The Lectionary: Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year C

Rejoice, Favored One!

The Collect

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Scripture

Luke 1:39-55

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."

And Mary said,

"My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.

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.

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."

The Message

Who was Mary?

We actually know very little about the mother of Jesus, in terms of real, biographical information. Luke, the Gospel we have been drawing from this Advent, introduces her just before today’s reading, calling her simply “a virgin who was engaged to a man named Joseph.” This is the most detail given in any of the Gospels; Matthew simply introduces her by name, and Mark and John eschew any infant story of Jesus at all, jumping right in at John the Baptist’s baptizing of Jesus at the Jordan River as the beginning of their narratives.

A lot of iconography and mythologizing has sprung up around Mary over the years, especially, most famously, in the Catholic tradition. Far be it for me to pass judgement on any of these Marian traditions. Simply going on what Scripture says, there is very little revealed about Mary. She gets a few lines here at the beginning and when the child Jesus goes missing in the Temple, shows up later with Jesus’ siblings in the infamous “Who is my mother?” moment, and then is seen standing under the Cross at Jesus’ death. That’s it. That’s literally all we have about the woman known now at the Mother of God.

So, who was Mary? What can we extrapolate based on what we know of her context and can glean from these few words? Well, a few things. Her and Joseph were from Nazareth, in Galilee, to the north of Jerusalem. Joseph was a day laborer, meaning he and Mary were peasants, poor and unremarkable in most ways. Mary was simply one of billions of people who have lived throughout history who were faceless and nameless, subsisting day-to-day off the land, their lives disposable and barely remarked upon and yet still as rich and varied and full as ours are today. There stories have just never been recorded. People like Mary have, throughout history, been born, and lived, and then died, all with little impact on the history that is written and known. Nobody remembers them.

Except, we remember Mary. Soon after her betrothal, an angel appears to her, one of God’s own messengers, coming not to a king or other powerful person, but to this peasant teenager in Galilee. And this angel of God, the first thing it says to her is, “Rejoice, favored one!”

“Favored one!” Who has ever called one of these countless faces favored in any way? The revolutionary nature of the angel’s declaration cannot be overstated here. Peasants weren’t favored ones. Peasants today – regular, working-class folks, all around the globe, toiling away for the benefit of a rich few, crossing arbitrarily drawn borders and being labeled illegal, trying to make ends meet every day, hungry, sick, broken – none of these people are called “favored.” The favored, then and now, are those who are innovative, those with wealth, those in power. The favored own social media companies and grandstand before Congress and make decisions for billions of people based on their mood that day and hoard and hoard and hoard too much stuff.

But, that angel called Mary favored, and when Mary was called favored, all those on the underside of history were called favored through her. “Rejoice, favored one!”, the angel says to us, all of us.

Rejoice, about what? What is there to rejoice about for a peasant teen mother in Galilee, who is about to face down a whole patriarchal firestorm when it is found out she is pregnant before marriage? What is there to rejoice about, for people who have seen their communities stripped for assets and sold to the nearest hedge fund billionaire, for people who can’t get their elected leaders to give them to time of day, who every day are reminded that no one gives a shit about their needs, their desires, their passions, their lives, unless of course any of those things can be counted and documented and packaged and sold for some else’s benefit? What is there to rejoice about?

This is where we learn something about Mary. Because Mary foretells what there is for all there newly favored ones to rejoice about. Mary, that teenage mother, barefoot and pregnant, breaks out into song, a song of revolution and redemption, a song worthy of prophets, a song that could be sung at a march protesting the injustices of today just as well as it could have then:

All of my being exalts the lord,

And my life-breath has delighted in god my rescuer,

For he’s looked on his slave’s lowliness.

So look, from now one, all generations will call me happy,

Because the one with power has done great things for me;

And his name is holy;

And his mercy lasts from generation to generation

Of those who hold him in awe.

He’s show strength with his arm.

He’s scattered those with an arrogant spirit in their hearts.

He’s taken the rulers down from their thrones,

And lifted up the lowly.

He’s filled the hungry with good things

And sent the rich away empty.

He’s come to the aid of Israel his servant,

Keeping mercy in his mind,

Just as her promised to our fathers,

To Abraam and his seed for an endless age.[1]

This is why we can rejoice at Advent. Jesus has come, and that means something, for those who are lowly and hungry and meek and poor and forgotten. We spend Advent waiting, not just for a cute baby, or a beautiful star, or a moving Nativity scene. We wait for Jesus to come, to bring forth the justice and the mercy of God, for those who have been downtrodden. Jesus’ birth ushers in a new world, one in which the newly Favored Ones can Rejoice, in the new age of God’s Kingdom, a place where the mighty are cast down, but not cast out; where the rich are sent away empty, in order that they may be filled with something better. Jesus turns the world upside down, and makes it a better place for all.

And Mary? She saw it coming, the moment that angel called her a favored one, and delivered the Good News that turned her own small, forgotten life upside down. And for that, we remember her still, today.

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[1] This striking translation of The Magnificat comes from Sarah Ruden’s unique translation, The Gospels.