Revolution

Today is the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity; but tomorrow is the feast of Mary the Mother of our Lord, and since this is St Mary’s Church I’d like to make her and her song the Magnificat my theme for today. The Church gives Mary many titles, like Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, Mother of God, First among Women. But none is as profound as the one she gives to herself, when we hear Luke tell her story: “Handmaid of the Lord”. I am the Handmaid of the Lord, says Mary; let it be to me according to your will.

As I take over as editor of the Diocesan Prayer Diary I’ve found myself having a number of conversations recently that have touched on what it means to be doing mission together across the globe. I’m lucky enough to have travelled the world a bit, so I’ve been reminded of people I’ve met in churches overseas: people I’ve met in some tough places, shacks and shanty towns, remote villages many miles from a tarmac road, people of real and impressive faith. These were people who in the spirit of Mary had offered themselves as handmaids, servants of the Lord.

What an immense faith we celebrate in Mary! We know very little about her home circumstances, only the hints provided by tradition and legend; but I’ve always pictured her as coming from a simple village home, not unlike the places I’ve seen or visited in Peru, Brazil, Tanzania, Palestine. There too I’ve discovered a response to God that mirrors that of Mary and puts my own to shame: people saying yes to God, ready to be used in his service.

The song of Mary, the Magnificat, includes the words “My spirit shall rejoice in God my Saviour”. In Tanzania we were welcomed with joy, and overwhelmed by the generosity of people who didn’t have very much. We who have more than enough can often be rather too careful in the way we ration out our kindness and hospitality. Someone once said very well that we may think we own our possessions, but far too often they end up owning us.

Many of the places I visited were places where they had a lot less than enough. In Tanzania I remember visiting dispensaries with very few drugs, and a college library with hardly any books. In Peru I recall struggling up dusty paths in a shanty town to join midweek worship in a church built of hardboard sheets, and in Brazil helping to ladle out soup to families from the favela, soup that for most of them would be their only meal of the day. But people I met in these places were many of them so strong in faith, people who persisted in hope, who waited expectantly on God, people who’d pledged themselves to be handmaids and servants of their Lord, and were keeping that pledge.

Not that I want to be looking back through rose-tinted glasses. I met lots of good people, but there were plenty of bad people there too. Rich people here can be greedy and thoughtless, but not all of them are. Some are wonderfully prodigal with their wealth, Bill Gates for example whose dollars were helping to conquer AIDS in the part of Tanzania I visited. And the developing world has more than its share of sinners, sadly: cheats and criminals and corruptors, people only too ready to make themselves a little richer by deepening the poverty and misery of those around them. Even in churches you find cases of corruption and financial irregularity, and that’s often endemic in central and local government.

But let me turn back to the Song of Mary, the Magnificat. Here are some words from the New Testament scholar William Barclay: “There is loveliness in the Magnificat, but in that loveliness there is dynamite. Christianity begets a revolution in each person and revolution in the world.”  Revolution is a big and dangerous word, but there’s no doubt that the Magnificat is a revolutionary song, so much so that regimes have been known to ban it. It’s a song about turning the world upside down, and powerful people don’t like to hear about God casting the mighty from their thrones, and raising up the humble and meek.

When you visit a strange place it can be confusing. You don’t know the geography, the language, the customs, maybe your skin is a different colour, so you feel disorientated; it can take a while for your head to stop spinning. But I was also disorientated by my anger that people should have so little, and my embarrassment at having so much. To re-balance our world revolution is needed, both there (wherever there may be) and also here.

When I was working with USPG, the mission agency, a few years ago, maybe I was in some small way an agent of revolution. Revolution doesn’t have to mean violent change, but it must mean fundamental change, and real change begins with the opening of eyes and ears and minds. One thing to help this happen is the making of companion links between dioceses here and elsewhere in the world. By now there are lots of them: our own diocese of Hereford is linked with four dioceses in Tanzania (and one in Germany); I also worked in Worcester diocese which also has a German link, and is linked with the Anglican Diocese of Peru, where I went to visit. In Gloucester diocese I was part of a team set up to establish new links with two South Indian dioceses, Dornakal and Karnataka Central.

These links weren’t intended to be vehicles for the handing out of stuff. They were companion links, and that word companion really means those who eat bread together. So our links are about being friends and - in its widest sense - sharing communion. Magnificat isn’t about hand-outs, either. Hand-outs are scraps tossed from the rich man’s table that may help the poor man a bit but ultimately deny him the right and freedom to choose his own way. Magnificat is about subverting that world, turning it upside down, and travelling somewhere new. Companion links are only a little faltering start in this, but they can be a good first step. So I wasn’t in Tanzania or Peru to provide hand-outs, or to instruct people who didn’t know how to do things. Hand-outs are an expression of colonialism, not of friendship. I was there to listen, to debate, to question, and to learn: and to help establish links of friendship.

So the aim of companion links is to learn how to be responsive and responsible friends who are eager to work together for the common good. That needs movement on both sides. It’s tempting for those who have very little to see their English visitors as walking bundles of cash, and to concentrate only on what we can give them. It’s tempting for visitors from here to give wherever we think it’s needed, without thinking about why, where it’s going, what it’s doing. It feels good to be able to give, but giving according to our own priorities can disrupt the plans and priorities our partners already have. Companionship needs careful thought and preparation, and lot of prayer; it needs time for serious listening and the sharing dreams and hopes; it needs us to recognise that each partner has things to receive, things to learn, things to give. It can’t be a one way street. We must learn to be friends, and, as we commit to do things together, to enhance what is already good, and to encourage what needs to grow.

On my visits people I met were often very poor in financial terms, but they weren’t short of ideas and plans, hopes and dreams, nor were they lacking in faith. I was humbled by the faith I found, by people who delighted in God. I realised I had as much to receive as I had to give. Christian friendship finds its foundation in our commitment to each other, and chiefly in the commitment we each make to our Lord. It’s as we offer ourselves to be handmaids, servants, and stewards of the God of Magnificat, that his revolutionary change can begin in us.

Companions are those who commit themselves to serve and support one another. That means praising what’s good, and being honest and critical about what might need to change. It means belonging to God and belonging to one another in God. Being linked to Tanga, Masasi, Nawala, Dar es Salaam and Nuremberg shouldn’t just be something we do as the diocese of Hereford, but essential to who we are. And God whose love can change the world still calls from his Church everywhere the humility, love and service we praise in Mary.