Magnificat

 

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior (Luke 1:46-47).

This past week, David McCain (you may know him as the parishioner who plays the chapel organ at our “regular” Saturday evening worship), dropped by the church to pick up some Bible study materials, and he shared with me a YouTube video from Southwark Cathedral in London. This video was a livestream from a few weeks ago of a memorial service for their long-time cathedral pet, Doorkins Magnificat. In this service, they prayed, “We remember that every part of creation is in the sight of God, the creator, the sustainer, the sanctifier, not just of humankind but of all that God placed in the garden of God’s delight…Creator God, not a sparrow falls to the earth without you knowing. All things reflect your glory, and all life reflects your life.” They read part of 18^th century poet Christopher Smart’s poem, “Rejoice in the Lamb”

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way…

For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary…

For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements…

For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion…

For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest…

 

Any of us who has a cat knows this 300 year-old poem to be true. “Magnificat,”what a great name for a creature that reflects God’s glory and life. Magnificat, as it’s pronounced in Latin, means, literally, “to magnify,” “to glorify,” “to praise.” It’s the first word of Mary’s song  we read today (well, if Mary wasn’t Jewish and had sung it in Latin): Magnificat anima mea Dominum, “My soul magnifies, my soul proclaims, the greatness of the Lord.”

Mary is frequently celebrated in our carols and our art and our sermons as being “meek and mild.” I have to say I think that is a self-serving fabrication, a symptom of our desire to tame and domesticate the work of the Holy Spirit in the world and to relieve ourselves of the burden of doing God’s work in the world. Mary is indeed full of humility. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord,” she says. But meek and mild she is not. When Gabriel appeared to the shepherds in the field, we’re told they were “sore afraid.” As with the shepherds, and as always when a heavenly messenger appears, Gabriel said to Mary, “Fear not…” but unlike the shepherds, Mary wasn’t afraid—she was “perplexed.” When Gabriel tells her she will be the Savior’s mother, she questions, “How can this be?” When Mary hears the reply, “For nothing will be impossible with God,” she believes, and that’s when she says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” There’s a difference between being submissive and submitting yourself, and we should not get that confused in the story of Mary.

N.T. Wright says that “Mary is…the supreme example of what always happens when God is at work by grace through human beings. God’s power from outside, and the indwelling spirit within, together result in things being done which would have been unthinkable any other way.” Mary, a servant and a prophet, proclaims boldly and without ambiguity what God has done:

God has shown the strength of his arm,

God has scattered the proud in their conceit.

God has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.

God has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

 

God’s justice and mercy and lovingkindness are, from of old and always, actions for the reversal of fortune for the least and the lowest. The Magnificat is a sort of prelude to the Sermon on the Mount, an opening overture for the words and life and death of God’s son Jesus that will be born of her, for the life of the world. Last week we heard this from the prophet Isaiah: “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” (61:1). You might remember, too, that this Isaiah passage is the reading Jesus chooses to read to inaugurate his ministry when he’s invited to speak in the synagogue.

Mary rejoices, and the source of her joy is the favor, the gift, of serving in God’s purposes of redemption and restoration to fullness of life. To be God’s servant, to submit to God’s desire for us, is truly a blessing. This kind of humble submission isn’t giving in or giving up—it’s acknowledging that our best path to freedom is found in God’s service. Neither is it giving up in the sense of taking the easy path—saying “Yes” to God brought Mary joy, but it also brought responsibility and heartbreak and pain. Through all the unknown, starting with the unknown of a mysterious pregnancy and ending with the unknown of that dark day on Calvary as her baby boy, now a man, was crucified, Mary trusted that God loved and guided her, trusted that God was with her. Saying “Yes” to God means relinquishing the false and destructive idea that we are in control and that we each live to and for ourselves.

On the other hand, as George MacDonald, a mentor to C.S. Lewis wrote, “The one principle of hell is—'I am my own. I am my own king and my own subject. I am the centre from which go out my thoughts; I am the object and end of my thoughts…My own glory is, and ought to be, my chief care…My pleasure is my pleasure. My kingdom is—as many as I can bring to acknowledge my greatness over them…My right is—what I desire…The more I close my eyes to the fact that I did not make myself; the more self-sufficing I feel or imagine myself—the greater I am…To do my own will so long as I feel anything to be my will, is to be free, is to live (Unspoken Sermons).

Surely, one of the things I hope we have all learned from this pandemic is that, indeed, the selfish, self-serving life that MacDonald describes is the principle of hell. We are not alone. We live in God’s world. We need each other. Our common health and life depends on the care we take for each other. In whatever forms it takes—calling, writing notes, praying, mask-wearing, Zooming for holiday meals instead of gathering together, donating, delivering—giving of ourselves in service to each other is serving in God’s purposes of redemption and restoration to fullness of life. It is part of relinquishing the false and destructive idea that we are in control and that we each live to and for ourselves.

Meister Eckart, 13^th century German mystic, said, “We are all called to be mothers of God – for God is always waiting to be born.” My prayer for us all this week is that that, like Mary, our souls and our lives will magnify the Lord, that, like Mary, we will rejoice in submitting ourselves to God, and, like Mary, not be meek and mild, but humble and boldly prophetic. Gabriel said, “For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Amen.