If there is a biblical character who can inspire us in a more meaningful way this Christmas, I believe we should reflect on the life of Mary the human mother of Jesus.

 

Last Sunday, we reflected on the Song of Mary or the Magnificat. We interpreted it as a song sung to Jesus when he was a baby and until he was a young child.

 

It was from Mary that Jesus as a child first learned about God, about God’s kingdom, about his people’s liberation from slavery in Egypt, their journey of faith, their oppression under the Roman Empire and the need for the oppressive structure of society to be changed.

 

From Mary, Jesus learned the value of sharing, compassion, and fellowship under the righteousness and justice of God.

 

This was because Mary knows God. She will testify to the God she’s always known — the God who shows mercy for those who fear God; who scatters the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; who brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly; who fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty; who remembers Abraham and all of his descendants, which now include her, forever. And, now, more than ever, Mary knows who her God is. She knows what her God has done — for her, for her cousin Elizabeth, for the outcast, the overlooked, those discarded, disenfranchised, dismissed.

 

Magnificat: Sharing a Reflection from Brendan Byrne

 

While traditionally interpreted in a primarily spiritual sense, the Magnificat has come into its own in a new way in recent years as a charter of hope for the materially marginalized poor. There is no need to drive a wedge between these two modes of interpretation. Mary is a model of liberation in a holistic sense, speaking out her song on behalf of the poor and offering a powerful challenge to the entrenched structures of social and economic oppression.

 

The Magnificat is a beautiful hymn but it is a beautiful hymn to the God of Israel whose partisanship for the poor is patent throughout the Bible. In his adult ministry and especially in the Beatitudes, Mary’s Son will take up and enact this vision of God. We cannot pray her Magnificat without commitment to the same liberating mission.

 

My invitation to you is for us to draw more inspiration from Mary and learn from her life and commitment to being a servant of God and a disciple of Jesus.

 

When God breaks into our world, into our lives, our response needs to be Mary’s — who says, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord.” Because when God intrudes, how can you not? God intrudes when God must. God intervenes when God’s Kingdom is challenged. God interrupts injustice. God interferes when power oppresses. And so we say, “Here we are.”

 

 

“Here I am”

 

“Here I am, the servant of the Lord,” is the right response, is the Mary response, when God calls you to stand up for the vulnerable.

 

“Here I am, the servant of the Lord,” is the Mary response when God calls you to insist that diversity is a hallmark of the Kingdom of God.

 

“Here I am, the servant of the Lord,” is the Mary response when God calls you to call out discrimination against transgender, bisexual, lesbian, gay, queer, and gender non-conforming people.

 

“Here I am, the servant of the Lord,” is the Mary response when God asks you to care for God’s creation, as the environment cries out against those who eschew science-based evidence.

 

My friends, Mary’s response needs to be ours — this Sunday and especially as Advent fades into Christmas and as God’s imposition of divinity into humanity is long forgotten. Mary has empowered us to say, “Here I am.” Say it — and then, see what happens.

 

Amen.