Talkin’ ‘Bout A Revolution
Luke 1: 46 – 55
From plastic to shock: how my concept of Mary evolved.
Early on, she was a plastic figurine taken out of a box of nativity characters. She was a plastic decoration, part of the Christmas cast of characters. I was more interested in the angels, cows, and kings — a little more important than Joseph, but not very interesting.
Plastic Mary evolved a bit when the adorable, red-headed, teacher’s pet–Ann Brugenhempke played Mary in the school pageant. Mary seemed a little more real but unrelatable, too perfect.
But the key characteristic of Mary was that she was a mom, probably like an always calm, ever-compliant June Cleaver TV mom. Not a real mom with moods and chore demands. A mom who was always teaching life lessons and values.
I wasn’t sure what to make of my Catholic friends who addressed Mary in their prayers. We Methodists went directly to the primary source. Maybe Mary was more important than I gave her credit for. My Catholic friends taught me that her voice still matters.
The big breakthrough in my thinking was when I learned that Mary was likely a teenager when she gave birth. I was shocked to learn that it was the custom 2,000 years ago. Not how I pictured it — at all. Suddenly, she was more real, vulnerable. What if it had happened to one of the girls I knew, like Ann? How afraid she must have been. Aware of the gossip, feeling the weight of stares. Knowing the mean girls her age were sharpening their claws.
The Magnificat Musical
Maybe that is why she went to her aunt Elizabeth, who was also pregnant. When Elizabeth reassures her, Mary bursts out into song. Yes, the Christmas story is a musical. We assume it’s a song because the Greek is written in poetic verse.
We call it the Magnificat from the Latin, because the first words say, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” She recognizes she has a role in what God is trying to do in this world. It’s a powerful thing for a soul to find its worth. Do you recognize that you have a role in God’s plans for the world, also? Not to give birth to the Messiah, but to amplify the Messiah’s message by being a person of faith, hope, love, generosity, and kindness. You have a part to play in this ongoing musical. Will you shrink from the challenge, or step up to give it your all?
Mary sings about the great reversals that God is about. It’s not just about private personal faith. The rich and haughty will be thrown down, the poor raised up. That’s weighty stuff. She’s no June Cleaver, she’s Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, and The Dixie Chicks all rolled into one.
This is not a sweet song. This is a dangerous song.
Governments have felt threatened by the Magnificat’s power. Did you know that in the 1980s, the government of Guatemala effectively banned the public recitation of Mary’s song? The authorities realized that if the oppressed indigenous people actually believed that God was in the business of casting down the mighty and lifting up the lowly, they might start to believe they had rights. They might riot.
The British banned it in Calcutta during the colonial era. The military junta in Argentina outlawed it when the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo put its words on their protest signs.
Think about that. The governments of the world were afraid of a Christmas carol. You can almost hear that same fear today when school boards ban certain books and label peaceful protesters as terrorist threats.
The Magnificat makes me think of Tracy Chapman’s song, Talkin’ About a Revolution.
While they’re standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion
Don’t you know
Talking about a revolution?
It sounds like a whisper
Poor people gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
And take what’s theirs
It starts with a whisper. Perhaps the angel’s whisper into Mary’s ear about her child. Mary likely envisioned Jesus leading an armed popular revolt. But he resisted those schemes. Violence wasn’t going to be the ultimate answer to anything except more violence. No, he went for a revolution of the heart. To resist the selfish, retaliatory, mean-spirited values people aspire to, and replace them with something better.
When it comes to Jesus’s revolution, it’s not about violence. We’re talking about a revolution of the heart. It starts with that whisper inside your head when you see someone being mistreated. Not some reactionary force that flares up and burns out, but a steady, constant imagination of how to do things better, how to make it more just and fairer for everybody. Can we ever come up with something that isn’t so tilted toward obscene prosperity and abject poverty? Can we ever poke a stick in the wheels of retaliation that cycle over and over?
It sounds like a whisper.
It starts with each of us doing our part to bring kindness, love, joy, and beauty into the world. Since I intended to talk about Ann Brugenhempke today, I Googled her. I haven’t thought about her in decades. She ended up attending a different high school. I heard she got into trouble back then. I was curious what happened to the girl who played the quiet, compliant Mary. I see now, she is a brilliant artist.
She paints these massive, breathtaking canvases—intense close-ups of flowers opening up. They are vibrant, demanding, and alive. They are symbols of new possibilities emerging from the tight bud of the old. Looking at her work, I realized: she isn’t the passive plastic figurine at all. She is still bringing Jesus—bringing beauty, and truth, and light—into the world, through the whisper of art. And she teaches children to express themselves through art, too.
Don’t you know we’re talkin’ about a revolution?
Jesus resists the world’s understanding of greatness as he resists the temptations of power, control, fame, and might – in God’s kingdom, greatness is defined by service and Humility. I think Jesus teaches us to resist what’s wrong so that something better can be born in its place.
Let’s do a little call and response. Our lesson teaches us to resist things that demean and belittle people–including ourselves and to birth something better. So, I will say a line about what we resist, and when I signal, you whisper, “we birth.”
Leader: We resist hatred that darkens the day.
People: We birth.
Leader: Choosing to love in the Jesus way.
Leader: We resist despair when the night feels long.
People: We birth.
Leader: Daring to hope and to sing a new song.
Leader: We resist greed with its tight, closed fist.
People: We birth.
Leader: Opening our hands so no neighbor is missed.
Leader: We resist systems that wound and oppress.
People: We birth.
Leader: Living God’s justice, God’s mending this mess.
Leader: We resist fear when it tells us, “Stay small.”
People: We birth.
Leader: Walking in courage and joy, standing tall.
Leader: With Mary we whisper God’s revolution on earth.
People: We birth.
May something magical be born within your heart this season. Amen.