Most of the country at the moment seems caught by the song Wherever You Are sung by the Military Wives Choir. Its testimony to the power of music and of song to connect with our souls – songs get inside us more than any other kind of speech … the oft repeated saying is that people learn what they think about God from their hymns and not the sermons they listen to. There is something about human beings that needs to make music, something that insists on song.
At the centre of our two readings this mornings are two songs, sung also by women – two women in response to the grace of God … Hannah sings in response of the gift of Samuel, Mary sings in response to the gift who will be Jesus …
... Hannah and Mary sing about a new God-transforming world that will unsettle … Israel are also good at the protest song, songs that sing about justice and politics … These women are not pristine, meek and mild … no Hannah and Mary are feisty, stubborn and unashamed, they are gospel singers … singers of God’s good news … they are singers of a deep and dangerous hope that God – the Mighty One, the Rock, the Holy Incomparable Untameable God of Israel who will not be opposed, who is faithful to the promises made to Abraham – this God is acting to save, to judge and make right all of creation … now that is something to sing about …
As Walter Bruggemann writes 'when people can no longer believe the promises of the rulers of this age, when the gifts of well-being are no longer given through the established channels, these songs voice an alternative to which the desperate faithful cling' (1 and 2 Samuel, WJK, 1990) … God is on the move … Mary’s song sets the whole tone for Luke’s gospel … we see this song made concrete in the words and actions of Jesus … this is a song that is both a promise of God who is acting, and a call to respond (HT to Maggi Dawn's Beginnings and Endings, BRF 2007) … Jesus is that promise and response, and for those of us who call him Lord, we receive both the promise that God is making the world right and at the same time the call to be those who live as those who are part of that new world … the first words of Jesus’ ministry pick up the song of his mother in the words of Isaiah 61 …
These songs are salvations songs, songs that re-imagine the world, songs that redefine our vision of life … in God’s world the poor are lifted high, the hungry are blessed … and these are our songs … the question then is what does it mean for us to sing them?
Hannah and Mary are our Advent voices, they are singing to us and how will we respond? … will we say, thanks Hannah and Mary a nice sentiment, a wonderful dream, but come on be real … will we say, Hannah and Mary I’m not sure its appropriate singing about God and singing about politics … will we say Hannah and Mary, its great you’re singing this song, but it’s a bit risky, a bit dangerous to be singing songs like that, so we wish you well … or will we say Hannah and Mary, is there a part for me, can you help me learn this song, I can’t keep silent any longer, let us sing salvation songs together …
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