Third Sunday: Rejoice

On Saturday, I met Melanie.  If I had to guess, I’d say she’s probably in her forties, but her meager frame makes her look about 10 years old from the back.  She likes oranges and listening to the music from the church across the street.  She grew up in a village by the sea and her eyes become a little wild when she talks about wanting to win the lottery.  She doesn’t notice when her too-big dress slips off her knobby shoulder, leaving it and part of her chest exposed.  She usually sits slumped over wherever she can find a bit of shade on the busy Route Delmas.  Sometimes she can be found behind a billboard, but she’s usually in a heap of trash behind a dumpster—a spot that doubles as a public toilet for passersby.  Her skin is dry and chalky, and her clothes are full of dust.  In Haiti, where looking good is a high cultural value, even the poorest person wears meticulously washed, bleached, and ironed clothes every time he steps out of his tent.  When someone is too plagued by mental illness to understand this basic norm, the contrast is obvious.

Usually, people just ignore Melanie.  She doesn’t seem to mind or notice.  The twisted workings of her brain make her focus inwardly—the conversations, jokes or nightmares that unfold hidden within her own mind.  The only clue she gives to the content of this internal dialogue is her quiet muttering and laughter, or screamed pleas for protection against an unseen assailant.  It’s only at those times, when Melanie’s internal world bursts into the world of her neighbors, that people take note.  Their response is rarely compassionate.  People laugh.  They stare.  They gather in groups and whisper to each other.  When she throws handfuls of trash into the street, drivers lay on the horn.  When she throws them into the walkway instead, people scream in her face.  She’s scorned.  She’s mocked.  She’s feared.  Perhaps worst of all, she’s cast out. 

The whole week leading up to when I met Melanie, I had the Magnificat rolling around my head.  The words are Mary’s song of joy when she sees Elizabeth while they’re awaiting the births of their respective sons (Luke 1:46-55).  Mary’s heart overflows into her famous exclamation of praise—“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (v. 46-47).  She goes on to proclaim the work of this God in whom her spirit rejoices.  He scatters the proud.  He brings down rulers from their thrones.  He lifts the humble.  He fills the hungry with good things.  He sends the rich away empty.  He remembers his promises of mercy.  From generation to generation.  Even while Jesus grows in Mary’s womb, his message of Good News pours forth from his mother’s lips.

After all, he is the God who “did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Phil 2:6-8).  He is the God who by his very coming to his people as a person ushered in a topsy-turvy kingdom.  It’s the kingdom where God becomes a slave, and slaves are freed.  Where the first are last and the last are first.  Where the rich are sent away and the poor are blessed.  Where whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will save it.  Where valleys are raised up and mountains made low.  Where, “Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower” (James 1:9-10—to listen to a great sermon by Tim Keller about this last verse, click here).

On Saturday, talking to Melanie, all of this struck me as such Good News—the best, most beautiful, most delightful and magnificent news I’ve ever heard.  Because Jesus, “the kingdom of God taking sandals and walking” (Jones, 1995), holds out his hand to Melanie.  He embraces her.  He fills her hungry belly with good things.  He looks her in the eye and delights in her.  And in Jesus, in this new kingdom that is being birthed even now, Melanie is exulted.  She’s lifted up.  She’s loved.  For Melanie, that’s Good News.

For me, too, the ushering in of this upside down kingdom is Good News.  Because Jesus is also holding out a hand to me.  With an invitation to descend with him into a new understanding of who I am.  This new identity is no longer a sum of my accomplishments, talents, desires—all of which fall woefully short of the glory of God.  Instead, the invitation is to be emptied, “having the same mindset as Christ” (Phil 2:5), transformed into a vessel ready to be filled with love.  As Miroslav Volf (1996) wrote, our identity must change in order to make space for the other.  Emptying is a prerequisite for incarnation.  This is the path that Mary foretold in the song that poured forth from her heart.  This is the path that Jesus walked, being made in human likeness.  And this is the path to which, for no merit of our own, Jesus is beckoning us.  He’s beckoning Melanie to go up with him.  He’s beckoning me to go down with him.  And that is all such Good News. 

So, deeply, fully, from the top and bottom of my heart, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.