This year, with the pandemic, has been particularly hard for those who struggle for their sobriety day by day.

When reading Mary’s Magnificat song, I am reminded of Lou Gerhig’s speech about being the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Just how is Mary lucky? I am of the opinion that the Holy Spirit did a full disclosure — or at least she knew on a deep, intuitive level, the sorrow this pregnancy would bring her. We do well to name the three parts of Mary’s misfortune: 1) the active shaming by family and neighbors of her having a child out of wedlock, that continues for decades and is even amplified when that child is grown 2) her own misunderstanding and the suspicions of those around her, as to whether Jesus was in his right mind 3) the agonizing day when she watched her son die on the cross.  How is she the most blessed among women?

The Magnificat is a song of the oppressed — it is important not to gloss over the people Mary is identifying with — the hungry, the impoverished, and particularly, the nation-people groups who have been colonized by a foreign military power. Mary’s song could get her on the Roman government's watch list of suspected terrorists.

Who makes your list? When we look at Hebrews 11, we are seeing a list of the people this first century Christian preacher thought were the best examples of faith. Today, our ‘the greatest’ list might include someone from the Olympics, like Micheal Phelps, or a past sport legend like Mohammed Ali. I don’t have any sports people on my personal list. I have the architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the singer Paul Simon, who captured my definition for a hero with the lyrics, “When I run dry, I’ll stop a while and think of you.”  The Hebrew 11 list is short on architects and sports icons, but it does include the walls of Jericho, Sampson the demolisher of temples, and David who danced half-naked before the Lord (not yet an olympic sport).

Elijah was a very rare individual, but he wasn’t unique. His type of faith is repeated several times in the bible — most clearly in John the Baptist. While most people waver between opinions, Elijah represents the voice in any real world situation that is willing to have their position tested. In the workplace there are those who hope that the boss doesn’t take a sample of their work, and there are those who invite criticism because they know that they have made the right choice. In the political world, there are the many who hide what they are doing and the few that are willing to act with transparency.

History sends Elijah type people into every generation. They call us to truth. They call us to honesty. They call us to act out of our convictions. The generation before ours had Dorothea Dix, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dag Hammarskjöld (and that’s just working with the d’s). What about our generation? I think of the way Al Gore has challenged us to get off the fence in terms of climate change. Who else? What ever name you say will be controversial. Elijah was controversial.