"Celebrate: From Generation to Generation," Sermon on Deuteronomy 6:1-9 & Luke 1:39-56

Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Luke 1:39-56
“Celebrate: From Generation to Generation”

When I think of the lineage of my faith, I trace my faith to the faith of my great grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother. All 3 who were or are extraordinary women of faith. Deeply involved in the lives of their churches, ever seeking to love God and neighbor as self, and teaching and passing on their faith. I am sure the line of women and men of faith extends beyond that, though I don’t know their names or their stories - I am humbled to consider myself a part of their faith lineage. I hope and pray that as I tell the stories to my daughter - the stories of the faith and the stories of how her great great grandmother, her great grandmother, her grandmother and mother have lived out the faith - I pray and hope that, one day, my daughter sees herself as a part of this heritage of faith too.

It makes me want to ponder the question with you today: Where does our faith come from?

Some can trace the lineage, the family tree of their faith, like I can.

Others may have come to the faith on their own or had a grandparent, aunt or uncle, or some other mentor or friend in the faith - blood relative or not - who they consider as a parent of their faith, teaching them the faith, passing it on to them.

Whatever the religious backstory of our family origin may be, when you become part of a faith community, when you claim Christ, God adopts you into a heritage of faith that stretches back to the beginning of creation. The faith story of Abraham and Sarah. Isaac, Jacob, Rachel, Leah, Hannah, Samuel, Moses, Ruth, Esther, Mary, Joseph, Paul, Peter......and the names go on. They become your fathers and mothers in the faith - part of your spiritual lineage. Those who taught the faith, passed on the faith, from generation to generation, down to us sitting in these pews.

Has it changed over the last 2,000 years and surely the thousands of years before Jesus? Oh yes, and still - there is a thread - or many threads - tying us to them, them to us. As members of the household of God, we become a part of something so much bigger than ourselves and our families - we become a part of the tradition of the saints, all those who have gone before us in the faith, that great cloud of witness. We are a part of something so much bigger than us and in it, we are never alone.

Now - remember, this sermon series is called Celebrate! AND that is something to celebrate. We are a part of something bigger! We are not alone. Thanks be to God.

AND, our faith isn’t all about looking backwards about who came before us, the mothers and fathers of our faith, the stories they lived, the Scripture passed down to us - a very important part of our faith is looking forward.

Which, in part, brings me to today’s Scriptures - today we read what are, arguably, two of the most central texts in the Bible, the Shema from Deuteronomy and the Magnificat from Luke.

First, the Shema. Shema is Hebrew for “Listen” or “Hear” as in “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might.” This is an ancient prayer that has a very central role in the faith of our Jewish siblings. To help you understand its importance in the Jewish faith, to make a comparison for you, it is like the Jewish Lord’s Prayer - as far as the centrality of it for Jewish faith and practice. Many Jews pray it twice a day. They keep a tiny rolled up scroll of it on the doors of their houses. Some Jews will literally bind these words on their hands and on the foreheads as they pray. This passage of Scripture comes from Moses’s speech before the next generation enters the promised land. He didn’t want this generation to make the mistakes of their parents and those who had gone before them - instead respond to God with love, faithfulness and obedience. Indeed Shema means hear or listen but in a sense of letting something sink in. Let the Love of God sink in you that you love God so much that you remember it in the morning and in the evening, when you come and when you go, when you teach your children...This idea of reciting the faith, the prayer that the Lord in one and to love the Lord your God with all your heart soul, and might, is an integral one to both the Jewish and Christian faiths.

Now I want to pause a moment to acknowledge that the faith or religion of our children is a tender spot for many.

I know that people in this congregation have children who grew up in the church but have left the faith - and when we look at how the church in our world has hurt people, failed to live up to the words of Jesus, and missed the mark so many times - who can blame them? Perhaps your children have left the church but not left God - or left the church but not left the morals, ethics, and teachings that were instilled in them in Christian community - to love their neighbor and to care for the least of these.

Wherever your children are and for many of you, your children’s children are, in their faith journies, know that God loves them deeply.

Or maybe you never had kids - for a variety of reasons - but when we talk about teaching the faith to children, we are not just talking about children we birthed, adopted, or raised. We are talking about whole subsequent generations of faith. We all have a Christian moral duty of love to build the church for the future, to think about the next generation of believers in every decision we make.

A colleague recently told me that he had a parishioner tell him that her dream for the church was that it would last until she died and then, and I quote, “You can do whatever you want.” This woman voiced a sad reality that is the mindset of many people today - as the church we can get stuck looking back to “how it used to be” and wanting to go back there - but friends, the church is never going back there. Or we want what the church has to offer us now - but recognize with the struggles the church faces - the church of the future is a big question mark, a point of anxiety - or even that the church of the future needs to look much different from the church of the present and we *like* the church of the present so...make changes, sure...but not on my watch!

And these are pitfalls that we can so easily fall into but we do not need to get trapped in them because the church NEEDS to be looking forward. We are called to look forward. We are called to look towards the children and youth of today, and even the children and youth that will follow them, and boldly make the church be the church of the future, the church for them - trusting in God’s promises that no matter what church looks like, who it’s comprised of, if the institution stays or goes, if the building stays or goes, if this changes or that changes - trusting in God’s promises that God will be there for every generation.

Which brings us to our second Scripture of the day, the Magnificat, also known as Mary’s song from the Gospel of Luke. Mary, pregnant with Jesus, visits the house of her cousin Elizabeth. When Elizabeth sees Mary and affirms her and the child inside her, Mary bursts out into praise and song. It is a song of praise. And it is also a song of revolution, a song of challenging the status quo, a song where Mary imagines a more just and equitable world for the generations that are to come, from every generation forward - thanks to the child in her womb, based on trusting God’s promises, all that God has done, all that God is doing, all that God will do.

She sings “his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.”

Other translations use the word honor in place of fear. It’s getting at that wonder, awe, trembling that we have before the almighty God. It could be said, “his mercy is for those who love the Lord their God will all their heart, soul, and might - from generation to generation.”

Mary’s song is a song of JOY, of rejoicing - My soul magnifies the Lord and my Spirit rejoices in God my Savior!” For Mary is looking not only at the past and the present - but is looking toward the future, hoping, trusting, rejoicing in all that God will do.

Today, we are called to rejoice alongside Mary.

Let’s do that, repeat after me:

My soul magnifies the Lord (repeat)
My spirit rejoices in God my savior (repeat)

We are called to look back, to know that great lineage of faith we inherit when we claim Christ and Christ claims us.

We are called to tend to the present - to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and might - and loving our neighbor as self - so too our neighbors who comprise youth, children, and generations to come.

And we are called to look forward - having deep trust in God’s promises. And what do we call having deep trusts in God’s promises? The deep trust that knowing through God all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well?

We call that joy!

We look to the future not with anxiety or fear...but with rejoicing!

For we KNOW that God’s mercy is for every generation, the faith that passed on to us and the faith that we pass on.

God’s goodness extends in a long line behind us, to creation and before. God’s goodness is here now. God’s goodness extends to the next generation and to the next and to the next, until the last generation, and even then beyond.

Now that is cause for rejoicing.

Let’s end this sermon one more time with a repeat after me for all of God’s goodness and God’s promises:

My soul magnifies the Lord! (repeat)
And my Spirit rejoices in God my savior! (Repeat)

From generation to generation. Amen.