I never had much time for Mary, the mother of Jesus, through most of my growing up years. Aside being trotted out, dressed in blue every Christmas, and I don’t I ever got to be Mary in a pageant, I don’t think I ever heard of her again all year. And the only thing that I remember about her from my childhood was that she was meek and mild. Probably the reason I was never chosen to be Mary!

Her absence for the rest of the year, allowed me or made me subconsciously dismiss her for many years. I don’t ever remember hearing the magnificent, revolutionary song she sang at her cousin Elizabeth’s house. Listen closely to the words and tell if this a person who is meek and mild! It’s written in Luke 1:

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

Barbara Reid writes in Broadview’s December issue: “She sings about filling up the hungry,” says Reid, “and that doesn’t sound terribly subversive, but keeping poor people poor, and hungry people hungry is a tactic of an oppressive and colonizing power, and keeping people always food insecure … is a tactic of oppression.” https://broadview.org/virgin-mary-prophet/

These words become even more powerful when we understand the context in which they were said. In 4 BCE there was a short-lived series of uprisings throughout Galilee. They started when one Judas son of Ezekias & his crew broke into the royal palace at Sepphoris (Mary’s hometown) and stole their arms, and then they began to attack occupying Roman forces.
James Tabor, in The Jesus Dynasty, writes: “Romans reacted quickly and with overwhelming force. The Roman governor of Syria, Publius Quintilius Varus, led three legions from Syria to brutally crush the opposition to Roman Rule. As many as 20,000 troops poured into the country from the north, burnt Sepphoris to the ground, and sent its inhabitants into slavery as punishment for their participation in the outbreaks. Varus rounded up rebels all over the country and crucified two thousand men who had participated in the revolt. The trauma in Galilee must have been dreadful, with dying men nailed to crosses at intervals up and down the main roads or on hillsides visible to all who passed.”

Did anyone know this? I didn’t until this week! 25 years of preaching and there are still so many things to discover. With that context, I am not surprised that Mary sang that song in the privacy of her cousin Elizabeth’s home, although households were large with extended family and servants. She sang of a new world order, of one without oppression, listen to some of those words again:

He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.

“This is a powerful hymn,” says Reid, “that both exalts God’s saving deeds in the past, but also counts on God to continue to save, to liberate, in the future…not just in individual acts of mercy and kindness, but [in] ways that get at the root causes of injustice and overturn those.” https://broadview.org/virgin-mary-

I wonder if Mary’s song filled two purposes: one a reminder of the world that God envisions for all people and another, to give her and Elizabeth strength and courage? It is said that preachers will often preach the sermon they themselves need to hear… I wonder if Mary’s song was one she needed to hear for herself. By her singing, she was imagining and creating a world which was very different than the world she was living in.

I wonder what she sang to Jesus… for Jesus grew up to challenge the status quo of his time… Mothers and women then and to a certain extent now, form and shape their children’s early years. How did Mary’s lullabies and other songs shape the ministry and mission that Jesus undertook when he was older? (Pause)

What we sing in church has power… Last fall we had a few weeks where folks were invited to share their favourite hymn and why and we’ll be starting that again in January.
Our favourite hymns tell us something about who we are, what we believe, and how we live that out? I can tell you that the first time I ever heard, I the Lord of Sea and Sky, it resonated strongly with me… even though it was brand new to me, the lyrics and the music put together, stirred something deep in my soul… they still do… Probably when I’m 90 and someone asks me what my favourite hymn is, that one will be in the top three.

Singing in community creates common memories, common bonds, feelings of connection and common purpose. Think of the African American spirituals that gave them strength and courage as they fought for freedom, and how often those songs were coded… codes messages of safety and freedom. Think of protests you may have witnessed or been part of… there is always a song that brings people together.

Songs have power… there is a story about Pete Seeger… after accepting an invitation to sing at a concert in South Africa, during the says of apartheid. He was told he could not sing, “If I Had a Hammer.” He agreed… and we he came out on stage, he told that… and then struck the first chords and the entire stadium sang it! That’s subversive…

I just finished listening to the audiobook, Miracle and Wonder, an audio biography of Paul Simon narrated by Malcolm Gladwell and Bruce Headlam, with lots of commentary from Paul Simon along with his music.Like many of you, I’ve been a fan for many years and it was fascinating hearing the backstory of some of the songs that Paul Simon’s wrote. On Wednesday morning, at the Study group, we did an exercise called Musica Divina, where we listen with the ears of the heart.

We pondered the following questions:
• How do you feel listening to the music?
• Do you get a sense of the sacred?
• Is God speaking to you through this music?
• What emotion does this music stir within you?

I chose Bridge Over Troubled Water… partly because it had three verses and we were listening three time… partly because of the opening line went along with out theme: How Does a Weary World Rejoice, “When you’re weary… feeling small… when tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all…” That sentence says a lot doesn’t it? It could mean friendship, the love between two people, God. One of the participants said as they left, “I’m going to listen to a lot of my favourites in a new way now.” They hadn’t considered that secular music can be sacred.

The songs that resonate most across the years are the ones that carry a sense of hope within them… Think of what we sing at funerals… or weddings… or any other significant time together… we are always singing hope… for a world that is not yet. Hope is not just wishful thinking. Hope, in the faith sense, is working towards an unseen future… with a sense that God is with us… and that new life is possible… that abundant life is possible!

Rebecca Solnit, (rebeccasolnit.net) writes: Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes—you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others.

We may only be a few dozen… but Jesus started with only a dozen. 😉We can sing… just like Mary… we can sing hope of a new world order. And in singing, help to create it.

Thanks be to God for the challenge and the opportunity to lift our voices in songs of hope!

Luke 1: 46-55
December 17, 2023 – SJ – Advent 4