A Mary the mother of Jesus was a prophet.
Like Isaiah and Micah and Amos and Habakkuk.
Let’s dig into that for just a moment.
There in Luke is a great example of what we call an annunciation form—
basically, there are bits of scripture
that are very similar to each other,
things like the traditional form of a pastoral letter,
or love poems, or proverbs,
or the form of announcing a miraculous birth.
You remember Abraham and Sarah
and their miraculous, late-in-life birth, right?
Or Hannah mother of the prophet Samuel?
Their stories, when the angels or God visit
and tell them of their impending pregnancy,
generally follow a particular form.
Interestingly, while Mary’s story is indeed
a birth announcement and fits that form,
it actually fits a different form much more closely
—the prophetic call.
Like Moses, Gideon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel before her,
Mary encounters an angel
who calls her to some sort of difficult action,
Mary objects to the call,
she is reassured and given a sign.
B It turns out lots of early church writers saw this well before I did,
but it’s an image of Mary that we’ve lost over the years
—somehow we are left with a quiet, obedient Mother
without the firebrand language of the Magnificat
she sings immediately afterwards.
She sings about God’s greatness and mercy
but she also sings this,
“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.”
It’s reminiscent of the song of Moses
and of basically all of the Hebrew prophets.
God is indeed great and merciful
AND ALSO is about justice and significant change to the status quo.
If you’re poor or afflicted, you’re gonna get fed.
Also, if you’re comfortable or in power,
you’re gonna get taken down a peg or two.
Prophets, you see, are a bit difficult.
They’re not domesticated.
They speak from their own oppressed group.
They speak the languages of challenge and hope.
Prophets, Mary included, see clearly what is,
the patterns of human behavior
and how we consistently screw things up.
And prophets, Mary included, see what can be,
the potential for beauty and compassion and grace.
Prophets, Mary included, speak to their own oppressed people
and say, “This is terrible but it won’t last.
If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
It’s good news, but it might not seem like it.
C Pastor Larry and I used to argue this point.
He’d say, “Good news is always good news.”
Being contrary, I’d say, “No it’s not.”
The word “Gospel” literally means “good news”
and I agree that it is in fact always good.
BUT it doesn’t always feel like it.
That the rich—spoiler warning, that’s us
—that the rich will be sent away empty sounds like a threat.
That the proud—spoiler warning, that’s also us
—will be scattered sounds like bad news.
This is the Gospel which says you lose your life to find it
and that’s damned hard. That’s miserable. I don’t want that.
The leveling of the playing field that Mary sings about
and that Isaiah writes about and that all the prophets
and law-givers and poets of our scriptures talk about
—that leveling means we might all lose something
and we will all gain something even better.
Past that loss of wealth or status or security,
past Good Friday, past the pain of pregnancy and childbirth
is the New Thing that God is making.
Mary says to us,
“This is terrible but it won’t last. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
“When a person in a marginalized group is voicing their concern over something you’ve done, it’s a natural reaction to jump and try to defend yourself. Taking the time to listen and truly understand goes an incredibly long way to promoting the understanding that is so desperately needed...”
As we continue in this Advent season,
as we wait for something new with increasing agitation,
when every one of us is pregnant with possibility,
I invite you to listen to Mary’s story retold.
D Mary stands in her home, kneading bread for dinner
and looking absently out the window.
She sees her little son Jesus running around with the neighbor kids
playing chase and she corrects herself
—not little son, not any more, was he ever little,
seemed pretty big when he came out,
where has the time gone.
Mary watches as her son stops to help up one of the smaller children
who’s fallen in the dust,
then takes off like a shot around the corner of another house
and the Roman soldier keeping an eye on their neighborhood.
Mary presses down hard with the heel of her hand into the dough,
flips it over, presses again,
the repetitive motion part frustration and part meditation.
Her thoughts drift gently from her son’s momentary kindness
to his tantrum this morning about breakfast
to his sleeping face last night
to that same face, softer, rounder, more covered with snot,
lo, these many years ago.
Mary remembers swaddling her baby boy in that warm, dirty stable
and weeping with joy and terror at this new thing
—why didn’t anyone say, I can’t believe how amazing he is,
Joseph can you even…, how could I love someone this much.
And she remembers the day of the angel with the same joy and terror
—how can you be so beautiful and so frightening,
of course I’m afraid, you want me to do what,
from…Hashem, but…a baby?
Mary’s hands press down hard into the dough,
flipping it over, pressing it again.
Her hands covered in flour and callouses ache
as she remembers the early days of pregnancy
—the painful joints, the exhaustion,
the fluttering in her belly which she kept thinking was the baby
but which was only gas.
And later when the fluttering took her breath away
and she grabbed for Joseph’s hand to feel the tiny elbow pressing up
against her belly.
Once she remembers that elbow coming up and her pushing it back,
tapping it like a message. And the elbow tapping back.
She smiles as she flips the dough over to let it rest
and wipes her hands on the towel at her waist.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Jesus and his friends
run helter-skelter back into sight.
She begins to hum as she takes out a knife to cut up garlic.
It’s a song she’d all but forgotten, but in the quiet of a rare moment alone,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”
Ah, yes, she thinks, and sighs aloud.
How that song had welled up in her that day in cousin Elizabeth’s house.
They were both pregnant,
commiserating about aches and pains
and husbands who were attentive but in the wrong ways.
They talked of swaddling and breastfeeding
and the births they’d been present for.
They talked about how the world wasn’t good enough for their sons,
hands resting protectively on round bellies.
They talked about their awe
that they could be making people within themselves.
They talked about their awe that Hashem had given them this chance,
that maybe their boys would be the ones to change things.
And Mary began to sing her gratitude.
It was an old tune but the words came from deep within her,
from the knot of baby growing in her belly and in her heart.
She sang about her own unworthiness to be a mother
and how overwhelmingly giddy it made her.
She sang about Hashem’s attentiveness to the people with no power
and about Hashem’s power to remake the world.
She sang about justice and regime change and transformation.
She sang about her sadness
and she sang about her hope that all would see the face of Hashem
and know the truth of their sin and blessedness.
In the end, a breathless silence
and then cousin Elizabeth applauded
and called her Prophetess
and they laughed.
Mary begins chopping the cloves of peeled garlic
piled up like coins in front of her and hums.
This child will change everything, she sings.
This child has already changed everything.