Sermon for the 15th Sunday after Trinity & the Abbey Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary Patronal Festival: ‘The Magnificat’; preached at the Eucharist, Sherborne Abbey on Sunday, 8 September 2024 by The Reverend Rebecca McDonnell (Isaiah Ch 61: v 10 – end; Luke Ch 1: v 46 – 55)
In the name of the God-bearer, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Magnificat, that great song of Mary that proclaims her joy as she carries in her womb the Saviour of mankind, our Lord Jesus Christ. They are words that we know so well, quite possibly by heart, reading, praying, listening to and reciting them week by week, even day by day. But how often do we stop to reflect on what Mary is saying to us in these words? Choristers, I want to address you directly, as you know the Magnificat so well, singing it every week, different settings, maybe Stanford in G (or B flat!) but always the same words. And did you know that the words you are singing aren’t just beautiful, they are dangerous. So dangerous and subversive in fact that it has been banned in three different places over the last century. One of these was in the 1980’s in Guatemala, where the impoverished, given hope by the rise of liberation theology, identified strongly with the message of the rich and powerful being made low, and the poor being lifted up, believing that change was possible. The government found this message of God’s preferential love for the poor to be too dangerous and banned it.
So, if you think what you are singing is just beautiful poetry, think again, it is revolutionary and subversive, throwing the mighty from their thrones and raising up the oppressed. Mary is often portrayed as being quiet, pure, and soft, but these words tell us otherwise. She was young Jewish woman or girl living under occupation in 1st Century Middle East. She was marginalised for her gender, her race, her age, but she said a powerful ‘yes!’ when the Angel brought news of her bearing the Son of God. Then she brings us these words that echo the words of Hannah in the Old Testament, drawing on her knowledge of scripture. We can clearly hear similar themes in our reading from Isaiah today as well, ‘I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God.’ Words of God’s salvation for all the nations of the earth. And they foreshadow her Sons ministry, and his teaching about God’s love, and the hope of the coming Kingdom.
The German theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer recognized the revolutionary nature of Mary’s song. Before being executed by the Nazis, Bonheoffer spoke these words in a sermon during Advent 1933:
“The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. 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.”
We have zoomed in on the words of the Magnificat, like a photo on a phone pinched in to look at the detail, but let’s zoom out and look at the bigger picture. What is the context around this song of Mary, from where does she declare her words of power? This is our doormat, and it marks the threshold into our home. It is from here that Mary gives the message of the future of humanity, where she foretells her Sons reign, the fulfilment of the scriptures, and the subversion of society. Up until this point, all great moments in the story of God and humans have taken place up on the top of mountains, or in great temples like our Abbey here. And normally through men! But here we stand on the precipice of a new dawn for all humankind, and the proclamation comes from a young woman, on the threshold of a domestic home.
After the visitation from the Angel, Mary rushes to her cousin Elizabeth in the hill country, Elizabeth having received her own miracle and being pregnant with John the Baptist. Mary goes to seek comfort and companionship in a female relative. So, these two pregnant women greet each other at the threshold of the house of Elizabeth and Zechariah. Elizabeth immediately recognises the child in Mary’s womb as John jumps within her own womb, and by the Holy Spirit she knows in her heart that Mary bears the promised Messiah, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’ These two women, one older miraculously bearing a child after years of infertility and being outcast as a result, and her cousin, still a girl, bearing the Son of God, a miracle as she was still a virgin. We can only imagine how terrified Mary must have felt, even after saying to the Angel ‘Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ But the comfort and strength she drew from being greeted by Elizabeth caused her to proclaim these great words. I know how much I drew on the strength and companionship of other women and mothers in my pregnancies and early days of motherhood. And God chooses these women, in this domestic setting; Zechariah is literally made silent, and Joseph isn’t present. This home, and Mary, and the child in her womb, and these words echo down through time.
What other domestic thresholds can we imagine in our world today where these words are so needed, where the Gospel can sustain and give hope? A woman in Afghanistan, whose home has become a prison, and she cannot cross the threshold without being covered head to toe and with a male chaperone. In Latin American, the home of liberation theology, a woman still living in deprivation in the favelas, looking out from her doorway at a world that doesn’t feel safe for her children. Even here in Sherborne, there are families living below the poverty line, proud and strong mothers but worried about what world her children are growing up in, about their mental health and the overstretched school systems. Mary shows us that we don’t need to be rich or powerful to challenge injustice or proclaim the love of God, our ordinary domestic lives are places from where we can preach revolution.
Our Abbey church of St Mary the Virgin stands as a beacon to what is sung in these words; ‘My soul magnifies the Lord!’ Let everything we do as a worshipping community here live to magnify God’s Holy name. As we look upon Mary here in our West window, infant Jesus upon her lap, let us never forget her strength, her faith, her love and her great song of praise. And let our lives, however small and humble we may think them, be about proclaiming God’s love, even if that feel precarious, we must always strive to lift-up the marginalised, the anxious, and the downtrodden.
She who was, and is, and is to come, carry us into this day: sustained by her life-giving waters, encouraged by her fruitful love, inspired by the light she kindles. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee, Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.