| August 15, 2001 Revelation 11 19, 12.1-6, 10 + 1 Corinthians 15:20-27 + Luke 1:39-56 |
| In the ancient and modem Mediterranean lands, it is time to harvest the grape.It is not by chance that this feast settles so easily into this season, even though it presents a challenge to us living in this chmate.None the less, aware of that fact, our imaginations can do the work, and tease out of this Feast it’s most profound meaning.In this one woman, what we all desire, what lurks in the depth of every heart, and stirs every longingis to be carried, mercifully and lovingly, from death to life.That’s all there is to it,and this feast is that hope’s fulfillment. |
| It 1s something like the harvest going on these days over there. That grape, pulled from the vine,crushed and fermented in a kind of death springs to life in winesthat may cheer the lives of many and be used to present to the faithfulthe sacramental presence of the risen Christ in communion. |
| The story from the Book of Revelation, our first reading today is a great tale from Jewish apocalyptic taken for Christian use. That dragon’s quarrel is actually with the child, not the mother But once the tale is told, how can we separate the two?Mother and son have been so long associated in pain and passion that they come to be associated in gloryThis is our tradition which we celebrate today That’s all there is to it,and this feast is that hope’s fulfillment. |
| Mary’s Feast is the church’s harvest dayWe assemble here to ask God to raise the barren, the unloved, the forgotten, the poor, the little ones of this earth.We do so from our position of privilege and comfort, in this rich and powerful landin the hope that God’s justice will not pull us down. |
| The harvest of life in the church for us is a heart marked by conversion,a life lived in justice and mercy, in generosity and kindness.We wonder here today what harvest will be reaped from our lives while we hope to be carried from death to life,and we ask Mary to pray for usnow and at the hour of our death, at the moment of our harvestinto the great barn of God’s merciful reign. |