Mary's Advent Song of Dissent!

And Mary said:

“My soul glorifies the Lord
     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has been mindful
    of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,

    for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
    holy is his name.

His mercy extends to those who fear him,
    from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

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.

He has helped his servant Israel,
    remembering to be merciful 
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
    just as he promised our ancestors” (Luke 1:46-55).
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“The arch of a moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.

Voices of dissent have never pleased the dominant powers. Mary's was no exception. 

Yet, the Gospel has always been a voice of dissent in an unjust world.

Now the examples that follow were all movements created originally by dissenting voices against the dominant status quo. It should be clear, however, that we are not obliged to give our full-throated support to any one or all of these movements since no one movement is perfect. But we should at least try to recognize the original dissenting voices behinds the movements.

—When the Black Lives Matter movement found its voice the reaction of the status quo was quick and severe, labeling those who spoke up as the voices of black rabble-rousers.

—When the Me Too movement found its voice and was launched the male status quo set out to discredit the voices within this movement as simply angry females. 

—When black athletes found their voice and began taking a knee in protest of police brutality against young black men, their voices were met with the counter-narrative of their being unpatriotic and disrespectful to the American flag, which actually had nothing to do with the original protests.

—When young Parkland school children here in Florida found their voices and spoke up against gun violence the response of the powerful gun lobbying status quo was immediate and unrelenting, even accusing these children of being paid protestors of the liberal establishment. 

—When minority political candidates of late found their voices and spoke up against voter suppression the status quo immediately discredited them as being left-wingers and Socialist liberals.

—When compassionate folks find their voices and protest the incarceration of hundreds, if not thousands, of immigrant children and teenagers as the result of misguided immigration policy, the powers immediately responded by instilling fear into the hearts of the American people of caravan invasions coming from the south. 

Yes, there is also a long history of ordinary folks finding their voices in America and being met with angry and sometimes violent status quo resistance. For example:

—When minority voices of Blacks spoke up against unjust segregational policies in the 1960s they were met with fire hoses and police billy clubs. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others like him were labeled as troublemakers and often jailed simply because he found his voice.

—When American females finally found their voices in the 1970s and spoke up against unjust male domination they were immediately attacked and labeled as malcontents and man-haters whose objective was to ruin the American family. 

Remember the Helen Reddy song, “I Am Woman”?

Look, Mary found her voice and it pushed the arc of history towards a more just world. It is a voice I suggest that we the church must find in the midst of our present day silence. 

Mary’s voice was so disturbing, so radical, so subversive that it has been banned by governments of injustice from being spoken in public places and even in churches.

In fact, in British ruled India Mary’s words were forbidden to be sung in churches and in Argentina during the “Dirty War” the military junta banned it from all public readings—banned because it instilled hope in the people.  Yes, too much hope can lead to people finding their own dissenting voices.

I love the way the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes the Advent Song of Mary:

"It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings. . . This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind.”

Mary’s Advent Song reminds us that God has acted once and for all in the birth of his only Son and his lowly birth contains the potential to create a world that is more loving, more just, and more peaceful. 

Why is it that a Middle Eastern teenager, pregnant and unmarried, had the insight to perceive God’s movement within her own womb when so many today have yet to recognize that movement?  

Why is it that in all our modern sophistication we continue to miss the point of Christmas by turning it into a once-a-year overly commercialized consumer binge that has absolutely nothing to do with God establishing his reign on earth?

If there is such a thing as a “War on Christmas” this is it!

Why is it, in a world being torn apart by dangerous and toxic political agendas, that we humans have such difficulty hearing this young teenager’s dissenting voice from the past?

Why is the church silent today I ask?

It seems that Jesus had good genes, inheriting his mother’s propensity (DNA) for finding his own voice at just the right time:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).

I call upon the church in America to find her unified voice in these troubling days. I call upon her to sing the words of both Mary and Jesus to a world order that seems disinterested in the moral arc of justice that Jesus inaugurated at his birth. 

I call upon the church to speak prophetically to both the political Right and the political Left, to those who would implement unjust policies driven by the need for power, greed, and self-interests.

I call upon the church to stand apart from such injustices and speak truth to power!

I call upon the church to find her voice and sing loudly that God has acted once and for all in the birth of his Son Jesus to push the arc of history towards a more just world. 

I pray that Advent this year might be the tipping point for members of all of my fellow Christians to find their voices, as did both Mary and Jesus, and thus courageously speak out against the injustices of our world. 

But a word of warning: 

Jesus inherited his mother’s voice and those in power murdered him—as is often the case when voices dissent from the dominant status quo. Speaking truth to power, as did Jesus, can be hazardous to your health, if not your reputation. Let’s not forget that Mary and her young family became undocumented refugees in Egypt because Jesus posed a threat to the ruling authority of his day.

I pray for courage, for myself and for all those who claim to follow the Lord of lords and the King of kings. I pray for courage for those who have thrown their hat in the Jesus ring for better or for worse. 

Speak up church! Speak out! Proclaim boldly the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, the true Son of God, the one and only Savior whose own life and death ensured that the moral arc of the universe will bend towards justice for everyone.

Remember, the Gospel has always been a voice of dissent in an unjust world!