We Protestants don’t know what to do with Mary. Because the doctrines of the Catholic church have turned Mary into a sweet passive icon of virginal purity, we Protestants have been content to leave her out of our gallery of biblical saints — except of course, for her obligatory appearance in our Christmas pageants.
Today in both scripture and song, we meet Mary again. The woman we meet this time is no quiescent vessel. Lifting up the radical reversals of God’s vision, this Mary predicts a revolution — the revolution that Jesus’ life and message will bring to the world. She reminds us that what will be — already is. The future is already present because God is in charge of the world. We have a choice. We can either get with the program and help God complete this revolution, or we will find ourselves scattered and sent empty away.
Mary’s passionate song of praise is rooted in the Hebrew scriptures. It echoes the main theme of Hannah’s song of praise — uttered by an old barren woman who has finally been blessed with fruitfulness of body and soul. And like Hannah, Mary is overwhelmed by the generosity of a graceful God who intentionally picks those who are lowly — barren women, teenage peasants, invisible people — ordinary sinners like you and me — yes, God picks us to do, and be, and bear good news for the world.
My daughter Anna works as a ninth grade English teacher in an inner city, all black high school in St. Louis. One of the challenges of her job has been to move beyond — to move behind — the images of mouthy, scary, black street kids that most of us suburbanites have created in our minds and hearts. Anna has learned that, indeed, urban teens are mouthy, but in a delightfully creative and energetic way. She has learned that the lack of discipline or achievement in many of their lives is a burden for them, as well as for the larger culture.
Like Mary, some of Anna’s fourteen-year-old girls are poor and pregnant outside of wedlock. As a result, they are stigmatized and rejected by the “proper” world. Anna sees one of her tasks as helping these teenage girls see their lives as possibilities and as channels of God’s grace. It’s too bad that in a public school Anna cannot have her girls read today’s text — for it is God’s emphatic promise that in the economy of God’s grace, the poor will be lifted up and the hungry will be filled with good things.
Mary’s song of praise is intended to be good news. It is the good news that the child she is bearing is the fulfillment of God’s dream and plan for the world — the good news that what God hopes for is already present in the very imagination of creation. And her God, our God, will not rest until this imagined realm of peace and justice and abundance and joy and hope for all is fully realized.
But, wait a minute, we might ask, though this vision of God is good news for the poor, for those who will be lifted up and filled with good things. How can this vision be good news for us — for those of us who, in comparison, are the proud and the rich that Mary’s song describes? The message seems pretty clear — the proud and the self-sufficient are scattered and the affluent and the successful are sent empty away. This is good news?
Absolutely! Because my friends, when we become proud and puffed up and full of ourselves and our accomplishments and our importance, there comes a point when we have no more room for God. And when we get too rich, when we get distracted by too many things and too many agendas and too much money, we begin to feel that God is no longer necessary — and we cut ourselves off from what really matters, what really fills our souls, what only comes from a full measure of God’s Spirit in our lives. What really matters is love, grace, worship, relationships, and joyful service in the world.
I think in my life, I get the “rich” part — the fact that because we are, relatively speaking, part of the 2% of richest folk in the world, it is our responsibility and our privilege to share that wealth extravagantly and sacrificially with those who have little. And the generosity of many congregations — especially for designated opportunities, disaster relief, special Christmas offerings — shows that we understand that giving generously not only helps the world, but makes us feel better. The good news is that the great economic reversal described in Mary’s revolutionary song, doesn’t do to the rich what the rich have been doing to the poor since the beginning of time. It doesn’t make them (us) poor. Instead it turns an ethic of scarcity for some and competition among all into an ethic of generosity, where everyone has what they need.
The part of this text about the rich, I get. But it is the proud part that I have been forced to learn. Serving as moderator of the PCUSA for a year was a thrilling and invigorating experience. But it was also, in some ways, very bad for my soul. You know, without even realizing it is happening, it can go to your head when people stand every time you enter a room — the custom for honoring the role of the moderator in our denomination. It can puff up a soul when people wine and dine you and say extravagant things about you all over the country and all around the world. And so for me, coming back down to earth, resuming the quotidian, repetitive duties of parish ministry — returning to a wonderful place where my weaknesses as well as my strengths are named, and I am reminded often that I am very, very human — all of this has been difficult, but very healing. Thank God that God has taken my pride and with gentle judgment, scattered it, so that I can reclaim the modesty and the ministry that is the real calling in my life.
My friends, when Mary sings her revolutionary song this morning, she is singing good news for all of us — rich and poor, proud and humble, ancient and modern. The life abundant in spirit and love is an abundance that all people in all times and places are called to create and to enjoy. But the main point of Mary’s melody is not to focus on us, but to focus on God. “My soul magnifies the Lord,” she sings. In other words, my soul, my life is a magnifying glass enlarging God. The blessings of my life are not about me — but about the one who blesses all of creation with hope and meaning.
We are left this morning with the purpose of the Christian life — a purpose defined by this model of discipleship named Mary. The purpose of our Christian lives is to bear the image of God within our very bodies, within our very souls. And when the Spirit of God fills us to the brim with blessings there simply is no longer room for the pride or the wealth that has distracted us in the past. It is then that we can magnify, that we can enlarge God’s presence for all the world to see.
At Bible study we heard the story of Miriam Smith, who was a Sunday school teacher at the Bethesda Presbyterian Church in the early 1950s. One of the mantras of Mrs. Smith’s Bible lessons was instructive not just to the children but to the adults as well. She said that when we allow our lives to magnify God, we automatically become small in comparison — not small in a poor-me sense, but small in a divine/human sense. In that smallness we can fit into that one unique spot each one of us has in this intricate puzzle called life — that one unique spot that only we can fill in God’s magnificent vision of peace and joy.
My friends, on this Rejoice Sunday in the season of Advent, let us commit ourselves to magnify God — to enlarge God — through the small, utterly unique gift of our irreplaceable lives.
May it be so for you and for me. Amen.