Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
December 12, 2010

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

“Magnificat anima mea Dominum.” My soul magnifies the Lord. The Magnificat, so called because its first word in Latin is “magnificat,” is one of the most beautiful, powerful, and beloved passages in the Bible. It has been set to music countless times, usually in the Latin. “My soul magnifies the Lord,” that is, my soul greatly praises the Lord. Mary sings her praise to God because God has done great things for her. God has made her the mother of God’s Son Jesus. Through the angel God made Mary the offer to become the mother of Christ, and Mary said yes. She wasn’t coerced or compelled. She had a choice. God offered, and Mary said yes. God said in effect I need a partner in the great new thing I am about to do. I need a woman to bear my Son, and Mary said yes. She said yes, I’ll be your partner in the great new thing you are about to do. Together God and Mary brought God’s Son Jesus into the world, and Mary sings her praise to God. She praises God because God did not disdain her lowliness, her poverty, her humility, her meekness. Rather, God made her God’s partner. In the ancient language of the Christian tradition God made her the Theotokos, the Bearer of God. So Mary sings her praise to God.

That’s how the Magnificat begins, with Mary singing her praise to God, but it doesn’t end there. Mary’s song goes on to say some pretty startling things. She says that God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, brought down the powerful from their thrones, lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. (Apparently President Obama and the Republicans haven’t read the Magnificat—sorry, but I couldn’t resist.) We always think of Mary as meek and mild, as the epitome of niceness, as submissive even, someone who would never cause trouble, and certainly not as a great prophetess of justice. But look at what she says here! She’s standing the whole world in its head! Brought down the powerful from their thrones? Lifted up the lowly? Filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty? There’s nothing meek or mild about all that! It’s downright revolutionary! It’s so revolutionary that at one time or another the Magnificat has been outlawed in Guatemala and something like ten other countries! Mary moves directly from praising God for the great thing God has done for her to speaking God’s truth to power, a truth power didn’t want to hear then and doesn’t want to hear now.

But there’s something odd about the way Mary puts that truth, isn’t there. When Mary talks about God bringing the powerful down from their thrones, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry with good things, and sending the rich away empty she puts it all in the past tense. God has done all these things. Not God will do all these things or even God is doing all these things. God has done all these things. Mary’s words say that these things have happened. It’s done. The thrones are empty, the lowly rule, the hungry are fed, and the rich know want. God has done it. Mission accomplished. Time to move on.

And all I can say is: Really? Are you serious? That hasn’t happened. It hadn’t happened in Mary’s time, and it hasn’t happened in ours. The powerful are still on their thrones, even if those thrones today look like corporate board rooms rather royal palaces. The lowly are still lowly. The hungry are still hungry. The rich continue to indulge their lust for excessive wealth at the expense of the rest of the world’s people. There is no way that the things Mary says God has done have actually been done. Not in Mary’s world ruled by the Roman emperor, not in ours ruled by the greedy money interests of Wall Street and the other financial centers from London to Shanghai.

So if what Mary says God has done has really not been done, what are we to make of these verses that use the past tense to speak of a world transformed in the direction of justice? Perhaps we could say that from God’s perspective these things have already happened because God is beyond time, so that our sense that things have not yet happened, which is of course grounded in our experience of time, has no meaning for God. Or we could perhaps say that the reality Mary describes breaks into the world with the coming of Jesus so that in some mystical sense these things have already happened. But those solutions, while perhaps true, aren’t very satisfying. They leave us saying that’s nice, for God anyway, but it doesn’t do us much good seeing how far from realization in time these things are. So let me suggest another solution. We are dealing here with Luke, the New Testaments greatest story teller. One thing that Luke is doing here in the Magnificat is foreshadowing a theme of his Gospel, a central theme of Jesus’ coming ministry. Especially for Luke, Jesus is about preaching justice for the poor. Mary’s words presage that theme. Mary’s statements, that in their literal sense speak of the past are, I think, really stating a vision, a vision that will become Jesus’ vision of God’s Kingdom, an vision that is then God’s vision for the way the world should be. Mary’s words, although they use the past tense, foretell a vision that will be central to Jesus’ ministry. So let us see Mary’s words as speaking of a vision, a dream, that Jesus will develop in his ministry. Mary sings of the Kingdom of God that her son will proclaim, not really of something that has already happened. She sings of something that will be central to the life of the child she is carrying as she sings.

That vision is not yet reality, yet it remains for us Christians Jesus’ vision, God’s vision. What are we to do with that vision? Just look at it? Just behold it from afar and admire it? Certainly not. Jesus didn’t call people to idle reflection, he called people to action, action on behalf of the Kingdom of God that he proclaimed. So let me suggest something that may not be immediately apparent. Let me suggest that we have a model for what we are to do with Jesus’ vision, which is God’s vision, in Mary herself.

When God needed a partner to bring Jesus into the world God turned to Mary. God offered Mary a divine partnership, and Mary said yes. God couldn’t, or at least didn’t, do it alone. God worked with Mary to bring Jesus into the world. The same thing is true about the realization of God’s vision of the lowly lifted up and the hungry filled with good things, of the powerful brought down from their thrones and the rich sent away empty. God can’t, or at least doesn’t, do it alone. God needs, or at least wants, partners. God asked Mary to be God’s partner in the birth of Jesus. Who is God asking to be God’s partners in the realization of God’s Kingdom on earth? Why us, of course. Christ’s disciples. Not only Christ’s disciples, I think. God wants a partnership with all people of good will with a passion for justice and peace whatever their faith tradition. But certainly Christ’s disciples. Certainly we who will soon celebrate Christ’s birth. We who claim Jesus as our own, we who find our connection with God in him. We are called as partners in Christ’s service. We are called as partners in the great work of making the vision that Mary articulates a reality in the world.

Soon we will celebrate Christ’s birth. It is right that we do so, but we can’t leave it at that. Mary had divine work to do—give birth to God’s Son. We have divine work to do—give birth to God’s Kingdom. It’s not easy. We will never complete the task, but that is no excuse for not trying, for not working, for not experiencing the labor pains of a new world, a new creation. That’s the work to which God calls us as God’s partners. Let’s get on with it. Amen.