Luke 1:39-55 - Mary's Song

         In the Protestant church, we do not think very much about Mary, the mother of Jesus.  She figures much more prominently in Roman Catholicism.  If you have ever wandered through a great Gothic cathedral – or even ventured into a smaller Catholic church with a couple of alcoves, surely you have seen the statues, stone images of Mary the Madonna, set behind flickering votive candles lit in her honor. 

         When we were in Peru, we witnessed a full stage village procession on one of Mary’s many feast days.  Hundreds of people walked the parade route.  Some of them beat drums, others wore elaborate costumes, and still others set off firecrackers from the cliffs above the road.  The town priests and nuns were there in force, surrounding on all sides a large, highly ornate image of the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) which rode in a decorated basket-like thing held high on four stakes above the parading populace.

         Oh, do not get me wrong!  Mary pops up in our Protestant churches too – most often around Christmas.  We picture her in Bethlehem, looking radiant and spotless, as if she just stepped out of the pages of Vogue – or Seventeen – staring into the eyes of her newborn baby.  In addition, if we read the Gospel of John around Good Friday, we find her again, this time kneeling – a bit disheveled - at the foot of the cross, once again beholding her son.

         However, the Gospel of Luke, our focus Gospel for this coming church year, gives considerably more ink to this woman.  In fact, unlike the author of Mark who begins his Gospel with the baptism of Jesus, Matthew who embarks with a genealogy, or John who starts off at creation with the Word, the Gospel writer of Luke begins his narrative with Mary.

         In fact, the men are strangely quiet at the beginning of this gospel.  Zechariah the old priest and husband of Elizabeth has been struck mute, and Joseph – though he could - does not say a word.  We get our first clue about this Gospel writer’s perspective on the ministry of Jesus through Mary and her older cousin, Elizabeth.

       The Gospel writer tells us that God chose Mary to bear a son.  It all begins with that truth.  Imagine that!  What in the world was God thinking?  Mary was not rich.  She was not even married – though she was dating.  And she was only a teenager.  But in spite of those apparent strikes against her, God chose her.  Imagine that!

       No – Mary really could not imagine that.  I mean, what was God thinking?  Presbyterian pastor Adam Copeland puts it this way:  “There surely were better ways, right? Come as an adult and skip over those nasty cloth diapers and terrible twos — that sounds good. Or if God must be born as one of us, at least choose a respectable family. Someone married, with means; a family that has shown good parenting skills and is keeping up with the Joneses. Couldn’t God have found someone a bit more qualified than Mary?’

       She did said yes, of course – though undoubtedly with some level of shock because the news was more like a death sentence in a world where adultery was punishable by stoning.  Perhaps she wondered how many other virgins that angel had approached before he had come to her, and she had agreed. 

       On a less cosmic level, this pregnancy thing threw a monkey wrench in all her best-laid plans.  I mean, really, a young unmarried girl like herself in this shameful state!  Why – what would the neighbors say?  “Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little…”

       It is not every day either that you had to break this news to your family – and to your husband-to-be – and yes, Joseph was taking his own sweet time figuring out first whether he even believed her and second precisely what he was going to do.

       No wonder Mary struck off on her own to seek out her cousin, Elizabeth.  She needed support – and comfort.  She needed someone to give her a bit of perspective on it all – and a friend to assure her that she was up to the task. 

       And so she walked – alone, no easy feat –many miles up into the hill country of Judea.  And when she ended up on Elizabeth’s doorstep, she discovered two things.

       First, Mary found out that Elizabeth was also pregnant – and surely she felt some sense of relief in knowing that, yes, miracles do happen.  You see, her elderly cousin had given up on the idea of bearing children years ago, but here she was carrying a son who would grow up to be John the Baptizer. 

       And if Elizabeth ever wondered if it all was real, the baby gave her firm kick – perhaps one of the first she had felt – when she opened her door to find Mary standing on the stoop.  Luke describes it as the baby “leaping for joy.”       

       The second thing that Mary discovered was that everything was going to be OK.  And we know that because, even if Mary did not tell Elizabeth straight off the baby news, pregnant women can spot one of their kind a mile off, and the first words out of Elizabeth’s mouth was this affirmation:  “Blessed are you, Mary!”  Of all the women God could have chosen, God chose you – not a socialite, not a queen, but you, one of the lowly.  “Blessed are you, Mary – and blessed is the child you will bear!”

       And maybe it was just hearing those words that caused something in Mary to break open – like a floodgate.  But she did not cry like people usually do when the floodgates open.  Instead, Mary sang. 

       It was as if the song was part and parcel of her DNA, and she could hold it in no longer.  The song, the one that traditionally we have called the Magnificat, was part of her.  She and the words she sang were one.

"My soul magnifies the Lord.

My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,

for he has looked at the humble state of his handmaid.

For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed."

       Imagine that – God seeking out a peasant teenager and not only transforming her but also exalting her.  It makes you wonder what God could do with us if we were as courageous in saying “yes” as Mary was.

         In essence, when Mary sings, she is a prophet – like Micah or Isaiah – because the words she sings are God’s words:  God’s manifesto, God’s charter, God’s fundamental document outlining what the world should be.  Mary’s song is God’s call to revolution and transformation.

         Her song tells us in no uncertain terms that God changes the order of everything.  The world is turned upside down.  Before Mary came along, we might have been impressed with beauty, education, intellect, and affluence.  But now, it is easy to see that the poor are on top, and the rich are on the bottom.  At the very foundation of the Gospel of Luke is the premise that God’s compassion is for the economically poor.  Therein lies true justice.

         That is the gist of the Magnificat – the glorious song that Mary cannot help but sing out.  However, do not get caught up in the poetry and how it all flows so well together.  Do not get caught up in simply the music.  This is revolutionary stuff!

“God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts (she sings).

God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

God has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.”

         The song tells us in no uncertain terms that God is reversing everything.  Winners become losers, and losers become winners.  Our culture may say that the beautiful, the rich, the successful, and the secure are the ones who are blessed because they seem to have no worries.  Our culture may say that the one who dies with the most toys wins. 

         But Mary is telling us no.  God has another plan in mind.  And do not worry about Mary speaking in the past tense – as if that somehow lets us all these millennia later off the hook – because prophets always get their tenses mixed up.  As Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor notes “part of their gift is being able to see the world as God sees it--not divided into things that are already over and things that have not happened yet, but as an eternally unfolding mystery that surprises everyone."

         And if you do not want to believe this revolutionary stuff because it comes from a woman with a politically liberal bias, then remember that fellow named Jesus who came around a couple of decades later and echoed his mother’s song, “Blessed are the poor (he said), blessed are the hungry, blessed are the meek.”

         But let’s face it - these are tough words to swallow at Christmas time.  I am not sure we really want to hear this manifesto business as we make our way to Bethlehem.  To be honest, I would much rather go with the spotless Mary and the perfectly behaved stable animals. 

         I would rather start with “silent night holy night” instead of with that verse about bringing the powerful to their knees and sending the rich off hungry.  Why didn’t the Gospel writer just begin with the second chapter… “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus…”

         But the gospel writer did not do that: First things first, as the saying goes.  The Gospel writer understood that before Christmas comes Advent.  Before the birth is Mary’s song of revolution.

         And so the question for us who make our way to Bethlehem to honor the child she bears is this:  Can we sing her song?  As we teeter on the brink of the fiscal cliff, can we sing Mary’s song with the same courage and faith that she sang it 2000 plus years ago?  Can we be the revolutionaries that God calls us to be?

         Jim Wallis, a noted Christian evangelical and author of God’s Politics:  How the Right Gets is Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It wrote this about our current circumstances a couple of days ago in his blog:  “The discussion we are having about “the fiscal cliff” is really a debate about our fiscal soul. What kind of nation do we want to be? We do need a path to fiscal sustainability, but will it include all of us — especially the most vulnerable? It’s a foundational moral choice for the country…(Wallis says) I am strongly in favor of restoring previously higher tax rates for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans — and ending their unfair loopholes and deductions — but that still won’t raise enough revenue to move us toward fiscal sustainability while protecting the poor. We must make other choices in spending cuts and new revenues— but in clearly morally responsible ways. 

         Will we choose to protect demonstrably effective nutritional programs for low-income families instead of unjust subsidies to agribusiness? Or defend things like Pell Grants to enable students from low-income families to go to college for the first time over huge subsidies to profitable oil companies? Or help refinance mortgages for struggling single homeowners instead of retaining charitable tax deductions for second and third vacation homes? 

         Will we finally have an honest discussion about military spending and national security?...The faith community must urge (decision makers) to beat those swords into plowshares….The biblical prophets say that a nation’s “righteousness,” or integrity as we might say, is determined by how they treat the poorest and most vulnerable; and Jesus said how we respond to the least of these is indicative of how we respond to him.”

         Lutheran pastor, David Nelson writes, “In conceiving the child, Mary is a sign that God is in this life with us, down to the smallest, most basic, experience….a reminder that God's work gets done when otherwise ordinary people hear the voice of God and decide to say "yes."   Mary is a reminder that faith means following dreams -- dreams that begin with God - with courage and expectation.”

         And so the question for us who make our way to Bethlehem to honor the child Mary bears is this:  Can we sing her song?  Can we be the revolutionaries that God calls us to be?

         Because if we cannot, if we cannot embrace God’s manifesto, if we cannot sing Mary’s song from the depths of our souls, then we might as well forego Christmas because all the holiday will mean for us is more presents than we need and more food than we should eat.

         But if Mary’s song leaves you with a touch of hope, if Mary’s song ignites an imagination that has laid dormant for too long, if Mary’s song gives you a vision of a transformed world, and if you in the eyes of God can claim Mary’s song as your song, then come, come to the stable, come with the words of her song on your lips and with a new mother’s joy in your hearts because you are about to birth a new world, because you have made a commitment to follow the Child wherever he may lead.

         I invite you now to stand in solidarity with Mary and sing her song (Holy Is Your Name).

by Rev.Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church UCC

www.rvccme.org