In Managua, Nicaragua, a wall in the inner courtyard at Casa Ave Maria -- an Episcopal guest house and skills training center -- depicts the biblical meeting of Mary and Elizabeth. A host of Nicaraguan women freedom fighters are seen to their right.

Mary's Song for Justice

Lectionary reflections for Advent 4 (C)

by Richard A. Bower

On this Fourth Sunday of Advent we listen to the words of Mary, mother of Jesus. She, the most highly favored among women, has a word of judgment and of hope for us.

She has come from Galilee to visit her cousin Elizabeth in Judah: a young rural peasant woman from the North visiting her relative who lives near the great urban sprawl of Jerusalem. Why the visit? Our imaginations can conjure up many reasons. She is in a delicate situation, pregnant and not married. Her future husband has his own struggles with this situation. Perhaps in compassion her family sent her to a safe house to pass her time of pregnancy. We can only guess. What we do know is that Elizabeth greets her with warmth and joy.

These may have been the only tender words Mary has heard in weeks, she who is the family and community's problem. Elizabeth blesses her with joyful abandon, "filled with the Spirit," Luke says. This spirited blessing points to Mary as a women. As a woman she is blessed. "Her womanhood is singled out; it is as a woman she is regarded as loved and given privileged status by God" (The God of Life, Gustavo GutiŽrrez, Orbis Books NY 1991, p.171). And she is blessed as a woman about to be a mother.

It is interesting that in the New Testament it is [Mary's] motherhood, not her "virginity," that is celebrated most . . . Mary is the bearer of a flesh and blood child, who finds his beginning in her womb and his nourishment at her breast.

It is interesting that in the New Testament it is her motherhood, not her "virginity," that is celebrated most. Paul speaks of Jesus as "born of a woman" (Galatians 4:4). The Evangelist John holds Mary high in the story of Jesus, but never mentions her name but calls her simply "the mother of Jesus." Another time, Luke places a blessing for May on the lips of an unknown woman: "Blessed is the womb that carried you [Jesus] and the breast at which you nursed" (Luke 11:27). Mary is the bearer of a flesh and blood child, who finds his beginning in her womb and his nourishment at her breast. "The Word became flesh, born of a woman."

Out of these great reversals -- the blessing of womanhood in a patriarchal society, and the rejoicing in motherhood of an unmarried pregnant woman -- came a song of liberation, the Song of Mary, the Magnificat.

Filled with the simple joy of a pious heart, this song shakes the social and religious foundations of Mary's world, and of all time.

Mary begins her song with a heart-felt song of love. My soul [euphemism for 'self'] proclaims the greatness of Yahweh, my deepest self rejoices in you, O God my Savior . . . "

Mary tenderly reveals the simple piety of the "little ones" the anawim, the poor, outcast, marginalized of her day. You have looked with favor on your lowly servant . . . (The Greek for 'lowliness' is tapeinosis, a word which carries the connotation of affliction and oppression.) Mary sings of the great reversals of her own life, how she, humble and lowly, has been blessed by God, the one who has "done great things for me."

Her song, her dream of a new world, begins in deep and genuine spirit, love and devotion to the delivering God of her people.

But Mary does not leave the song here, with a joyful celebration of the favor she has received. She looks to the larger hope, to a point of vision that gathers up the anawim of all generations, past present and future, and sings a liberating song of hope for them too.

In this new world, the world of the dream of God, God's power will be known in the great reversal: where the powerful are brought low, and the humble lifted up; where the hungry will be filled with good things, and the rich sent away empty.

This is a passionate song of a woman who has known oppression, who has been humbled by powers and forces who imagine that the world is theirs to take and enjoy. She uses the language of the prophets as they remind God of the Covenant, of the option God has made for the lowly, the exiled, the people scattered by war and fear over all the known earth. You, O God, have remembered your promise of mercy, the promise made to our forebears, to Abraham and Sarah and their children forever.

In Mary and her song are joined with her deep faith and commitment to justice. In the words of Gustavo GutiŽrrez of Peru, "God's holiness is that of one who fulfills promises (Luke 1:55); who enters into our history in order to bring it into the sphere of the divine; who transforms the present world. God is the God who does justice, with all that the word 'justice' implies in the Bible. To this end God makes an agreement with the people. It is as a member of this people that Mary speaks [and sings]. Her contemplation of God's holiness is not an evasion of history; her joy at the gratuitous love of Yahweh does not make her forget the demands of justice" (GutiŽrrez, p. 181).

I think about the countries . . . where power and tyranny tried to destroy the spirits of people. In these countries -- Poland, Czechoslovakia, Nicaragua, Chile, Palestine, the United States -- it has been the poets, the songwriters who have revived the dream, those who wrote songs of protest, deliverance and hope . . . just like Mary.

It was not the religious or political leaders of her day who recalled these holy promises, it was a Galilean young woman who remembered and sang. I think about the countries of our world in the 20^th and 21^st century, countries where power and tyranny tried to destroy the spirits of people. In these countries -- Poland, Czechoslovakia, Nicaragua, Chile, Palestine, the United States -- it has been the poets, the songwriters who have revived the dream, those who wrote songs of protest, deliverance and hope . . . just like Mary.

Mary knew her heritage. Her song echoed the songs of earlier poets -- Miriam (Exodus 15:19-21), Deborah (Judges 5:1-31), Judith (Judith 16:1-17), and especially Hannah (1 Samuel 2:1-10).

It takes holy imagination, formed by a deep love and experience of God, and of the community of anawim, of simple believers filled with hope, to imagine things outside the box, to dream dreams larger than the desperation of the moment, to imagine and live the great reversals of God's dream for all humankind.

Who are the poets and singers of our time, those who nourish our spirits, who remind us of God's promises, who empower us to say and live the Yes of life, the capacity to see how God is lifting up even now the lowliest among us?

In Mary we discover a different history. And so we share her song (Enriching our Worship, p. 27):

From among the least, the smallest comes the liberating grace of God. That is what the prophet Micah seems to be saying in today's Lesson: O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel . . . (Micah 5:2-5a).

Contrast all of this with today's economic capitalisms and imperial governments, where more is better, maximization of profit is the ethic, where survival of the fittest is lauded, where bigger is better, power is to be lusted after, where conquest in war shows greatness, and being the empire is a sign of blessing and worth.

Contrast all of this with today's economic capitalisms and imperial governments, where more is better, maximization of profit is the ethic, where survival of the fittest is lauded, where bigger is better, power is to be lusted after, where conquest in war shows greatness, and being the empire is a sign of blessing and worth.

The Very Rev. Richard A. Bower is executive director of Fundacion Cristosal, a solidarity ministry with the Anglican/Episcopal Church in El Salvador. Recently honored as dean emeritus of St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Syracuse, New York, he is a board member of the Episcopal Church Publishing Company (The Witness). Dick may be reached by email at rabvt@together.net