Advent 4 – 2021
Luke 1:39-55
Marian Free
In the name of God who overturns the structures of power, wealth and status and who chooses the poor and the vulnerable to bring God to life in the world. Amen.
This year I received a Christmas card on which the image was a reproduction of a painting by Australian artist Rod Moss. I have to say that it is the most realistic image of the Holy Family that I have ever been privileged to see. Rod Moss has adapted a painting by Caravaggio and has used as his model an indigenous family and a central Australian setting. What stands out to me is the fact that the scene is not sentimental, nor has it been sanitised or primped. It is posed to be sure, but the models are real people – people who are almost certainly more like Mary and Joseph than any other representation that I have seen.
The background is likewise unadorned – it is bare and plain – a simple corrugated iron structure, a family of dogs and an angel that is not overtly “angelic”.
From the image one can deduce that this is a family who have little to spare. Mary is dressed simply in a blue, ill-fitting, open-necked polo shirt paired with a bright patterned skirt. Her long hair is not covered, and strands have broken loose from her ponytail. Not for this Mary the spotless white head covering or perfect blue robe in which she is usually depicted. Joseph wears a shirt that is a bit too big for his narrow frame and his longish hair is tousled rather than neatly brushed unlike the tidy, well-groomed Joseph of most nativity scenes.
The baby is lying (arms outstretched) on a bed.
Moss’s image provides what to me is a realistic picture of Mary and Joseph – a couple from a poor rural town who have travelled by foot for several days only to discover that there is nowhere for them to stay when they arrive at their destination. The painting is a stark reminder that neither Mary or Joseph came from families of privilege, wealth, status or power.
An image such as this – one that doesn’t gloss over the poverty and the hardships faced by Mary and Joseph – gives power and meaning to Mary’s song. “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly” (Lk 1:52). In response to Elizabeth’s blessing, Mary seems to grasp the implications of what God has done – that in choosing her to bear God’s anointed, God has clearly demonstrated God’s preference for the poor. Mary has no position or heritage that sets her apart, a fact that is further amplified by the fact that she is a woman, yet she is the one whom God has chosen to bring God into the world. In choosing Mary, God has acted contrary to expectation that God will enter the world with power and might and God has made it clear that justice and equity are at the heart of God’s relationship with the world.
Our English translation does not do justice to grammar of the text. As O. Wesley Allen Jn. Allen points out Luke shapes the Magnificat by having Mary speak of God’s actions in the past tense: “God looked, did great things for me, showed strength, scattered the proud, brought down the powerful, lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry, sent the rich away empty, and helped Israel (verses 48–54). English translations render the verbs in the perfect tense (for example, “has looked”) implying an action in the past that continues into the present. But the Greek verbs are all aorist, indicating actions completely completed in the past .”
In the words of her song, Mary is saying that God has (already) acted. God’s choice of Mary is proof positive of God’s preference for the poor, the marginalized and the dispossessed. It is not something that is going to happen – it has happened. God has acted. God has demonstrated God’s preference, has provided a glimpse of the kingdom values.
God’s choice of Mary is a slap in the face of all who think that their power, their influence or their wealth comes from God, who think that their place in the world implies that they are better than those who do not share their privilege, or who think that because they are richer and more powerful that it is within their right to exploit or to oppress others.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes the Magnificat this way: “It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings…. This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind.”
Mary’s song is an indictment against a church that has become institutionalised and that has aligned itself with the cultural norms and values of the world in which it finds itself. It critiques a church that has become contented with its place among the establishment, the respectable and the comfortable. It puts the lie to the idea that God needs beautiful churches and well-dressed congregations, and it challenges all of us who believe that we are doing all that we can to bring about God’s kingdom.
Mary’s song is an uncomfortable song and echoes down the ages with a message for us all.
What does God’s choice tell us about our attitudes and dispositions, our value judgments, our position in the world? I wonder who God would choose today and how comfortable would God’s choice make us feel?
Swallowsrest 