“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.”
Luke 1:46-55, NRSV
But it was never meant for those places. It was never meant for those people. And as we sing it here in our own sanctuary, I have to say, it wasn’t meant for a space like this either.
Mary has been exalted as the most important woman in Christian history, yet I doubt she would have felt comfortable in a place like our sanctuary, or many of the other sanctuaries where her song has been shared. Mary did not come out of a place of power, comfort and privilege. She was not rich or important. She was one of the oppressed.
Mary was a young woman in a society where women were property. She was unmarried and pregnant, in a place where she could be put to death for such a transgression. She was poor, in a world where money has always determined status. She was a religious and ethnic minority. And she was a member of a conquered nation, living under an oppressive regime that did not grant her or her people full citizenship or rights. Mary was among the lowly and oppressed. And so she sang this song that we read today.
She sang this song in praise of the God that she experienced both throughout her own life and who was revealed to her people throughout the scriptures: not the God of the powerful but the God who does great things for the lowly and scatters the proud. She sang praises to the God who feeds the hungry and sends the rich away with nothing, the God who frees the oppressed and tears the tyrant down from his throne, the God who gives hope to people like herself. She sang this song because in her lowliness, in her oppression, in her captivity, God had looked upon her with favor and blessed her. She sang this song because God had remembered the promise made over a thousand years before to her ancestor Abraham, that all nations would be blessed through his descendants. She sang because she knew the child she carried would be the hope and liberation of her people, the Messiah, the Savior, the one the world was waiting for. That child who she praised God for would be the one to heal lepers and eat with tax collectors and the other “sinners” of his day. That child would be the one to condemn the religious and political leaders who upheld systems of injustice, and overturn the tables of the moneychangers in the temple. That child would be the one to teach peace, justice, mercy, and love. That child that Mary carried within her was the hope of nations, and the fulfillment of God’s promise. And for that Mary sang.
But this song she sang was not written for places like this.
Mary’s song is the song of the oppressed. It is a song for the people who are daily refused their rights because of who, what, or where they were born. It was written for the people whom the world believes are less than human. It is for the people whom we have forgotten are due the same dignity and respect and love as the rest of us. It reminds those people, you too are beloved creations of God, and God has not forgotten you. It is a song that gives hope to the oppressed that their freedom is coming through Jesus Christ.
Mary’s song was not meant for people like us. It was meant for those who march in the streets shouting black lives matter and for the mothers who fear for the lives of their black sons every time they leave the house. It was meant for those who wave rainbow flags at pride and for the victims of hate crimes, whose lives are stolen, whose houses are burned down with their pets inside because they dare to live as God created them to be. It was meant for colonized nations like Puerto Rico who are still denied full citizenship and rights by their colonizers and occupied peoples like Palestinians who suffer daily under violent and oppressive regimes. It was meant for refugees who travel hundreds of miles to flee the violence that destroyed their homes only to be told they have to go back. It was meant for immigrants who work the worst jobs for pennies on the dollar in the hope that their families might have better lives. It was meant for the people working three jobs, 70 hours a week just to get by, stuck in an endless cycle of poverty, who are told if they just stop being lazy and work harder they can get rich too. It was meant for the women who are too afraid to seek justice for the violence done against them, and the ones who try but aren’t believed.
And if you can identify with any of these statements, Mary sang this song for you, because this song was meant to give hope to all marginalized peoples.
Yet as it has been put to music and sung over and over throughout the centuries, the meaning and power of the words has been lost to us. Mary’s song gives the oppressed a voice, yet when we sing it from our context of privilege, we silence that voice. When we sing it without considering that it was written from a context of oppression, we forget the people it was written for, and the true meaning of the song is lost. We hear the beautiful music, but we miss the message.
This song is not good news for all people. It is not a song of comfort for the rich and powerful. This is a song that should strike fear into the hearts of all who support corrupt and injustice systems, because it declares that God is not on their side, but on the side of those they have harmed. In fact this song has struck so much fear into the hearts of corrupt leaders that it has been banned three times in recent history for being too subversive: First in churches in India while it was under British rule. Second in the 1980s the Guatemalan government banned any public reading of it because they discovered it was leading the poor to believe that social and political change was possible. And third in Argentina, during the Dirty War of the 70s and 80s, it was banned by the government after the Mothers of Plaza del Mayo, whose children had disappeared as a result of the war, hung posters with the words of the song throughout the capital. When leaders have really paid attention to the words, they have feared that it will give inspiration to the people on the margins and what that inspiration will mean for those in power, because Mary is speaking words of hope for people like her, but words of warning for her oppressors: God’s justice is coming, and it does not bode well for you.
We cannot sing this song lightly. We cannot skim over the offensive middle parts and ignore the message that Mary is speaking to us. We cannot sing it without considering her words and her context and what they mean for the marginalized. When we sing this song we must remember who it was written for. We must sing it in solidarity with the oppressed, and lift up their voices so that all may hear and understand these words of hope. We can sing this song in this place, but we must remember that it does not fit in this place. It belongs in the struggles for freedom from injustice.
It may be tempting to stay away from these issues, to say we don’t want to be political, or we just want to stay neutral. But I have news for you, Jesus was political. He taught his followers to go against the status quo, to stand up for the marginalized and care for the least of these. He showed us that staying neutral is not an option. There is no neutrality. To stay neutral in systems of injustice is to side with the oppressors, to give oppression and corruption legitimacy. To be faithful to our God, who created all people to be equal, who has a special place in his heart for the marginalized, means to stand with the oppressed. It means opposing politicians and policies that harm already vulnerable communities. It means supporting equality for all people regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status. It means listening to and lifting up the voices of the marginalized and supporting them in their struggle for justice. If we sing this song here in this place it means that we choose to stand with the oppressed, because it is in their struggles that we encounter God.
Listen to the words of Mary’s song again, and remember for whom it was written and the hope it represents for those people. Listen and ponder whether you are ready to stand with the marginalized as our Savior calls us to:
“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.”
Luke 1:46-55, NRSV
The Presbyterian Peacemaking Program provides a daily lectionary of scriptures based on themes of peace and peacemaking. Over the course of 2019-20 I’ll be basing my blogs on one or more of the scriptures from each week’s lectionary. If you would like to follow along in the lectionary with me, here are next week’s scriptures:
Sunday – Exodus 16
Monday – Jeremiah 46:27-28
Tuesday – Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Wednesday – Psalm 42
Thursday – Mark 1:1-8
Friday – Acts 16:16-40
Saturday – 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11