Responding in Faith or Fear

This week is the final Sunday of advent before Christmas, so I wanted to focus on The Magnificat, Mary’s prayer in Luke 1:46-55.

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and his holy name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever. 

Luke 1:46-55

            My thoughts on this passage are twofold: 

            On the one hand, I’m uplifted and encouraged. Because once again scripture is reminding us all that God often chooses to work in the least expected ways and through the least likely of people.  

            Elizabeth’s words in Luke 1:45 further reinforces this idea of how powerful it is when we choose to step out in faith, even if we never expected God to act in this way.

“And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

Luke 1:45

            But on the other hand, I find myself wondering how often I have written someone off who God was working through because they didn’t fit my expectations.  

            There are times where I find myself in small ways responding like Mary. Saying yes when I have no idea how the outcome will happen…

            But there are many more times where I find myself responding like the authorities and people in places of power during Mary’s time. Making assumptions about someone’s worth in God’s eyes rather than listening to the message they have to convey. 

            All of this makes me think of Jonah’s story, which is perhaps a strange thing during the week of Christmas, but stay with me. 

            Jonah was called to work by God as a prophet to the people in the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. At this point in time, the Assyrians are one of the most feared and powerful empires in the ancient world. They’re the same empire that takes over the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC. So understandably, Jonah is a bit hesitant. 

            Mary, when called, immediately responded with yes and a prayer filled with statements that highlight her understanding of the message her son would be preaching decades later (seriously, just do a comparison of the ending of the Magnificat with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Luke 6).  

            Jonah though…he doesn’t respond in the way we expect of prophets or ministers. Which is perhaps why I find Jonah the most relatable of the Old Testament prophets. Jonah is called and says, “Yeah, no.” 

            And then to reinforce the idea that his no was really in all caps, he hops on a ship and attempts to flee to Tarshish. A town that some scholars think might have been in the Iberian Peninsula. As in modern day Spain. The opposite end of the world from his calling. 

            Eventually, after much dramatics and some time inside of a giant fish, Jonah relents and decides to travel to Nineveh. 

            It seems like a turning point. Jonah repented. He was willing to go to Nineveh and deliver God’s message. But the truth is his time in the fish didn’t really change him. Jonah didn’t believe that the people he was speaking to were capable of responding to God. 

            They were still his enemy, worthy of being destroyed by God. Not his fellow human beings worthy of grace and love. 

            Imagine his surprise when the very people he’s written off respond in exactly the way God asked of them. That just didn’t match up with Jonah’s narrative for how things were supposed to go. And rather than changing his own thoughts, doing some deconstruction and creating more space for God to work in the world, Jonah doubles down on his limited perspective. 

            So at the end of the story, as Jonah pouts outside the town, determined to see the destruction of other humans, I can’t help but think of Mary’s words in verse 1:51. 

He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

Luke 1:51

            I think if Jonah were to hear those words, he would be quick to assume that the ones being scattered are his enemies. But the truth is, the prideful one was him. He was the problem.  

            Aside from the fact that both are called by God and showcase examples of how to and not to respond, what holds these stories together for me is the fact that both ask us to reconsider how we view others that God might be working through. 

            In Mary’s story, she is the unexpected. A teenage, unwed mother who will raise God incarnate. And on top of that, she’s not even a woman who is connected to an important family in the ancient world, something that might give her a bit more power than your average female. Nope. She’s from Galilee. The location that everyone in the Roman Empire said nothing good could ever come from. 

            But God chose her. 

            In Jonah’s case, he’s confronted with the idea that God cared deeply about his enemy. That threat looming on the horizon that other prophet’s in Jonah’s time were warning the people about. Yep, Jonah, God is working in and through them too.  

            Because God chose them and cared deeply about them. 

            So is this week’s takeaway: Be like Mary; don’t be like Jonah? 

            Sort of. 

            The reality is, we will all be both Mary and Jonah throughout our lives. We will be called to step out in faith in big and small ways. 

            And we can choose to trust and say yes, believing in the God who calls us even if we have no idea how it will happen. 

            And we will also have moments of responding in fear. Especially when we are asked to reevaluate how God is working in the world and whom God is working through. 

            The key is to be mindful of how even in the smallest of ways we can slip into Jonah’s mindset of limiting God. 

            And then, rather than doubling down and hoping for the destruction of others so that we might take joy in it like Jonah did, we are open to changing our mind. To realizing that God repeatedly chooses to work in ways that don’t make logical sense. 

Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. 

1 Corinthians 1:27, New Living Translation

This verse raises questions to help us figure out where we are thinking and acting like Jonah. It asks us to reconsider the things we write off as foolish, and if we are trusting in our own wisdom rather than God’s. It also asks us to think about whether we place more importance on power and prestige than we do truth and the example Christ set for us.

            So this holiday season, keep your heart open. Not only to the ways God is calling you personally, but also to the ways in which God is speaking through others, especially the people we least expect it from. 

            If you haven’t read this year’s advent Bible studies, you can find week 1 here, week 2 here, and week 3 here.