From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. Amen.
Today is one of my favorite days of the year: Gaudete Sunday! Here at Good Shepherd, it also happens to be “Rise Against Hunger” Sunday. (After the service, we will pack 10,000 meals for communities with food insecurity.)
Gaudete, which means “Rejoice,” references an ancient chant used on the third Sunday of Advent. But more broadly, it ties together the theme of today’s readings: JOY! Because we worship a God who “looks with favor on his lowly servants.”
Joy is abundant throughout Mary’s Magnificat, which we read in place of the Psalm this week. After Mary receives the news that she is pregnant with Jesus, she visits her cousin Elizabeth, who affirms that she has been blessed by God. Moved suddenly by the literal presence of God within her, Mary bursts out in poetic verse. She rejoices, because she recognizes that God is now fulfilling his promise to bring about a just and merciful society – the very one her people had longed for since the world began.
For Mary, you might say that “the personal is political.” Her individual experience of being blessed by God has expanded her perception of God’s blessing in the world.
As scholar Luke Timothy Johnson puts it:
“In the Magnificat, Mary’s praise for what God had done to her personally widens out to include what God does for all who fear Him in every age, including what God is doing for Israel by the birth of its Messiah. As God “showed power in his right hand” by His mighty works in the past, so does he “now take Israel by the hand.’” (Commentary on Luke, Sacra Pagina)
God calls Mary – a poor and powerless woman – to birth the Salvation of the world. In doing so, God shakes up the world, tearing down our assumptions about what blessedness looks like.
While some of Mary’s words don’t sound like good news to everyone—for example, “the rich he has sent away empty”—God’s activity is actually a great equalizer. No more will some people have too much and others have too little. Everyone has been brought to a level place.
Mary declares that, in God’s kingdom, blessedness is measured not by power or wealth, but by proximity to the Creator.
But Mary’s is not the only proclamation of God’s blessing in today’s scripture readings. Our other readings use a framework of physical healing to arrive at the same point.
In Isaiah, the prophet continues his description of the Kingdom of God, describing both the environment and its people. The scorched desert will be transformed into a never-ending oasis.
There will also be a physical transformation for humanity. He says:
“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.”
In Matthew, Jesus uses similar language to reveal to John that he is the fulfillment of the prophecies in Isaiah. As evidence, he describes his healing miracles:
“the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear…”
It’s important for us to understand that ancient people understood this kind of “healing” as a great equalizer, in the same vein as God’s equalizing action in the Magnificat.
Then, as today, many people with disabilities lived on the margins of society. Often, they couldn’t work. And if they had a particular disease, they couldn’t even live in town. Over time, these disabilities came to be understood as a consequence of someone’s sin.
But, when Jesus healed them, he declared before the entire community that disability was not a barrier to following him. He made clear, instead, that disabled people were blessed.
Many Christians today still read these passages and think that a disabled person is somehow less righteous than them. But we know that’s wrong.
Because we are a community made up of Deaf people, we know that Deafness is not a thing to repent from. It is not a sign of sin or brokenness. It is simply one way of being human; and it shapes people, culture, and language in ways that reveal God’s blessing.
And this is where the Magnificat comes back in. In Mary’s telling, the Kingdom of God rejects the world’s narrow understanding of blessedness. It’s not about accumulating wealth or status, acquiring peak physical fitness, avoiding difficulty, or pretending to be anything other than human.
In fact, acknowledging that we are human is the most important part. The only thing asked of us in the Magnificat is that we “fear God,” and all that means is that we trust and accept the powerful, life-altering love of God in service of our own unfettered joy, and the joy of the whole world.
By choosing a poor and powerless woman to fulfill his promises, God makes clear that being imperfect by human standards is not a barrier to entering the Kingdom of God. In fact, being an outsider – whether poor, disabled, or otherwise – is a sign of blessedness in the new world that Christ is ushering in.
Today, we will work together, shoulder to shoulder, as a response to Mary’s joy, and our own. We will measure, sort, and pack meals in an effort “fill the hungry with good things.”
We do this not out of obligation, but because our scriptures and experiences make clear that proximity to the poor is proximity to God’s blessing. In acts of care for one another, we are reminded that everyone is equal in God’s kingdom, and that the blessings we have received are God’s desire for the whole world.
Gaudete! Rejoice!
Leah Wise 