The Magnificat

Mary's Song

“My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant...He has filled the hungry with good things but sent the rich away empty.”

Luke 1:46-47

We Christians typically read the Magnificat this time of year. It is Mary's song, sung to her cousin, Elizabeth, about her “miraculous” pregnancy. Christians know it well as an example of reverent submission and acceptance of one's fate. But it is also a statement of the facts of Mary's life—she was a poor girl. She lived on the margins of society in a small, sliver of a country occupied and ruled by an overwhelmingly rich and powerful force—the Roman Empire. She had no rights, no privileges, and as a single, pregnant woman, was probably facing the very real possibility of a good, old fashioned stoning to death. Thank God, Joseph did the honorable thing and married her.

In many ways, the Magnificat is also a protest song. It lays out the way things were in Mary's society, and points to the injustices faced everyday by the occupied Jews—and by poor people today. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke about this in his time. To be poor in a place where everyone around you is poor, creates a community in which people help one another. To be poor in a place where many around you are unspeakably rich creates an anger and suffering like no other. I remember the sweet little neighborhood where I lived as a child in Chattanooga. Everyone was the same; we were all poor, working-class people, but I didn't know that. Everyone there looked just like me. No one held themselves above the rest. It was not until I moved to a small, mill town, where there existed a rigid social divide, a class system that shut me out, that I realized what being “poor” meant. It's not just having very little money; it's being invisible, inconsequential and feeling powerless to change it. Poverty, in a culture that idolizes wealth, breeds rage.

In preparation for the birth of Mary's child, let's be mindful of those around us who are in need. In a society of the “over-blessed” and the “under-blessed,” let's be conscientious with our giving.

                                                                 In the Spirit,

                                                                     Jane