With Christmas quickly approaching, the familiar tunes of a baby sleeping away in a manger on a silent night while angels we have heard on high proclaim joy to the world in the little town of Bethlehem echo all around us. I like many of these songs. Many of them capture a part of the story of the Creator of the universe becoming an infant and coming to be with us.
But the very first Christmas song was quite different from the ones that resound in our churches and department stores this year. The first Christmas song ever recorded in history was a revolutionary and subversive song sung by a pregnant, unwed teenager named Mary not long after she received a message that the Son of God was in her womb. Mary's song has made people in power so uncomfortable that it has been banned in multiple countries over the past 100 years because of its message of revolutionary reversals. Our Christmas songs about a cute baby often fail to capture what Mary expresses in the first Christmas song ever.
Mary announces in her song that God sees the marginalized and the outcast. We know that Mary is marginalized, not only because she is from Nazareth, a town with a not-so-great reputation, but also because she is a woman in the first century in a patriarchal society where women were powerless, often unable to access the education and opportunity available to men, and left to rely on their fathers, husbands, or sons to provide for them and protect them. But God is mindful of Mary. God sees her just as God sees Hagar and Hannah and countless oppressed women before her and after her.
As Mary's Christmas song begins by reminding us that God sees and is mindful of an unwed woman from Nazareth, may we hear her words echo in the voices of those who are marginalized around us. As God sees Mary, God sees the migrant at the border. God sees the inmate in prison. God sees those who are abused, those who are addicted, those who are without a home, those who are discriminated against because of their race, gender, sexuality, language, and disability. May we see them, too. May we be mindful of them and hear their songs. May we partner with them and join their revolution.
In her song, Mary declares that God reverses inequitable power structures and feeds the hungry. Rulers who have power to oppress and silence their people are brought down while people who are ignored, not represented, and scorned are given power. Mary sang this song as a young Jewish girl living under Roman occupation. She was familiar with oppressive rulers and unjust distributions of power. I cannot read these lines of Mary's song without thinking about the unfair ways that power is distributed in our society: access to voting in local and federal elections is inequitable, privileges are granted to English speakers and are withheld from residents who speak other languages, racist redistricting policies favor the powerful, local church leadership assigns power on the basis of gender, governmental and commercial positions of power are still held by a disproportionate number of white people, and access to higher education is cost prohibitive for many lower income families. This song makes me want to lift my voice with Mary's to yearn with her for shalom.
This song is a message of hope to those who are powerless that the Mighty God in Mary's womb lifts up those who are forgotten and hungry. But it is a message of warning to those who wield authority, an invitation to share and to divest. And to all of us, it is an appeal to demolish the inequitable power structures that exist that prefer one person over another based on race, gender, class, sexuality, language, ability, age, or any other category.
But the very first Christmas song was quite different from the ones that resound in our churches and department stores this year. The first Christmas song ever recorded in history was a revolutionary and subversive song sung by a pregnant, unwed teenager named Mary not long after she received a message that the Son of God was in her womb. Mary's song has made people in power so uncomfortable that it has been banned in multiple countries over the past 100 years because of its message of revolutionary reversals. Our Christmas songs about a cute baby often fail to capture what Mary expresses in the first Christmas song ever.
My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
-Luke 1:47-48
Mary announces in her song that God sees the marginalized and the outcast. We know that Mary is marginalized, not only because she is from Nazareth, a town with a not-so-great reputation, but also because she is a woman in the first century in a patriarchal society where women were powerless, often unable to access the education and opportunity available to men, and left to rely on their fathers, husbands, or sons to provide for them and protect them. But God is mindful of Mary. God sees her just as God sees Hagar and Hannah and countless oppressed women before her and after her.
As Mary's Christmas song begins by reminding us that God sees and is mindful of an unwed woman from Nazareth, may we hear her words echo in the voices of those who are marginalized around us. As God sees Mary, God sees the migrant at the border. God sees the inmate in prison. God sees those who are abused, those who are addicted, those who are without a home, those who are discriminated against because of their race, gender, sexuality, language, and disability. May we see them, too. May we be mindful of them and hear their songs. May we partner with them and join their revolution.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.
-Luke 1:52-53
In her song, Mary declares that God reverses inequitable power structures and feeds the hungry. Rulers who have power to oppress and silence their people are brought down while people who are ignored, not represented, and scorned are given power. Mary sang this song as a young Jewish girl living under Roman occupation. She was familiar with oppressive rulers and unjust distributions of power. I cannot read these lines of Mary's song without thinking about the unfair ways that power is distributed in our society: access to voting in local and federal elections is inequitable, privileges are granted to English speakers and are withheld from residents who speak other languages, racist redistricting policies favor the powerful, local church leadership assigns power on the basis of gender, governmental and commercial positions of power are still held by a disproportionate number of white people, and access to higher education is cost prohibitive for many lower income families. This song makes me want to lift my voice with Mary's to yearn with her for shalom.
This song is a message of hope to those who are powerless that the Mighty God in Mary's womb lifts up those who are forgotten and hungry. But it is a message of warning to those who wield authority, an invitation to share and to divest. And to all of us, it is an appeal to demolish the inequitable power structures that exist that prefer one person over another based on race, gender, class, sexuality, language, ability, age, or any other category.
Few of our Christmas songs today have the same revolutionary and subversive tone as the one sung by Mary thousands of years ago. Sometimes I wonder if our view of Christmas is informed by the individualism that we are so rooted in. I sing gloria in excelsis Deo because a baby was born who dies for my sin and saves my life because I accept Jesus into my heart. But Mary's song suggests that Christ's coming is not only about my personal relationship with God - it's also about God seeing and identifying with the marginalized and about God's people hoping and yearning for freedom from oppression and injustice. I hear Mary singing about a God who came to us -- not to me, about a God who sees God's people both collectively and individually, about a God whose love for the marginalized calls God's people to gather in the margins.
It may seem like things didn't work out the way Mary envisioned. After all, some people are still hungry while others are still rich. Christ's birth did not eliminate opression or the vastly uneven distribution of wealth on our planet. So, was Mary incorrect? Maybe she had some expectations of Jesus -- that he would topple the Roman empire and estabilish a just and powerful kingdom that spreads prosperity -- that were unmet. Maybe the heart of Mary's song does reflect the heart of Christ who fed the 5000 and reached out his hand to touch the lepar. Maybe, instead of ending physical hunger and opression, Christ met the spiritual hunger of God's people and filled them with good spiritual things. Or maybe Mary's song just isn't over -- maybe God's people continue to sing it, and not only sing it, but also join with God to fill the hungry with good things, empowered by God's love for God's people. Honestly, I don't know. I don't know exactly what Mary was thinking when she sang this or how Elizabeth understood it or what Luke was thinking when he wrote it down the first time or what it means for us over 2000 years later. But I want to believe that we're still singing Mary's song, joined with her across time and driven by God's love to create a better place even right now for the the people God made.
May Mary and her understanding of what Christ's coming represents challenge us to approach Christmas differently. For Mary, the great reversal of the Creator of the universe and sustainer of life becoming a fetus in her womb, dependent on her for life and sustenance, is evidence of a kingdom where there is no more hunger and where the marginalized are seen and where the oppressed are empowered. For her, Christmas topples unjust systems and cares for the oppressed. Today, may Mary's song open our eyes to the reality that there is no hierarchy in God's kingdom and may that fuel our fervent pursuit of equity in the face of every racist, sexist, homophobic, and xenophobic barrier that distorts our ability to recognize the image of God in our neighbors. Christmas is an invitation to a revolution - to magnify and listen to voices that have been silenced and to empower people who have been outcast. As we listen to Mary and her song, may we also listen to the voices of other marginalized women of color around us. Mary isn't the only one with a revolutionary song.
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