Luke 1:46-55
Advent 4
December 24, 2017
William G. Carter
And Mary said, “My soul
magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his
name.
His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in
the thoughts of their hearts.
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.
He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and
to his descendants forever.”
It’s one of the most beautiful poems in all of scripture. The song of
Mary is often called “the Magnificat,” the title taken from the Latin word for
“magnify.” These lyrical words have been set to music by a list of composers a
mile long, including Telemann, Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Vaughan Williams,
Rachmaninoff, Arvo Part, and John Rutter.[1]
You're certainly welcome to hum the words as I preach along.
But I'm sure you noticed, even in the setting of the text that came as
our first hymn, that the text of the poem is explosive.
When Adolf Hitler was rising to power in 1933, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
preached a sermon on the words. He said, "It is the most passionate, most vehement, one might almost say,
most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. It is not the gentle, sweet, dreamy
Mary that we so often see portrayed in pictures, but the passionate, powerful,
proud, enthusiastic Mary, who speaks here. None of the sweet, sugary, or childish
tones that we find so often in our Christmas hymns, but a hard, strong,
uncompromising song of bringing down rulers from their thrones and humbling the
lords of this world."[2]
If you desire a stress-free,
merry little Christmas, this will not be the text for you. It's certainly not
the kind of text we're going to encounter on the Hallmark channel, where the
holiday movies are mostly about white people in expensive houses having travel
difficulties and angst about their relationships. No, the Magnificat is about
revolution.
Did you know that when the British ruled India, this text was not
allowed to be sung in the churches? Or that the government of Guatemala was
brutally keeping an oppressive thumb on its people, the rulers reportedly
banned people from even reading the text out loud? [3]
Writing from a privileged university position in Britain, C.S. Lewis
said, "The Magnificat is terrifying," one of the Bible texts
"which should make our blood run cold." He points out, "There
are no cursings here, no hatred, no self-righteousness. Instead, there is mere
statement. He has scattered the proud, cast down the mighty, sent the rich
empty away...not (stated) with fierce exultation, yet -- who can mistake the
tone? -- in a calm and terrible gladness."[4]
I wish I could soften the text for us somehow, perhaps make it as sweet
as a snicker doodle, or lilt like a Bethlehem lullabye. But this is the Bible,
the real Bible. And if we are courage enough and honest enough to hear what the
Bible is saying, we will hear that there is a revolution brewing -- and it is
God’s revolution. And the revolution is called “Christmas.”
This passage comes in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, a book
that focuses entirely on Jesus. Mary’s song is an overture of the whole story, a
plot summary of the Gospel of Luke.
Christmas, as you remember, begins with an inconvenient birth. Emperor
Augustus sits on his throne in far-away Rome. He has to raise funding for the
soldiers he has sent to occupy the troublesome hotspot of Palestine. So he
decides to take a census and count all the people who live there, so he can put
the tax burden on their shoulders. They will pay for the Roman soldiers who
occupy their land.
Meanwhile, the Emperor of the Universe announces the Savior of the
World will be born in a little town that hardly anybody remembers. Ancient king
David was born there a thousand years before. Not only that, the angel
messengers are not sent to announce the news in the palaces of the global
powers, but to anonymous sheep herders in the hills – they are nobodies, who
will probably not even show up on Caesar’s census.
Do you see the move? The powerful, like Caesar, are brought down from
their thrones, and the lowly are lifted up. And this is God’s doing.
Throughout his ministry, Jesus will fill the hungry with good things.
He will fill their hearts with the truth about God, he will fill their stomachs
with fish and bread, and he will fill their broken bones and fractured spirits
with the healing power of God. The needy and the poor will flock to Jesus like
sheep who need a shepherd.
Meanwhile, his work will also capture the imagination of those who are
well off, who also come with their own needs. Jesus will heal everybody without
discriminating, never asking how much they can pay.
But if they want to use him for their own purposes, they will be
disappointed. One rich man wanted to buy some eternal life; Jesus said, “OK,
give everything away to the poor and follow me.” The rich man went away empty.
It’s just like mother Mary said.
Or this: “He has shown strength with his arm.” Jesus will calm the
raging storm, and cast out the craziness from a wild man. He will breathe
resurrection life into children who died too soon, and empower the crippled to
stand up straight with dignity.
But “he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts,”
beginning with those who schemed to eliminate him. Over and over again, he
slips away from their murderous intents, first in Nazareth (4:30), then at a
dinner party with scribes and Pharisees (11:53), even on the road to the cross
that he freely chooses (13:31). When his enemies finally do condemn him and put
him on the cross, Jesus slips away on the third day. In the Gospel of Christ,
it does not pay to be proud.
Mary sings all of this on the second page of Luke’s book, long before
it happens. How did she know? Was she a prophet? Was the Spirit of God filling
her with wisdom and insight? Yes, most certainly; God gives holy wisdom to
women. That will be another theme in the Gospel of Luke. But there’s more to it
than that.
Mary knows about the revolution of God because she knows her Bible.
Even if she was illiterate, like most teenage young women of her time and
place, she had heard the scriptures so frequently that she took them into her
soul. That’s why the Song of Mary, this Magnificat, is full of treasured
promises from the Hebrew Bible.
The primary source is the Song of Hannah (1 Samuel 2:1-10), another
barren woman that God gifted with a child. Hannah’s song in the first book of
Samuel begins with the words, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” and pretty much
lays out the same script. But Mary’s song of praise also takes verses from the
Psalms, the prophets, the book of Job, even the Wisdom of Sirach. She doesn’t
need to sing something original because the promises are already there.
What Mary announces is that the revolution is going to happen in Jesus.
God is going to start changing the world through the birth of Mary’s child. And
the revolution is going to continue in those who trust her son and trust her
words. God’s new creation is not for those who are proud and arrogant. It’s not
for those who use their power to plunder and take advantage of others. The
promises of God are for the hungry, not the satiated; for the lowly, not the
lofty; for those who mourn, not those who demean others (6:20-26).
As Jesus will say after he grows up, “Blessed is the one who takes no
offense at me.” (7:23)
To perceive Christmas as a revolution, and not merely as a holiday of
over consumption, will involve taking stock of where we stand, the kind of
thing that Jesus invites us to do repeatedly. For instance: “The first shall be
last, and the last will be first.” Well, which ones are we?
If we scramble to the top of the heap, using every device and desire to
claw our way ahead of everyone else, we will miss out on God, who is born to peasants
and placed in a feeding trough. Those first in line may convince themselves
that they have an advantage over others, but the truth is that they are missing
out on the joy of actually being of service to those in need.
Or, again: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who
humble themselves will be exalted.” (18:14). Which ones are we? Is life about
inflating the resume, advancing the career, impressing the neighbors, standing
on the tips of your toes? Or is it about standing with your feet flat on the
floor, down to earth, accessible, available, and real.
Just the other night, I stood with a young friend at a Christmas party,
watching his two little kids twirl and spin to “Jingle Bell Rock.” He was
telling me his hopes to enlarge his business and make a name for himself. I
interrupted as kindly as I could, pointed to his kids, and said, “This has to
come before everything else. You could blink and they’ll be grown up. Don’t
miss out on your kids.” He looked a little stunned. Just then his wife came up,
nodded at the little girl, and said, “Could you change a stinky diaper?” Ah, how
the exalted have been humbled.
Mary sings of God’s revolution, a fundamental realignment to how God
created the world in the beginning. This revolution will not carried out with
the weapons and armaments to which our world has become addicted, but a revolution
undertaken through kindness. It's every bit as subversive, maybe more so,
because it means that, thanks to the birth of Jesus among us, this old, weary
world "is about to turn."
The spiritual writer Kathleen Norris puts it this way:
The
Magnificat reminds us that what we most value, all that gives us status -
power, pride, strength and wealth - can be a barrier to receiving what God has
in store for us. If we have it all, or think we can buy it all, there will be
no Christmas for us. If we are full of ourselves, there will be no room for God
to enter our hearts at Christmas. Mary's prayer of praise, like many of
the psalms, calls us to consider our true condition: God is God, and we are the
creatures God formed out of earth...
And
if we hope to rise in God's new creation, where love and justice will reign
triumphant, our responsibility, here and now, is to reject the temptation to
employ power and force and oppression against those weaker than ourselves. We
honor the Incarnation best by honoring God's image in all people, and seeking
to make this world into a place of welcome for the Prince of Peace.[5]
I can't think of a better Christmas wish for
any of us, than "to make this world into a place of welcome for the Prince
of Peace." It matters how we lives, what we do with these lives, and how
we prepare the Way for Christ to live among us. For he is coming in the
fullness of his power, and he will make everything as God intends it to be.
So we can join our hearts with Mary, who
says:
My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of
your justice burn,
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world
is about to turn.[6]
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
[1]
See the partial list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Magnificat_composers
[4] C.
S. Lewis, "The Psalms" in Christian
Reflections (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1967) 120-121.
[5]
Kathleen Norris, God With Us:
Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press,
2007) 113-114.
[6]
Rory Cooney, "Canticle of the Turning," GIA Publications.
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