Scripture: Luke 1:46–56
Back in 1991, a new Christmas classic was born. “Mary, Did You Know?,” written by Mark Lowry and first performed by Michael English, became an instant hit. The song asks the mother of Jesus if she knows what is going to happen with her son when he grows up. It is a beautiful song, a lyric melody, and has poignant words. It has become bigger and bigger over the last thirty years. I saw a video last week of Kristen Chenowith singing it with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Just amazing.
And it totally ignores the story of Mary in the Bible! The folks in the Two-Way [Sermon Discussion Group] wrestled last week with Mary, and who she is to us today. And someone brought up this song. After all, they said, if we are paying attention, we know that Mary knows all of that stuff about her son, because in the story, the angel Gabriel tells her all of that stuff. Who her son will be. What he will do. How he will save the people. Mary even sings a whole song about it, knowing exactly what is going to happen with Jesus. There is even a parody video that came out a few years ago, which makes this same point. Creator Cindy Sadler gives the song an edgy title: “Mary Freaking Knew.” Her point is simple: yes, Mary knew what was going to happen to Jesus, but thank you for asking anyway. Reportedly, song author Mark Lowry is actually a fan of the satire.
So who actually is Mary, for us today?
This week was a bit rainy, so I ended up running more on concrete than trails. One run, I ran through some of the most expensive neighborhoods in our city, marveling at what could only be called mansions. And on another run, I ran through a very different neighborhood, past the pallet city that will become home to some of our neighbors, and around encampments from some in our community who have become houseless. And the whole time, the Magnificat was spinning through my mind.
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.
What does the Mary’s song mean for us in Lawrence, KS in 2023? As I ran through the rain, a new chorus rang through my ears: a Magnificat in Sauconies.
Mary, did you know that some people would live in compounds surrounded by fences, while others live in tents on land that is not their own? Did you know that one day, some children would have their schools protected, while others have their schools closed? Did you know that one day, the son who you will bear will be used as a political football in order to get people elected, while totally ignoring what he actually said? Mary, did you know that one day, there would still be people who are given preferential treatment, while others are treated like trash?
And in my imagination, I heard Mary’s voice: “Yes, I freakin’ knew.”
Because the Mary of the Magnificat was not a naïve child. Again, it was in the Two-Way that we noticed that some through history have translated her in this way: basically an empty-headed empty vessel, weakly doing what the angel said because she didn’t know any better. But the Mary of Scripture clarifies her mission with the angel to better understand it, consents to it, and then preaches about it in a powerful prophetic song.
• The Mary of Scripture joined the ranks of the patriarchs and matriarchs before her. Like them she was called in extraordinary fashion by God and responded: “Here am I, Lord.” “May it be as you have said.”
• The Mary of Scripture joined the ranks of the singing prophetesses—Deborah, Miriam, Hannah—proclaiming that God was doing an amazing and transformative thing through her and her body.
• The Mary of Scripture joined the ranks of the Holy Dissenters—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea—as a fierce prophet predicting the coming destruction of the world, where the unjust rich would be torn from their thrones and the poor would be lifted up in their place.
• The Mary of Scripture joined the ranks of ordinary, extraordinary mothers throughout history, choosing a life of diaper-changing, spit-up covered, sleepless nights with ear-splitting screams and temper-tantrums and pre-teen angst. In the middle of it, she was gentle and meek and mild also, like we sing about in the songs!
• The Mary of Scripture is all of those things. And she knows exactly what is happening through her and in her. Because she pays attention to the angel. And she pays attention to the world. Mary is the story of an ordinary woman, who had her eyes opened to an extraordinary God.
And what if the good news for us is that we can be the same? Last week, the prophet Andrew Lord spoke to the new community that God is creating in our world and in our church today. After the bad news of the pandemic, maybe the good news is that there is light at the end of the tunnel. The prophet Mary saw light at the end of a long tunnel that left her people afraid and hopeless. She saw an overturning happening, that meant the old rules didn’t have to be followed anymore. And it wasn’t because she was a billionaire or a Roman politician or learned scholar. She was an ordinary woman, an ordinary mom, an ordinary Jewish citizen. But because she opened her eyes to an extraordinary God, she knew the story of that God over and over and over again using ordinary women and men to change the world. Could the same be true for us? Maybe today, it is a 16-year-old high school student. Or a widow who thinks the world moves too fast for her to keep up. Or a single mom who wonders how she is going to afford to keep her kids in diapers. We are all ordinary players in God’s story, and all it takes is the willingness to open our eyes to the extraordinary power and extraordinary love of an extraordinary God. And a willingness to say “Here I am.” And a willingness to sing our own song.
Helen was the daughter of two school teachers in the tiny town of Kingsville, Ohio. She excelled at school herself, and eventually became a teacher like her parents. She was particularly skilled at understanding languages, and became fascinated by the study of the Greek language.
Before long, her Baptist church asked her to teach a women’s Bible study, which she willingly did. Over time, she became frustrated that the women she taught were deemed less capable, less qualified, and less powerful. From what she saw, the women in her life were every bit as capable as the men around them. The way she figured it, God had created women, just the same as men, and that Christians should see them as equal, instead of second class. These conclusions led her to advocate for women’s rights, including the right to vote. It led her to other reforms for women and children, including kindergartens, vocational training, legal aid, parks and playgrounds for kids, and immigrants’ rights.
But she wasn’t finished. That Bible study leader also took a closer look at the Scriptures that she and her women’s group studied. She wondered why everyone used a translation of Scripture that was 300 years old, and no one really knew what it was saying. After all, she could read the Greek, and knew that there had to be a more contemporary way to say the same thing. So she translated the whole New Testament herself. She was the first woman to do so, and her translation is still used, a hundred years later.
Finally, Helen figured that if women could vote, and change society, and translate the Scriptures, they could also run a denomination. So, she did that, too. She became the first woman leader of a national denomination when she became the president of the Northern Baptist Convention, our denomination, what became the American Baptist Churches, USA. She led the denomination in incredible mission efforts, raised what would today be close to 30 million dollars for missions, and then wrote a book about it. And in a time when many denominations were being taken over by ideologues more worried about political power, she kept them at bay, setting the stage for American Baptists to stand fully behind the civil rights movement a few years later.
Helen Barrett Montgomery saw the injustice of the world around her and knew that there was light at the end of the tunnel. This daughter of school teachers from a tiny town in Ohio was an ordinary woman, who opened her eyes to an extraordinary God. She was just like you and me, but she saw that following Christ meant that she couldn’t accept the status quo. And because she followed the legacy of Mary and the other holy dissenters before her, she participated in God’s constant overturning of the world, and today she inspires us to do the same.
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