Finding Faith as Mary Sings the Magnificat

‘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.

It is with faith that Mary begins her song to the Lord.  Her soul magnifies the Lord.  I love that phrase. Her soul will make the Lord larger.  Her spirit rejoices in God, her Savior.  Deep expressions of faith in the Lord.  The rest defines why she has such faith.  God has looked with favor ‘on the lowliness’ of his servant.  All generations will call her blessed.  The Mighty One has done great things.  Holy is His Name.

If there is not faith that God can change things, make things right, there is no chance for peace.  Because peace must be laid upon the power of the Living God.  Humanity is incapable of mastering that peace for ourselves.  We do not have faith in ourselves, we do not have faith in one another.  Yes, exceptions do exist, but they prove the rule. 

There is a story in the Bible where people have faith in themselves.  They fancy that they can build a tower that will reach up to heaven, the tower of Babel.  To prevent them, God mixes up their languages so they scatter across the face of the earth.  It is intriguing to consider what humanity may be capable of now as we continue to become a more globalized community.

There is this dichotomy that works in the concept of faith that we must be aware of as we consider how it is a foundation of peace.  On the one hand, faith seems to break down.  We believe in our Father, who art in heaven.  But humans continue to kill each other off in droves.  It is a challenge to have faith in an ultimate being who doesn’t seem to do anything in times of crisis. 

On the other hand, faith cannot stand alone.  Faith is joined to the fight for justice.  Faith is joined to the requirement to love.  It is there, as we are working for peace, that the power of faith shines through.  The direct work of faith is what I call a miracle, and miracles truly happen.  They seem to happen all the more often when love and justice are present. 

When Mary has faith, her soul magnifies the Lord, makes him larger.  When there are many of us magnifying the Lord, what power our faith takes on.

Justice-the First Leg of Peace

⁵² He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly;
⁵³ he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty.

            We pull these verses from the middle of Mary’s Magnificat.  They do not track well with our typical American flavors of doing things.  For the next posts, speaking to the foundation of peace, we shall be looking to Mary's song to the Lord when she knew she would be the mother of Jesus.

These verses welcome to a most un-American culture war.  We do not toss out the rich and lift up the poor.  Every American is supposed to be able to lift themselves up by their own bootstraps.  There is a built in bias that the poor are lazy and ‘defective’.  But truly, how is peace supposed to take root when there is such an economic disparity?

            Those who have will seek to protect what they’ve got.  Those who have not, where will they get but from those who have?  The argument is ancient, dating back for as long as there have been rich and poor.  ‘The rich get richer and the poor get poorer’, isn’t that that the melody of the age?  Who would dare to run on a platform of ‘redistribution of income’ in this day and age?  But here we are, bibles open

            It is all about God’s justice.  This is at the heart of the Magnificat.  Mary, the Mother of Jesus, singing that her soul magnifies the Lord!  Her soul makes him larger, more powerful.  She is about to become the mother of Jesus, the Son of God.  This is all about God.  There is a chiastic structure, a-b-b-a, the ‘a’ and ‘b’ lines paralleling their message.  This is a poetic device that adds strength to the meaning of the words.

a.        He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

b.      And lifted up the lowly;

b--  he has filled the hungry with good things,

a--  and sent the rich away empty.

            Why has God done this?  More importantly, where has Mary seen God doing this?  Is it in the miracle baby that her cousin Elizabeth is carrying around?  When did she become such an insightful social commentator?  She is living on the lowest of the lowly, single, female, poor, occupied in her own land, from a time and place where ‘ownership’ of women traveled effectively from father to husband, and she has been singled out by God.  No pressure.

            How does peace emerge from a culture war?  It could, in fact, turn into a shooting war if the rich truly felt threatened by the ‘unwashed masses’.  We have deployed active duty troops inside this country against protesters (Los Angeles, post-Rodney King). 

            The fact is, peace does not exist under the old order.  Oppression exists, poverty exists, malnutrition exists, greed exists, isolation exists.  Not one of those will bring peace.  Not one of those is a foundation upon which ‘peace’ can be built.  Suppression can exist, coopting the order can exist, but peace cannot.  Maybe a ceasefire, maybe exhaustion. 

            While I am not a proponent of violence, peace requires the revolution of justice.

How Christmas Shall Define Who We Are

The need is “Peace”.  It is one word that embodies so very much, from our Lord Jesus as our “Prince of Peace” to the great gift that will be brought to the world after the Day of Judgment.  It is the centerpiece of what our church is working toward.  Our tagline, “a neighborhood in the Kingdom of God”, is indicative of where a peaceful community is truly to be found.  Our mission focal points, on our kids, on pastoral care, on our relationship to Jesus, all pivot to bring peace into our lives.

                Peace sits on a tripod foundation: Love, Justice, and Faith.  I Corinthians 13 defines them as Faith, Hope, and Love, the greatest being love.  Can we dwell on the intimate connection of Hope and Justice? 

                Peace is often confused with other things.  Here are five things Peace is not:

1. “Ceasefire”, or ‘the absence of war’.  A Ceasefire ended active hostilities between North and South Korea in 1953, but peace has never been achieved.
2. “Inertia”, or ‘the status quo’.  It can take some time to get things moving.  You know the expression ‘the lull before the storm’?
3. “Rest”, or ‘simple exhaustion’.  Everybody has to sleep, even the most evil among us. 
4. “Inactivity”.  Just because the terrorists haven’t attacked in a month does not mean that peace reigns. 
5. “Singular”, or of a single facet.  Multiple lines of work, aid, and activity must go into creating peace. 

Peace does not ‘happen’, peace is built.  Peace is maintained through vigilance and must be protected.  Peace abhors violence but peace will overcome evil with good when it must.  Peace must be the will of the community, it must have ‘buy in’ from the members of the community, it must rest upon its tripod foundation.

We can learn about Peace from our sister Abrahamic faiths.  In Hebrew, the term is “shalom” and in Arabic the term is “salaam”.  Study the terms and what they mean in the Jewish and Islamic traditions and we can learn much to our advantage in the Christian tradition.

Peace, it is who we must be and what we must be about to transform and heal this world.

The image is the baby lying in the manger.  When we have achieved peace, the baby will lie in that manger without fear of the cruel world, want of basic necessities, or lack of community to surround him.