Happy Saint Mary’s day! Saint Mary, the namesake of the community where we worship, serve, and grow in faith. When you think of Mary, what images come to mind? What stories, pictures, music, poems, what words to describe her? Countless pieces of art have sought to portray Mary throughout the ages. What can Mary’s own words at her cousin Elizabeth’s house reveal to us about who Mary is and how God relates, and acts in our world today?
In the gospel reading we witness a young woman’s reaction as she struggles to come to terms with the potential of her new situation. Just prior, Mary had been visited by the angel Gabriel, “Greetings favored one! The Lord is with you!”, and she learned that she would soon be a mom to a great, holy son, no ordinary baby, he will be the Son of the Most High, the Son of God! In case Mary has doubts, Gabriel reminds her, nothing is impossible with God. For example, her older cousin Elizabeth who couldn’t have kids, is now already six months pregnant! Wow! Can you imagine how absurd, how outrageous this must have sounded to this teenage girl? I’m going to have a baby! What? I’m not even married yet! He already has a name, Jesus?
A holy baby, the Son of the Most High God? Umm, alright, breathe, try not to freak out. God sent the angel Gabriel to me?! I want to believe. I want to honor God, to trust and follow. What does God have in store for me, my fiancée, our families and communities? Woah! I’ve gotta’ go talk to my cousin about all of this!
“In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Huh? Elizabeth my elder defers to me, and what is she saying calling me blessed, and the mother of her Lord, and doubly blessed for believing that what I heard would come true? Can you see and hear the wheels turning? Can you picture Mary’s realization of her situation? What it means for her, for those close to her, for her community?
As Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit boldly cries out, Mary begins to realize how the words of the angel Gabriel, and the words of Elizabeth are true! Daring to believe she too cries out rejoicing in God her savior. Although Mary is a young, unmarried woman, without power and position in society, God has looked on her with favor. In Spanish this verse is rendered, “Dios ha puesto sus ojos en mi” God has placed his eyes on me. From on high, God’s loving eyes have fixed their gaze all the way to the bottom of the social hierarchy of Jewish society.
“Surely, from now on everybody will call me blessed. God has seen fit to come to me, to choose me, to honor and bless me!”
In this moment Mary has an epiphany, realizing the nature of the all-loving, all-merciful God. These loving eyes, these great things that this Mighty God has done were not just for her, not just individual, but corporate, for the whole people of Israel and for future descendants, for all the young women and old women, for children, for men, for all those to come who will find themselves the objects of God’s loving gaze. New Testament scholar John B. Green extends Mary’s elevation:
“God is at work in individual lives (like Mary) AND in the social order as a whole in order to subvert the very structure of society that supports and perpetuates such distinctions” (The Gospel of Luke, John B. Green, 105).
Mary proclaims that God is at work to tear down the distinctions that separate us from each other, that allow us to judge and devalue, to take away from each person’s God-given dignity. God’s favor and lifting up are a part of this divine flip, the reversal that Mary lives and speaks about. God’s saving strength disperses pride, brings down the powerful, lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry, and sends those with plenty away. Although this may sound good to those who find themselves at the bottom, and not so good for those at the top, God’s justice is bigger than that. God brings down not to destroy, but to rebuild with a greater awareness of the undervalued, overlooked, and discarded. God’s bringing down is to bring back up again, so that those who have been at the top will have their eyes and hearts opened to God’s way of operating. In the recorded history of God’s interaction with humanity, God has heard the cries of those who call out. And God has shown mercy, lifting them up from their oppression, freeing them from domination. In the Women’s Bible Commentary, Jane Schaeberg and Sharon Ringe speak of Mary’s song as indicative of how God acts in our world today:
“The Magnificat is the great New Testament song of liberation---personal and social, moral and economic—a revolutionary document of intense conflict and victory. It praises God’s liberating actions on behalf of the speaker, which are paradigmatic of all of God’s actions on behalf of marginal and exploited people.” (Jane D. Schaeberg and Sharon H. Ringe, “Gospel of Luke,” in Women’s Bible Commentary)
Mary praises God for showing her how precious she was, beyond what she could ever imagine or hope for. And she is a symbol of how God loves and cares for the least of us, modeling how we are to look with favor and pronounce God’s blessing on others, especially those without power or recognition in society. At Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church, we are called to embody Mary’s example, realizing how God has blessed our lives, seeking to grow our faith, taking in God’s mercy and promise to hear and help, and being that good news in the world, serving others in God’s name. Through Mary’s example of believing in God’s extraordinary plan for her life, we are encouraged to an openness to God. Mary reminds us that God loves all of us, no matter our spot in this world, that God cares especially for those that the world forgets, and that God is full of mercy. This is God’s promise, to see people, all people, to reach down and to lift them up. God has cast loving eyes on us, surely from now on everyone will call us blessed.
