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Text: Luke 1:51b-52. Scripture: Luke 1:46-56
46 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
48 for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
50 His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
55 to Abraham and his descendants forever,
even as he said to our fathers.”
56 Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned
home.
We’ve just heard Mary sing--Mary, the mother of Jesus, not a Mary meek and mild, but a Mary with an edge to her; not a speechless little girl but a bold young women with a lip–
- a lip to give praise and bold thanks to God for making her a scandalously pregnant teenager,
- a lip that 30 years later she used to her own son when she asked him to do something when wedding hosts ran out of wine,
- a lip that her son Jesus seems to have inherited when he told her more than once to mind her own business.
And what WAS Mary’s business? Besides being a mother to Jesus, part of her business--even before giving birth to him--was to use that lip to speak God’s Word. But that Word would not make Mary a friend of the Roman Emperor. It was a Word that called to account the Roman Emperor, that—before, during, after Mary’s time and still now--calls to account all who consider themselves above the law of the land, above the human law of decency and respect, all who are high and lofty, too big for their britches. There are always people who are proud in their inmost thoughts. This is Mary and her business--
- Mary–thanking God with her lips for her son who would surely threaten to ruin her young reputation because of her unexplained pregnancy.
- Mary–recognizing herself as blessed for all generations to come because God chose her, one of the lowliest, most foolish things of the world to raise the lowly and oppressed, to lower the proud and the arrogant.
- Mary–“Incendiary Mary,” as the most recent ChristianityToday calls her (“The Mary We Never Knew,” Scot McKnight; December, 2006, p.26 ff.). Incendiary, because the burning words from her lips are God’s Word to all who have ever oppressed little people and for all little people who have been oppressed or threatened or harmed by people too big for their britches.
- Mary–“Blessed Virgin Mary” and “Blessed Valorous Mary,” dressed for God’s divinely inspired revolutionary action to fill the hungry with good things.
- Mary--reminding little people for all time, whether they are children with abusive parents, or orphans with no parents, whether they are displaced persons in refugee camps or marginalized slums outside rich cities around the world–reminding them that God is showing them mercy, by giving them a voice, a spirit of courage, a method of new and different and disarming action to live God’s Word wherever they are.
In late November, 2006 Rachel Warden of KAIROS and I spent seven
intense days in Colombia, a society of cruel contrasts and dangerous
social disintegration. I met some Marys there. Some knew they were
receiving and living God’s mercy and speaking God’s
Word; some I pray someday will know that.
On Wednesday November 22 we flew to Barrancabermeja, an oil refinery
city of half-a-million or more on Colombia’s sprawling Magdalena
River. There we met an office full of Marys who head up the 34 year
old People’s Organization for Women (OFP–Organizacion
Femenina Popular), first sponsored by the Roman Catholic diocese
of the area. Many members are widows, humble women, little people.
Their husbands have disappeared or been murdered in decades of violence
and instability. Some of these women and their fractured families
have been displaced two and three times from their homes and traditional
lands in fertile valleys.
Private militias working for multi-national gold mining and oil-exploration
companies push the families out because they have never gotten title
to their traditional lands. Meanwhile the national government grants
mineral leases to companies that will pull out the resources–and
terrorize the people. Legal, but haughty, proud, destructive of
human lives and spirits.
I think Jesus’ mother Mary would identify with these people,
humble, downtrodden. I KNOW these women identify with Mary, using
bold non-violence to struggle against the weapons and the terror
and the fear.
On November 18 more than 1500 women and their families bravely held
a vigil in a city park, lighting candles, wearing black gowns to
memorialize their lost homes, their stolen land, their murdered
husbands. These women and supporters went into the streets with
flowers, not loudspeakers, with poetry, with hymns, songs and music,
not clubs or weapons. Foolish, it seems, but Jesus’ mother
Mary would recognize them and give them hope. Jesus’ mother
Mary would hear her own words in many of the words her contemporary
counterparts speak and sing against the terror of Colombia—a
place that feels a lot like Roman-occupied Judah felt to Mary, to
Joseph, to Jesus.
And don’t forget this: Jesus would identify with those women
and with their words, those in prison, with those who are hungry,
with those who are naked and orphans–just like he said in
Matthew 25. Still more: if we take part in clothing, feeding, accompanying
such people, Jesus tells us we are in some mysterious way clothing,
feeding and accompanying Jesus himself.
Where can you meet Mary, the young, bold, incendiary Mary, whose
words from God looked ahead to the work of her son Jesus? Where
can you see Jesus, who rescued and still rescues little people–woman
and men, boys and girls–from sinning and being sinned against.
Where would you rather be? With WHOM would you rather be? With those
who are proud in their inmost thoughts? Or with those who speak
and live God’s Words, celebrating boldly, hopefully God’s
work in their lives, in their neighbourhoods, cities and nations?
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