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Scripture: Luke 1:26-56

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth… Read more…

Looking to Sunday

by Elaine Poproski

Rolf Jacobson, a professor at Luther Seminary in Minnesota, wrote this about Mary’s Song from Luke 1:46-55: “The so-called ‘Magnificat’ (somehow that name is too tame) is a radical protest song… The kind of song that has been sung by countless people of faith through the ages in resistance, in defiance of empires, slavers, terrorists, invaders and the like.”[1]

When I read those words, they struck me as something new. Mary’s Song – the Magnificat – as a radical protest song? This is possibly one of the most familiar passages of Scripture in the world. Countless composers have put the words to music over the centuries. Some of the compositions are grand orchestral and choral works. Some are simple and quiet. But are any of them protest songs?

Rolf Jacobson makes a good point. Listen to these words beginning about halfway through the song, starting at verse 51:

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

These aren’t quiet words. These aren’t grand, orchestral words. These are words from the streets – from the alleys and shadows of the city where the marginalized and oppressed look for hope. These are words shouted by the underdog – words of protest and revolution. God has done a new thing. And it’s not the kind of thing the rich and powerful will celebrate.

Rolf Jacobson isn’t the only one who sees Mary’s Song this way. Apparently, during the British rule of India, Indian churches were prohibited from singing the Magnificat. Similarly, in the 1980s, this ancient song was inspiring Guatemala’s impoverished masses to believe that change was possible. As a result, their government did like the British, and banned the public recitation of Mary’s words. In 1933, the year Hitler came to power in Germany, Dietrich Bonheoffer preached an Advent sermon in which he said this:

“The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings… This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. it is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind.”[2]

I wonder how many times Bonhoeffer revisited Mary’s song over the next 12 years, as he witnessed Hitler’s rise to power and the horrors of WWII before his own execution. I wonder, if we really heard the protest and the cry of the oppressed in Mary’s song, how would that affect our Advent this year? Especially given our reality as not the oppressed and not the marginalized, but instead as the proud, the powerful, and the fed?

A month ago, our guest preacher, Gene Tempelmeyer, pointed out that most of the Bible was written by people living either under the threat or the thumb of one empire or another. And he pointed out that we live in the heart of today’s empire. He asked us: How does living in the empire change the way we read the Bible? What does it mean to live for the Kingdom of God if we are in the heart of Rome?[3]

As you prepare for Sunday, perhaps spend some time with these revolutionary words of Mary. Who are you in this song? Do the words make you uncomfortable? Should they make you uncomfortable? How does seeing these words as a radical protest affect the way you think about Advent and Christmas?

 

[1] Rolf Jacobson. “Commentary on Luke 1:46b-55.” Working Preacher. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-of-advent-3/commentary-on-luke-146-55-3 (accessed Nov. 18, 2021).

[2] Jason Porterfield. “The Subversive Magnificat: What Mary Expected the Messiah to be Like.” EnemyLove. http://enemylove.com/subversive-magnificat-mary-expected-messiah-to-be-like/ (accessed Nov. 19, 2021).

[3] https://walmer.ca/podcast/kingdom-and-empire/