Mary the Teacher: 3 Things the Magnificat Shows Us
Every night, I tell my two little girls, “And now Mary’s song, the Magnificat, from Luke 1:46-55.” Then they recite these verses, which Scot McKnight calls “the Magna Carta of early Christian songs” (The Real Mary, p. 4). Every line riffs on the Hebrew Scriptures and opens up a wealth of material for study, but today, we’re going to focus on three things that Mother Mary teaches us and has been teaching the church from its earliest inception. You may have never considered one or more of these points.
Mary Shows Us How to Read the Gospel of Luke
Mary’s scenes with the angel Gabriel and her elderly cousin Elizabeth introduce the Gospel of Luke’s theme of status reversal. Because Mary’s song occurs in Luke’s opening chapter, her words set the tone for what follows, opening our minds to how we should understand this book.
Describing the Magnificat as Luke’s opening gambit, Amanda C. Miller says, “This was Luke’s opening declaration of his reversal theology, probably surprising at first for most readers, but confirmed again and again throughout the rest of the Gospel. Jesus’ declaration of eschatological Jubilee in Nazareth, his beatitudes and woes, his communion with those on society’s margins, and his eventual death and resurrection are all foreshadowed here by his mother Mary” (Rumors of Resistance, p. 148). Similarly, Paul Bemile calls the Magnificat a “hermeneutical key” to the interpretation of Luke-Acts (The Magnificat within the Context and Framework of Lukan Theology, p. 168). In Luke, we are primed to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ in a certain way through the words of Mary. We could thus call Mary the first faithful preacher of the gospel.
Mary Shapes the Culture of the Church
Early Christian house churches often sang monophonically, a style of singing prevalent at Greek banquets in which everyone sang the melody line. They did so to symbolize unity. Churches were often diverse, including slave and free, Jew and Gentile, male and female, rich and poor, and “barbarian and Scythian,” all who were becoming one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11). They would often meet in the house of the richest member, because she, he, or they would have had a room big enough for perhaps a few dozen Christ-followers. That room was called an atrium, an open space near the front of the house with a pool and an opening in the roof for collecting rainwater in the center, but enough of a roof to keep everyone dry as they formed a semi-circle around the pool. See a walk-through of this kind of house here:
Imagine such an atrium filled with believers. Some rich, some poor. Some slave, some free. Jews, Greeks, Italians, Africans, Asians. The wealthy vineyard owner or “dealer in purple” (Acts 16:14) stands next to the poor tenant farmer singing:
He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble
He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty
How does that shape these people? How does it bind them together? What does it teach them about power and privilege? Mary’s song and its influence upon Jesus and the apostle James (a story for another day) helped create the conditions for an early church that “held everything in common,” dining together “with glad and sincere hearts, praising God, and enjoying the favor of all people” (Acts 2:44-47). If we sang more songs like this today, how might the contemporary American church be different?
Mary Teaches Us to Make God’s Story Our Story
The Magnificat is Mary’s response to her cousin Elizabeth’s greeting, “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:45). Mary fills her song with references from the psalms and prophets, Hannah’s song (1 Sam. 2), and other elements of the Hebrew Bible. She locates her story in Israel’s, speaking for God’s covenant people from the position of one poor young woman. Kat Armas writes, “Mary becomes both subject and object of this liberating action, making it possible through her act of faith. In turn, she embodies and personifies the oppressed and subjugated people who are being liberated and exalted through God’s redemptive power” (Abuelita Faith, 170).
Mary is doing so from a unique point in time, stepping into a one-of-a-kind role situated in a story that is foreign to white, middle-class Americans like me (one of oppression and poverty). However, Mary shows us that our task, whatever our social location, is to see ourselves as storied people. Stanley Hauerwas says that our “most important social task is nothing less than to be a community capable of hearing the story of God we find in the scripture and living in a manner that is faithful to that story” (A Community of Character, p. 1).
The story of God shapes us, not only providing the reasons for moral actions but also filling the life of our community with purpose and meaning. We interpret our story in light of God, not simply so that we find our stories in Scripture but that we make the story of Scripture our own. When we do so, it doesn’t mean someone like me can pretend to know how a poor, unwed mother from a minority within an empire might feel, but it certainly shapes how I believe God wants me to respond to such a person.
Mary helps us understand the plot and theme of Luke’s Gospel. Mary shapes the culture of God’s redeemed people. Mary teaches us to inhabit God’s story so we take on God’s values. Our response can be none other than to recognize that God is teaching us through Mary, leading us to say, “Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.”
Beautiful article. As a Protestant, I disagree with the elevation of Mary in Catholic doctrine. However, many Protestants over the years have used that error to scare people away from recognizing her contribution at all.
On a side note, I have been disappointed by the number of Christian women who want to be stunted by the erroneous complementarian view. Then I realized it's just another version of a problem that infects many relationships in this fallen world, not just between men and women. Some men want to be gods, and some women want to turn their agency over to men to avoid accountability. Ultimately, neither will get what they want, but for now, the two groups are LARPing together, helping each other have a facsimile of their dreams.
Thanks! Another great piece—and filled with marvelous book recommendations (it seems like Scot McKnight has an entire book written about every topic imaginable).
One minor point here—is it plausible for a "poor, unwed mother from a minority within an empire" to have uttered the Magnificat as we know it? Or are we getting an embellished version to serve Luke's theological purposes? In the literature of that time and place, were other speeches as beautiful and powerful as the Magnificat attributed to a young woman like Mary? Just thinking out loud here. Thanks for this piece!