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The scripture reading of the morning is the Gospel according to Luke, the first chapter. I begin the reading at the verse which is numbered 39. "In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth

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heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she exclaimed with a loud cry, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your

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greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.' And Mary said, 'My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.

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For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has

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put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his posterity forever.' And Mary remained with her about three

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months and returned to her home." And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. We are concerned in the Sundays of Advent this year with the symphony of our

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salvation. And this morning we come to the second movement, which is a solo song to be sung by a young woman. The song that is sung is called the Magnificat. Now most people have the wrong idea about Mary. This is because there is many much false teaching concerning her about, and it's also because when Mary

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has been depicted in art, she has usually been depicted as one effulgent with great glory and the mistress of all that she surveys. In point of fact, the scriptures teach us that Mary was a common Jewish girl of the first century. There is nothing unremarkable noted at all with regard to her childhood or her

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youth. She was a citizen of a conquered nation. She did not grow up in some rosy bower with a goldfinch on her shoulder, but was instead involved in all of the hard things which were part of life in that time. She saw injustice and dishonesty. She saw the greed of tax collectors and the tyranny of military

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leaders. She was from Galilee, and this means it was likely that some members of her own immediate or distant family had died in Roman dungeons or on Roman crosses. For you see, Galilee was largely owned by absentee landlords, and as a result, more revolts started in the Galilean area than any other area of

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Palestine. And this is where Mary grew. She was a child of her time, and the song that she sings, the Magnificat, the great canticle of the Church, the anthem of the ages, is about her faith in this one whom she brought into the world. Think with me this morning about her song. First of all, she announces an intellectual

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revolution. She sings, "He will show strength with his arm. He will shatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts." Now, I would not want anything I'm about to say to suggest that I view life from an anti-intellectual perspective. Presbyterianism has always been interested in the world of the intellect.

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In our own area here, we founded Waynesburg College and Washington and Jefferson College, and Westminster College, which you may have noted, was honored just a few weeks ago by Newsweek magazine when it was chosen one of the ten best liberal arts colleges in the East. We started Grove City College and

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Allegheny College. We started Lafayette College and Muskingum College and Chatham College and the University of Pittsburgh. We have always been given, as a people, to the world of the intellect. But at the same time, we have always had a respect for the wisdom of the common person. We have never believed that the

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intellectual, because of the gifted mind that the intellectual has, is to rule and order society. We have believed that the intellectual, because of the gifts which belong to her, is to serve society. Now today, when we look at the world of the intellectual, we see a great deal of criticism and arrogance and cynicism

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with regard to the faith and the things of the faith. Indeed, I would go so far as to say, and mind you, I speak out of ten years as a college professor and having lectured or taught on more than 200 campuses in this country and in other countries, we have in our intellectual community today a lack of humility. The

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primary necessity in learning is the willingness to admit that you do not know it all and that there are other things to be learned and that some of these things come from the lips of the simple, of those who are not intellectual by nature. Believe me, there are far more prima donnas on our college and

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university campuses today than there are in all of the world's opera houses and they are condescending with regard to the common people. Percy Bysshe Shelley, the poet of several hundred years ago, the Englishman, said on one occasion that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Shelley meant by that that

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the poet could think thoughts so much beyond the thoughts of the common man that they should be the ones who rule the world and those who study in other disciplines have made the same claim. But what's tragic is they put their ideas and their plans before the wisdom and the desires of common people. Shelley, for

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example, was married to a woman who committed suicide, loved another woman who committed suicide, never acknowledged his own children, borrowed money and never repaid his debts, left a trail of ruin and dismay behind him everywhere he went. He was too brilliant to be obligated to the strictures that

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are placed upon more common people. He said on one occasion, "I will entertain only those thoughts which fit the measure of my mind." That kind of attitude, that condescension, that spirit which delights in tearing up common people like a puppy might tear up a sofa cushion, but not for entertainment but

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rather as an act of arrogance and conceit. That kind of thing the scriptures stand against. You remember the phrase "the best and the brightest" when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected President of the United States. He said he would bring to work with him the best and the brightest and he brought a company of

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intellectuals from leading institutions to run the land. And more than to any other group, we owe to that group of the best and the brightest the Vietnam War. 57,000 dead and it was the voice of the common woman and the common man in the streets of this country that stopped that carnage. Secular humanism which

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attacks everything that the Christian faith has woven into the fabric of our civilization finds its growing place in the ranks of the intellectual. Mind you, I do not speak against them in terms of their gifts, but I caution them for they have allowed an unchristian spirit to enter into them, a pridefulness so that

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they believe that their academic disciplines can replace the faith and they cannot, for Christianity is not an academic discipline. And that's the reason that Mary sings, "He will show strength with his arm and he will scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts." The Christian faith grew

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among simple people. Even its teachers were simple and uneducated people, but they were dependent upon the Holy Spirit of God and from him they got the truth and with him they shared the truth in love. Devoted, you see, to the Christ who said, "Take my yoke upon you and learn of me."

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Now the second thing that Mary sings about in her song is a social revolution. The words are these, "He will put down the mighty from their seats and exalt those of low degree." This announces the equality of all humankind before God. Now this does not mean that every person has the same gifts or the same number of

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gifts. The scriptures teach us that some have a great number of gifts, some just a few, and those gifts differ in their nature. We are not all equally gifted, but we all, according to the teachings of the book on which we build our lives, we are all entitled to equal opportunity before God and before men. It speaks about how

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the lows in low degree have been put down. When I think of those in low degree in our society today, I think of our black sisters and brothers. You know, the plight of the black person in our society is much worse today than it was ten years ago. Recently CBS conducted a survey in which the overwhelming

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majority of those consulted thought that the problems of the black community had largely been solved, and on a list of national priorities they listed the problems of black people as number 31 on the list. Yet 70% of black applications for housing in this society are directly and openly discriminated

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against, and unemployment is four and a half times greater amongst blacks today than it was ten years ago. And I would remind you that 60% of the black men in this country today have no jobs, and seven out of every ten of those 60% already had their high school diploma. Survival crime is on the increase in

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the ghettos. The Journal of the American Medical Association said a few months ago that the principal cause of death amongst young black men today is murder. And not only murder, but there is also a six to twelve times greater chance of black citizens having to endure serious disease.

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The death rate amongst blacks is three times what it is among whites. It's easy to understand why. Malnutrition, poor housing, constant stress at home as well as on the job, no vacation periods, no time to relax, no ability to isolate those who are ill because so much of the ghetto is so crowded, children playing in the

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streets, all of these things cause terrible disease. You remember Jonestown? You recall that a few years ago when that sick man James Jones took a great number of black people and went down to Guyana and set up a new society? And you remember how a congressman named Ryan came down because he heard of some of

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the things that were going on there that were wrong and how he was murdered and then how James Jones, together with 900 of his followers, committed suicide all at one time? We all know that it was the demonic psychosis of James Jones that largely led to that hideous and horrible event. Sixty tons of flesh rotting in

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the sun. But we all know also, if there's even a modicum of honesty in us, that a lot of those people committed suicide because they believed it was better to be dead than to return to the United States of America. I'm never able to rid myself of that thought. Racism, my friends, is not a black problem. It is

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essentially a white problem. It dwells in the majority of us. It is our sin. You know, I sometimes wonder if we Presbyterians have not spent so much time on theological orthodoxy that we have become moral heretics. I mean, if you look at the shorter catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the 11

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attributes of God are listed there, and love is not one of them. If you look at the larger catechism, which is part of our Westminster Confession of Faith, there 21 attributes of God are listed, and love is not one of them. John Calvin, the great theological systematizer of our faith, has written the Institutes of

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the Christian Religion, our principal theological textbooks after the Bible, over 1,300 pages long. And in those 1,300 pages, there are only seven about love. Charles Hodge, the greatest interpreter of Calvin, a man who preached from this pulpit on one occasion, Charles Hodge wrote a commentary on Calvin, which is

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2,300 pages long. And in all of those 2,300 pages, there are only two that speak of love. And yet Jesus and James and John and Paul all speak to us again and again on the pages of this book about love. But we've focused, you see, most often on theology, and that's the reason before the war between the states, Presbyterians

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could stand in the fields beating their black slaves and quoting the scriptures to them as they did so. "He that knoweth his master's will and doeth it not shall be beaten with many stripes." That was a blasphemy. And over against it stands the testimony of Mary's song, that "he will put down the mighty from their seats and

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he will exalt those who are of low degree." And finally, her song announces economic revolution. "He will feed the hungry with good things and the rich he will send empty away." There are four principal causes for poverty in our society. First, there's the disappearance or the disability or the death of the

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wage earner in the family. Secondly, there's economic recession which causes unemployment. Thirdly, there's the advancing years, the problems of age. And fourth, there are the problems of families that are too large. Now when some people look at those four different reasons for unemployment, they say these

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reasons are so vast and so overwhelming that we will never be able to eliminate poverty. We will never be able to take it away. And when they say that, whether they know it or not, they're quoting the Lord Jesus. Jesus said, "The poor you always will have with you." But my friends, the fact that something is inevitable does

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not mean that we can neglect our responsibility with regard to it. We will always have some ignorance in the world. Does that mean we should close all our schools? We will always have some disease in the world. Does that mean that we should shut down our hospitals and dismiss our physicians? We will always

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have crime in the world. Does that mean we ought to disband our police forces? We will always have unbelief in the world. Does that mean we should call home all of our missionaries and bring to an end all of our evangelical projects? No, it doesn't mean those things. It seems to me that we need within the church a poor

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ology. We have an eschatology and a soteriology and an anthropology and a Christology, but what we need is a poor ology. Let me give you an example of what I mean. If you say to the average Christian today, "Why do we give to the poor?" They describe it as an act of charity. They say we are to love one

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another, and they speak of it as a kind of noblesse oblige. But the fact of the matter is that the Scriptures teach that the reason we are to assist the poor is because if we do not assist them, we violate the unity of the family of God. The Old Testament and the New Testament plainly say that you give to the poor

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not as a particular act of generosity on your part, but as a solemn ritual of obligation. You help your brother or your sister. You don't help them because you've got something extra to give to them. You help them because we're talking about your brother and your sister. Go back to Amos, the most eloquent man in the Old

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Testament on the subject of poor ology, and in his prophecy, read the second or the fourth or the fifth or the eleventh chapter, and he explains there that the problem is not that there are poor and that there are rich. The problem is that the rich do not recognize that they are of one human family with the poor, one

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covenant family below God, and therefore, he says, they are denying that family. And this is the sin. When Paul says in the New Testament, "Let those who do not work not eat," read the context. He is speaking there of people not working so that they do not have anything to contribute to other members of the family who are

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unable to work. Paul, you remember, was the man who went around taking up collections for brother and sister churches, and you recall how in the early church, everything was shared in common. It was a kind of corporate lifestyle, not communism. There was much in it that separated it from communism, but everyone

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gave in order that everyone might be able to receive, and everyone is to receive, teaches the Scriptures, because of our generosity or our special giftedness, but rather because there are kith and kin under the sovereignty of God. An attitude which says in the midst of life, "I'm going to take what's mine,

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and I'm going to take what's yours, too," flies in the face of everything for which the family of God stands. We know, and the Scriptures teach, that because some people have many gifts and some have few, and because the gifts of some are much more valuable to the society than others, that some people are going to make a great

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deal more money than others. That is inevitable. The Bible does not speak against that or condemn it in any way, but what it does say is this, that no one is to starve, and no one is to go away sick, and no one is to be crushed by poverty, but there is to be in the family of man, and especially in the family of

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faith, a caring for one another. That's the reason Mary sings, "He will fill the hungry with good things, and the rich he will send empty away." So this is the second movement of the symphony of our salvation. It was sung by a simple Jewish girl who announced by it the wisdom of the common man, the right to equal

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opportunity which belongs to every person, and the obligation we have to care for one another in the time of need. And those three things are so basic to what our lifestyle on this planet is to be, that this song of this Jewish girl has become the anthem of the ages, the song of the centuries. It's a

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revolutionary song, because it's about a revolutionary Savior. Which brings me to that traditional Christmas question. Are you ready for Christmas? I mean by that, are you ready for this kind of Jesus? For this kind of Jesus to move into every dimension of your life? Or are you waiting for some more agreeable Christ

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whom you're expecting sometime later? If you are so waiting, then my beloved brother or sister, you wait in vain. For the Christ of whom Mary sang is the only Christ there is. Let us pray.

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Our Father, in the hustle and bustle of these days, as we seek to find some quiet time to come before Thee, and to examine our souls and our relationships to others in the light of Christmas, grant to us a vision of the radiantly revolutionary Jesus, who lifts up the common man, his voice, his wisdom, his

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equality, and his need. And who seeks through his church to bless the common people, whoever and wherever they might be. To this we offer ourselves in his name, amen. [silence]