the Fourth Sunday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
Singing Into the Tension
by Randy Hein
“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour….
For he has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.”
Luke 1:46, 52
“Mary was a total bada**!” she blurted out, and then almost immediately covered her mouth. This spontaneous (and hilarious) outburst happened one Sunday morning while our community was walking through Mary’s Song, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-53). The woman meant no disrespect to the blessed and sometimes venerated mother of Jesus. In fact, quite the opposite. Like many people who had grown up in the culture of ‘Bible believing’ evangelicalism, she had – rather ironically – never actually read it. At least not the second half.
In this song, she was learning that the ‘good news’ of the kingdom wasn’t going to be good news for everyone. The proud, the privileged, and the powerful were going to be tossed down, while the humble, the poor, and the vulnerable would finally have their day. The first half of the Magnificat has a majestic quality to it, and has been the inspiration for Baroque hymns and contemporary worship tunes: the second half has always sounded a little more like the Communist Manifesto. Yet, in all probability, these words were the ‘lullaby’ that Mary sung to baby Jesus on cold, restless winter nights. Bada**, indeed.
The Magnificat is a dangerous song. It reminds me that when I pray, “Thy kingdom come …”, my privileges are always on notice. Hear it now: one must always be careful of what one prays for. But as I’ve been praying (or singing) my way through the Magnificat this season, here are a few things that have surfaced.
The Magnificat gives my present tension a little perspective.
I don’t want to minimize the challenges I’m experiencing this Advent. I’m a weary pastor who’s trying to navigate a young community through a global pandemic in a time of social and spiritual upheaval. Along with following safety protocols that make church feel cold and antiseptic, I’m dealing with the malaise of a group who only seem motivated when they are deconstructing everything. I’m feeling it in my body. I’m living with stress headaches and occasional restless sleeps.
But …
I’m also well-fed. I’m warm. I’m relatively safe. Did I mention, I’m white, middle class and male? Mary was none of these things. I was born into the winning side of almost every conceivable social power dynamic: a true benefactor of empire. Mary was born into poverty, living under Roman occupation, and immersed in the values of a rather severe religious community. Her social location already made her vulnerable, but – by saying “yes” to the angel Gabriel – she was choosing to be made even more vulnerable.
Her response? Sing. Sing subversive songs of redemption and restorative justice.
I’d say that’s a pretty good reality check for me right now.
The Magnificat gives me courage in my present tension.
It must have been fantastical for Mary to think that the glorious Mystery was growing in her uterus, but it’s also fair to say that the whole situation carried with it the scent of scandal. And as the Bethlehem plot was played out, we see that it came with its share of pain, desperation, and terror.
But it’s not just the nativity narrative. When reading through the rest of the gospels, you see that Mary would live her entire life in the tension of joy and sorrow. Yet, somehow, she remained willing to enter the kingdom narrative, and – though her humanity would sometimes creep to the surface (Matthew 12:47) – she would remain committed to it, full of grace, and in awe of what was unfolding.
This strengthens my resolve. And sometimes I really need that.
In the face of all my gospel-soaked hopes, there remains a world where everything still seems broken. Our social landscape is subject to global bullies, environmental atrocities, systemic violence, and self-interested religion. But I can sing this song in resistance: it reinvigorates my imagination and gives me a vision of a world where wrongs are turned to rights.
The Magnificat gives me direction in my present tension.
At the end of the day, the Magnificat is a worship song.
When we sing Mary’s song, we are not singing our problems away (the song is anything but escapist!) We are declaring that it’s God who is bringing the kingdom. God is leaning toward the lowly, and bringing shalom to the world by entering the muck and mire of humanity through Jesus. On the cross, Jesus will meet violence with forgiveness, rage with peace, and fear with love. It is here that the proud are scattered, rulers are brought down from their thrones, and the rich realize their true poverty.
Most revolutions don’t begin here.
Most revolutions begin with a group of people declaring their independence and asserting their will to bring about some kind of change through the creation of a new world order. Well, we know that Jesus’s early disciples were not capable of that. They were not organized activists waiting to foist themselves on the world. They were a hodgepodge group of messy misfits. They weren’t smart, tough, or terribly well organized. They couldn’t have imagined the breadth of God’s unfolding plan, let alone pulled it off.
The Magnificat tells us that God has taken sole responsibility for making things right, and we’ve already been invited into this reality. Jesus is calling us to commune and participate with his Spirit as ambassadors of this new peaceable kingdom. And we can practice the customs and the habits of this kingdom right now.
Mary’s lullaby has become our anthem! May it give us the resilience to sing through the tension this Advent.
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