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

December 13, 2020
by Sara Baron

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

Sermons

“Hope for New Life” based on Isaiah 11:1-10 and…

December 8, 2019February 11, 2020
by Sara Baron

It
is common to call the writer of the Gospel of Luke… Luke, which
makes plenty of sense. It isn’t likely to be historically accurate,
but it is pretty simple to remember. Whatever the writer’s real name
was, the person who wrote the Gospel of Luke and its 2^nd
volume
the book of Acts, is said to be the best writer in the New Testament.
From my perspective I can tell that Luke does great work with
foreshadowing, telling stories within stories to enrich both stories,
symbolism, and themes. However, the really good stuff, I’m told is in
his Greek vocabulary and syntax which are simply just outstanding.
“Luke” was a VERY well educated person, and a master of the craft
of writing. Given how small the percentage of literate people were at
that time, being so well versed as a writer indicates not only
brilliance and skill but also power and privilege. One simply would
not become that great of a writer without a lot of access to unusual
levels of resources.

Luke
is probably my favorite Gospel writer, and I love Luke for his
emphasis on people who are poor, marginalized, and vulnerable, and
because they fit those categories, the women. Luke tells the story of
my faith, presenting Jesus as an ally to those most in need of
rescue, and as an organizer able to help people rescue themselves.
This has a bit of cognitive dissonance to it. Based on WHAT he
writes, Luke is a writer of the people. He is empowering, noticing
those society disregards, and telling the stories that the powerful
don’t want told. Yet, based on HOW he writes, Luke is one of
society’s elites.

Which
sounds to me like Luke being a living example of the power of Jesus –
to convince people to work together to build the kindom no matter
where they begin life, to be FOR ALL the people as they grow.

Isaiah
was a prophet, and from what I can tell, a prophet is a speaker for
the people. The Torah set up a society that treated people justly,
and prevented an upper class from ruling over a lower class. Yet,
people being people, power, money, and influence tended to coalesce
at a top and become a burden to the many. God’s prophets spoke out
against it, and called people back to God’s vision of a just, equal,
and equitable lifestyle.

Which
is a long-winded way of saying that we have two passages today that
are “of the people” and yearning for justice. They do so in ways
that can be a little bit uncomfortable. There are not simply passages
that suggest “a rising tide lifts all boats” but rather ones that
talk about REDISTRIBUTION of wealth¹.
These are passages that are good news for the poor, the lowly, and
the meek … but not for the rich, the proud, and the powerful. I
find the “rising tide lifts all boats” sort of justice easier to
swallow. This stuff is … harder.

And
yet, my activist friends assure me that we aren’t going to get to
justice only by being nice. So, let’s examine these texts for wisdom.
This shoot that come from Jesse in Isaiah, have you noticed that it
comes AFTER the tree has been cut down. This is a sign of hope after
destruction and hopelessness. The passage as a whole feels like a
cousin of last week’s passage. In this case, the new offspring of
Jesse (which is to say the new Davidic king) is going to be so
perfectly imbued with the Spirit of God that the new King will rule
as perfectly as God’s own self would.

The
impact of life as ruled as God would have it ruled is shockingly
different. When God’s spirit is in leadership, and when the people
are following in God’s ways, there will be peace even among animals
who are in each other’s food chains 😉 Safety becomes the center
point of this – the lamb, the kid-goat, the calf, and the human
child are all safe in the presence of those most apt to harm them.
This is another way of talking about not needing to be afraid,
because there is no motivation to do harm. In this case, it is clear
that there are no people oppressing other people, no one is “eating
up” the resources of the weaker people to make themselves stronger.
Security, hope, and peace are the result of God’s Spirit. That’s the
kindom.

Mary’s
song hits the same notes. Mary is continuing to process that she, who
is lowly by the standards of the world, is now “blessed.” She
attributes this change to God, and notices that this is how God
works. She says it is God’s nature to do great things, to show mercy,
to be strong…. to bring justice. And she names how justice comes.
It is by scattering the proud and bringing down the powerful –
while lifting up the lowly. It is by feeding the hungry but NOT
giving more to those who already have too much. Mary’s song is,
itself, strong and justice seeking. She identifies with the lowly,
who God lifts up. And it is even more interesting to hear that
knowing that the writer of the Gospel probably identifies with the
rich, and wrote her song this way anyway.

While
we know absolutely nothing about Jesus’s mother with any certainty,
we do know Jesus had a mother. The name Mary was associated with her
a few generations after his death, which isn’t a great reason to
assume it is true, but sort of like “Luke” we can go with it. I
suspect Mary got associated with the name of the mother of Jesus
because Mary is the Greek version of the Hebrew name Miriam. Miriam,
the sister of Moses, has the oldest words in the Bible attributed to
her, and saved her brother so he could save the nation Israel.
Associating Mary with Miriam is A-Ok with me.

Other
conjectures we can make about Mary include: she was Jewish, she was
from Galilee – most likely Nazareth, she was poor, and it is likely
she was young. She may have been a very faithful Jew, as Judean
settlers were intentionally reclaiming Galilee for Judaism around
that time, and the ones who went were often the ones who were
committed to the cause. She also might have been influenced by either
the Roman Empire’s violent destruction of the nearby city of
Sepphoras in her childhood or by the radical Jewish teachers in the
Galilee who taught that the God of liberation was going to liberate
again. In any case, while the leaders of the Temple during her
lifetime were appointed by Rome and the “official” religion had
been compromised, it is possible (probable?) that Mary knew a faith
that was untainted by the influence of power.

Which
is to say, that while Luke wrote the words we hear today, and put
them into Mary’s mouth for our story – they MAY well reflect her
faith itself. At the very least, Mary’s song words as an incredible
foreshadowing of the power of God that people saw in Jesus, and I
believe Jesus’s faith was likely formed by his mother’s.

In
Mark, Jesus is referred to as Mary’s son which is unusual in that he
was not referred to as his FATHER’S son. With the presence of a
punishing military force nearby, before Jesus’s birth, there are some
particularly awful possibilities about his father. What we know is
that at some point Mary was pregnant, expecting a child, and likely
pretty scared. I say that because maternal mortality rates were high,
infant mortality rates were high, and resources in Nazareth were
scarce. It is very likely that Mary herself was hungry, including
during her pregnancy and while she was breastfeeding Jesus. She had
seen extreme violence from the Empire, and had reason to believe it
could come back at any time. She MAY have been facing the possibility
of being ostracized from her community. Thus, I think it is fair to
assume she was scared.

Even
stripping away most of that, scared seems right. For years, Kevin and
I have struggled with some big questions: is it OK for us to choose
to bring a child into this world knowing the dangers of Global
Climate Change? Is it ok for us to choose to bring a child into this
world when there are other children who need to be parented? How much
capacity do we have to offer care and support for a child given our
other commitments?

After
long talks, prayer, and good counsel, we decided that our ideal
family would include a child born to us and a child adopted by us. So
we started trying to have a child and…. well, nothing happened.
Eventually we made an appointment with an adoption lawyer, and
decided to try private infant adoption. We filled out paperwork, got
background checked, had a home study, and were ready to sign a court
petition requesting that we be approved to be able to become adoptive
parents when we learned that I was, in biblical phrasing, “with
child.”

Now,
I live in the 21st
century,
with pretty great access to resources. While our country is weaker
than it should be, particularly in the care of women of color,
compared with ancient Galilee we have low maternal mortality rates,
low infant mortality rates, plenty of food, and low threat of
violence. Yet as an expectant mother, I’m scared. While I find it
excessive to overly identify with “Mother Mary,” preparing to
parent has certainly helped me see why she’s so popular. Also, why
she has every right to be scared. We have been wondering how on earth
will we prepare a child to be kind, compassionate, and moral in this
crazy world? How will we teach them of God in ways that feel relevant
while the world shifts under our feet?

Let
me assure you that we did NOT sign that paperwork and adoption is
officially on hold. Let me also admit to you that being the pregnant
pastor of this church for the past two months hasn’t been the easiest
thing I’ve ever done. I haven’t been puking (WIN) but I have been
constantly nauseated, and instructed to eat every hour. I’ve been
exhausted and my emotional resources have been down. At the same
time, I have experienced significant collateral friendly fire as this
church has worked together on the reality of our budget deficit.

Between
the friendly fire and being less resilient than usual, I have spent
time considering if pastoring this church – or even being a pastor at
all – continues to be the right path for me. Some of this is simply
about parenting: I’m nervous about being away from home 4 nights a
week like I usually am now. Some of this is about ministry’s
demands: what will it mean to have to establish the sort of
boundaries my child will need, and what will I do when the needs of
the church are in conflict, and what will happen when someone feels
that their expectations aren’t being met? Some of it is about our
child and this church. On one hand I can’t imagine any church but
this one being part of raising our child. I love the way children are
cared for during worship. I love our Sunday School and its teachers.
I love the way children are treated here, and I love the ways God is
understood and taught here. However, on the other hand, my stress
level has been sky high, and recently I’ve seen a lot of behavior I
wouldn’t want a child to learn about much less associate with this
church. So I’ve been wondering, is this a safe and secure place for a
child – our child – to learn about God? Will this place fulfill
Isaiah’s vision of a child being able to put their hand in a snake’s
den safely?

In
slow, careful deliberation, with conversation, and consultation, and
prayer, and a LOT of obsessing and worrying, I’ve decided not to give
up on ministry just yet. Then, even more slowly, I realized that –
for now – this church is worth the pain. I simply love you all.
Furthermore, I don’t believe that this church IS its worst behaviors.
Dear ones, I believe that this faith community is an expression of
the kindom of God. I believe it is a little bit of Isaiah’s vision,
and has the capacity to build the world into one of peace and
justice. I’m well aware that we have lots of hard times ahead (and I
am terrified
of
the boundaries I’m going to have to have as a parent, please be
gentle with me) but I believe you are worth it.

So,
anyway, I see why a prospective parent would be scared. And I am
gaining a new appreciation for the ways in which a new generation
provides new opportunities: 1) for regeneration, 2) for making right
the things we haven’t gotten right yet, and 3) hope for the future.
We are hoping to raise a child to know God’s love, follow Jesus, and
speak with and for the people. And I find myself reflecting on how I
hope this community will continue to exist and teach and raise up
future generations to do the same. Given all this, I see why a
prospective parent would choose to stick with the God of Liberation,
of Hope, and of Peace. And I see why Mary was amazed at her luck in
getting the chance to do so. Being a part of the work of God is a
blessing and a great opportunity. Thanks be to God. Amen

1 Someone
pointed out after worship that a rising tide may lift all boats, but
it doesn’t help people who don’t have boats.

Sermons

“Justice-Seeking Mothers”based on 1 Samuel 2:1-10 and Luke 1:46b-55

December 11, 2016February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

It
has been said about Mary, “No woman in scripture is more honored,
blessed as she was ‘above all women’ (Luke 1:42), and she holds an
iconic status shared by no other woman in Christianity. Through the
accounts of Jesus’ birth in Matthew and Luke, Mary is one of the
first biblical characters many children encounter. Along with Eve,
Mary is integral to shaping how Christians understand the nature of
womanhood and motherhood.”¹
What is said is true. Mary, along with Eve, has both shaped how
women are understood in Christianity AND the inverse: perceptions of
Mary (and Eve) are indicators of how Christianity is understanding
women. How Mary is seen is a bell-weather for how women are seen.
Cary Gibson, the author of the opening quote, also says, “Mary is a
container into which we pour ideas of what it means to be a woman. In
turn we then draw from her image ideas about our own womanhood.”²

Most
commonly, Mary is said to be meek and mild. Usually, it is her
subservience that sets her up as the ideal woman. The pedestal of
womanhood that Mary most frequently occupies as the ideal woman is
the pedestal of the selfless mother, the one who exists simply so her
son can exist. She’s faithful, sweet, and biddable. There is,
however, one issue with this common perception Mary: it completely
ignores the words of Mary found in the Gospel of Luke.

Now,
I’m not saying that I really think some literate scribe was following
Mary around during her pregnancy to record her insights for
posterity. However, I am saying we have a rather long monologue
attributed to Mary that defies the way she is most commonly defined.
The meek and mild ideal does not match the actual Gospel. The myths
around her are more about what Christian women have been told to be
than they are about the actual stories about and words of Mary.

Therefore,
it seems worth exploring the words attributed to Mary. Whether the
words are what Mary said, or something Mary could have said, or
simply what it made sense to someone that the Mother of Jesus WOULD
have said, they are attributed to her. Since the general perception
of Mary is based on 20 centenaries of trying to put women in their
place, and I’d prefer to get to know Mary as presented in the Gospel.
It may be that we can take a look at Mary-the-ideal-woman and get a
different answer about what it means to be an ideal woman.

For
starters, these words are not meek, nor mild. In fact, Cary Gibson
says Mary, “voiced a defiant and righteous hope in the face of
violence and injustice.”³
It is true. These words express a HARDCORE faith and a great ideal
for women to seek to live up to. 🙂 Men too. This is the sort of
faith we can all aspire to!

First
of all, Mary’s song is deeply rooted in her faith tradition. It
echoes Hannah’s song of celebration after Hannah fulfilled her
promise and brought her son Samuel to Eli to serve him as a priest.
It also echoes with phrases from the Psalms. The version of this
song that we have is a work of theological and scriptural brilliance
and sophistication. Hannah’s song is powerful, but reflects a less
mature faith. Hannah yearns for God to smash the powerful, deride
her enemies, and break the mighty. In her mind the powerless are
lifted up BY making the powerful small. There is violence in her
imagery, even as there is celebration of the goodness of God and of
her sense of becoming more significant in the world.

Mary’s
song, though, is not vengeful. She also speaks of lifting up the
poor and lonely. Like Hannah she speaks about God’s power, but she
also adds God’s mercy. Mary speaks of lowering the mighty, but the
lowering isn’t violent or dangerous for them: the proud are
“scattered in the thoughts of their hearts” which sounds like a
way to be more humble; the powerful step down from their thrones (but
she doesn’t suggest they’re harmed afterward); the rich are sent away
empty – as if they don’t need any more. Hannah had the the
formerly “full” “hire themselves out for bread.” Mary is
interested in lifting up the lowly and removing their oppression, not
in oppressing the oppressors. She is a actually meeker and milder
than Hannah, Hannah’s is pretty rough. Mary is simply less violent!

Hannah
speaks of her victory, Mary speaks of being treated with God’s favor.
While both are grateful for the child they are able to nurture, and
while both express incredible gratitude to God and deep theological
reflections, they have different energies. The insertion of material
from the Psalms into Hannah’s original poem changes it into a more
gracious piece. One scholar found that in addition to the source
material of Hannah’s poem, the song of Mary includes 7 pieces of
different Psalms, as well as a quote each from Deuteronomy, Job,
Micah, and Isaiah. By that scholar’s reckoning all of the words of
Mary’s song are attributable to Hebrew Bible quotations.⁴

Mary’s
song starts in the specific. She is grateful to be useful to God,
humbly aware of her status as a poor woman in her society, and
attentive to the change of her status because of God’s favor. She
attributes her life change to God’s greatness, and she praises God.
She expresses who God is: merciful,
consistent, strong, and powerful. She talks about a God who cares
about the lowly,
and feeds the hungry with GOOD food.
Her song makes another journey outward, celebrating God’s care for
all of the Jews and then attributing God’s care to God’s merciful
nature and God’s promises. She moves from celebrating God’s work for
her, to celebrating God’s work for the vulnerable, to celebrating
God’s work for all her people. It is as if she is expanding her
gratitude in increasingly wide circles.

While
it is unlikely to be factual, this text suggests that Mary knew her
scriptures well enough to combine them creatively into a truly
beautiful and majestic song celebrating God WITHOUT demeaning anyone
else. It suggests that her humility was real, but it wasn’t a form
of self-deprecation. It says she was genuinely honored to be able to
serve God and be useful in forming the world in God’s kindom of
shalom. She was delighted and amazed to be chosen. She recognized
the depth of the blessing she received, seemingly without thinking
that it made her more important than others. She said she was
blessed, and was amazed that people would remember her as blessed.
That indicates she didn’t think she’d done anything right or worthy,
it was God’s choice not her worthiness that mattered. Her gratitude
was expansive and celebratory and still focused on lifting up the
lowly and attentive to the hungry. She kept her head!

The
Mary of this song is wise, strong, compassionate, creative, humble,
and grateful. She knows and celebrates a God who is a fierce
advocate of justice. John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, in their
book “The First Christmas” point out that each of the Gospels
start with a “Gospel in miniature” (with the possible exception
of Mark which starts at a gallop and just keeps going!). Luke 1 and
2, which likely do NOT represent authentic memories of things that
really happened, DO represent themes of the Gospel, understanding of
Jesus, foreshadowing of things to come, and ways to see how God is
known in the Gospel. Luke pays particular attention to women – as
we can see here where Mary gets a prolonged monologue – as well as
to the poor and vulnerable. We can also see that here in the words
Mary speaks. The writer of Luke, and/or the Christian tradition,
and/or the editors who came later attribute these words to Mary
largely to help those of us who came later to understand her son.

Now,
I don’t want anyone to think that I’m disparaging Hannah’s song. Her
song is FIERCE and profound, and reflects an era one whole millennia
before Mary’s. Hannah, as well, sought justice. She sought it for
herself and she sought it for all of God’s people. She understood God
to be one who cares about the poor, the hungry, the feeble, the
barren, the low, and the needy. That is a reflection of the unique
tradition of Judaism, from a pretty early time. Other ancient
peoples believed in god and goddesses. The Israelites were unique,
however, in believing in a God who cared about how they treated each
other, and in a God who cared about the people who had the least
power and influence. There is a constant tension in the Bible
between this belief – in a God who cares for the poor and lowly –
and the human tendency to prefer the rich and powerful. Hannah
reflects the God who cares for the poor and lowly without being
pulled toward the rich and powerful at all. Then Mary manages to
take it a step further and acknowledge a God who cares for everyone.
They sought justice, and believed in a God who wanted justice. This
is our radical tradition. This is the wonder of worshiping a God of
compassion.

Those
sons of those women took their justice-seeking natures and their
understandings of the God of Compassion, and changed the world. We
mostly know about the mothers because of the sons. Samuel anointed
kings. Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, ate with sinners, and
told parables that still confound us today. Both sons changed the
world. Both mothers are presented as sources of wisdom for their
sons. Their stories are preludes to their sons stories, and yet I am
so grateful that the Bible gives them voices and songs and stories!
They are not ONLY vessels through which their sons come to be, they
are interesting in their own right.

I
do wish for all of us to be able to be a bit like these justice
seeking mothers. And if we are going to hold up Mary as the ideal,
then I hope it takes the form of being moved to sing our gratitude
to God and celebrating the wonder of God’s good work in the world. I
hope we can become so steeped in our faith tradition that we can use
it in creative ways that bring more caring, compassion, and justice
to our tradition. I hope that we can see and name the goodness of
our lives without taking ourselves too seriously. And I do hope that
when push comes to shove we are more like Mary than like Hannah, and
that we can hope for the transformation of oppressors – not the
oppression of them. I hope we too can always remember the people of
God who are struggling the most, and find ways to help lift them up.
I hope we can be part of our tradition that remembers God as a God of
compassion for the least, the last, the lost and the lonely.

If
Mary is the ideal, and she seems to be well set up to be the ideal,
then let’s seek to be like her: fierce, grateful, and brilliant.
Amen

1
Cary Gibson, “Mary, Jesus’ Mother” in an email from The Common
English Bible send by Abingdon Press on December 2^nd,
2016.

2Ibid.

3Ibid.

4Joseph
A. Fitzmeyer “The Gospel According to Luke I-IX” in the The
Anchor Bible Series (Doubleday and Co.: Garden City, NY, 1981) p
356-357.

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 11, 2016