Magnificat

Written and Delivered by Ashley Bair 

December 11, 2022 

 
Title: Magnificat 

Luke 1:46-55 

Prayer - God of love, God of peace, may your word stir in us, today. And guide us evermore toward you and the life you call us to. Amen.  

“We do it in the shower. We do it in the car. We do it under our breath at work. And when no one’s home, we even do it in front of the mirror with an imaginary microphone. And some of us even do it in the rain. 

Singing.  

Ballads and blues, show tunes and classics.” Pop charts, 70s hits, Christmas carols, lullabies. Hymns of praise. Hymns of protest. Songs of proclamation, songs of prayer. 

In 1992 Susan Jaques wrote an article for the LA Times called “The Human Condition: Why We Like to Sing.” And in it she writes, “...what separates [most of] us from professional [singers] …. is that they sound good. Fret not, though. As it turns out, carrying a tune isn’t all that important. The experts and James Brown agree that the very act of singing--even off key--makes us feeeeeeeel good. Long before Madonna, people recognized the power of singing. Worshipers in the ancient temples of India, China and Tibet chanted to awaken chakras, thought to be the body’s energy center. And the Greek philosopher Pythagoras encouraged his students to sing each day to overcome fear and anger, worry and sorrow. During these times of “getting in touch,” [with ourselves], we often use singing as a way to get there.” 

“We sing because something inside us needs to express something…,” Jaques writes. “Everyone can do this to some extent. The human voice is the most perfect of all instruments.” Even Plato said, “Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song.” 

And we do find our songs. And the power of a song lies not in our ability, or attempt, to sing it out loud, but in the words, we express, in the moments we need to express something. Take for instance, “This Little Light of Mine”- you can sing it with me in your head. A classic song in the Christian faith tradition, used during many children's moments and Sunday school classes to remind us of the light inside all of us, shining brightly in God’s world.  

This Little Light of Mine is also a protest song, primarily used during the Civil Rights movement. While the origins of the song are still a mystery, by the 1930s it was being sung in African Methodist Episcopal churches in Montana. The first recording was sung inside the state penitentiary at Huntsville, TX. By the 1950s and 60s it reached the Highlander Folk School, a cultural center in Tennessee where activists like Rosa Parks, Pete Seeger and Martin Luther King Jr. gathered to trade ideas. Candie Carawan, who worked as Highlander's music director and song leader, believes that singing is “a nonviolent tool. It's a way to say, this is what we think, this is what we feel - but you're singing it.” It “sparks a feeling which makes so many who sing it feel a little less alone and a little more free, which explains the enduring power of a [song] better than any other reason.” 

And as we approach this text, containing a song known as the Magnificat, sung by our own Madonna, Mary, mother of Jesus, it’s important to explore the context of her words.  

Mary is an elusive character in the Protestant church. When I think back to my formative years in the church, I can’t even remember learning anything about Mary outside of the fact that she carried Jesus. We didn’t learn anything about her character that didn’t reflect what my church at the time wanted us to understand - that Mary’s sole purpose was to be the vessel for the coming Christ.  

The basement of the church I grew up in had classrooms for Sunday school where we used felt cutouts to mimic the stories of the Bible. The only time the Mary cutout was used on that felt board was in the scene of the manger. For the rest of the year, she was placed on a board, gathered with all the other minor characters we only used once a year. That church never focused on the words of Mary, never talked about her life or circumstances, never engaged her as a person in her own right.  

The language used to describe Mary, I can remember, reflected that of an obedient child. One who was selfless, considerate, moral, good, loving, compliant and quiet. When I understand, of course, that that was actually the description of what my church thought all women should be - the interpretation makes more sense.  

It is the life and circumstances of Mary, though, that make her song so powerful.  

“[She] was born in Nazareth, a tiny Galilean town of about 1,600 people, during the reign of Herod the Great, a violent king propped up by Roman military might. Nazareth was of little consequence for most Jewish people.” ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ says Nathanael when he hears that Jesus, the one whom the prophets foretold, came from such a place.  

“Mary belonged to the peasant class, which made its living through agriculture and small commercial ventures like carpentry, the profession of both her fiancé Joseph and son Jesus. The peasant class made up 90 percent of the population and bore the burden of supporting the state and the small, privileged class. Their life was grinding, with a triple tax burden: to Rome, to Herod the Great and to the temple… Consequently, in order to have a steady supply of food, they usually combined their craft with farming.” 

It is doubtful that Mary knew how to read or write, since literacy was extremely rare among women of the time. The culture was highly oral, with public reading of the Scriptures, the telling of stories, the recitation of poems and the singing of songs.” 

She was poor.  

She was unwed. 

She was a teenager and vulnerable. 

She was a minority.  

And perhaps it is for these reasons, the pieces of her identity, that her life and song go so under the radar in our faith tradition. Mary is seen as a quiet, obedient child, when we should be celebrating her perseverance, her resilience, her devotion, her courage, her power and bravery and boldness - in rising up to the challenge from the angel Gabriel, of taking a risk and saying, “Yes Here I am Lord,” and in proclaiming here in her song what she knows to be true.  

In Mary’s song she portrays the beautiful vision she has for what the coming of the Christ will bring to earth...  

In her pregnancy, she sang: “the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” 

She sings of the pleasure she has in God’s call for her and in the vision of God’s justice which will come to fruition through her son. And it is a powerful vision. So powerful that still centuries later, many ruling governments rejected her song, dismissed it from the Biblical teachings and banned it from reading. In the last century alone, at least three different governments have prohibited the reading of Mary’s song. India, Guatemala and Argentina.  

In Argentina, The Dirty War, also called Process of National Reorganization, was a war waged by Argentina’s military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983. It is estimated that between 10,000 and 30,000 people were killed; many of them seized by the authorities and never heard from again. After the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo —whose children all disappeared during the war—placed the Magnificat’s words, joining Mary with her song, on posters throughout the capital plaza, the military junta of Argentina outlawed any public display of Mary’s song. 

The mothers found Mary’s words to be so inspiring and moving that they began to show belief that a large systematic change could be possible. The government then banned any public recitation of Mary’s words out of fear of mass retaliation. The mothers, in solidarity with Mary and she with them, were silenced.  

But God will not be silenced.  

Mary, singing her song, was a woman on the verge of birth, a birth that would change the entire course of history. A birth that brought salvation to humankind. A birth that would fulfill the vision of justice that Mary sang so boldly and courageously.  

Perhaps if the vision and song came from a powerful rich Roman king it would have been harder to outlaw and dismiss.  

But this is our God.  

A merciful God who, even when the people expect the message to come from the most powerful, chooses Mary. Chooses the woman, the poor, the unwed, the vulnerable, the minority - to turn the world upside down. Christ’s birth was one of miraculous proportions for many reasons. That he was the child of Mary is one of them.  

His care and upbringing were entrusted to the woman who believed with all of her heart that his purpose was to shine light in a world where the king reigned with violent military might, where the peasants paid triple tax, where the hungry are left hungry, and the rich keep getting richer.  

She knew that her child would be with his people, including those just like her. That the child would show everyone that God will not conform to our expectations or our attempts to dismiss the voices and roles of all those deemed worthy in the eyes of our God but bring forth a promise of salvation and grace and hope. The promise found in the child that God gave to the world through the body, love, guidance and strength of Mary.  

Whether we find ourselves shaken by Mary’s song or find solace in her proclamation for the coming justice - God’s love is there and will not be silenced.  

This is the power of her song.  

So let us follow Mary's example, and sing. The human voice is the most perfect of all instruments. Let’s sing as a way to say, this is what we think, this is what we feel - a little less alone and a little more free. 

Mary, 2000 years ago in Nazareth, Civil Rights leaders with this Little Light of Mine 70 years ago, mothers in Argentina in the 1980’s - all people living into song when the gap between pain and justice, rich and poor seemed so wide.  

Today, the gap has never seemed wider. Violence, poverty, racism, and greed still plague these days.  

How will we live into our own song?  

Let us lift our voices in praise and in protest, in proclamation and in prayer, knowing that in doing so, we are, like Mary, using song to express our trust in God and the mercy that extends to us, as it has from generation to generation.  

May the songs of our hearts be a source of comfort, hope, and resistance in this world. And may we keep singing, all our days.  

Amen. 

REFERENCES: 

“How The Civil Rights Movement Transformed ‘This Little Light of Mine’” heard on This American Life by NPR, published on December 24, 2018.  

“This Historical Mary” by Robert P. Maloney for American Magazine, published on October 19, 2005.  

“The Human Condition: Why We Like to Sing” by Susan Jaques for the Los Angeles Times, published on April 2, 1992. 

“The Subversive Magnificat: What Mary Expected The Messiah To Be Like” by Joseph Porterfield for EnemyLove.