\u201cMy heart exults in the Lord \u2026 My strength is exalted in my God \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sound familiar?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today we hear the Magnificat, that great song of Mary that the author of Luke and Acts has blessed us with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this quote isn\u2019t from the Magnificat. It\u2019s not even from the gospels. It\u2019s from the Book of Samuel. It\u2019s sung by another pregnant woman, Hannah the mother of Samuel, the great priest and prophet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hannah was unable to conceive and bear children because we are told, \u201cThe Lord had closed her womb.\u201d In time, however, she does conceive and when she dedicates her son \u2013 her only son \u2013 to the temple, to become a priest she sings a song. Luke uses this song as a model for Mary\u2019s song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In both the mighty are laid low, and the lowly are raised up. God is active and acting in the world. And so these women sing, \u201cMy heart exults in the Lord!\u201d \u201cMy soul magnifies the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s an arresting phrase: My soul magnifies<\/u><\/strong> the Lord. MY<\/u><\/strong> soul magnifies the Lord. This is sometimes translated as \u201cmy soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,\u201d which means sort of the same thing. But there\u2019s something more profound in saying \u201cmy soul magnifies the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The more traditional (Rite I) version of the Magnificat has yet another translation that opens up an even deeper level, a more profound paradox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It reads, \u201cMy soul doth magnify the Lord,\u201d and then a little later it says, \u201cFor he that is mighty hath magnified me.\u201d I magnify the Lord, but the Lord also magnifies me. It\u2019s a double magnification and it\u2019s maybe a little \u201cthrough the looking-glass.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s where we are in Advent. Advent prepares us for Christmas, which takes us through the looking glass. There, everything looks familiar but everything is utterly and profoundly different. Because God has become incarnate, enfleshed, one of us, and that changes everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the beginning of the service we prayed \u201cthat when Jesus comes he will find in our hearts a mansion prepared for him.\u201d That should sound familiar too. In John\u2019s great mystical account of the God-magnifying life of Jesus, Jesus says that he goes to prepare a mansion for us (\u201cin my father\u2019s house are many mansions \u2026 I go to prepare a place for you.\u201d John 14:2) And now as we are on the cusp of welcoming God (again) \u2013 recognizing God as living and moving and acting among us (again) \u2013 we are told to prepare a mansion for God. You know the song: \u201cLet every heart, prepare Him room.\u201d We are told to prepare God a space, so that God might be born again in us. So that we might be born again. Our souls, our bodies, our very being will thereby magnify the greatness of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We delight in singing about the mighty works of God this time of year. We find it easy and comforting to sing about what God brings about in the world. We sing about God bringing joy and peace. Mary\u2019s song invites us to consider not only the what, but also the how. The Magnificat can be read as an invitation to sing along with Mary about our part in that divine action. This is what Jesus\u2019 incarnation tells us. It\u2019s what Mary is telling us. That God goes about bringing peace, and joy, and love, and hope to the world through us. By magnifying God\u2019s grace and spirit through us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy soul magnifies the Lord,\u201d can mean that through me, through you, through us others can see the Lord more clearly. Through me and through you, through the way we choose to live our lives and practice our faith in the world people can catch a sustained glimpse of that peaceful kingdom. They can experience the righteous reign of God\u2019s justice and peace. They can share in God\u2019s dream of shalom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through each of us, through our words and our actions, through all that we do, we magnify God. We magnify God\u2019s being with our own bodies. We magnify God\u2019s action with our own practices. We magnify God\u2019s word with our words in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n God is the one who acts. We magnify that action and give it hands and feet and hearts and minds. We collaborate with God in the divine actions of lifting up of the lowly, feeding the hungry. A good question to meditate on in the remaining time before Christmas might be: how do I magnify the Lord?<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s a big question. It\u2019s easy to think that it\u2019s too big for any one of us to handle. But another important lesson the Magnificat teaches is that you are enough. Whoever you are, whatever you have or haven\u2019t done, you are enough. The song of Mary reminds us that all of the scripture points to the little, the lowly, the \u201cwho me?\u201d as the vehicle for salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bethlehem is nothing special. Hannah is a long-suffering, put upon other wife who endures the incessant teasing of the wife who is <\/strong>able to bear children. Elizabeth was also thought to be barren, and endured disgrace because of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Mary is no one. An underage woman from a nowhere town \u2013 Nazareth (\u201cwhat good can come from there?\u201d) \u2013 engaged to someone we\u2019re told is from the house of David but that doesn\u2019t really make Joseph all that special; a lot of people were distantly related to David.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All throughout scripture whenever God wants to do something it\u2019s the little, the ordinary, the unexceptional that God uses. When God wants to create God reaches into the mud. When God wants to raise up a king for Israel, God chooses the youngest of many children, the one sent out to watch the flocks. When God wants to redeem all of creation God enters that creation fully and completely as one of the most vulnerable creatures on the planet, a human child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is through human beings, through human flesh, the substance that is also the vehicle for all sin in the world. It\u2019s through this fragile and easily broken substance that salvation happens. It is through us that God works. Through us that God is magnified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Acts, St. Paul says that \u201cGod is that in which we live and move and have our being.\u201d (Acts 17:28) Mary reminds us that we are how God lives and moves and brings about God\u2019s will in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is not through magic, but through a human being. Through Mary, and her child Jesus, and with the help of the Holy Spirit through apostles, prophets and martyrs \u2013 and even through us \u2013 that God transforms God\u2019s dream of shalom into the reality of God\u2019s realm of justice and peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And just like Mary and Hannah, though little, we are enough. Each of us is enough to magnify God. Imagine what would happen if we let God work. If we truly made room for God to be born in our hearts. If we let God magnify the good work that God has begun and is already doing in each of us. What if we joined together with others to magnify that work? Imagine the world that would be born from that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we prepare to welcome Christ once more into our hearts and our homes, may our souls magnify more and more the glory of God and our hearts exult in the goodness of God, this day and always.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cMy heart exults in the Lord \u2026 My strength is exalted in my God \u2026\u201d Sound familiar? Today we hear the Magnificat, that great song of Mary that the author of Luke and Acts has blessed us with. But this quote isn\u2019t from the Magnificat. It\u2019s not even from the gospels. 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