Sermon: A Mother’s Song Becoming Incarnate Love
A Sermon Preached at Holy Communion Episcopal Church, Saint Louis, MO, 12.17.2023
My Mother has a beautiful singing voice. Some of my first memories are of her singing me to sleep. Singing Christmas carols today with you all is special because when I was 5 years old, I sang my first duet with my mother at church on an Advent Sunday. The first thing I remember my mom ever buying JUST FOR HER was a guitar. Shortly after that my mom started writing her own music. She rarely shared it in public but while hearing her play, and hearing her sing, it was apparent that, as many other poets, musicians, and artists have described, was something she had to do. My mother has battled severe depression for most of my life, but despite the deep anguish and sorrow, singing her song has always felt like the healthiest part of her. Despite the pain this was the story she wanted to sing and share with the world.
A Mothers song becoming incarnate love.
Today the lectionary gives us another mothers song. The Magnificat.
Id like to read it again:
46 And Mary[a] said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant.
Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name;
50 indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has come to the aid of his child Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
Mary the Mother of Jesus, was not just a simple girl from Nazareth, she was a poet. She was a poet.
Now some may suggest that Mary didn’t actually write this poem. The writers of Luke's gospel actually did. Some may call me a bit romantic but today I'm suggesting that Mary really is the author of this poem.
After visiting Elizabeth her cousin, who is pregnant with John the Baptist, John moves within Elizabeth's womb. Elizabeth praises Mary for her faithfulness and Mary responds with what is now known as the Magnificat. A “ Magnificent” Song. With the narrative it easy to assume this was a spontaneous response like someone bursting into song during a musical. However, scholars have suggested this very well could have been a poem Mary wrote over the length of her stay with Elizabeth during the 3 months they were together.
Mary’s song truly is a poetic summary from scripture and it seems fitting that the one who is to bring into the world the “word from the beginning“ the long-awaited “ David's royal son” should be a woman poet. As poet Mary Oliver says of poetry, “Writing a poem is writing what can’t be said with words but trying anyway”
As we have types of prose and poetry today that follow particular forms, the text shows us that Mary was following a particular poetic form she would have known from the psalms, and from the Torah, namely the Song of Moses and Miriam ( also her namesake) from Exodus 15.
Interestingly, the Magnificat follows the poetic form of the Song of Moses very closely. In Exodus 15 the Song of Moses is a poem in praise of God after the Hebrew people’s exodus and crossing of the red sea.
The poem follows other Hebrew forms in that the beginning half of the poem is personal, and 2nd half of the poem is about the community.
The Song of Moses Goes as follows:
Moses says, “ The Lord is my Strength and my might, and he has become my salvation; this is my God and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is my warrior; the Lord is his name”
Its about God aiding his people…but the next line is: “Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he cast into the sea; his picked officers were sunk in the Red sea. The floods covered them and they went down like a stone.”
Moses Praises God, Thanks God for saving him. Then he thanks God for aiding his people, then thanks God for clobbering his enemies, Thank you God for aiding your people, and yes God, thank you for clobbering our enemies. The Good are raised up the bad are put down.
Mary follows this literary device but makes a major shift.
She follows the same form: The beginning half of the poem is personal, and 2nd half of the poem is about the community.
Mary Praises God “ My Soul Magnifies the Lord” Thanks God for saving Her “ For the Mighty one has done great things for me”
As in Exodus 15 she then goes on in the second half of the poem to talk about the community:
“ God Has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly, He has filled the hungry with Good things and the rich he has sent away empty.”
The Good guys up / the bad guys down
But the last line is different from the other similar poems with the same literary form in the Hebrew scriptures.
“He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
Now this may seem very subtle, but Mary ends the poem early. She omits a line.
And though it may not be clear yet, it is the absence of that line that we have the Gospel.
Mary has deliberately left out a line in which we expect another harsh phrase against the Gentiles, the enemies, which there were many in Exodus 15 ( Moses Song and in the Psalms) which scholars believe she got many of her ideas and could of chosen from, yet she doesn’t. Lukes recording of the poem is making it loud and clear that Mary’s Song is a breaking in of a vision of a new community. A community for All People. Theology with a poem.
Because of this Kenneth E . Bailey calls Mary the First Christian Theologian.
Every once in a while, I feel as though the lectionary is messing with us. The text we have today from Isaiah, I have to admit after I read it, it led me to a place I didn’t expect.
Isaiah 61
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.
Because the Lord has anointed me;
He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
To bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And release to the prisoners;
To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
And the day of vengeance of our God.”
Isaiah echoed something similar to the other poems
Praising God for Saving Zion. For lifting up the poor and lowly, though continues with “the day of Vengeance of our God.”
A similar literary device, God Aids his people, and clobbers his enemies.
However, this verse sounded familiar.
We know from John's gospel that Jesus had been ministering for an about a year when we find him a few chapters later, from the Magnificat, in Luke chapter 4, Luke narrates that Jesus had evidently been more recently preaching in the synagogues in Galilee and returned to his hometown with his new FAME having preceded him. It’s likely that the synagogue in Nazareth would have been filled with expectant listeners from his hometown.
In the 1st century of course the Jewish scripture was in a scroll hence it had to be unrolled until the reader found the place they sought.
Being an Iconographer and Artist, I think of the icon of Christ the Pantocrator , the most famous version which is found in Saint Catherine's monastery in Sinai Egypt. Those representations show Jesus holding a “codex” of holy scripture . The depiction is not literal of course but iconic and it articulates the visual theology concerning Jesus as “the Christ”
The image represents him as Lord of the cosmos who creates the power of his logos “the word” at the same time it calls to mind the precise historical moment when Jesus is called upon the leader of the congregation to stand up and read the text.
As someone who grew up in Nazareth, Jesus would have been a member of this congregation. The order of service included liturgical prayers followed by a reading from the Torah followed by a second reading called the haftorah. This reading was typically from the prophets, with commentary, by a member of the congregation. The reader was selected by the ruler of the synagogue. It would be interesting to know what the Torah reading was that day but we do not. Luke does make clear is that Jesus had a very specific passage from the prophets clearly in his own mind as he rolled out this scroll.
A time consuming task perhaps adding suspense until he found the place for which he was looking. He then began to read from Isaiah as Luke has recorded it, the main passage jesus reads is from Isaiah 61 as I just read.
Although, as Jesus reads the passage from Isaiah he stops the passage short, mid-sentence and rolls up the scroll. He doesn’t finish the verse. It would be like someone singing the national anthem and ending with “Or’ the land of the free”. Everybody would be waiting for “ and the home of the brave”. Jesus doesn’t say,” and the day of vengeance of our God”
Jesus doesn’t finish the line.
I can’t help but suggest that Jesus was thinking of his mother’s song.
His Mother, at the time she wrote it, pregnant with him, having been visited by the angel Gabriel, heard and seen what Elizabeth and Zachariah had been through, ( and it is not told by the gospel writers but it is very likely that Mary helped deliver Elizabeth’s son, John the Baptist while she stayed with her and Zachariah)
Luke is begging us to connect this opening proclamation of the Lord, to the Magnificat of Mary Which surely it echoes.
However, The crowd in Nazareth does not know Mary’s song.
Jesus, on the other hand being Mary's son most certainly knew it very well. Mary could have even sang it to him as a child. Something he could have heard over and over again.
When he closed up the scroll, and gave it to the attendant, and, as was customary, sat down to comment upon what was written. It is clear from Luke's language that the atmosphere was charged. Jesus then says, “ this day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears”
It seems that two responses swept over the crowd in rapid succession.
In the first there was a buzz of excitement and appreciation but almost immediately it seems to have been followed by a second guessing
“is this not just our neighbor? the son of Joseph?”
Jesus responds to the skepticism he knows is rising in their hearts with a proverb. More poetry.
Jesus knows what they really want is for him to do in their own midst some of the miracles he has done up north. They want to see signs and wonders here and now in their own village. They have little interest in the larger story.
As David Jeffery suggests, Jesus’ response immediately points out two things that his audience in Nazareth does not like to hear. first the Israel more often than not has rejected the prophets and 2nd that as a result, wonders of the Lord that were performed by the prophets among the gentiles instead.
As witnessed by Elijah’s blessing of the widow.
Jesus is here reminding us and is the same thing John did in the previous chapter, that if Israel thinks it's special covenant relationship with God is all that matters, their disobedience notwithstanding, they have not been paying significant attention to the law or the prophets. That God sides with the lowly, oppressed, the prisoner, the meek, the orphan and the widow, the foreigner and the stranger.
It is amazing just how angry some people can become if you try to take away their religion of revenge as long as Jesus announced that it was time of God's favor the crowd spoke well of him but as soon as he made it clear that God's favor is for everyone soon as jubilee was made inclusive and not exclusive they literally tried to throw him off a Cliff. “until we are captivated by the radical mercy of God extended to all we will cling to the texts of vengeance as cherished texts we do this not for the noble sake of justice but for the spiritual sake of revenge with the incident in the synagogue of Nazareth we learned that Jesus has closed that book.”(Zahnd)
He has used his mother's poem, he has used his mother's song, singing a song that his audience did not want to hear. A song of Emmanuel. “God With Us” God with all of us.
And I don't mean this just figuratively. In His book “Poet and Peasant” Theologian Kenneth Bailey who spent 40 years in the middle east, goes on to suggest that the parables of Luke and their literary devices, BEG to be compared with the common practice in many Arabic speaking tribes of singing poems to each other. The parables of the prodigal son and the sower in the field was Jesus doing theology through songs.
This third Sunday of Advent I found a mother singing her song to her son. An expectant song of hope, and a son singing a duet with her and ultimately becoming the song incarnate.
A Mothers Song Becoming Incarnate Love
May we too become that song.
Amen.