Sermon: The Magnificat of Mary

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The Magnificat of Mary

By Charles Rush

December 9, 2001

st Summer I had the chance to see one of the very few paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, a print of which I have on an easel here. Madonna and child. It is a lovely painting, utilizing only two colors, blue and brown. It is wonderfully humane as well. In the latter middle ages, these pictures were so stylized and heavy, the baby Jesus bleeding or carrying a cross, aware of the destiny of his death even as a child. In this one, Mary is an ordinary woman playing delightfully with her child. Jesus is holding a spindle that his Mother uses to twist yarn. He is playing with it. Leonardo captures it as the child is turning the spindle so that he is holding a toy in the shape of a cross. The child is innocent of his ultimate destiny, though the audience gets it. There is the warm background of Tuscany where he painted the picture. He captures the every day beauty of living. Leonardo was so important in unleashing a vital spiritual humanism in Europe in the Renaissance for which we all ought to be grateful.

Yet, the Mary of history would not have been a woman in her twenties or early thirties, as Leonardo and so many others have depicted her. Probably she was about fourteen when she gave birth to Jesus. I happened to have recently seen an extremely sad movie shot in Iran entitled A Time for Drunken Horses which has a thirteen year old girl as the lead. She is trying to keep her brothers and sisters together as a family and avoid starvation in the mountains between Iran and Afghanistan. She carries her baby brother- about 2years old- around on her hip through much of the movie. There is a pathos to a child carrying a child that is quite touching in it's sadness. You can't help but think immediately of the limitations that surround such a mother- educational, emotional, personal, financial. Yet, even in the face of such limitations, for Mary there remained the primordial, wonder of new birth, the great hope and joy that children bring to us.

In our passage, Mary says, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for She has regarded the low estate of her Handmaiden. Behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for God has done mighty things for me.”

How true that observation has become, far truer than she could ever have imagined. When you think of the long history of Western Civilization, think of every Art gallery in Europe, what a phenomenal influence this woman has had through the centuries. Mary was an ordinary peasant girl from an impoverished family, so ordinary we don't even know who the family was. She gave birth in a manger in a remote Roman province 2000 years ago. From that very humble beginning she has grown in popularity and influence. Millions of people over literally hundreds of generations have lifted prayers to her for her intercession. Think of other great Women in History. Helen of Troy, Cleopatra of Alexandria, Queen Elizabeth the First, Lady Diana, to name but a few. They all pale in comparison to the scope and breadth of influence that this one young girl from Nazareth has had century after century.

In a moment, our choir is going to sing these passages for us. A couple of things you might not know about what you are about to hear. First, this passage is the most often sung passage in the history of the Church, which means it is probably the most often sung in human history. For example, the Church musician Cesar Franck (1822-90) is said to have composed 63 different settings for the piece and had planned to compose 100.(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09534a.htm , the website for the Catholic Encyclopedia. See “Musical Settings”). It has been sung in Monasteries for centuries and is a regular part of the daily prayer of Vespers. Unlike the other psalms which are usually intoned in a rather solemn delivery, the Magnificat was always sung to a melody, emphasizing the great joy of the birth of Jesus. In this piece, you can hear the melody line, called the Cantus Firmus, the musical theme of the piece (It's been a Hard Days Night is the Cantus Firmus for the Beatles song). Listen for it in the first and final movements. It sounds like this. It doesn't have quite what we would consider today a rocking beat, but you have to appreciate the music against the early codice that was formulated by St. Gregory in the 6th Century. We probably find the piece restrained, elegant, refined but at the time it was written it spoke the syntax of melodious, spiritual joy.

It will do well for us to remember the profound realism of the Bible as we listen to it. The scripture says,

“Our God has shown mercy to those that stand in awe of the divine

Our God has scattered the overly-arrogant people in the imagination of their hearts

and exalted those of low degree

God has filled the hungry with good things… God has helped us.”

She sings a wonderful song of hope. Mary was living in occupation, by the way, right near modern day Ramallah, which is under siege still, though in a very different way. But this we still have in common with her then. Violence, arbitrary violence and suffering. The Romans had no word in their political vocabulary for ‘restraint', so when Herod finds out that a potential “Messiah child” is born in the region, he orders the mass execution of all the children in that region. Some of the priests colluded with the Romans to make this happen. There was poverty and oppression, injustice was sown deeply in the land. And Mary sings this song of ‘hope for a new day', ‘hope for God's blessing precisely in the midst of tragedy.' And that is the time for such a hymn of praise and hope.

I'm told that at the site of the Twin Towers, there was a large piece of girded steel that was found sticking in the ground as the workers began the clean up three months ago. It apparently fell off the second tower when it came down and planted itself in the pile below. It is two attached girders in the shape of a cross. The workers cleared the debris from around it and made it into a shrine. Eventually they pulled it from the ground and put it up on one of the bridges, I believe that crosses Greenwich street, so that it is more widely visible. It consecrates the site with God's presence and hope.

Some people say, “how can you see hope in the midst of despair?” And it is not obvious to people who are at a distance. But when you are walking through despair, picking up the pieces in the midst of the rubble, people handing out sandwiches to other people, people being a comfort to each other… it is the power of compassion and spiritual humanity that courses through the community in the midst of brokenness seeking repair. Hope is not an abstract idea, it is what people feel when someone is the human face of the Christ for them in love, support, hugging us out of the numbness. Hope is a visceral thing.

In this season, it is important for us to remember the direction that hope takes- it is outward towards the dispossessed and the unrighteous. The promise of God is that salvation comes for them. Mary says it is coming for those lost and poor. In the end we are all moving towards reconciliation.

I was watching Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry, the two Baylor University students who were held by the Taliban for a couple months for preaching Christianity in Afghanistan. After they were released, they were interviewed at a press conference, thanking God, thanking people who had prayed for their release, recounting the miracle of how God looked over them in prison and saw to their release. Standing next to me as I watched the press conference was a crusty older New Yorker who said to me, “Reverend, why is it that God seems to be so cozy with evangelical Americans with big hair? What about the two million mothers in Afghanistan who are praying every day for their children? Did God answer their prayer because they are Christians or because they are from Texas?”

I love these assaults. I told her, “Ma'am, I suspect the Texas connection is helpful.” Then I said, “They are profoundly grateful to be alive and they are grateful to God. The theology that they were taught in church is not really helping them express that right now.” The witness of scripture is not a cozy God- my buddy Jesus- that is looking out for us at every turn.

The gospel is more that the colossal powers around us get up-ended and caught up and used for good, quite in spite of themselves. The gospel is that God has come that salvation might be had by all, not just those who are righteous and believe, but everyone. The gospel is that God has a special place in God's heart for those who are dispossessed, despite their sometime dysfunction, drug addiction, and lack of responsibility. The gospel is that God loves our enemies and ultimately wants us all to live in harmony, a great family of families.

And it is that God is at work in our midst, even when the task seems humanly impossible. Right now, there are several places we could lift up in prayer for hope while the choir sings the Magnificat because these situations seem at an impasse from a strictly human point of view.

Let us pray for Palestine, for Israel- that quite in spite of the profound desire for revenge, despite the rage and hatred, despite the mistrust and ill will, a way forward will emerge that will break the destructive cycle of the intifada.

Let us pray for Afghanistan- that after two generations of continuous war, after all the family dysfunction and paranoia and personal terrors that war causes, after the devastation of the economy, that a way forward will emerge that will provide stability, normalcy, fraternity, community.

For Africa- that the plague of AID's that sweeps across the continent, destroying families, undermining villages, sowing the seeds of social anarchy and chaos in the land, that a medical and a social cure might be found that will begin a season of healing and growth.

For the wider religious communities around the world- that the quest for purity, exclusivity, and surety might be matched by a common commitment to mutuality, understanding and respect, that religion the world over might be the force of healing, reconciliation, and peace between the nations.

They are big prayers but we worship a God that finishes with a big picture of love and harmony. And may we also, like Mary, be blessed to give thanks for small beginnings around us. May we see, this season, what we can do, how we can be used by the Almighty, in some small way, that grace might extend through us to those around us, even to the ends of the earth.

Amen.