how every Christian (and many churches) has a “gospel within the gospel,” that passage or passages that we return to again and again. In some ways, those passages define who we are in a way that other parts don’t. Admitting we have favorite parts of the Bible is a bit like parents’ admitting they have a favorite child, but most of us do. Mary’s Magnificat is that passage for many progressive Christians, and for good reason.
This part of the Bible is one of the clearest declarations of God’s devotion to the poor, the outcast, the hungry, the marginal. Add to that the fact that it comes from Mary immediately after Elizabeth has proclaimed her to be the mother of the Lord, and it becomes quite powerful. Given that this passage so clearly echoes many of the Old Testament prophets, the author of Luke puts Mary in the line of those prophets, raising who we believe to be a poor woman to the position of people like Isaiah and Jeremiah, those who speak on behalf of God. The author also puts this proclamation in the first chapter of the book, clearly laying out this gospel’s concern with all of those on the margins of society in first century Israel.
Mary’s prophecy, though, is different from those who have come before her. It’s true that she shows the same concern for those who need God’s protection, talking about the lowly and the hungry, but her verb tense separates her from the Old Testament prophets we tend to think of. While they (like in the passage from Micah) talk about what shall happen, Mary talks about what has already happened in the past, what God has done already. Such an approach puts her more in line with Miriam whose song (albeit much shorter) in Exodus 15 talks about what God did for the people of Israel in bringing them across the Red Sea and out of Egypt safely. Miriam is the first woman in the Bible to have the title of prophet applied to her, beginning the lineage that Mary is clearly working within.
There are two different ways Mary’s use of past tense make sense, both of which should give hope and encouragement to those who work for justice in the world. The first is that God’s action of choosing Mary to be the mother of Jesus has already set the world straight, despite the fact that there is still so much injustice. God’s choosing Mary sends a message to those in power that their power is fleeting, ephemeral, and not true power at all. When Mary says that God has “brought down the powerful from their thrones,” she means that they have lost whatever power they thought they had, but they don’t know it yet (and might never know it, as they do not see or hear properly).
We see this past tense nature in contemporary society, especially in America. We have politicians who make laws that try to keep people apart, deprive people of their rights, or actively harm the least powerful among us. They believe they have the real power in this society. However, those who work for justice know that such power, even such laws, will not last, that the ideals of true freedom and equality will win out in the future; it’s just a matter of time and effort. President Trump’s travel ban on those from majority Muslim countries caused serious disruptions for hundreds and thousands of people, but people, the ones with the real power, stood up and continue to stand up against such division. Those people believe they will win, in the long term.
The other way, a better reading, is to see Mary’s proclamation in line with Miriam’s, a celebration of all that God has done, which implies what God will do in the future. God’s choosing Mary to be Jesus’s mother reminds readers of other times God has lifted up the lowly, such as when David becomes Israel’s king, or when God satisfied the hungry, such as when he gave the Israelites manna and quail and water. Mary is a Jewish woman, so she knows the history of her people, and she knows the history of her God’s protection. She also knows Micah’s prophecy that the one who will come forth to rule “shall be great,” which means that “he shall be the one of peace.” She knows that God seeks relationship with all of humanity, and she knows that God seeks right relationships within humanity. The only person who could lead on behalf of God is “the one of peace.”
Those who work for justice, especially when discouraged, must look to the past and see all that has happened over the decades and centuries to see that progress does come, though there is much work to be done. We must remember the women in the late 1800s who met at Seneca Falls, who ultimately led to women’s right to vote. We must remember the men and women who sat at lunch counters, who marched through streets, who were beaten and even killed to begin to change the way people treat minorities in this country. We must remember the LGBTQ women and men who rioted outside of the Stonewall Inn who began to say that they would not allow police or anyone else to treat them as inferior any longer. God has given people strength to stand up to those who oppress, to lift up the lowly, to take steps toward progress.
As with Mary’s Magnificat, though, looking to the past does not imply that work is done. Her proclamation comes at the beginning of the gospel, before Jesus has spoken a word. It is a celebration of what God has done to show what God will continue to do through women like Mary and Elizabeth and men like Jesus and John. The kingdom comes through people the world overlooks, the poor women who give birth with little fanfare, the people who stand up to say that what is happening is wrong and must stop. God “has brought down the powerful from their thrones,” and God will continue to do so through people who hear Mary’s voice and carry on her work. The work for such justice will always continue as new groups carry on work began decades, if not centuries, before, but Mary’s song reminds us that God’s justice eventually carries the day.
Questions for Reflection or Discussion:
Where do we see other examples of people who worked for justice in the past?
What are the main areas we still need to focus on, whether locally, nationally, or internationally?
More Than a Good Story
Christmas Eve
Matthew 1:18–25
I John 4:7–16
The Virgin Birth is one of those milestones in Christianity that provokes a wide array of feelings in believers and non-believers, alike. There’s a wide range of interpretations: the fundamentalist, evangelical view that this miracle is one of the key signs that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah who will save Israel; the moderate view that, while something about this birth was special in that God has come to Earth in human form out of love for humanity, some scholars translate virgin as young girl, as it usually is in Isaiah, so this birth is not miraculous, but still a major event; then there are those on the extreme ends of Christianity (or even outside of the faith) who say this story is completely mythical, nothing more than an attempt to align Jesus with the traditional deities of the day, who always had some sort of miraculous birth themselves, often with a god involved, maybe even going so far as to argue that the story is a cover for a more salacious story of a woman who gives birth to a child out of wedlock.
Those of us in mainline churches usually reject that fundamentalist view, focusing instead on the more moderate view, that, regardless of the specific means of Jesus’s conception, this story reminds us that God wanted a relationship with humanity so much that God crossed the bounds of the humanity-divinity divide to connect with us. Even if we do go as far as arguing that the story is mythical, we need to remember what a myth is and why this story still matters. Myths are not stories that are untrue, save for in a factual sense; instead, myths provide deep truths that give a person and a community meaning for living one’s life. They are not superimposed upon a culture by someone either from within or outside of that culture; rather, they come from within a culture, naturally, often spontaneously, as a way of trying to articulate a truth people can find no other words for.
If the story of the Virgin Birth, then, is a myth (and I won’t ever say that something is only or just a myth, as that devalues the importance of myth), we need to see what the story is trying to tell us about God and the relationship between humanity and divinity. If we can see the truth at that end of the spectrum, it will help shape our thinking, no matter what we believe about the historical truth of the event. It might help us to remember at this
