Today we go back in time a few months… to a visit between a young unwed mother and her older, wiser cousin, who is also expecting a child. As women do, the two women support each other and help each other… but these two have a special bond… both of them pregnant under unusual circumstances… both of them mother to children who shall be bearers of God’s message… both of them aware that Mary is the bearer of God’s very son, very kingdom within her body… Elizabeth is probably one of the few people Mary can talk to about what has happened… and Elizabeth understands more than anyone else can…
It’s a complicated emotional scene. The whole story is so complicated… and like so much of what we know about Jesus, we try to domesticate and tame the story…
For the record, this is not a story that cannot be tamed; there is nothing that is meek and mild about this young woman or her situation… nothing…
National Geographic recently did an article about Mary being the most powerful woman in the world… just the title is enough to shake us up a little. We have tried to push this woman and her child into an image of our own making; beautiful pictures of a soft faced girl and her cherubic baby adorn the cards we send… but that is only part of the story…
Today we hear Mary’s song, proclaimed as gospel, as Good News to the world that will soon be the birthplace of God’s son, her son. Mary’s song is a song of revolution… It is a song that challenges the powers of the empire and makes bold statements about God’s coming kingdom. It is not the song of a timid teenager, but proclamation by a woman who knows that the world is a dangerous place; it is a song of gospel, of good news that says that in God’s kingdom the poor will be raised up; that those in power will be thrown down, that those who are hungry will be fed… that in God’s kingdom, a young unmarried woman can, by her own choice, be the bearer of the Savior of the world.
Mary is no pushover… She is not a weak willed girl who has been manipulated by an overbearing God, forced to do God’s will… taken that way, the story loses its great power. Being subjects of an overbearing, controlling God is not who she is, and it is not who we are… Like Mary, we are partners who are free to respond to grace… we can say yes or we can say no… Mary argued with an angel, and said yes… she asked her questions… she knew that there were things she would not understand or have answers to; but she said yes to God’s plan and to her place within it… it was a dangerous, subversive plan; a plan that could have ended in her death by stoning, with the holy child dying with her… and the angel, in response to her yes, said…Hail Mary, full of grace…the Lord is with you…
The angel knew that love was at the center of the plan… and love is a powerful force at work in God’s kingdom. When love becomes the driving force, nothing goes quite as planned. A young girl can become a powerful force for change… she can help to bring God’s kingdom to bear… she learns that when we live in God’s love the world is turned upside down…
And so with Mary and Joseph, we turn our hearts and minds towards Bethlehem, to the birth of Mary’s holy child. This child in himself is a subversive act of love that makes no sense in a world that appears to be ruled by empire…
How are we going to turn the world upside down? Mary’s song of good news is our song too; as we hear it and sing it, we are encouraged to act in subversive love, changing the world around us from empire to kingdom. Preparing for the coming of Jesus is not a passive act, but one where the hungry are fed, and the selfish are confronted; it is the creation of a kingdom where the power lies with the weak and neglected… a kingdom where God surrenders all that it means to be God, so that God can be closer to us by living life of one of us…this is not just a story… it is our story, we tell it year after year to find ourselves within it, and to have it help us proclaim God’s subversive gospel of love…
We need love… we need it so desperately as we continue to fight wars… we need love as we watch people flee death and poverty and forces that occupy their homes… we need love as we see the homeless on our street corners begging for their next meal… we need love when fear seems to invade our hearts and minds, keeping us from loving each other…
God’s love is entering into the world… Like Mary, we are to prepare and proclaim the gospel of life… it is a bold and powerful proclamation coming from a very unlikely source… because that’s who God is… God acts in surprising, subversive, loving ways to bring the kingdom to life…
What does Mary’s song say to us today? How shall you and I proclaim the greatness of the Lord? What subversive acts of love are we being called to do to help usher in the kingdom? How will our hearts and our minds and our bodies proclaim that Holy is his name?
Today with Mary and Joseph, we defy expectations and we turn toward Bethlehem… he is coming, and we shall prepare in our hearts the way of the Lord who has done great things for us… holy is his name….