Mary’s Song

fourth sunday of advent
the gospel of luke 1:26-55
preached at St. John’s Christopher St, NYC
december 20, 2020

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Grace and peace to you from God the Creator, Christ the Anointed One, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Welcome to the fourth Sunday of Advent! We have been in a season of waiting, expectation, and preparation. Waiting for the world to be transformed by the Christ child, expecting and longing for the promises of God to be fulfilled, and preparing our hearts and lives for the way of God.

We are in a season of stories – from dwelling in patience, to the cries of repentance by John the Baptist, who we met in wilderness spaces, and now, to Elizabeth and Mary the mother of God. These stories shape our faith, and shape how we encounter God in the world.

As I think I’ve shared before, I didn’t grow up going to church. And so when I reflect on what stories the world tells about Mary, the stories I learned about Mary from the world, they are very different than the story Mary tells about herself. The world has often painted Mary as quiet, subdued, without much of a voice. One dominant cultural narrative, at least in parts of the United States, is that Mary is meek and mild. But throughout history, Mary’s strength, faith, and joy shine through, despite our best efforts to subdue her as a prophet.

As Mary listens to Gabriel’s message, wondering how it could be that someone like her – an unmarried young woman, who had never borne a child, from a small, impoverished village, living under occupation – would bear the Son of the Most High God, she chooses to put her faith in the promises of God. She listens to Gabriel, and agrees to be a co-creator with God. She chooses to believe in the possibility of a different world than the one she has been living in, and chooses to trust that she is favored by God – not in spite of her gender, class, and marital status, but because of those things.

And once she takes on this role as a co-creator, she goes to Elizabeth, another woman who has experienced the impossible through God. Mary and Elizabeth’s stories are not only individual, they are part of a tapestry of stories of the way God moves in the world. I love that Mary’s response to her own pregnancy is to travel to be in community with perhaps one of the few people who could fully understand what she was experiencing. That understanding, that recognition, shows itself with John’s leaping and Elizabeth’s greeting – blessed are you, who carry the Christ-child. Blessed are you who also believed. Blessed are you, who brings joy, and strength.

The story of these women can bring up heartbreak, for those in our communities who want to be pregnant and have kids and who can’t, or don’t. If nothing is impossible through God, why is there still suffering, and loss? Why do some of our hopes and dreams remain painfully unfulfilled? And again, beloveds, there is no one clear answer. How we understand suffering in the world is something each of us wrestles with on our own, even as we wrestle with it in community, together. I understand suffering through the belief that the Kingdom of God is both here already, in small glimpses and glimmers, and is still on the way. There is still mystery, and things unknown to us. There is still sin, and places where we wait for God. It is still a risk to hope for the impossible, or what might seem impossible, because we don’t know what the future holds, even as we hold out hope for the promises of God.

These promises of God often exist in story. One of the reasons I find storytelling so important is that telling stories helps us find meaning, to find God, to find connection. To hold together the messy realities of life, where promise and risk and unfulfilled hope all tangle together. They help us shape our collective dreams for the future, which we are always co-creating with God. One of the breakout sessions I virtually attended at the Facing Race conference in November was Unleashing the Power of Story. It was hosted by the Center for Story-Based strategy, who believe that imagination builds power, and desire is what makes it inevitable.

To unpack that a little – our ability to imagine transformation, to imagine the things we have been told are impossible – like housing and healthcare for all, like a world of authentic diversity and solidarity, like lives where we can rest, and play, and not need to work all the time – this imagination helps us build power through community to achieve these things. They are not impossible, but are possible through our co-creation with God in the world. And by imagining these things, by desiring them – this desire, this hope, this joy – makes it inevitable. We begin to crave this transformed world, and so transform our lives. We live our lives like this is already the reality, and by doing that, that new reality emerges.

Mary’s Magnificat embodies this type of imagination, this type of desire, this type of joy. In response to the promise that she is carrying the Christ-child, the Messiah, the Anointed One, Mary sings. She sings of joy, of liberation, of reversals. She sings to Elizabeth, and to John, and to Jesus. And through her song, we encounter God.

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of their servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is God’s name.”

Through Mary, we encounter God. Her rejoicing, her blessing, her joy, makes it more possible for us to encounter God. She magnifies God, makes Gods work more visible, more present, more real. We are strengthened by the truth that God looks with favor on the lowly, on the margins, on those we might be tempted to dismiss. Holy is God’s name. Holy are God’s promises.

Mary’s first instinct is to respond with joy to the presence and promises of God. She shares this joy with Elizabeth. I can imagine these two women, together, with so much energy bouncing between them that Mary’s only option is to sing, and to prophesy. Just like in musicals, where songs burst out when mere words are not enough, mere speaking not enough, because the emotional landscape has so much depth, and power.

It’s common for people to respond to Mary’s song with even more song – energy bouncing between her words and our world. An adaptation of the Magnificat is often used at evening daily prayer services. Our opening instrumental was a response by Bach. One of my favorite adaptations is Canticle of the Turning – we used the refrain last week for our opening litany. 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.

Our hearts sing with Mary. They sing with our longing, and our desire, for the love and justice of God to break into the world. To transform it. We carry that desire and hope for each other, for when we can’t carry it on our own, or for ourselves.

“God’s mercy is for those who fear God
from generation to generation.
God has shown strength with her arm;
God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
she has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.”

Mary is singing as though this transformed world is already here. She is singing in the present tense. God has already done all of these good things, like lifting up the lowly, bringing down the powerful from their thrones. Like feeding the hungry, and sending the rich away empty. This transformation is already here, and it’s still coming. Mary is singing as a prophet. And this is a dangerous, and joyful, song.

Depending on our own locations in the world, this part of the Magnificat probably stirs up a range of reactions and emotions. For those of us who hold positions of power, or who consider ourselves rich, or well-off, Mary’s Magnificat might feel threatening. If we are part of a historically marginalized and oppressed community, if we are hungry, or unhoused, the Magnificat contains promises that feel risky to hope for.

The Magnificat is a song of promise that will drastically transform our world. And anytime change happens, fear and resistance also happen. For those of us who hold positions of power, who are well-off, I would invite us to trust in the promises of God. To let go of a scarcity mindset. Just as we have been hearing Advent texts about leveling the way for God, this world of reversals that Mary sings invites us into authentic solidarity. Giving up some of our power, our privilege, for the sake of our neighbor.

And sometimes, for those of us in historically marginalized communities, it might feel too dangerous to risk hoping for the world to be any way other than it is. Because there’s a possibility of that transformation not taking root. But I would invite us to trust in the promises of God. To trust that there is enough, and that God is breaking into the world with love and justice. Not just for us, but for all of Creation. Just as Mary, longing for the promises of justice from God, sings the Magnificat, risking the possibility that the promises of God will be joyously fulfilled.

“God has helped their servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise God made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

The Magnificat is not just sung for Elizabeth. It is also sung for John, and for Jesus. It is sung for Mary’s cloud of ancestors. She sings for her ancestors, who survived exile, and wilderness, and oppression. She sings for her present community, living under occupation. She sings for future generations, who will experience war, and hatred, and division. She sings for us. She sings for the Black churches in DC that were vandalized. She sings for the prisoners who have been executed, and those still on death row. She sings for hospital workers, from the janitors to the ER doctors, and she sings for those carrying grief.

We have passed down the story of Mary’s Magnificat throughout generations. The creative, prophetic energy cannot be contained, and cannot be subdued. As we move now towards the vigil of Christmas Eve, waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled, for God to be with us in love, embodied, incarnate in a screaming infant, we carry Mary’s song with us.

And I wonder what stories we will tell about this season – stories of transformation, of pandemic, of loss, of connection? Stories of beauty, joy, dangerous hope, and imagination? As we move towards the birth of the Christ-child, we carry the stories of our ancestors, the stories of our futures, and the stories of the present we are co-creating. I pray that we carry these stories with love, with care, and with song. Amen.