Luke 1.48-53
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty
Mary expresses her joy and thanks at having been chosen by God for this great mission, in spite of her lowly status. She then expresses her expectation that this is just the beginning of the divine transformation of the world, a transformation that will bring down the proud, powerful and rich who are oppressing Israel. It is a cry for justice which Mary is sure has begun with her.
Perhaps this is the most appropriate place to warn of one of the most common dangers in reading the Gospels. Our impulse is always to identify with the good guys, the heroes or even the underdog, those who cry for justice. We need to understand, however, from the point of view of one such as Mary, it would be much easier to see us as the rich, proud and powerful who if not actively oppressing the poor, lowly and weak, are at the least standing by and watching it happen. Adam Hamilton puts it this way in his meditation on this scripture:
Two lines of Mary’s song always leave me feeling disturbed: “He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” It is one thing to speak of God humbling the proud, but sending the rich away empty? This begins to feel uncomfortable. Today, many would read this line to be suggesting a redistribution of wealth and might accuse Mary of the “s-word”: socialism.
Mary’s words should make us uncomfortable. They point to a concern God hasfor the poor, and a sense that the rich have received theirs already Since the income of the average American puts us in the top five percent in per-capita income in the World, most of us are “rich.”
Here’s how I read these words in Mary’s song. They are a reminder of something Jesus said later: “To whom much has been given, much will be required." Jesus’
words are a reminder of the call upon Abraham, who was “blessed to be a blessing.”
To the degree that we earn our money unjustly, or hoard it without being willing to share, we do have reason to be anxious about the day when we give an account of our lives. But we have a choice. We can choose to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God.” We have the obligation and the calling to be used by God to “fill the hungry with good things.” When we do thesethings, we need not fear being sent away empty.
Mary’s joy resulted from her trust in God to work through her and her son to change the world. She trusted even though shelived in a country occupied by a superpower on the brink of civil war, where religious and political differences were routinely settled with violence, some of the worst circumstances we can imagine. Yet there are still places in our world and even some of our own cities where similar situations abound. When confronted by Mary's song we have to ask ourselves, "Are we part of the solution or part of the problem?" It is the Holy Spirit which enables her joy and her compassion. This Advent season we can only pray that it will so enable us.
Rev. Tom Downing, Minister of Senior Adult Education
