“Singing Mary’s Song?”

Scripture – Luke 1:39-55

Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Randall T. Clayton

Sunday, December 22, 2024

This past Wednesday evening we gathered in Rodney Chapel for a service of healing and wholeness – churches often do such services during Advent because we know that sometimes grief feels heavier, losses weightier, and disappointments larger in holiday seasons. The holiday seasons also sometimes herald us missing loved ones who died years ago, and people who are now too far away from us to be part of our holiday celebrations. If you have found yourself experiencing such “missing,” know that you are not alone. I’m right there beside you.

And so, not surprisingly I suppose, lately I’ve found myself thinking again about the last time I saw my mother. During the early days of COVID I was serving as interim head of staff at Red Clay Creek Presbyterian, and we had a traveling choir that sang in nursing homes each month. On what turned out to be the very last afternoon before nursing homes shut their doors to all visitors in March 2020 due to COVID, that traveling choir sang at the facility where my mother was living, a place just a few blocks from here actually. On the afternoon of my church choir’s visit, I sat beside my mother’s wheelchair in the facility’s dining room, held her hand, and together we listened to the choir sing.

By this point in my mothers’ life, she was not very verbal, rarely made eye contact, and even more rarely did her face show much emotion – dementia had taken a terrible, terrible toll. But as the choir sang hymns and show tunes that afternoon I looked over at my mother and saw her smile – something I hadn’t seen in my daily visits for many weeks. My heart soared. At the end of the program the choir’s director walked over to us. I introduced the director to my mother, and my mother looked the director straight in the eye, and said, clearly, “Thank you” – with a smile on her lips. I walked away that day not knowing it would be  the last time I would be able to see my mother before she died, but so grateful then and now more than four years later, that I got to witness the power of song in that nursing home dining room – a power that had altered that day both for my mother and for me.

The power of song. I’m convinced that Mary knew something of that power. Let me explain…

Mary was maybe only 12 or 13 years old, growing up in a patriarchal society that didn’t value women all that much; she was a Jew living under Roman occupation; a peasant in a land of plenty.[1] Furthermore, she was pregnant and not married in a time when that meant that should her situation become known her fiancé would likely kick her to the curb, her family disown her, her rabbi chastise her, her community reject her. And yet, she sang.

The song she sang wasn’t a ballad in which she spewed forth tears about what was happening to her and the details of her difficult lot in life. It wasn’t a poem set to music that gave voice to fears for her future. Instead, she sang a song of joyous blessing to God, which also expressed her sure and certain hope of what God would do in the world one day. In fact, so certain was she about what God had in mind for creation, that the verbs in her song about what God would do weren’t present tense or future tense verbs; they are past tense verbs, as if the day of God’s liberation had already arrived even though she was all too aware that it had not. Mary knew something about the power of song and so she sang.

We may think of Mary as sweet and gentle, and perhaps she was; and we may think of the night of Jesus’ birth as calm and peaceful, and maybe it was; but pregnant Mary’s song was not so gentle, and as I’ve thought about her singing this week, I’ve come to I suspect that she belted out the lyrics with power in her voice. Listen to her sing – she sings about God turning the world upside down, inside out, remaking it totally, upending a status quo that makes you and me so comfortable. She knew about the power of song.

Before Mary sings, however, the biblical witness tells us that an angel announced to Mary that she was “favored”…favored not because of her wealth, or her social position, or her education; favored not because of the neighborhood in which she lived, or who her father was, but favored because, well, because God just favors God’s children. (But sometimes we forget that piece of good news, and perhaps Mary had forgotten that too.)

While being reminded that God favors us might some days be enough to lift us out of despair, what the angel told her next was unbelievable. Gabriel said that Mary would be giving birth, but Mary knew that was impossible since she was a virgin; furthermore, as an unmarried woman in those days, being pregnant was not likely something she desired at that moment in time. To be told she would be giving birth and that her miracle-child would be get the “throne of his ancestor David” was totally preposterous, well beyond the pale of her imagination. But all things are possible with God, the angel reminded her. To underscore that, the angel told Mary that her cousin Elizabeth, a woman too old to have children and who had given up hope of becoming a mother, was now also with child. At this point, perhaps Mary knew enough about God’s dealings through time to realize when God choses you for a task it doesn’t always do a lot of good to argue. (God has a tendency not to take “No” for an answer), so she didn’t protest her calling to be the bearer of Jesus.

Soon thereafter Mary hightailed it to Cousin Elizabeth’s house. We don’t know why she went there, but what we do know is that Elizabeth had no knowledge of Mary’s pregnancy before Mary arrived on her doorstep. When Mary arrived, suddenly, miraculously, both Elizabeth and her unborn child – who would grow up to be called John the Baptist – recognized that Mary was pregnant, and would give birth to a very, very special and unique child. Unborn John knew – he leaped in Elizabeth’s womb, and Elizabeth knew it too. Elizabeth then proclaimed with great joy that Mary, “the mother of her Lord” had come to see her, and then offered blessings upon blessings for Mary and for God.

Welcomed and blessed by Elizabeth, Mary broke into song, a song that has echoed through the ages, and which has been sung by choirs and congregations in all the days since.

“My soul magnifies the Lord,” Mary sang.
Not “Woe is me.”
“…my spirit rejoices…,”
Not “…my world is coming apart at the seams.”
“…for [God] has looked with favor…the Mighty one has done great things for me,” Mary sang.

And then so sure of God’s intentions for the world, so certain of God’s future, she sang of the mercy of God, of God scattering the proud, of God bringing down the powerful, and lifting up the lowly, of God filling the hungry and sending the rich away empty.

As one writer observes, “This is no sweet lullaby she is singing in anticipation of the birth of the baby Jesus. This is no quaint confession of a personal relationship with God either. It’s a downright revolutionary political statement about who God lifts up and who God brings down.”[2]

It was a revolutionary song, and I would hold her singing was an act of resistance because songs have the power to be, in-and-of-themselves, acts of resistance. As one scholar writes…

“The slaves knew this. When they sang their spirituals they were both praising God and protesting the masters who locked them out of worship but couldn’t keep them out of the promise of deliverance of the Bible. And the civil rights leaders knew this, too, singing songs like ‘We Shall Overcome,’ when so many in the society didn’t give them a chance to advance their cause of justice, let alone triumph. The protestors in Leipzig in 1989 knew this as well… For several months before the fall of the Berlin wall citizens of Leipzig gathered on Monday evenings by candlelight around St. Nikolai church, a church where Bach had composed many of his cantatas. They gathered there at night to sing – and the number of singers grew from a little more than a thousand people to more than three hundred thousand, finally with over half the city’s citizens joining in songs of hope, and of protest. When someone later asked one of the officers of the East German Secret Police why the police didn’t crush this protest as they had crushed so many others, he said, ‘We had no contingency plan for song.’” [3]

The power of song. By reminding us of our hope, song can help keep hope alive. By reminding us of the world God intends, song can help us keep our focus on becoming a partner with God in creating the world God dreams of. I think Mary knew that. And so, she sang at a time in her life when the world would have said there’s no reason at all to sing, or certainly not to be singing so joyfully.

Upon hearing the news she was pregnant, Mary did not retreat. She did not apologize to anyone. She did not lapse into despair. Instead, she sang. She sang of her confidence “in the Lord’s promise to upend the powers that be, reverse the fortunes of an unjust world, and lift up those who had been oppressed.” [4] As one writer says, “When your back is to the wall, you see, and all looks grim, one of the most unexpected and powerful things you can do is sing.” [5] And so Mary sang.

There are moments, perhaps days and seasons too, when we may wonder if there’s anything at all to sing about, or anything at all to praise God for, or anything at all that we can do to change the course of the world, much less the course of our own lives. As we look around us, we see so much violence, so much violence, hatred, bigotry, poverty, so much that is not loving. It’s overwhelming sometimes, hope-sapping, and can lead to despair. And yet, Mary’s song pushes me to wonder what might happen if we joined our voices singing God’s praise daily, or even offered spoken praise to God daily, even in a world that is far from perfect? Would that help keep our hope alive in days in which we don’t feel hopeful about today or tomorrow? Would it help us to be active agents of resistance against the violence in our world, the poverty, the hatred, the killing too?

Today we will sing Mary’s song, “My soul gives glory to my God, my heart pours out it’s praise.”[6] And following that our choir will sing her song too. Before we leave this sanctuary today, we will sing about rejoicing with heart and soul and voice, about not needing to “fear the grave,” about remembering that “Christ was born to save.” [7]

Two days from now, on Christmas eve, we will join choirs of angels, and all the citizens of heaven in giving glory to God. We’ll sing about God “ruling the world with truth and with grace,” and about the “wonders of God’s love.”[8] We’ll sing about calm and peaceful nights, about stars shining brightly and about shepherds watching their flocks by night. We’ll sing and about God coming down from heaven, whose “shelter was a stable,”  a God who “feels for all our sadness,” and who “shares in all our gladness.”[9] And  in song we will proclaim that our “our eyes at last will see him, a child so dear and gentle” who is our “Lord in heaven above and who leads his children on to the place where he has gone.” [10]

Maybe if we keep singing these words in the coming months our hope will remain bright, our love will overflow, and our joy and peace will become infectious. After all, singing has the power to change us. It has the power to change the world as well. And for that matter, so can our prayers, and our hands, and the gifts God has given us, change the world to bring to bring hope, peace, joy, and love to God’s creation.

Primary Sources:

• Avram, Wes. “Living by the Word: Reflections on the Lectionary.” Christian Century, Dec 10, 2014.
• Brehm, Alan., “Song of Hope.” thewakingdreamer.blogspot.com, 2014.01.
• Craddock, Fred B. Luke, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Westminster John Knox, 1990.
• Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal. Westminster John Knox, 2013.
• Gonzalez, Justo L. Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible. Westminster John Knox, 2010.
• Kay, James F. “Mary’s Song – and Ours.” Christian Century, December 10, 1997.
• Kelly, Caroline M. “Great Expectations: Luke 1:39-55.” Journal for Preachers, Advent 2008.
• Kershner, Shannon Johnson. “Advent Sermon”, Journal for Preachers, Advent 2007.
• Levine, Amy-Jil, and Witherington, Ben III, The Gospel of Luke, New Cambridge Bible Commentary. Cambridge University Press, 2018.
• Lose, David, “Advent 4C: Singing as an act of Resistance.” net, December 14, 2015.
• Morley, Rick. com (blog), Accessed December 16, 2024.
• Smith, Abraham. “Fourth Sunday of Advent: Commentary on Luke 1:39-45”, org, December 22, 2024.
• Trible, Phyllis. “Meeting Mary Through Luke,” The Living Pulpit, October – December 2001.

 Prayers of the People

Gregory Knox Jones

Spirit of life and love, help us to be still for a few moments; may we breathe slowly and deeply (pause); may we calm our minds (pause); and slow our pulse (pause). Lover of all, help us to be still in the warmth of your love (pause).

Gracious One, amid this special season when the world celebrates the birth of a tiny babe who would change the world, our minds are flooded with memories of past Christmases. We remember the delight of gatherings with family and friends, the abundant tables of delicious food and drink, the excitement of sharing gifts, the uplifting moments in worship, and the singing of favorite carols that make our throats tighten and our lips quiver, and strengthen our resolve. May we recall those occasions when we felt especially close to loved ones and connected to you – when love and tenderness were palpable and we were aglow with your Spirit. We pray that this Christmas our souls will be saturated with wonder and delight.

Everlasting God, we do not withdraw from the world. We experience its anguish and ugliness as well as its blessing and beauty. During these troubling times, we pray that Christ will come into our lives and those across the globe, again and again.

Immanuel, fill our hearts with compassion, not only for people like ourselves, but for all people of good will;

Bread of Life, kindle a spirit of generosity toward those without food and safe shelter;

Good Shepherd, foster empathy for those suffering illness or the loss of a loved one or one who is near the end;

Wonderful Counselor, stir a desire to forgive those who have hurt us and the will to reconcile relationships needing repair;

Light of the World, revive a thirst for justice, so that all may be liberated, and treated with fairness and respect;

Prince of Peace, drench us with a passion for peace, so that the time, energy, and money that we devote to violence and weapons of war may be redirected to food, housing, and healing. We pray especially for the people of Palestine/Israel where Jewish hostages are still being held and more than 45,000 Christians and Muslims – mostly women and children – have been killed. We pray that the leaders and governments and weapons manufacturers who thrive on death will be replaced by courageous leaders who understand that the only sane path to peace is justice for all.

Gracious God, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, open our hearts, open our minds, open our souls so that Christ may be born in us again and again, infusing us with love. Despite the darkness that surrounds us, despite the fractures in our relationships, despite the difficulties in our lives and the trouble in our souls, implant a spirit of joy within us so that we might lock arms with one another and become partners with you in transforming this world.

And now we unite our voices in the familiar and comforting prayer Jesus taught us, saying, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.

NOTES

[1] Kelly, Caroline M., “Great Expectations,” Journal for Preachers, Advent 2008.

[2] Kelly.

[3] Lose, David, “Advent 4 C: Singing as an act of Resistance”, davidlose.net, December 14, 2015.

[4] Lose.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Winter, Miriam Therese, “My Soul Gives Glory to My God”, Glory to God, Westminster John Knox Press, 2013, Hymn # 99.

[7] Neale, John Mason, translator, “Good Christian Friends, Rejoice,” Glory to God, Westminster John Knox Press, 2013, Hymn #132.

[8] Watts, Isaac, “Joy to the World,” Glory to God, Westminster John Knox, 2013, Hymn # 134.

[9] Alexander, Cecil Frances, “Once in Royal David’s City,” Glory to God, Westminster John Knox, 2013, Hymn # 140.

[10] Ibid.