“Magnificent Magnificat” based on Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 and Luke…

Years
ago, I read the book, “Debt: The First 5,000 Years” by David
Graeber which probably sounds incredibly boring and yet was one of
the most mind-boggling books I’ve ever read.  It took me a year to
read it because the ideas contained in it required me to readjust my
thinking on many things I thought I knew (including money, the
military, violence, poverty, government, theology, and religion)¹.
In the final chapter, when I thought my assumptions were safe,
Graeber quotes Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech;

In
a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the
architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the
Constitution and the Declaration
of Independence,
they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to
fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as
well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights”
of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is
obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note,
insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring
this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad
check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”²

Graeber
builds on this, speaking particularly of the West after WW II:

To
put it crudely: the white working class of the North Atlantic
countries, from the United States to West Germany, were offered a
deal.  If they agreed to set aside any fantasies of fundamentally
changing the nature of the system, then they would be allowed to keep
their unions, enjoy a wide variety of social benefits (pensions,
vacations, health care…), expanding public education institutions,
knowing that their children had a reasonable chance of leaving the
working class entirely.  One key element in all this was a tacit
guarantee that increases in workers’ production would be met by
increases in wages: a guarantee that held good until the late 1970s.³

I’d
marked that whole section with an exclamation point, as it had never
occurred to me.  Then I turned the page.  Graeber continues, speaking
of this  deal, “… it was offered only to a relatively small slice
of the world’s population.  As time went on, more and more people
wanted in on the deal.” That is, minority groups, nations not in
the North Atlantic, women, etc.  He says, “At some point in the
‘70s things reached a breaking point.  It would appear that
capitalism, as a system, simply cannot extend such a deal to
everyone.  … The result might be termed a crisis of inclusion.”⁴

This
particular point has stayed with me so strongly that I knew which
side of the page the to scan in the final chapter to find it!  And, I
thought of it again this week, when I read an opinion article in the
New York Times entitled, “The Resentment Never Sleeps”  by Thomas
B. Edsall, which
wasn’t at all about what I expected.  It was about social status, who
has it, who seeks it, who is losing it, and how that impacts
politics.⁵
This struck me as particularly meaningful for two reasons, in
addition to how well it fits with MLK and Graeber’s explanation of a
“deal.”  First, because one of the most useful commentaries on
the Gospels I have (Social Science Commentary on the Synpotic
Gospels) is always talking about how the world order in Jesus’ day
was defined by the gain and loss of honor and shame, which were a
zero-sum game.  Secondly, because the Bible, the Jesus movement, and
the Magnificat itself are ABOUT upending assumptions about social
status.  

I
request your patience as I outline the primary points of the article,
because I think it will help us understand the meaning of Magnificat
for us today.  Edsall starts by saying, “More and more, politics
determine which groups are favored and which are denigrated,” then
suggests that the major political parties are working at odds with
each other, one to enhance the status of historically marginalized
groups, the other to enhance the status of the white, Christian
working and middle class.  (I’ll go ahead and leave it to the reader
to determine which is which.)

Edsall
then quotes two government professors who said, “social status is
one of the most important motivators of human behavior.”⁶
Now, I’m not sure why this is a major breakthrough in theoretical
thought, but apparently it is.  It feels clear, both because social
status is valuable in and of itself and
because social status impacts every part of life, including access to
the things that promote life and access to resources.  

Anyway,
the point is that people fight for social status.  Which is to say,
people fight for a place on the HIERARCHY, for ranking.  And how the
hierarchy is build impacts where people land on it, so it is a fight
many people are willing to engage in, with a lot of passion, whether
or not they’re conscious of what they’re fighting for.

Into
this reality, we people of faith hear the words of the prophet
Isaiah,

The
spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me;
[God] has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to
the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day
of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for
those who mourn in Zion– to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead
of a faint spirit.  (Isaiah 61:1-3a)

If
the oppressed,the broken (hearted), the captives, the prisoners, and
the mourners are getting good news, then those at the bottom are
being picked up.  That is, the Spirit of God is at work to pick up
the people at the bottom of hierarchy, one might even say, to
eliminate the bottom!!  

From
the prophetic calls for justice, to the Torah’s dream of a just
society; from the aching of the Psalmists to be dealt with fairly, to
the responses of Jesus to the oppressed; the Bible shows us that God
is NOT in support of hierarchies.  

That’s
how radical this faith thing is.  

God
and faith aren’t about MODIFYING hierarchies, or fixing who is where
on them.  God and faith are about ELIMINATING hierarchies, and
reiterating time and time again that EVERY SINGLE PERSON is a beloved
child of God, of inherent worth simply because they exist.  

As
a Christian who has spent a lot of time with the Gospels, I am most
clearly able to see this in the life and ministry of Jesus, and I
think Luke does a singularly amazing job of foreshadowing the
entirety of Jesus with the words coming out of Mary’s mouth in the
Magnificat.

Mary
herself is lowly by social standing.  She is female, she is young,
and she is poor.  Her words start by acknowledging this, and naming
that God is the one who calls HER anyway, God is the one who favors
HER, and thereby ignores the normal world order. She then extends
this single act of lifting her up out of the hierarchy to a reminder
of who God is and how God is in the world.  She says God scatters the
proud, brings down the powerful, and lifts up the lowly.

That
is, God flattens hierarchies.  God eliminates social standing.  God
fills up the hungry, but gives no more to those who have enough.
God… equalizes.

Because,
each and every person is a beloved child of God.

That
is, social standing is a thing of the WORLD, but not a thing of God.
Hierarchies do not serve God’s purpose in the world, they are the
antithesis of the kindom God is building (hopefully with our help).

So
what do we do with that?  The obvious piece is that we work for
policies that benefit everyone, and not just the few.  The challenge
piece is that we may end up needing to work for a restructuring of
our whole society as well as our church, because the hierarchies are
so deeply entrenched.  But the immediate piece is to think about
hierarchies of power in society, and where we fit on each:  age,
wealth, race, ethnicity, ability, gender, sexuality, education,
language, health, and immigration status might be places to start.
In which parts of our life are we seen as more value-able than
average, and in which less?  And how does it feel to have God shake
that up and reject it?  It may be that in places we are higher in the
hierarchy, we’re less comfortable with the hierarchy being rejected –
that seems pretty normal.  It may be in that places we are lower in
the hierarchy, we’re relieved at the hierarchy being rejected –
that seems pretty normal too.

In
the moments when I have attempted to connect with God and understand
how God sees me, I have been flooded with compassion and grace.  The
ways I judge myself and find myself lacking are not shared by God.
The inverse is true too, but that hasn’t felt nearly as emotionally
relevant.

That’s
the weird thing.  Because we live in a society run by hierarchies,
just like Jesus did, we’re socialized to judge ourselves and others
ALL THE TIME and to FIGHT to be worthy.  But that’s not how it is
with God.  We ARE worthy because we are God’s, and the worth is
inherent, and doesn’t require us to do anything to earn it or keep
it.  That also means we don’t have to worry about judgement, because
our worth CANNOT go away when it comes from God.  (Instead, Biblical
“judgement” is about creating justice, which is about caring for
all of God’s people no matter where they are on the world’s
hierarchies.)  Furthermore, God’s “economy” is one of ABUNDANCE
not scarcity, so we don’t have to fight for basic resources if we do
things God’s way.

Mary’s
song, like Isaiah’s prophecy, is good news for everyone.  Hierarchies
are like hamster wheels that keep us fighting with each other to
prove our worth, in hopes we’ll have enough.  The earth is abundant,
like God’s love.  There is enough.

When
we participate in the Jesus movement, when we work toward the kindom,
we are building the world that God envisions, without hierarchy and
with PLENTY for all.

Your
job, for now, is to savor God’s inherent love for you, and allow that
love to help you shake off the world’s judgements of your worth.

As
we do that, we enable the kindom building that God requests of us
all.  May God help us.  Amen

1For
some reason, “This book is so heavy it took me a year to read”
has never been a great selling point to get others to read it.
Which I regret, because it drew back the curtain on so many of my
unexamined assumptions, and I think I’m a better person for it.

2Because
I was too lazy to type this from the book, I grabbed it from:
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

3David
Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years
(Brooklyn and London: Melville House, 2011), p. 373

4Graeber,
374-5.

5Thomas
B. Endsall, “The Resentment That Never Sleeps” published in the
New York Times  Dec. 9, 2020.  Found at
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/opinion/trump-social-status-resentment.html
on Dec. 9, 2020.

6“Hypotheses
on Status Competition,” William
C. Wohlforth and David
C. Kang

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

December 13, 2020