Subtitle: à la The Magnificat
Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord…(who) shows strength (in) scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry, and sending the rich away empty.”[1]
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Our boastfulness is turned to shame, our profit counts as loss,
when earthly values stand beside the manger and the cross.[2]
According to the canonical gospel accounts, Jesus was born in the humblest estate; his birthing crib, a feeding trough for animals.
He was a Jew. A people with a history of oppression and, in his day, whose land was occupied by an imperialistic empire.
Throughout his ministry, he sought out the lost, spoke for the least, stood by the left behind, and served the last.
He died, a criminal of the state, an ignominious death, nailed to the empire’s executing cross.
How, then, in heaven’s name (or in the hell!) has Jesus, for two millennia, for far too many in the realms of politics and religion, been made a banner bearer for worldly power and earthly prosperity?
© 2022 PRA
Photograph: 17th century copper alloy crucifix, Democratic Republic of the Congo
#Jesusweneverknewyou #Jesusstandsonthesideofthepoor #thepowerofservice #thepowerofselfsacrifice
[1] Luke 1.46, 51-53; my revision
[2] From the hymn, Can we by searching find out God (1980) by Elizabeth Joan Cosnett (1936- )
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 