altitudes. the children you parented Unfortunately, it’s also too often parent. Kim and I were in New a symbol of racist white power. York a few weeks ago, staying with our daughter, Jillian. It was Lullabies are powerful ways of her son River’s bedtime, and he calming children and putting wasn’t having it. Then I heard it. them to sleep. What I want to A song. A lullaby. Something I suggest to you today is that they hadn’t heard since she was a are also powerful ways of riling little girl that became an people and waking them up to earworm in my head night after act. Lullabies can set you to night—“Edelweiss.” dreaming and also to living the dream. lullaby Jillian grew up with stories. It’s no surprise she majored in The very word is curious. acting inThe college Sound and of isMusic our Some say—and for all the family drama queen, don’t you research I have done this week, I know?! was a still can’t confirmLilith, it—that be gone. the favorite, and “Edelweiss” word comes from the Hebrew soothed her like nothing else. for the phrase Lilith was the name of a night I was in the other room. There demon in ancient Akkadian are only three rooms, so it’s not mythology. She was a disturber hard to hear from one to the of dreams, and some said she other in their Brooklyn would try to steal the souls of apartment. My daughter was children when they slept. Jewish singing “Edelweiss” to her son to folklore said that Lilith was put him to sleep. Adam’s first wife, who was banished to the night for refusing to obey her husband. Song” in the debut performance This makes sense as to why of the musical in this very room singer Sarah McLachlan chose in 1972. “Lilith Fair” for the name of her all-female artists’ traveling “Mary’s Song” covers the first music festival that celebrates part of the Magnificat, the part in female empowerment in an which Mary praises the Lord for industry of male-dominated favoring her and Israel. It comes impresarios. right after her encounter with her cousin, Elizabeth, which we Lullabies in any form help you omitted for the sake of time sing away the scary figures that today. It comes right after Luke make you afraid of the dark. records the annunciation, in They often name the beasts in which the angel Gabriel order to tame them. announces to Mary that she will conceive the Christ child by the The Magnificat is this kind of overshadowing grace of the Holy lullaby. We hear it during this Spirit. season of the year as we anticipate the birth of Christ. It’s We aren’t told that Gabriel came Mary’s song, the song she sang to Mary in a dream, although we upon learning that she would be might think that because the mother of Jesus. “Magnificat” Matthew’s Gospel tells us that an is themy soulfirst magnifiesword of Mary’s the Lord song angel came to him in a dream to in Latin. It means “magnify…”Make God as cast him in the role as husband inGreat Again , to Mary and father to Jesus. and as in—wait for it— Whether it was a dream or not, ! angels are messengers of God who come to us to deliver the Right after the sermon, Laurie word of God. And because our Diffee will sing a version of waking minds are so guarded Mary’s song that has a lullaby against spiritual reasoning, God Celebratesound. It comes Life! from the sometimes has to speak to our groundbreaking musical subconscious, which is more Buryl Red wrote awake to us when we are asleep. the music and Ragan Courtney the lyrics. Cynthia Clawson, who What we get by tying together was a member of Wilshire before the whisper of Gabriel with the she married Ragan, sang “Mary’s lullaby of Mary is conception and 2 inception. God implants the Word, so to speak, into Mary’s I think we need to stop for a womb, and God implants the moment in the midst of all the idea of the Word’s meaning into Christmas folderol and meditate Mary’s heartInception and mind. upon this truth. The only reason we have the big celebration of The movie , starring Christmas trees and holly, of Leonardo DiCaprio, might have lights—white and colored, of been profound, but I found it too tinsel and ornaments and bows, hard to follow. The idea was of sweet carols and sugary intriguing, though. Ideas can be treats, of Santa Claus and implanted in the brain by reindeer so far from Bethlehem, accessing a person’s and of presents and presents and subconscious. If an idea takes more presents—is that we root in the dream-state, it will believe that the whole meaning change the person’sAn idea wakened is like a of the mystery of history is found virus.reality, Resilient. too. DiCaprio’s Highly character in this coming of God among us contagious.puts it this way: And even the smallest through the Christ child. God has seed of an idea can grow. It can given the world a dream to live grow to define or destroy you. into. And if we do believe, we will know the hope, peace, joy and love of life as they are meant to be. And that’s what happens with the move in Mary: from But that’s where we have to conception to inception. She move beyond the first part of receives not only the Word of Mary’s lullaby to the second part, God who grows within her where it gets uncomfortable, and womb, but she also receives the frankly whyCelebrate it was Life! probably Word of God that grows within easier to leave off this part of the her mind and heart. When Mary song in Mary’s breaks forth in her lullaby in the lullaby1 is simultaneously a battle presence of Elizabeth, she is cry. She moves from religion to singing her truth. She is telling politics. Somebody should have the story of what God is doing in told her not to mix the two, but the world through this child she doesn’t seem to knowA Sermonany growing within her. And it’s like for1 Every Sunday Thanks to Jim Somerville, whose a virus—resilient and included this insight, contagious. although I cannot locate the reference. 3 better. She moves straightway end up understanding the Christ from praising God for favoring story and Mary’s song all the her with the child to praising better if you take them with you God for raising the lowly and as lenses through which to view lowering the lofty. an amazing Disney production.

Listen again to what she sings: There are so many things to say “God is scattering the proud in about this animated movie that the thoughts of their hearts, appeals on so many levels to bringing them down from their people of all ages. There’s Elsa, high horses while lifting the the Christ figure, who ventures lowly, filling the hungry with into the unknown and risks her good things, and sending the rich life. There’s wisdom in a way of away empty.” This is the great life that just does the next right leveling of society that sounds thing. Oh, and the snowman, like heaven to those who have Olaf, actually quotes my sermon been in want—and hell to those title near the beginning of the with plenty. movie. Anna asks him how he’s enjoying hisliving Permafrost the dream coat that It’s not as simple as saying that allows him to stay cool beyond Mary is an enemy of wealth and winter. Just , he wants everyone to have the says. And living the dream is same meager amount of what the movie script and the everything. It’s about the dream gospel story are all about.Frozen 2 that rich and poor live together justly, that the rich don’t get rich The backstoryFrozen of the or stay rich by abusing the poor; story is interesting. You know and that anytime they do, they that takes place in the can count on God coming in Nordic climes. The kingdom of loving judgment to bring Arendelle is based on the harmony to creation and southeastern Norwegian town of neighborliness to society. Arendal, where manyFrozen of my ancestors are from. But after the InceptionThough I can’t recommend that success of the first movie, you run to Prime Video to watch the indigenous Sami peoples of Frozen 2, , I can say that if you the Scandinavian north run out to the theater to see expressed anger to Disney over you won’t be the way their customs and disappointed. In fact, you may costumes were appropriated 4 without due recognition. Disney guilty: the rich and powerful. But listened and entered into a that’s not the biblical dream of contractual relationship with justice. It’s that everyone them to tell their story ultimately shares in the respectfully. It’s a story, of prosperity and peace of God’s course, not only of native promised future. Scandinavian peoples, but also of Native Americans. It’s a story of If you visit Bethlehem today, you how a culture more will head to Manger Square and technologically advanced took visit the Church of the Nativity, advantage of a more nature- which was built over the oriented people and exploited traditional spot claimed to be the them with broken promises. The birthplace of Jesus. The church is outcome ruptured the balance of a curiosity all by itself, but the nature and the consequences initial curiosity is the so-called finally caught up to those Door of Humility through which invaders who generations later everyone must enter. It’s only found themselves in2 peril of about 4 feet high and 2 feet wide. ecological disaster. When you consider that the entry doors to St. Peter’s Basilica Only by a journey of honest in Rome are 25 feet high, the discovery that reckons with the contrast is great. past and acknowledges the injustices done can the healing of Originally, the size of the door nature and the reconciliation of was meant to prohibit people peoples begin. The powerful from driving carts and horses must come down, and the into the church, but that’s no powerless must be lifted up. longer a risk to be avoided. Now Salvation cannot be partial; it’s the door reminds everyone who always total and impartial. enters of Mary’s song. That is, everyone is welcome who will This is Mary’s lullaby. On the come as a child, bowing low, surface, it may seem like class humbling themselves to enter. warfare pitting the innocent Just as God did at Christmas, poor and powerless against the bending low among the lowly,3 2 among the cattle a-lowing. https://insidethemagic.net/2019/11/disney- frozen-2-cultural-appropriation-indigenous- 3 The Promise of people-ba1/ Thanks to Julie Pennington-Russell for this reminder in her sermon, 5

Yes, everybody is welcome to join the song of Mary and to live the dream of God. But only on God’s terms.Season for Dreamers

In this , as we have called our Advent theme this year, in remembrance of our late sister, Rachel Held Evans, I imagine Mary singing her Magnificat to Jesus over and over and over—quieting him to sleep as a child, quickening him to act as a man.

Where else do you think he got those ideas of his but from his mother, the prophet Mary? The woman who had the Word of God implanted in her, implanted the Word of God in him. And the livingworld thehas dream never been the same since, because Jesus grew up … . Amen.

Justice

, First Baptist Church, Washington, D.C., 15 December 2019. 6