Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm
John, Father John Deere, and today I'd like to
reflect with you on Mary of Nazareth. and the
Advent Journey of Nonviolence. This is a project
of www .beatitudescenter .org, where you can
find many other podcasts and regular Zoom programs
on the nonviolence of Jesus and practicing nonviolence
and working for a more just, more nonviolent
world. So let's begin with a little prayer as
usual. I just invite you to just take a deep
breath and relax. and notice how you're feeling
and recenter yourself. And together, let's enter
into the presence of the God of peace who loves
you infinitely, personally, and everyone everywhere.
Let's welcome the risen nonviolent Jesus here
with us and ask for whatever graces we need to
follow him more faithfully and do God's will.
God of peace, thank you for all the blessings
of life, love, and peace that you give us. Be
with us now during this holy season of Advent
as we prepare to welcome again the nonviolent
Jesus. Bless us, inspire us, disarm us, heal
us, strengthen us, and send us out to do your
will, to do our part to help end poverty, racism,
greed, war, injustice, fascism. nuclear weapons,
and environmental destruction, that we might
live out your gospel and be your beatitude people,
your holy peacemakers, and welcome Jesus' Christmas
gift of peace on earth. In Jesus' name, amen.
So as we enter the holy season of Advent, preparation
for the coming of the non -violent Jesus, I thought
we could look... a little bit at the story of
Mary of Nazareth, the mother of the nonviolent
Jesus, and discuss Luke's account of her as the
Advent journey of nonviolence. So this is my
theory. I think Luke presents Mary as Jesus'
teacher of nonviolence, so she can be our teacher
too. Luke, if you're with me, in chapter 1, tells
her story. as three movements of the spiritual
life, if you will. From the Annunciation and
Mary and Contemplative Nonviolence, to the second
movement, the Visitation and Mary and Active
Nonviolence, to the third movement, the Magnificat
and Mary and Prophetic Nonviolence. You can read
more about this in my recent book, The Gospel
of Peace, but I actually wrote a whole book about
this long ago called Mary of Nazareth. prophet
of peace. So here's chapter one of Luke. In the
sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from
God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to
a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph of the
house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said, Hail, favored one,
the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled
at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting
this might be. Then the angel said to her, Do
not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor
with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb
and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and be called Son of the Most
High, and the Lord God will give him the throne
of David his ancestor, and he will rule over
the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom
there will be no end. But Mary said to the angel,
How can this be, since I have no relations with
a man? And the angel said to her in reply, The
Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power
of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore
the child to be born will be called Holy, the
Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age, and
this is the sixth month for her who was called
barren, for nothing will be impossible for God.
And Mary said, Behold, I am the servant of the
God of peace. May it be done to me according
to your word. And so the angel departed from
her. My question has always been, how did Jesus
learn his spectacular nonviolence? Luke says
he learned it all from Mary. his holy Jewish
mother. Mary's journey begins with contemplative
prayer. So I think Luke is teaching us that the
spiritual journey of peace and nonviolence begins
with contemplative peace and nonviolence. In
other words, the Annunciation, this famous scene
we've heard so much about, is a scene of contemplative
prayer where Mary communes with the God of peace,
and she sits listening attentively for God. And
in that silence and stillness, She's ready for
God when she encounters God. And Jesus learned
to do the same from his mother, as we see later
on, a couple of chapters later, when he's sitting
in prayer by the Jordan River after his baptism.
And in that contemplative peace, he hears the
God of peace call him my beloved, which sets
him on his journey. So the first lesson of Luke
in nonviolence, I think, is to sit in silence
and solitude. a contemplative prayer, and open
ourselves to God, listen for God, and be available
if the God of peace chooses to come to us and
speak to us. Mary learned to spend time in peace
with the God of peace, to prepare a peaceful
place in her heart for the God of peace, and
then to let the God of peace speak. And she was
ready. And we can do that too. We can learn from
her. to be ready for the God of peace, so that
if the God of peace speaks to us, we will be
ready to go forth as peacemakers into the world
of war. And then notice that like Zechariah,
when the angel appears and greets her, Mary is
terrified. That's actually the real translation
there. Her first reaction is fear. She's really
deeply, profoundly disturbed. And I think this
is very instructive. When God enters our lives,
we are afraid and disturbed. And so the first
thing the angel says is, do not be afraid. So
Lucan nonviolence also begins with that commandment.
Do not be afraid. In fact, many scholars have
said it's the one thing Jesus says more than
anything else in the Gospels. Some 15 times he'll
later say that to the disciples who are terrified.
If we are going to proceed with Mary and Jesus
on this gospel path of daring nonviolence in
the world of total violence, we've got to sit
down and examine our fears right now from the
start and learn to let them go and give them
to God and to embark, as Gandhi described it,
in a spirit of fearlessness. And my experience
with that is that takes serious lifelong work.
It means attention, journaling, reflection, and
surrendering our fears to God. So then next,
Mary speaks with the angel and asks questions,
and I find this so helpful. She moves from fear
to confusion. And that's the next step in the
spiritual journey. Mary's like, huh? The angel
says, the God of peace is doing this in you.
A child will be born. He'll be the savior of
the world. And she's like, well, she's not, but
you and I would be. Savior of the world? That's
the title reserved for the emperor. The Roman
emperor is called the savior of the world. He's
divine, as his armories and persecutors tell
us. And the angel says, and you shall name him
Jesus. He will be great, will be called the Son
of the Most High, and the Lord God will give
him the throne of David, and he will rule over
the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom,
there will be no end. What? His kingdom will
have no end? We're so used to this, I think it's
really hard to fathom this unfathomable announcement
in this familiar story, because it's terrifying.
It couldn't be more political and revolutionary.
If you will, this is an illegal announcement,
an illegal plan, an illegal vision, an illegal
hope. We're going to welcome some new illegal
kingdom other than the Roman Empire. This is
far from being like a pious spiritual experience.
Couldn't be more political or dangerous. I think...
The angel is saying, this child's going to be
greater than the Roman emperor. His kingdom will
be far greater than the Roman empire and America
combined. And his kingdom will never end. Does
Mary want that? Would we want that? If Mary agrees
to this, isn't she guaranteed to get into trouble?
Because right away she's participating in something
that goes against the empire. Isn't Luke saying,
you know, if we're going to go along this journey
with Mary, aren't you going to get into trouble
too? So Mary very politely asks, how will this
happen? The Holy Spirit will come upon you and
the power of the Most High will overshadow you
and the child to be born will be called Holy,
the Son of God. And more, she goes on, the angel
goes on to tell Mary about Elizabeth and gives
Mary some support and encouragement. In other
words, your relative who is conceived a son in
her old age, something that was thought impossible,
but nothing will be impossible for God. And then
Mary gives the punchline. Behold, I am the servant
of the God of peace. May it be done to me according
to your word. And the angel leaves. So the great
question for me in this great story has always
been, how is Mary able to calmly accept the angel's
revolutionary message? How could she say yes?
This political announcement. which comes from
an angel, from God as a spiritual apparition,
we're being told, can only mean trouble for the
child and therefore her, the mother. But she
says yes without batting an eyelid. I think the
answer is right there in the way she speaks about
herself. And this to me is... critical for the
gospel of Luke and the whole life of nonviolence.
And maybe some of you have heard me say this
because I've been pondering it for 45 years.
Mary knows who she is. She calls herself the
servant of God. Behold, I am the servant of God.
I think this is one of the most important teachings
of the gospel. And Luke puts it right up front.
And he's implying that Luke is implying that
Mary will teach Jesus this, and then Jesus teaches
the rest of us this. So the journey of peace
and nonviolence, in other words, comes down to
our identity. Of all things, our identity. Mary
knows that first and foremost, my whole purpose
on being alive is to be a servant of God, a servant
of the God of peace. Hey, if the God of peace
wants her to do something, the answer is yes,
no matter what. That's my sole purpose and mission
in life is to serve the God of peace. In other
words, Mary is not self -centered or egotistic.
Her focus is solely on God. She has long ago
surrendered every bit of her life to God. She's
no longer in control of her life. God is. She
had let go of her life long before. So when God
comes up and says, I need you to do this, she's,
sure. It's easy for her to say yes. And that
yes raises questions for us about our identity.
And Jesus is going to pick up on it. Who are
we? How do we see ourselves today in this terrible
culture of violence and war we live in, in this
country and world? What is our fundamental bottom
line identity? The culture of war is always telling
us who we are. And we go right along. You'll
be somebody if you buy this car. You really want
to be all you can be? Join the Marines and kill
the enemy. Luke says if we want to be peacemakers
like Mary, we have to identify ourselves first
and foremost as servants of the God of peace.
So how do we do that? How can we do that? How
are we doing that? How do you identify yourself
as a servant of God? which means we're only going
to try to do God's will from now on and let go
of our lives and not be in control of our lives,
even if it seems scary initially. And whatever
the God of peace is telling us for peace in the
spirit of nonviolence and love, we will do. And
I think this becomes the major theme of the Sermon
on the Mount, as I've said in previous podcasts.
Blessed are the peacemakers. Well, why? Because
your fundamental identity is your son and daughter,
the God of peace. Love your enemies. Why? Because
fundamentally, Jesus says, you are servants of
God. Actually, the sons and daughters of the
God of universal love. It's about identity. Well,
what's so exciting, of course, is that the angel
is not sent to someone rich or powerful or a
man or the emperor or the Roman procurator. or
a military leader, or some arrogant, self -righteous
religious authority, or a U .S. president. The
angel is sent to a poor, unwed Jewish woman on
the outskirts of the brutal empire in the middle
of nowhere. This is another key teaching in Luke.
Women are equal to men. That was revolutionary.
Luke's gospel is full of it. God calls women
just as God calls men. Therefore, patriarchy
and sexism are over. in the nonviolent Jesus
and in the nonviolent Mary. And just as importantly,
and this is very, very important to notice and
ponder, God is not at work in the center of the
empire, in the center of the culture of violence
and war, whether the Roman Empire or the American
Empire, but at the margins among the poor, where
no one expects God, where no one's looking for
God. That's where God breaks through, where God's
reign breaks through. So this leads us then to
the second movement of nonviolence, the visitation.
And Luke's story tells us how Mary makes the
journey from contemplative nonviolence to active
nonviolence and love for neighbor and service
of someone in need. So here's Luke chapter one.
So during those days, Mary set out and traveled
to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah.
where she entered the house of Zechariah and
greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's
greeting, the infant leapt in her womb, and Elizabeth,
filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud
voice and said, Blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Who am
I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment The sound of your greeting
reached my ears. The infant in my womb leapt
for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what
was spoken to you by the God of peace would be
fulfilled. So I'm calling this the second movement
of Mary's journey, which is a movement from contemplative
nonviolence to active nonviolence, if you're
with me in this. Her experience of God and saying
yes to God pushes her out of herself. It leads
us to love for neighbor, showing compassion to
someone in need, starting with the elderly Elizabeth.
So I think these are public actions and that
they become the bedrock teachings of Luke's Jesus.
If you're with me on this, we're told that Mary
immediately set off in haste to the hill country
to visit Elizabeth. She gets up off the couch
and... gets out and gets moving. That's very
powerful. So then the visitation becomes a story
of two women talking. But what are they talking
about? They're sharing their experience of God
and how they've said yes to God and God's reign
of peace. And it fills them with joy and consolation.
And so the lesson here is that Mary's contemplative
prayer and heartfelt surrender to God makes her
get up, leave home, travel, and reach out to
love someone in need. And that's what contemplative
prayer, contemplative nonviolence pushes us out.
to do. It takes us out of ourselves into action
for someone in need. So just as we're focused
on God and doing God's will, it stirs us to reach
out to those in need. And we're told about the
greeting. Well, what does Mary say when she reaches
Elizabeth that causes all this reaction? She
would have said what appears throughout the four
Gospels, Shalom. Peace be with you. And Jesus
will make this the hallmark of his language.
Later in Luke 10, when he sends the 72 disciples
out, remember, he says, you're to go from house
to house and you say, peace be with you, peace
be with you. If there's someone peaceful there,
your peace will rest with them. If they're not
peaceful, come back. Remember all that. When
he rises from the dead, he says, peace be with
you, shows his wounds, and then says, peace be
with you again. You know, the way Luke describes
this, he learns all this from his mother. That
was her language. I think our contemplative experience
of peace and nonviolence leads us to speak a
new language, the language of the nonviolent
Mary and the nonviolent Jesus. Now on, we never
say anything hurtful. or humiliating much less
mean or bullying or violent we only speak words
of peace so that when Elizabeth hears Mary's
greeting of peace she's suddenly full of joy
she rejoices and even the child in her womb jumps
for joy I think this is instructive Luke is teaching
that if we speak words of peace to one another
we will give joy and consolation to one another
Unfortunately, we don't know that. We're not
taught that. But we sure do know from the culture,
from the movies, from our politicians, if we
speak words that hurt, insult, belittle, humiliate,
words of violence and words of war, we will not
console anyone or give joy to anyone. That's
why we see so little consolation or joy around
us in the country or the world. Luke, even in
this simple encounter, We're being called to
practice nonviolent communication and speak words
of peace. That's one of the things I learned
from the second movement of nonviolence, that
when we reach out in love to serve someone in
need, the goal is to bring them peace, joy, and
consolation. That's what peacemakers do. That's
what the peacemaking Mary did and the peacemaking
Jesus learned. We don't want to leave a trail
of wreckage throughout our lives, wherever we
go. And the best way to do that is not to talk
about ourselves, but to talk about our experience
of the God of peace, because that's what these
two women immediately start doing. And that's
what I invite you to do this Advent and to practice
and train yourself for the rest of your life.
Go and talk with your friends and relatives about
your experience of God. What is God saying to
you these days? Where are you finding God these
days? A little side note, for those of you who
heard my recent podcast with my friend, the spectacular,
legendary Joan Baez, you heard me actually say
to her, hey, Joan Baez, where are you experiencing
God these days? And it takes the conversation
to a much better, deeper, and I dare say, happier
place. So notice how Elizabeth responds to Mary's
words of peace. What does Elizabeth do? She speaks
to Beatitudes. Blessed are you, and blessed is
your child. She blesses Mary and her unborn child.
Luke shows us here that this is how holy peacemaking
women, who become the teachers of John the Baptist
and Jesus, speak to one another. They speak the
language of Beatitudes. They bless one another,
and in doing so, they bless God. And, you know,
it raises a powerful series of questions. How
do you bless people? What language, well, what
language of peace do you speak? Have you ever
spoken a beatitude toward another person? What
beatitudes do you speak? I think it's very powerful.
I'm thinking friends of mine. That's how I thought
of this years ago. I'll tell you who it was,
but don't tell anybody. It was Father Richard
Rohr. When I was with him one day, I met him
in a parking lot in Taos, New Mexico. He immediately
started giving me all these blessings. Just like
a beatitude. But he did it as his normal practice.
That's what he had been teaching himself to do.
And I was very moved by that. So notice too that
even the unborn John the Baptist rejoices at
the greeting of peace, at the news of Jesus.
Now, just bear with me here, but I think John
is so attentive and alert toward God that he
recognizes the coming of the God of peace even
before he's born. That's what Luke is trying
to say. The question for me then is, how alert
are we? toward the coming of God in our lives,
and at Christmas, the coming of the nonviolent
Jesus in our lives. How do we rejoice when we
hear Jesus coming into our lives? When have we
recognized the God of peace coming in our lives?
And God has been coming to our lives all the
time, all our lives. How can we help one another
celebrate and rejoice at the coming of the nonviolent
Jesus now? Isn't that a lovely question? And
then we get back to this. bedrock teaching of
Luke. Elizabeth says, who am I that the mother
of my Lord should come to me? There's the question
of identity again. Mary knew who she was. Behold,
I am the servant of God. Elizabeth doesn't know
who she is. She's like the rest of us. Who am
I? And I think that's very helpful. Like Elizabeth,
we can all learn from Mary that we too First
and foremost, our servants of the God of peace.
We have to claim that as our fundamental identity
as Jesus will teach us in the Sermon on the Mount.
Now, you could end there, but then Elizabeth
gives a third beatitude. So powerful. These women
giving beatitudes and teaching Jesus how to give
beatitudes. This is where he got all this. Blessed
is she who trusted that the Lord's words would
be fulfilled. And with this beatitude, the great
Elizabeth invites us to trust the God of peace,
to say yes to God and let God's word of peace
be fulfilled in us. That's all we have to do,
dear friends. I think so. Like Mary, we will
be blessed if we do our part to serve the God
of peace wholeheartedly, full time, to welcome
God and God's reign of peace. even if we don't
understand it, even if we're a little afraid,
even if we're confused, but to say, okay. So
in the visitation story, I think it's a call
to become activists, actually, to get up and
get going and reach out and serve those in need,
or just to put it simply, to love our neighbors
and to help each other rejoice with God. So I
love how contemplative nonviolence here, right
at the beginning of Luke, pushes us to action,
not vertical action, you all heard that, but
focus solely on God, but also horizontal action
to reach out to those around us in need. I think
if we follow the example of the nonviolent Mary,
the teacher of the nonviolent Jesus, we will
reach out to the poor, especially to women and
children in need, and we will serve the poor
and accompany the poor and walk with the poor
and befriend the people. poor and then stand
with the poor and then defend the poor and then
give our lives for the poor and become like Mary
and Jesus, one with the poor. All of this leads
Mary to the third movement of the Advent journey
of nonviolence, what I call prophetic nonviolence.
So we go from contemplatives, activists, to prophets
of nonviolence. She's made the full journey,
and Luke is trying to teach us something, and
only he does this. Her acceptance of God's will
and her reaching out to Elizabeth fill her with
joy and consolation, which doesn't end there.
It leads her to proclaim a bold prophetic statement
that is at once a political denunciation of the
Roman Empire and all empires and its culture
of greed, war, and injustice. And there's also
a bold proclamation about the God of peace and
all that the God of peace has already done in
history and is doing in history and will do in
history to come for justice and peace. I think
her statement, the Magnificat, is one of the
greatest statements in the entire Bible and one
of the greatest prophetic statements in history,
in all of written history. So here's the Magnificat.
My soul proclaims the greatness of the God of
peace. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.
God has looked upon his servants' lowliness.
From now on, all generations will call me blessed.
The Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is God's name. God's mercy is from age
to age to those who fear God. God has shown the
strength of his arm. God has scattered the arrogant
of mind and heart. God has thrown down the rulers
from their thrones, God has lifted up the lowly.
The hungry, God has filled them with good things.
The rich, God has sent them away empty. God has
helped Israel, God's servant, remembering God's
mercy according to God's promise to our ancestors,
to Abraham and Sarah and their descendants forever.
Wow. Remember again, Mary's a nobody. You can't
get more nobody than Mary of Nazareth. She's
a poor, pregnant, unwed woman, about to be a
homeless refugee on the outskirts of the empire,
and the God of the universe and history has chosen
her. And then Luke portrays her as a prophet
of peace and justice in a class, dare I say,
even greater than Isaiah and Jeremiah, if you
go deep into this text. How could Jesus end up
any other way? He's showing us as Jesus learned
that the spiritual journey of peace and nonviolence
and love leads each one of us to speak out publicly,
boldly against systemic injustice and empire
and for the coming of God's reign of justice
and peace here on earth. That's why I'm going
through this story and talking about this in
the Christmas season. Because I think this text
means that like Mary and Jesus, we too have to
become prophetic peacemakers who proclaim a new
magnificat to the world of injustice and war
that we're all suffering through right now. Just
look. There's only a handful of characters in
the story. Like five. Mary, Elizabeth, their
unborn son, Zechariah, and the angel. Yet look
at this Mary of Nazareth, totally confident,
filled with joy, sees the whole outcome. She's
total faith and hope in the God of peace, the
coming of God's reign of peace that will never
end, and God's loving action throughout history.
And so why not be full of joy? This great woman
has a lot to teach us. My soul proclaims the
greatness of God. My spirit rejoices in God,
my Savior. These are words of great consolation.
They're focused on God, God's greatness, God's
saving action. So I invite us this Advent to
move into that space of consolation and joy with
the Mary who pronounces this Magnificat. So you
can see how Jesus was raised to speak out in
praise of God and eventually teach his disciples
and the rest of humanity to speak out publicly
about God's greatness and action in the world.
It's God doing this. For God has looked upon
God's servant's lowliness. From now on, all generations
will call me blessed. The Mighty One has done
great things for me. She's saying, wow, God is
active in my life. And she knows. that she's
blessed and she can see the future. She's way
beyond fear now or trouble or worry. And that
everybody will be touched by this blessing. So
in other words, for Mary and later for Jesus,
the life and journey of peace, how shall I put
it, are not about results and success, but about
the blessing, the rejoicing in what God is doing.
about being blessed by God and sharing that blessing
and announcing it to one another. Look, this
is all God's work. And we too want to reflect
on our lives and notice how God has looked upon
each one of us, but especially in our brokenness
and our poverty and all our faults and mistakes
and our littleness and how God has done great
things for us and is doing great things for us
now. Notice too that she says God's eyes are
on God's servants, the poor, the lowly, the peacemakers.
Holy is God's name, God's mercies from age to
age to those who fear God. I think this is really
helpful. Mary's saying God's very name is holy
because she's encountered God through the angel.
She knows what God is like. She's telling us.
And God is so holy because God is a God of infinite
love, God of mercy, God of nonviolence. God's
in charge. God's got a plan bigger than the Roman
Empire or America. And it's a God of peace, love,
and nonviolence. Through this proclamation, Luke
invites us to proclaim our experience of God.
which I invite us to reflect. If we go deep into
it, when did you meet God? How have you experienced
God? Was God ever mean to you and started yelling
at you? I've asked that to a thousand people
one -on -one, and not one person has said yes.
We're always yelling at God. So, contrary to
the culture of violence, greed, racism, war,
hatred, division, which says that God is violent,
mean, war -making, hateful, and so forth. Our
experience of God is what we announce. God is
a God of infinite love and compassion and mercy
and peace and what I call nonviolence. And that
God's peace, mercy, nonviolence, and universal
love are upon every human being throughout history.
And if you go further into that sentence in the
Magnificat, I translate it to mean that. Buckle
your seatbelts. This gets me excited. God is
at work from generation to generation. How? Through
Bottom Up. people power movements of active creative
daring prophetic non -violence that begins with
women on the margins the poorest women like i
think of all these incredible women i've met
in south africa nicaragua my friend the salvadoran
women and palestinian women one could go on and
on That's how the movements happen. God works
through grassroots movements for the coming of
justice and peace. So we should all be rejoicing.
Seriously. And that's the lesson Jesus will teach
in the Sermon on the Mount. Well, I haven't even
gotten to the good stuff yet. Luke then goes
on and has Mary list a whole series of revolutionary
actions that God has done and is doing. He uses
for Mary. Totally loaded, radical, political
words about social and economic justice for the
poor and marginalized. Actually, you know, if
you said these words around many places in the
world, you could be killed. And in fact, that's
what happened. A lot of you may know the story
that, remember Argentina in the 1970s and the
dirty war where the junta disappeared 30 ,000
men. We now know they were flown out over the
ocean and killed. So the mothers and wives organized
and formed the Mothers of the Disappeared, and
they stood in silence in the streets of Buenos
Aires. And then one day, dressed in black, they
all appeared by the thousands with placards with
the Magnificat on it. And there was so much publicity
throughout Argentina that the evil junta banned
the Magnificat. and said, if you put the Magnificat
out, you'll be arrested and killed. That's what
these words mean. She's saying the living God
is leading a global nonviolent revolution on
behalf of the poor and oppressed. God has already
shown the strength of his arm. God has already
scattered the arrogant, the proud, the egocentric,
narcissists, powerful politicians. God has thrown
down the rulers from their thrones. Mary, about
your nonviolence there. That doesn't say God
is killing people, but they are leaving their
thrones and their power. And God is lifting up
the lowly. God is filling the hungry with good
things. God is sending the rich away empty. I've
thought a lot about that. I thought that doesn't
sound very nonviolent or good. That is such a
blessing. God's not killing people, but freeing
them. the rich and the oppressors, as well as
Dr. King taught us, of their slavery to wealth
and power, to learn the journey of self -emptying
love. And God has remembered God's mercy and
helped God's people according to God's promise
to our ancestors, to Abraham and Sarah and their
descendants forever. Mary declares that all these
events have already happened. and are already
happening. Wow. We've only just a couple sentences
into the Gospel of Luke. This God shows a preferential
option for the poor and the oppressed. This God
is actively at work right now on the margins
of the world, the margins of every empire, and
the margins of every city, liberating the poor
and oppressed, toppling tyrants, rulers, emperors,
dictators, and presidents. This God is lifting
up the lowly and feeding the hungry and sending
all the rich away empty -handed. And that God
is on the side of God's servants and remembering
mercy. That God is faithful and that God has
done and is doing great things for humanity,
for justice, for peace. Therefore, we should
all take heart with Mary and rejoice. This dramatic
prophetic climax of the journey of the non -violent
Mary. I find electrifying. With this, for me,
she becomes the greatest holy prophet in history.
There's no John the Baptist yet. She's it. She's
the climax of all the prophetic literature leading
up to... now Mary and then Jesus. So Jesus could
only grow up to speak out publicly, boldly, and
prophetically for justice for the poor and for
peace and call his followers to do the same.
So I invite us all this Lent to walk with the
nonviolent Mary on her journey of Advent nonviolence,
to prepare your own Magnificat that as we celebrate
the birth of the nonviolent Jesus, we too will
stand up in the new year. and boldly denounce
injustice, war, greed, fascism, racism, nuclear
weapons, and violence of every kind. Better yet,
like Mary and Jesus, boldly announce that God
is alive and well and active right now in all
the thousands of grassroots movements around
the world, led by the poor, led by women. for
social, economic, racial, environmental justice
and mercy and nonviolence, even for the abolition
of war and nuclear weapons and the protection
of all creation. This Advent, I invite you to
reflect on your own lifelong journey from contemplative
nonviolence to active nonviolence and how you're
going to go farther into prophetic nonviolence
like the nonviolent Mary. Thanks so much, friends,
for listening to the Nonviolent Jesus podcast.
You can hear more podcasts and find other upcoming
Zoom programs at BeatitudesCenter .org. Please
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most of all, please tell your friends about the
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find out about it. May the God of peace bless
you all. Keep on following the Nonviolent Jesus
and together let's welcome his Christmas gift
of peace on earth. See you next time.