Proud Mary

 

Proud Mary

 

Luke 1:46b-55
1:46b "My soul magnifies the Lord, 

1:47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

1:48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

1:49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is God’s name.

1:50 God’s mercy is for those who fear God from generation to generation.

1:51 God has shown strength with God’s arm; the Lord has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

1:52 God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;

1:53 God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

1:54 God has helped God’s servant Israel, in remembrance of God’s mercy,

1:55 according to the promise God made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever." 

 

 

Last Sunday, Dr. Eric Bryant, Lead Pastor at my daughter’s church, Christ Church in Louisville, said something I always wished someone would finally say. During his Advent II sermon, he mentioned that one of the popular Christmas “solo” songs asks questions of Mary, the mother of Jesus, such as “Mary did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?” And Pastor Eric said emphatically, “Yes, Mary DID know, because the Angel Gabriel had clued her in!” I almost broke into applause, but didn’t want to embarrass my family. Thanks, Eric!

 

Mary was a lot of things, as we have all learned over the more than two thousand Advents that have come and gone since that historic first one. She was probably a very young woman, possibly between 13 and 15 years of age. She was “betrothed” to Joseph, who was probably much older (that is why he is gone from the scene by the time Jesus launches his ministry). She was chosen by God for a unique assignment, and would be a cultural outcast because she accepted it. (I’m not actually sure it would have been easy to say “no,” given an actual angel of God had broken the news to her, but who knows? God gave us “free will,” remember.) But of all the things that Mary was, clueless was not one of them.

 

I’ve gotten myself in trouble numerous times throughout my ministry because I lifted up the prowess and superiority of women over men. Men don’t tend to like to hear this reality, but it is true. I believe God created man, took one look at how HE looked and acted, and said, “OH, I can do better than THAT!” And then God created women. Everything about women is better than the male of the species. They think quicker, act quicker, and are able to multi-task right out of the womb. They bear our children, rear them, educate them, and send them “out of the nest” proudly. AND they are able to hold down complex careers at the same time, AND they are typically the leading “domestic engineers” throughout the cycle. The male of the species is generally a bellyacher. When he’s sick, he jettisons every responsibility and expects to be catered to by the nearest female. He can be so deliberate when making a decision that paralysis would be a better fate than waiting for the outcome of his deliberations. They say that men are better at math, but I’ve never really seen it. If women see it as important, or it is a part of their job, they are superior even at calculations. Have you ever seen “Hidden Figures”? There you go. When given the chance—and they still rarely are, if there is a pig-headed man around—women run circles around us, guys. They. Just. Do.

 

I won’t go there, regarding the superiority of their design. God knocked Godself out on that one. The one I’m blessed to be partnered with is almost 72 years old, and when she walks across the room, I give glory to God. Her body, mind, and spirit make mine look like a dead carp on a hot beach in mid-August. She is so beautiful, graceful, smart, discerning, crafty, articulate, professional—AND she bore two incredible children and raised them to near perfection. You should see her with the grandchildren, too! She puts me to such shame that the best I can do is love her with all my heart, and so I do, and if I put all of my energy to doing so, I may be redeeming myself at least a bit, but it is far short of the love she deserves, believe me. I’ll bet I’m not alone in this, am I gentlemen? If you are one of those men out there who still feels men are in any way superior to the women God has created, please get counseling…or a frontal lobotomy. They are WAY out of our league.

 

Do you think it was an accident that God chose to be BORN into this world through the human agency of a woman? As late Ohio State coach Woody Hayes used to say about why he ran the football so much when he had such great running backs, “When you have a big cannon, SHOOT IT!”, so God chose to “shoot” the “big cannon” God had in the women God crafted. Obviously, God could have chosen to “beam” into the world, or just shown up. Why, God could have just walked down from the nearest mountain, or rose up from the still waters of the Jordan. God could have even gone a bit Hollywood and just walked out of the Holy of Holies in the Temple on a high holy day! But instead, God chose Mary. Proud Mary, to be the “Mother of God.”

 

Today’s lectionary passage is the famed “Magnificat” of Mary—“My soul magnifies the Lord…” And it certainly did! It’s significant that we have this narrative reported by Dr. Luke, who wrote what some Bible scholars call the “Gospel of women.” Women do great things in the Book of Luke, and they are always attentive to the presence and pronouncements of Jesus. We have these wonderful “women” stories, thanks to Luke’s recall and inclusion. And today, he gives us this “Magnificat,” an outpouring from the heart of Proud Mary, who said “yes” to God in a way that changed the whole direction of human history. It’s a pity that we Protestant Christians have given Mary such short shrift, instead focusing so intensely on such simple truths as “salvation by faith” and “repentance,” when Mary did most of the heavy lifting. And it’s doubly a pity that our Roman Catholic siblings venerate Mary for her obedience and servitude to God, but then turn around and don’t let women do almost anything important in their church! No women clergy? Seriously? And I love their answer as to why they don’t—“Jesus didn’t call any women.” Horse-hockey. Fact is, the women NATURALLY followed Jesus. It was the MEN who had to be “called” because had they not been, they would still be minding their nets and tax ledgers! Jesus called the MEN because they needed coddling, babysitting, and “potty training.” The women already KNEW how to please God, and tackle the tough assignments, as evidenced at the cross and the tomb, afterwards. Who showed up? The women. Who ran off and hid? The men. Get it? If it weren’t for Proud Mary and the other women who ran to the tomb, we’d still be licking our wounds, gentlemen.

 

The ”Magnificat” might also be known as the “Theme of God’s Women.” Mary was the trailblazer of a long heritage of women who stepped up, down through the ages, and right up until our time when women answer the call to ordained ministry. They must be both proud like Mary and courageous like her to do so, as the church—in the case of United Methodists—do not make their job easy, or even possible, as in the case of the Roman Catholics. Read between the lines of these verses in Luke Chapter One:

 

*God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant. Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed. Mary got it. She offered God her availability, not her ability. She also believed, as evidenced here, that she would be remembered for this. She has been remembered, but it seems to often be forgotten that she was also a WOMAN, as the church has not kindly dealt with woman in positions of power or authority.

 

*…For the Mighty One has done great things for me. Even Proud Mary knew from whence her bread was buttered, as they say. God was the source, as well as the voice that called her. Too often in the history of Christianity, when things go well, there is no end to the people lined up to take credit for it, but when stuff hits the fan, the blame is spread far and wide. Mary trusted; God delivered; then Mary delivered.

 

*God’s mercy is for those who fear God from generation to generation…Mercy comes to those who understand they need it. It is conspicuously absent from those who believe they can save themselves—a truth just as true today as it was in Mary’s day.

 

*…the Lord has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts…I call her “Proud Mary” because she understood that all she did was OBEY God, and it was this deferral about which she was “proud,” not anything else that she did. We can learn from women in this regard. Very often, they know “where to quit” and “where to draw the line” and cut their losses. Men rarely do. I remember years ago, when one of my church youth was being taught how to water ski, he was told, if you go down, let go of the rope! But this strong, young, and proud male would simply NOT let go of the rope when he went down, and resembled a human torpedo, during numerous runs. When asked why he didn’t let go of the rope, he said, “I thought maybe I could pull it out and get back up.” Cwazy Wabbit, Tricks are for kids… This is the problem with us men—too often we ignore good counsel because we think “we are different.” We are—not too bright.

 

*God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty…Again, this goes to the question of knowing when to yield versus when to use one’s abilities to “fix” things. While there is a time for both, in the Body of Christ, yielding to the agency of God and the Holy Spirit is so often more productive than taking matters into one’s own hands. The “Proud Marys” of the church get this. Their “pride” is in the knowledge that God is with us, not in what they, themselves, can do. God will always offer “food to the hungry” (the humble who present themselves before God as needy) and “turn away” those who can pay their own way. This is just a statement of fact, not necessarily judgment. The rich often CAN fare for themselves, while the poor need a leg up. Of course, how wonderful it would be for the “rich” to share their largess with the needy! Oh, there’s another thing women generally do better than men—share!

 

I think the thing that made Mary most proud was recalling in her heart the story of what God was able to accomplish through her because she offered her servanthood TO God. Sometimes the bravest and most powerful thing we can say to God is simply, “Yes.” What resulted from Mary’s “proud” obedience was what one of our greatest theologians once labeled as “God’s ‘YES’ to the world,” Jesus Christ. That God chose to enter human existence through this humble woman is a testimony to greatness through simple obedience. Thanks be to God for Proud Mary, the Mother of our Lord and Savior, Jesus! Amen.