Reflections...

A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 20 December 2009, Fourth Sunday in Advent, by the Rev. Phyllis Wong. The scripture readings that day were Micah 2-5, Hebrews 10:5-10 and Luke 1:39-55.


Opening Prayer
Our God of Trinity, guide your servant to speak Your words according to Your will. May the Holy Spirit lead us to understand Your Truth. Through Jesus our Lord we pray, Amen.

In the season of Advent, today we come to the fourth Sunday, the last one before Christmas on 25th December.

Advent is a time to prepare for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. During this time of waiting and preparing for Jesus Christ, according to the scriptures, God has sent his servants to prepare the way of the Lord Jesus.

In the last two Sundays, we had learnt from John the Baptist who was chosen as God’s messenger, God’s servant to prepare for the coming of the Lord.

On this day 2009 years ago, two women came to the scene in God’s salvation plan. They were Elizabeth, John’s mother, and Mary, Jesus’ mother. They are honored by people after them as mothers of two great men who had done great things for God. It was however, at that very moment, these two women were disturbed by what had happened to them. Elizabeth was embarrassed to bear a son in her old age. For Mary she was astonished by her pregnancy as she was still a virgin and not yet married.

When Mary was told by the angel what was going to happen, she was deeply troubled as described in the gospel story. Mary was faithful to God and was clear of her loyalty to be God’s servant. When the angle came to her telling her that she would become pregnant and give birth to a son, a son of God, she said to the angel, “I am the Lord’s servant, may it happen to me as you have said”, as recorded in Luke 1:38. Mary had prepared herself to do whatever God had asked her and planned for her. Although she was faithful to God, Mary did not stay alone. She took immediate action. She went to visit her relative Elisabeth to confirm the words of the angel.

To find the truth, Mary had taken the first step with courage. When Mary and Elisabeth met each other, it was a beautiful picture of friendship and assurance of God’s blessings to both of them. Such a gathering and encountering was very comforting and empowering. Through the Holy Spirit, they were able to affirm one another of their unique experience and callings from God. The reaction of the baby inside Elizabeth has affirmed them and has helped them to make sense of their experience. Their trust in God and their faith in God’s fulfillment according to his plan has greatly empowered them. Their companionship with each other had demonstrated strong solidarity. Showing solidarity was powerful and important when they faced such life crisis. Sisterhood in Christ is very much needed and recognized. This is also a blessing from God indeed.

Being empowered and affirmed of her calling from God to fulfill his plan of salvation, by bearing God’s child, Mary presented to us a beautiful song of praise to God. This song of praise offered a refreshing and powerful vision for us to understand God’s salvation to human kind. This song of praise had offered a new vision of God’s world order which was very much different from the earthly world order.

Mary’s song of praise was developed from a woman’s perspective. It has given us some new thoughts and reflections.

Mary and Elisabeth lived in a time and society that was patriarchal and of male dominance. The status of woman was low. This patriarchal culture was reflected in the bible in which names of women were rarely mentioned. The voice of women in the bible was invisible and their experience was seldom recorded. When the names of ancestors were mentioned in the bible, most of the time only men were listed. But in this song of praise, Mary had offered us a new horizon to understand our God with a gender perspective.

First of all, Mary praised to God for his mighty and holiness. God has affirmed the worth and status of woman. God has chosen women to fulfill his salvation plan. Women could be God’s faithful servants to God’s calling and act according to the will of God. Not only did God choose women as his servants and co-workers to serve in a significant plan that affect the whole world, but also God chose people of ordinary status.

Joy and hope come from the fact that God will raise those in low position as regarded by the society. God will raise them to high and regard them as precious. God will give those who are regarded as insignificant in society, of low social status, important mission to do. Mary, Jesus’ mother was the significant representative.

Mary represented the woman of low status, her values and contribution was affirmed. She received blessing from God and recognition from generations after generations. This is what the Mighty God has done for women. This is a vision for women’s liberation. This is good news for many women whose contribution and value are not recognized. God’s recognition to women is a liberating message for women who have been suffering from different kinds of discrimination, violence and oppression.

It is true that woman’s status has been greatly improved in the past 50 years. Industrialization allows women to work and lead a more independent life, increasing education opportunities to women and civil rights movement for women’s equality, all contribute to the increasing social status of women. However, there are still millions of women in the world who are not treated equally nor with dignity. Women are raped in wars, women are the major victims in domestic violence, and women have high risk of living in poverty, these are still common phenomena in our world.

In the Church Mission Consultation conference organized by the Hong Kong Christian Council last month in November, one of the key directions is to promote gender justice and equality. The churches are asked to promote gender equality in their congregation by recognizing women’s contribution and giving to them equal opportunities to take up leadership role in church setting and society. You may be surprised there are still denominations in Hong Kong (and some other parts of the world) which refuse to ordain woman as church minister. In our marriage ministry at KUC, I have also come across couples who had booked our church for wedding but declined to take female minister to officiate their wedding because of gender stereotypes and male supremacy.

I am proud of KUC for our open and ecumenical stand for gender equality and justice. Given such a good tradition, our church should take this role of advocating gender justice in both the Church setting and in the society.

In Mary’s song of praise, there are two other striking visions I would like to highlight. Luke 1:52 “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.” Luke 1:53 “he has also filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands.” These two visions are very revolutionary. God has offered new visions to redistribute power and resources. These envisioning of new world orders are inspiring and timely in the world where we live.

All over the world, the wealth gap has been widening, the rich becomes richer and the poor becomes poorer. From the recent figure revealed, Hong Kong is ranked number one in terms of the wealth gap between the poor and the rich. The majority of wealth possessed by a few rich people is unfair and dangerous to a society. All resources in the world are from God. God loves and care for everybody and thus everyone deserve equal share of God’s gifts. Too uneven distribution of wealth is wrong, accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few people is unjust. The vision of a more equal distribution of wealth by filling the hungry with good things, (that is to give more to the poor). At the same time by taking some from the rich (i.e. sharing of wealth by the rich), is God’s clear direction for the church to pay attention and even work on it. By trusting that God will make this happen according to his will, we have to monitor our government to develop effective policies to bring forth better and more equal distribution of power and social resources.

Recently, the Hong Kong government has launched a political reform consultation. New model of election system for the Chief Executive and the Legislative Councilors is put forward for public opinion. The development of a genuine universal suffrage is important to give citizens equal rights and vote in the election. In the current election systems, the rich and influential people from the political and business sectors, as well as some professionals, are given more votes that allow their interests to be preserved. The development of a genuine universal suffrage is an important step to ensure better share of political power and influence in the public sphere that would bring more benefit and better protection to the grass-root.

The climate summit in Copenhagen was closed on Friday, many environmentalists and national leaders especially those from the poorer countries found the conference unsatisfactory and under-achieving. To cope with climate change and limit global warming, it very much depends on all nations’ cooperation and commitment especially the rich and the developed countries to give more support to the less developed and poor countries. People from poor countries suffer more from the climate change as their capacity to address global warming is much weaker. It is high time for God’s vision -- “fill the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands” be fulfilled.

Mary’s Song of Praise is a focus to God and a total trust of God’s fulfillment to transform the world, to transform the world order that favors the have not, the disadvantaged and people from the low social status.

In the first Sunday of Advent, I began with a message of ‘God’s promise of his salvation’. Our waiting for God’s salvation during this season of Advent is concluded by Mary’s song of praise. This praise song is to acknowledge the fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation.

Let us unite in Christ and pray to God for his fulfillment of promise in our broken world. Let us also pray for ourselves and the church in responding to God’s calling to do his will in this time, in this place, in Hong Kong.