©Suzanne Grimmett
My soul is alive with thoughts of God.
What a wonder, Their liberating works.
Though the world has been harsh to me,
God has shown me kindness,
seen my worth,
and called me to courage.
Surely, those who come after me will call me blessed.
Even when my heart weighs heavy with grief,
still, so does hope abide with me.
Holy is the One who makes it so.
From generation to generation,
Love’s Mercy is freely handed out;
None are beyond the borders of
God’s transforming compassion.[1]
These are the opening lines of a paraphrase of the Magnificat by M Jade Kaiser. Today we have heard Mary’s song of praise in place of the psalm. This song has been sung in many forms since it sprang from Mary’s lips as she was greeted with joy by her relative Elizabeth, a woman also miraculously pregnant with the child who would be John the Baptist. This song keeps appearing down the ages as a living word enfleshed in the lives of those going about the work of God’s kingdom; a kingdom of healing, justice and peace.
Mary’s song has a subversive message- or perhaps we should say, it offers a corrective to a world where human worth and dignity is devalued and power used to control and oppress. With all its talk of bringing down the powerful and lifting up the lowly, it offers a vision of equality.
This prophetic vision has been spoken throughout human history and continues to shape our lives in our time. There are many examples of this, but I love the story theologian, Harvey Cox tells, of a time when he was involved in the American civil rights movement and jailed after being engaged in protests and civil disobedience. He found himself in prison with his fellow protestors- a few of whom were white but the majority were black teenagers. The prison warden came up to Harvey Cox and said to him, “Those coloured kids over there have been asking for Bibles. I figured it can’t do no harm, so I found them some.”
Cox thought, “Can’t do no harm? Where do you think these kids got these ideas of equality from in the first place?”
Cox goes on to say that for those teenagers, the Bible was not a text to be read literally- the question of whether it is literal or not literal didn’t even come up. For those teenagers, the scriptures were their story- continuing in and through their lives at that present moment.
Those teenagers were putting flesh on the story they were reading. Those teenagers were allowing the song to burst forth from them- through their lives and by their prayers. They were living the song.
So how do we too, live the song? How can Mary’s song be our song?
Although we might be hearing the bigger political and social dimension of Mary’s song, it is also a divine truth that the growth of the kingdom begins in the smallest of ways. Mary, with the tiny life of God just beginning inside her, surely knew that better than anyone.
It is something we celebrate today with the baptism of Angus- that God’s plan for the world is not to conquer or condemn but to be born amongst us and then be born again and again with all the different faces of the people of God. Angus is being baptized into God’s family as his sister Daphne was before him, beginning this journey of becoming himself as he is invited into the story of God- growing in years and in faith, putting flesh on the liberating song of Mary.
The work of the kingdom begins in each little life, including our own.
By the Spirit, Christ comes to each of us, touching our deepest selves with the truth of this song. That which is proud in us cannot stand, but that in us which is lowly will be honoured and gently lifted up. Where we are hungry, Christ feeds. Where we are weary, burdened or weak, Christ tenderly offers peace, rest and loving acceptance. This is nothing less than the great story of redemption, and we are invited to take our place in it, just as Mary did. And as we make room this Advent for Christ to come to us, then we find that Mary’s song becomes our song. We find that our hope this season is based not on nice optimistic feelings, but is a robust, pregnant hope. It is the kind of hope grounded in the love that has been poured out upon us: a love that transforms us at the same time as it sets us about the work of the kingdom.
We can sing Mary’s song, because, just like Mary, we are enfleshing Christ, bringing to life in our hearts and in our world, the justice, peace and mercy of God. M Jade Kaiser concludes their Magnificat with these words of promise and healing- a song maybe we, too, could sing with our lives and through our prayers.
God is a companion in loss,
a deliverer from evil,
a lover whose touch restores.
This is the promise They made
to my ancestors,
to me,
to all the creatures and creations,
now and yet coming,
and in this promise,
I find my strength.
Come, Great Healer,
and be birthed through us.
Amen.
[1] M Jade Kaiser https://enfleshed.com/blogs/liturgies/marys-magnificat-luke-147-55-remix/