In our Christmas morning lectionary reading, Mary is greeted by the angel Gabriel as “the favored one” or the blessed one, because Mary has been chosen to give birth to a son who will be a great savior to his people. Yet the story that follows is seemingly contradictory.[1]
Mary becomes an unwed mother who was surely shamed within her culture. She gives birth in a barn among animals and is visited by shepherds, considered lowly members of society. In the Matthew story (totally different from Luke’s), she and her husband end up fleeing their homeland because King Herod threatens them. And her son, in the final scenes of his life, suffers a horrible, unspeakable death.
In myriad ways, Mary does not seem favored or blessed. Have you ever felt this way, that you are told God favors you, yet you feel anything but blessed? Perhaps you feel rejected and judged harshly by people around you, like you cannot catch a break. Perhaps you have suffered unbearable losses. Perhaps you struggle to stay afloat financially. Perhaps you are threatened by combatants in a region at war. Yet, at the same time, you read in scripture that you are favored by God. It is confusing.
But in Luke, Mary’s character teaches that the appearance of a thing is not the ultimate reality. In her song the “Magnificat”, she beckons us to investigate more deeply. We must look beyond the surface of life to see God dwelling within us. Our intimacy with the Divine, and our alignment with God’s desires, is what marks our lives as blessed—not the perimeters by which the dominant society measures us or even the perimeters by which we measure ourselves. Because those values can be misleading. God’s values stand in plain contrast to the values of the world. Few New Testament passages express this as clearly as Mary’s Song (Luke 1:46-56). The Magnificat is a bold expression of God’s desires for creation and for humanity. And these desires often starkly contradict humanity’s values and desires.
Reimagining the Magnificat
This week I was introduced to a stunning rendering of the Magnificat into modern language. A writer named Reverend M. Jade Kaiser, with an organization called enfleshed, rewrote the Magnificat in terms that resonate more with us and our times. The words are emboldening and encouraging, especially when we feel the weight of the world or feel anything but blessed. I share this interpretation to orient our minds to God’s intentions as we celebrate Christmas. In this rewording, Mary proclaims:
My soul is alive with thoughts of God.
What a wonder, Their liberating works.
Though the world has been harsh to me,
God has shown me kindness,
seen my worth,
and called me to courage.
Surely, those who come after me will call me blessed.
Even when my heart weighs heavy with grief,
still, so does hope abide with me.
Holy is the One who makes it so.
From generation to generation,
Love’s Mercy is freely handed out;
none are beyond the borders of
God’s transforming compassion.
The power of God is revealed
among those who labor for justice.
God humbles the arrogant.
God turns unjust thrones into dust.
God’s Wisdom is revealed in
the lives and truths of those on the margins.
God is a feast for the hungry.
God is the great redistributor of wealth and resources.
God is the ceasing of excessive and destructive production
that all the earth might rest.
Through exiles and enslavement,
famines and wars,
hurricanes and gun violence,
God is a companion in loss,
a deliverer from evil,
a lover whose touch restores.
This is the promise God made
to my ancestors,
to me,
to all the creatures and creations,
now and yet coming,
and in this promise,
I find my strength.
Come, Great Healer,
and be with us.
—Happy Christ-mass.
Love, Tricia
[1] Writer and pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber is credited with turning our attention to this aspect of the Mary story.
Wren, winner of a 2022 Independent Publishers Award Bronze Medal
Winner of the 2022 Independent Publisher Awards Bronze Medal for Regional Fiction; Finalist for the 2022 National Indie Excellence Awards. (2021) Paperback publication of Wren , a novel. “Insightful novel tackles questions of parenthood, marriage, and friendship with finesse and empathy … with striking descriptions of Oregon topography.” —Kirkus Reviews (2018) Audiobook publication of Wren.
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