Why Not Me?

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.

-Luke 1:52-53

The song of Mary, the Magnificat, is read during every traditional evening prayer service, or evensong. It was read one night back in the 60’s at an evening prayer service at St. James, at which Jonathan Daniels felt a call to answer Martin Luther King’s invitation to clergy and seminarians to go to Selma. Mary’s words, proclaiming the justice of God for the poor and oppressed moved him.

When I read the verses above, I find myself wondering how Mary was so sure that God was bringing down the powerful from their thrones, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry with good things or sending the rich away empty. The world I know is one in which the rich just get richer and the poor just keep suffering. It’s a world in which the more things change the more they stay the same, and even food stamps are taken away.

But Mary had just encountered the presence of God when she said these words - not just in her room, but in her own body and her own being. She felt God’s profound love for her, even though she was meek and lowly, merely a poor servant. She accepted God’s call to take an important role in bringing Christ into the world. She had tapped into a reality - God’s reality - which is much, much bigger, wider and deeper than our own. She could suddenly see that she was a part of a long line of faithful people, all praising God, all embraced and loved and called to serve despite any particular present circumstances.

A lot can happen when one moves from complaining, “Why Me?” to recognizing “Why not me?” and from thinking, “What can I possibly do?” to “Perhaps God can actually use me for good.”

The other reading Jonathan Daniels heard on that evening at St. James long ago was the call of Isaiah. in that story, when at first God appears to Isaiah and calls him to be a prophet, Isaiah says “Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips, and I come from a people with unclean lips!” Why would you ever choose me? But then, in a leap of faith Isaiah agrees. When God asks, “Who shall go for us?” Isaiah responds, “Here I am - Send me!” Isaiah, like Mary, decided to stand up and say yes.

God invites us to stand up in the face of corruption, to stand up for the poor and oppressed, to stand up for what is loving and compassionate, to stand up for Christ. We at St. James are fortunate to have a local model of this - a faithful witness of one of the Episcopal Church’s named saints. Many of us here even knew this Episcopal saint personally. Jonathan Daniels stood up to the sin of systemic racism saying, “Here am I, send me.” As Bishop Curry says in the recorded service we will see on Sunday, Jon was just a normal, average Episcopalian. What started his amazing journey was when he stood up and said yes.

Why not me? Others suffer, why should I feel I should not suffer? Why not me? Others fight for basic human rights and dignity. Why shouldn’t I stand at their side? Why not me? Others risk themselves and their own comfort for what is right, why shouldn’t I risk in faith, too? Why not me?

These are questions for each of us normal, average Episcopalians, living in the midst of the many turmoils and injustices of our own time. Who will stand up and say yes to bringing God into the world, like Mary? Who will stand up to speak truth to power, like Isaiah? Who will leave the comfort of an advantaged life to stand up for the poor and oppressed, like Jonathan? Here we are. Send us!

The readings for this Sunday are HERE. Note that because of Jonathan’s experience here during Evensong at St. James, we use Isaiah 6:1-8 as the Old Testament reading instead of the Proverbs reading.