Peace and Justice: The Cry of Mary
Isaiah 9:2-7 Luke 1
PAUMC 12/09/07
I am Mary, Mother of Jesus. I come here across time to tell you of those wondrous events that happened so long ago. Even now I can’t believe it all. It was so amazing, that the God of Israel chose me to bear this Holy Child into the world. And even more amazing is that this child is not for me only, but for the whole world.
I grew up in a devout Jewish family. We were poor, but we got by. My father studied the scriptures faithfully. He went to the temple when he could to learn and when he could afford to pay for the sacrifice. You see, the religious leaders made sure that the sacrifices that were brought to the temple were perfect and without blemish, and if they weren’t they would sell you one.
Those of us who were poor often went without being able to offer sacrifice to God. That always irritated me. How could my dad, a devout faithful man, be denied the right to offer a sacrifice to God because he didn’t have the means? Does this mean his sins are not forgiven? That his devotion to God was not acceptable in God’s sight?
As a child growing up I watched this and would get this pit in my stomach as a saw my father not being able to offer his sacrifices to God. Meanwhile those religious leaders got richer and richer off people’s desire to seek God. It made me feel horrible. Something inside of me said it wasn’t right. I knew that in the core of my soul. My son, Jesus, when he grew up didn’t like it either. And he did something about it – overturned their tables, scattering their money everywhere. Oh, were they mad!
And then there was the way the Jews treated the people of Samaria. They looked down on them as worthless trash because they weren’t racially pure, they were half-breeds with Gentile blood in them. The religious leaders promoted this attitude. In fact, if they came across a Samaritan in need, they would simply walk by as if that person didn’t exist.
My son told a story about this. What angered me most about this was that the Holy Scriptures that these religious leaders read and study day in and day out clearly state that ALL humanity is created in the image of god. Everyone. There are no exceptions stated! If a person of Samaria is made in the image of God, how dare they treat them as if they are not!
They did this to lepers, to people who were blind, people who couldn’t walk, people who somehow didn’t meet THEIR standards of religious perfection. They even promoted the popular notion that the physical condition these people lived with was a result of sin! And worse yet, these groups of people were declared unclean and must live away from the community and were relegated to begging for their daily survival.
In my time, it was not safe to live apart from community. Yet, all people, according to our scriptures are made in God’s image, and by that standard have as much value as anyone else. How can you judge someone that harshly simply because of a physical trait that is a part of who they are? I knew that wasn’t right.
Then the angel came to me and told me the good news of God’s plan, that I was to bear a child, and not just any child, but the Messiah who would save the world. Here I was, barely a woman. And why was God’s message coming to a woman? Women were men’s property. We were seen as having lesser status, actually no status at all other than to serve men. Apart from that we had no value. We were also not to be taught the scriptures. You may wonder then why I know what our scriptures say. I learned them anyway. My father taught me when no one was around. I so desperately wanted to know.
So here I am, the one who is to bear this child. It was I, a woman. And suddenly I knew for a fact what I’d sensed inside me all along; that despite what our culture says about women, despite what our culture says about being poor, who I am is good; who I am is holy, because I am created by this God who is Holy. All of those messages of having no value because I am woman, because I am poor, they are false. I am created in God’s image and God’s image is holy! Knowing this is the beginning of taking a stand against the injustices of this world.
If this is true for me, it is true for all people everywhere. It is true for you. You are created in God’s image, and God’s image is holy. At the core of your being is the mark of God’s image stamped in your soul. There is something holy inside you. When we look deep within and discover this, we know how deeply loved we are. Shame vanishes, all our human failings can be laid aside in the presence of this love. How dare anyone tell us that who we are is anything less than how God sees us!
This is part of what I felt when I received the news that I was chosen by God to bear the Christ Child. Just as I bore this Holy Child within me and felt this baby live and grow inside of me, we, too, all bear the Holy within us. And this Spirit of God that lives in us has the power to change and transform all of us so we can give birth to that God has created us to be. And when we believe this about ourselves, it frees us to believe that about others. It causes us to cringe when we see other people, who are all made in God’s image, being treated as less than who they are – a child of God, created in god’s image, bearing the mark of love stamped in their soul.
This is the ‘knowing’ that I had deep inside of me the day I heard the news from the angel.
After this news, I went and visited my kinswoman, Elizabeth. She was pregnant as well, and given her age, another miraculous pregnancy. I knew she would understand. When she greeted me and told me that her baby leapt in her womb at the presence of mine, I knew again, that God’s hand was in this and I would be all right. Her presence strengthened me.
We both discussed the Psalms and the writings of the Prophet Isaiah, where he spoke of God coming into this world in a new way and turning the world upside down. They spoke of a time when the rich would go away empty and all who were hungry would finally have enough. The playing field would be leveled, as Isaiah said, the mountains will be made low and the valleys shall be raised; no more haves and have-nots in this world. These scriptures paint this wonderful image of peace and justice, and God’s hand in establishing it. And the world will be turned upside down.
As Elizabeth and I spoke of these scriptures I just had to put them together in a song to sing it out loud and shout it from the rooftops:
“My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior. For God who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is God’s name. God has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of low degree. God’s mercy is on all who fear God from generation to generation.”
And then there was the census. Caesar Augustus had to count ALL of us. It was mandatory. This was part of the oppressive Roman government who controlled our land and taxed us beyond belief. Our lives were not our own. This added more injustice.
We had to all travel to the place we originated from. For Joseph that was Bethlehem. So there I was, near the end of my pregnancy, traveling miles and miles on the back of a donkey. It must have been the Roman Government’s idea of inducing labor! And it worked! This was not at all how I dreamed of giving birth to my first child. No room in the inn. We were put up in a dirty stable. No mid-wives, no nothing, just Joseph, me and the animals. Joseph did the best he could, as frantic as he was at the whole thing.
And then he was born. And I could see this child with my own eyes and hold him with my arms, and look into his eyes and kiss his face. I was swept away by this amazing rush of love for this Child as I held him in my arms.
Even though this child had left my womb and was gone from my body, I knew my womb was still full of the Holy One whose mark of love lives in me.
As I held Jesus in my arms, I thought of the angel’s words to me about him, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High…that he would be given the throne of King David, and his kingdom will never end.” Calling anyone other than Caesar, ‘King,’ is treason, which means the death penalty. I am afraid for what my child will face. But I trust the power of God to use him in turning this world around so that the poor will become rich and the hungry will be filled, and so compassion and peace and justice will reign.
This holy night is just the beginning. But this night is holy not just because this baby was born but because in the birth of my child God dared to confront the human struggles of injustice and inequality. It is holy because God’s love can confront the forces in this world and in our lives that defeat us.
The world is about to turn!!
Commentary on Luke 1:39-56 & Isaiah 9
The human injustices and inequities in our world that create horrendous suffering are as old as humanity itself and the biblical story of faith history chronicles it from Genesis to Revelation. Also chronicled in this document of faith history is the hope God places in the human heart that there will be a day when justice and compassion will overcome it all. This is key to understanding the Christmas story of the birth of Christ.
The specific hope for a Messianic King who would usher in this reign of justice and compassion began to develop and ferment in 6th & 7th centuries when the nation of Israel – that had fallen into corruption - was destroyed and they were led into exile, to Babylon, a foreign land. In the midst of this the prophets preached of a day when love and justice would reign, and God’s deliverance from oppression would come.
In the midst of gross inequities and suffering of the time of the prophets, Isaiah prophesized of the day when the rich would be empty-handed and the poor would have enough to eat – when every valley would be lifted up and every hill would be brought low. The playing field would be leveled. Everyone would have an equal chance.
In what we now call the Magnificat, Mary quotes Isaiah because she, too, lives in a time of oppression and injustice, of poverty and suffering. She knew these things from first hand experience. Her people, the Jews, were living under Roman occupation. Their lives were not their own.
Tax collectors could collect as much as they wanted. What they collected above and beyond the Roman government required would simply go into their own pockets. There was no recourse for those whom they literally robbed. Any hint of uprising against this government could result in death.
Mary’s reference to herself as a lowly handmaiden has two elements to it – her families lower economic status as well as her lesser status as a woman in that society. There were also inequities in the Jewish community she was a part of.
That hierarchical thinking had penetrated that religious/cultural system as well. The way religious law had been interpreted, rendering people clean or unclean, systematically excluded those who were poor. Also, women were forbidden to learn scripture and it was forbidden to teach a woman the holy scriptures. Yet, hear you have in the mouth of Mary, quotes form the prophet Isaiah.
The Magnificat, Mary’s song, 1:46-55, gives voice to her blessedness and at the same time reconnects the personal events to the wider vision which will challenge the lordships of this world. Note the connections in the song: personal joy (47), personal call and blessedness (48), personal divine encounter with the holy one (49), divine compassion for all who fear God (50), divine transformation on a wider front, deposing the powers and lifting the fallen (51-55). The context of the story is the vision of change and transformation.
This Christmas story about the birth of Christ is not just a sweet serene story about the birth of a baby. We paint this picture of a serene holy night, but the night is holy not just because the baby was born but because in the birth of this child God dared to confront the human struggles of injustice and inequality. It is holy because God’s love can confront the forces in this world and in our lives that defeat us.
Mary's "Magnificat" proclaims a great reversal of the power relations of this world, brought about by the birth of Christ. That social revolution is absolutely central to the Christmas narratives, which include a murderous rampage by King Herod against innocent children in the vain search for the one child whom the Roman vassal rightly feared might spell the end of his rule.
Mary's stunning announcement about the high and mighty being brought low and the lowly exalted is at the heart of the Christmas story - this is how the scriptures portray the social meaning of the Son of God born in an animal stall. Mary is herself a poor young woman, part of an oppressed race, and living in an occupied country. Her prayer is the hope of the downtrodden everywhere, a prophecy that those who rule by wealth and domination, rather than by serving the common good, will be overturned because of what has just happened in the little town of Bethlehem. Mary's proclamation can be appropriately applied to any rulers or regimes that prevail through sheer power, instead of by doing justice.