The Magnificat; Song of Mary

Luke 1: 46-55 (December 14, 2008)

1) The Text
46And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, 47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 49for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. 50His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. 51He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 52He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; 53he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. 54He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, 55according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

2) The Context
The Gospel of Luke is often called the Gospel of womanhood because Luke has many positive stories about women. Mary and Elizabeth are the first human prophets of the New Testament. When Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who is pregnant with the future John the Baptist, the child moves within Elizabeth's womb. When Elizabeth praises Mary for her faith, Mary sings the Magnificat in response. Mary's language is in part drawn from the Psalms. This hymn is divisible into three parts: (1) 46-49, recognition of God's strange grace upon her own humble person and character; (2) 50-53, a recognition that it is ever thus that God exalts the humble, and brings low the proud; (3) 54-55, the result is that humble Israel is now to be exalted according to God's ancient promise to Abraham.

Thus, the Magnificat, Mary’s song, gives voice to her blessedness and at the same time reconnects the personal events to the wider vision which will challenge the lordships of this world. Note the connections throughout the song: personal joy (47), personal call and blessedness (48), personal divine encounter with the holy one (49), divine compassion for all who fear God (50), divine transformation on a wider front, deposing the powers and lifting the fallen (51-55). The context of the story is the vision of change and transformation.

3) Interpretation
News of any pregnancy is a life-changing event. To accept the angel’s message, Mary had to embrace a deep displacement in life. “How can this be?” she asks. She wants to know whose idea this was and how it would happen. Now that God was ready to surrender to human flesh, would she agree to surrender too, carry God around in her body? What might happen to her? Would she be expelled from her father’s house, abandoned by Joseph, become the focus of community derision? Would this mean exile? Israel already had a king after all, and we know that Jesus’ arrival would later cause Mary and Joseph to flee into exile in the land of Egypt. Yet, with all her questions and giving her assent, Mary travels to share this good news with her cousin Elizabeth, singing the Magnificat and foretelling a deep displacement in the world where the proud are scattered, the powerful put in their place, the lowly lifted up, the hungry filled with good things, and the rich sent away with nothing.

One can hardly imagine a more intrusive demand from God than the one to which Mary responds, “Here am I, servant of the Lord: let it be with me according to your word.” And, she cannot know how much intimacy with God will cost. This gospel confronts us and requires us to get close to a God who calls us to bear him in our bodies and with our lives. Elizabeth O’Connor writes of the risks involved in bearing witness to a world that prefers risk-free conversion. “What are the risks?” She asks.

“For me they are all summed up in rejection – that most painful of all experiences. If I follow my path, I have friends who will learn that their hearts are not in communion with mine. We all seek out the company of those who think the way we think, and perceive the world the way we perceive it. It is when we find at-oneness with each other that we feel at home, accepted, companioned… I want to be in step with people I care about, to laugh with them, celebrate with them, agree with them. In all the world I want least to be a prophet."

Like the unwed mother, when we invite Christ into our lives, we cannot hide it from the world anymore than his mother could forever camouflage her swelling belly. Christ will reshape us, displacing our old lives for the new creation. Our friends and loved ones will soon learn that we are not in step with them but are in the business of fomenting a great displacement where the first will be last and the last will be first.

Luke knew this. Luke preached this sermon to a congregation of converts whom he knew would be isolated by this vision of ministry. And so he tells a story about what will happen when they, like Mary, become God bearers in the world. This is how it is when Jesus is born in you. Good pastor that he is, Luke worries about his flock. How can he prepare them for what will happen when they let Jesus in? When they join up with those who are smuggling God into the world in their bodies? There will be exile from friends and family who do not share this vision, and there will be rejection just as Elizabeth O’Connor describes it.

If this is just story about Mary, then we are the most to be pitied, and the world is without hope because Mary has served her term and has gone on to her reward. But if this story is about you and me and what happens when Jesus starts to grow in us, then we wonder if these bodies are expansive enough to bear such a hope. Meister Eckhart, a medieval mystic and theologian, wrote, “We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to be me,” he said, “if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly, but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace and I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? This, then is the fullness of time: when the Son of God is begotten in us.”

You now bear the hope of the world in your bodies. You are the ones who will bear him into the future, old and young, fertile and barren. In the unlikeliest of containers God has seeded hope for the lowly, justice for the downtrodden, and new life for the sinner. Why? Because with God nothing is impossible.

4) Thought Exercise

How is God growing in you?

How do you share this growth with others?