December 23, 2018
Luke 1:39-55
I’m generally the first to arrive in the office on weekday mornings. In fact, in the winter darkness lately, I’ve been picking my outfits by the light of my cell phone and tiptoeing out of the house in the semi-darkness so as not to wake up my kids. There are some downsides to this. Like, one day last week I arrived to find there was paint all over my sweater. But most of the time, the benefits are greater. Most importantly, I get to be present with my kids after school -- but also I fly down the GW Parkway with no traffic and nothing but green lights in Old Town, and arrive to limitless parking options and uncanny quiet in the office. I’ve grown to love the office at that hour. There is something sort of sacred about the quiet darkness.
On Monday this week, I began my day as usual. I made my way here as the sun rose over the river and got situated in my office. Since I was on to preach today, I took the opportunity of quiet to start looking at today’s readings. So far, a fairly normal morning. But then, all of a sudden, I heard a beautiful woman’s voice singing. I can’t do the tune or her voice justice, so I won’t try to sing it, but her words were: “Bless these bags and these children. Keep them warm, keep them safe. For in this world they have no voice.” At first, I was confused, but then I realized it was the day that the massive collection of Angel Tree presents this congregation had donated were being moved by truckload from the Church to be delivered. Before long the office would be full of helpful people hauling bikes and moving bags and boxes. But until then, the song was a beautiful blessing over the presents; one woman’s prayer for all those who would receive the gifts so many in this parish had bought and organized and wrapped. I’m not even sure who it was singing because I was afraid that if I came out or made any noise, the beautiful song would stop. And I knew how much this blessing was probably needed by the people who would receive these gifts, and so I just listened and added my prayers to hers.
It would have been a gift to overhear this song anytime, but it was especially haunting because the beauty and hope of the singing echoed what I had been in the middle of reading -- the Song of Mary, commonly known as the Magnificat from the Latin version of its first line (“My soul magnifies the Lord”). This is the piece which we read a few minutes ago in the place of a psalm and which also directly follows the chunk from Luke’s gospel that we just heard.
Newly pregnant Mary has arrived at her cousin Elizabeth’s house, and Elizabeth’s child (soon to be known to the world as John the Baptist) leaps for joy in her womb. Elizabeth blesses Mary, and Mary responds with this ancient song of praise. A song that is wild and impossible.
Just consider the singer. The one singing about how the Mighty One has done great things for her is a young, unmarried woman. A nobody from a small town. She is poor and powerless. And that’s all true before she becomes pregnant. With this growing addition, she isn’t only on the margins of society. Now she could be stoned as an adulteress, or at the very least, deserted by family and friends and all of decent society and left with nothing, forced into who-knows-what kind of life to support herself and her child. Her vulnerability is almost unfathomable in our society. You would expect nothing but confusion and fear from someone like Mary.
Here’s how Frederick Buechner imagines Mary, through the eyes of the angel Gabriel: "She struck him as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child. But the angel had been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. ’You mustn’t be afraid, Mary,’ he said. As he said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great golden wings, he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of Creation hung on the answer of this girl."
How could she be God’s choice for such a crucial role? Yet Mary, who has nothing -- no money, no power, no safety, no assurance of future -- finds the courage to sing about how blessed she is by God. Mary sings of her spirit rejoicing when her entire world -- all that she is and all that she’s known -- has been undone and teeters on the brink because of this pregnancy. She has no idea what will become of this baby or herself. And yet she sings.
And she doesn’t sing sweetly, demurely, calmly. At least I doubt it. I’m betting Mary sings with her jaws clenched and her nails digging into her palms. This is Mary’s fight song. And it is stunning.
We tend to picture Mary as a meek, blue clad Mona Lisa. But in reality, Mary is a revolutionary figure. The Magnificat has actually been banned by oppressive governments because of it’s dangerous and subversive lyrics. Because Mary sings not just for herself, but for all people everywhere who need to hear that our God is making a way where there is no way. The oppressed and the powerless, the enslaved and the imprisoned, the dying and those who mourn, the homeless and the hopeless. Mary gives a voice to the voiceless, shines a light in all of the dark places of our hearts, our lives, our communities, our world. Mary sings of a world transformed -- the proud scattered, the powerful brought down from their thrones, the rich sent away empty. This is a song about God showing up in the margins and turning the world upside down.
Now, granted, it wouldn’t seem like there was a lot of evidence of this for someone like Mary to be comforted by. Her reality was entirely different from the song she sings. Her people lived under the brute force of Rome, too fearful to challenge their heavy oppressors. And her local religious culture was dominated by rules of status and hierarchy that excluded someone like her. It’s hard to believe she could even imagine the kind of hope and promise that she sings about.
And yet, Mary’s song is sung in the past tense. She speaks about God’s promised reversals as if they have already happened -- as if the world has already been righted and restored. Her vision of what was possible with God was so powerful, so rooted in hope, that she could already smell and touch and taste it.
Even though everything around her screams to the contrary, somehow in this moment, Mary is able to see the world as God dreams it, all creation reconciled, the paths made straight, no more crying, no more fear. In this moment Mary knows that the Dream of God is a certain reality that has already begun unfolding, and that the world is rife with hope and possibility. God is already at work; the revolution has already begun. And Mary is confident that she is part of it, as inconsequential as the world might consider her.
And so, this improbable girl who made space for the spaceless One belts out her own participation in God’s work in the world. She isn’t a passive vessel - she is the Theotokos, the God Bearer. She has found her voice and her connection to the larger story of God. She predicts -- and rightly so -- that all generations will call her blessed for her part in the great mystery of the Incarnation.
So what about us? How can we claim Mary’s hope, imagining the world already unfolding into the Dream of God? And how can we, like Mary, know our ordinary selves to be God-bearers like Mary, called to participate in the transformation? What will our song be?
Luke 1:39-55
I’m generally the first to arrive in the office on weekday mornings. In fact, in the winter darkness lately, I’ve been picking my outfits by the light of my cell phone and tiptoeing out of the house in the semi-darkness so as not to wake up my kids. There are some downsides to this. Like, one day last week I arrived to find there was paint all over my sweater. But most of the time, the benefits are greater. Most importantly, I get to be present with my kids after school -- but also I fly down the GW Parkway with no traffic and nothing but green lights in Old Town, and arrive to limitless parking options and uncanny quiet in the office. I’ve grown to love the office at that hour. There is something sort of sacred about the quiet darkness.
On Monday this week, I began my day as usual. I made my way here as the sun rose over the river and got situated in my office. Since I was on to preach today, I took the opportunity of quiet to start looking at today’s readings. So far, a fairly normal morning. But then, all of a sudden, I heard a beautiful woman’s voice singing. I can’t do the tune or her voice justice, so I won’t try to sing it, but her words were: “Bless these bags and these children. Keep them warm, keep them safe. For in this world they have no voice.” At first, I was confused, but then I realized it was the day that the massive collection of Angel Tree presents this congregation had donated were being moved by truckload from the Church to be delivered. Before long the office would be full of helpful people hauling bikes and moving bags and boxes. But until then, the song was a beautiful blessing over the presents; one woman’s prayer for all those who would receive the gifts so many in this parish had bought and organized and wrapped. I’m not even sure who it was singing because I was afraid that if I came out or made any noise, the beautiful song would stop. And I knew how much this blessing was probably needed by the people who would receive these gifts, and so I just listened and added my prayers to hers.
It would have been a gift to overhear this song anytime, but it was especially haunting because the beauty and hope of the singing echoed what I had been in the middle of reading -- the Song of Mary, commonly known as the Magnificat from the Latin version of its first line (“My soul magnifies the Lord”). This is the piece which we read a few minutes ago in the place of a psalm and which also directly follows the chunk from Luke’s gospel that we just heard.
Newly pregnant Mary has arrived at her cousin Elizabeth’s house, and Elizabeth’s child (soon to be known to the world as John the Baptist) leaps for joy in her womb. Elizabeth blesses Mary, and Mary responds with this ancient song of praise. A song that is wild and impossible.
Just consider the singer. The one singing about how the Mighty One has done great things for her is a young, unmarried woman. A nobody from a small town. She is poor and powerless. And that’s all true before she becomes pregnant. With this growing addition, she isn’t only on the margins of society. Now she could be stoned as an adulteress, or at the very least, deserted by family and friends and all of decent society and left with nothing, forced into who-knows-what kind of life to support herself and her child. Her vulnerability is almost unfathomable in our society. You would expect nothing but confusion and fear from someone like Mary.
Here’s how Frederick Buechner imagines Mary, through the eyes of the angel Gabriel: "She struck him as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child. But the angel had been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. ’You mustn’t be afraid, Mary,’ he said. As he said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great golden wings, he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of Creation hung on the answer of this girl."
How could she be God’s choice for such a crucial role? Yet Mary, who has nothing -- no money, no power, no safety, no assurance of future -- finds the courage to sing about how blessed she is by God. Mary sings of her spirit rejoicing when her entire world -- all that she is and all that she’s known -- has been undone and teeters on the brink because of this pregnancy. She has no idea what will become of this baby or herself. And yet she sings.
And she doesn’t sing sweetly, demurely, calmly. At least I doubt it. I’m betting Mary sings with her jaws clenched and her nails digging into her palms. This is Mary’s fight song. And it is stunning.
We tend to picture Mary as a meek, blue clad Mona Lisa. But in reality, Mary is a revolutionary figure. The Magnificat has actually been banned by oppressive governments because of it’s dangerous and subversive lyrics. Because Mary sings not just for herself, but for all people everywhere who need to hear that our God is making a way where there is no way. The oppressed and the powerless, the enslaved and the imprisoned, the dying and those who mourn, the homeless and the hopeless. Mary gives a voice to the voiceless, shines a light in all of the dark places of our hearts, our lives, our communities, our world. Mary sings of a world transformed -- the proud scattered, the powerful brought down from their thrones, the rich sent away empty. This is a song about God showing up in the margins and turning the world upside down.
Now, granted, it wouldn’t seem like there was a lot of evidence of this for someone like Mary to be comforted by. Her reality was entirely different from the song she sings. Her people lived under the brute force of Rome, too fearful to challenge their heavy oppressors. And her local religious culture was dominated by rules of status and hierarchy that excluded someone like her. It’s hard to believe she could even imagine the kind of hope and promise that she sings about.
And yet, Mary’s song is sung in the past tense. She speaks about God’s promised reversals as if they have already happened -- as if the world has already been righted and restored. Her vision of what was possible with God was so powerful, so rooted in hope, that she could already smell and touch and taste it.
Even though everything around her screams to the contrary, somehow in this moment, Mary is able to see the world as God dreams it, all creation reconciled, the paths made straight, no more crying, no more fear. In this moment Mary knows that the Dream of God is a certain reality that has already begun unfolding, and that the world is rife with hope and possibility. God is already at work; the revolution has already begun. And Mary is confident that she is part of it, as inconsequential as the world might consider her.
And so, this improbable girl who made space for the spaceless One belts out her own participation in God’s work in the world. She isn’t a passive vessel - she is the Theotokos, the God Bearer. She has found her voice and her connection to the larger story of God. She predicts -- and rightly so -- that all generations will call her blessed for her part in the great mystery of the Incarnation.
So what about us? How can we claim Mary’s hope, imagining the world already unfolding into the Dream of God? And how can we, like Mary, know our ordinary selves to be God-bearers like Mary, called to participate in the transformation? What will our song be?
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