Punk-Rock Mary

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
December 22, 2024
4 Advent, C
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-55

We just heard in our Gospel reading Mary’s words of praise to God, not only for placing Jesus to grow in her womb, but also praise to God for the upheaval God has planned for humanity. We call Mary’s words, “The Song of Mary” or “The Magnificat”, and I heard a comment last week that someone wished there was a punk-rock version of the Magnificat, and that seems to fit pretty darn well the whole idea of Mary’s song. The status quo ain’t quo, and God is not ok with how things are: the rich get richer while the poor struggle ever harder. 

That won’t stand in God’s eyes; there will be an upheaval, Mary proclaims. The lowly will be raised up, and the rich will be sent empty away. If that ain’t punk rock, or rap, or metal, or any kind of protest music, I don’t know what is. 

We’ve got these quiet, mindful, demure images of Mary, hands folded, piously looking heavenward: a dutiful little housewife with no real will of her own, other than to say, “You bet!” to the Holy Spirit impregnating her with Jesus. Hmm, let’s look at Mary for a minute.

She was likely about 14, the general age for marriage back then, and she was risking everything by saying “Yes” to God’s offer to have her be the mother of Jesus, the mother of God as a human being. She was risking her marriage as Joseph may or may not have believed and understood that she was bearing God’s son. She was therefore risking her life because if Joseph didn’t believe that she was bearing God’s son, she could have been killed for adultery, bearing another man’s child. If not killed, she was still risking being ostracized and outcast for dishonoring her family and bringing some unknown man’s child into the world with no real hope of land or security.

So, Mary was taking a big risk by saying “Yes” to God. “Let it be with me, your servant, according to your will,” she said to God, and she seems to have been pretty darn excited about it. Quiet, mindful, and demure? No, Mary was excited, faithful, and outspoken, and she spoke out about what God was doing in the world by becoming human and living among us. “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,” she said, because she was so excited about what she knew what was coming.

She knew what the angel Gabriel had told her, that Jesus would be the son of God and that he would rule forever. Mary also seems to have known the scriptures because what Mary was describing in her punk-rock, rap, metal protest song was the kind of status quo smashing action that God had taken continually throughout the scriptures. 

Oppression of the poor laborers by the rich ruling class, yeah, that kind of stuff has never sat well with God, and we see throughout the scriptures God telling the people of Israel and other nations that a reconning is coming because of their oppression of the poor. ‘Oh, you’re very religious, and that’s great,’ God would say, ‘but when you have a society in which those at the top keep getting more and those at the bottom don’t have enough to live on, then by your actions you show that I’m not the one you’re worshipping.’ 

That was God’s complaint, over and over. There was outright idolatry too, but time and again, God’s big complaint against the people was that when their society became one in which the rich had more than they could ever need and the poor worked hard for not enough, then the people’s god had become something other than actual God. 

“But we worship you all the time,” the people say, and God says, “Yea, I don’t know you, for I was naked and hungry, without shelter, and you did nothing but stare with indifference and contempt.” That’s how Jesus said judgement will be, the same kind of reconning that God has brought throughout human history. 

So, when Mary sang, “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty,” she was being a punk-rock prophet. She was remembering what had happened over and over when God intervened in our world.

Now, we could look at Mary’s protest anthem as a song about class warfare, rich vs. poor, the rich losing the battle and the poor overtaking them in conflict. As a rock song, that would certainly sell a few albums, and the movie would be great to watch, but I’m not sure God would be all that delighted in such devastating a conflict. 

See, what we read about God and what we hear Mary proclaim is that God does not desire for one group to rise up and destroy the other. It happens a lot. An oppressive and powerful minority is eventually ousted as the oppressed rise up in violence against them. We recently saw this happen in Syria as the oppressive government was overthrown after over a decade of civil war.

Violent uprising is the way things tend to go after the oppressed have finally had enough, but I don’t think that’s what Mary was singing about. Punk-rock Mary was a revolutionary, but not a violent revolutionary. John the Baptist was in the womb of his mother, Elizabeth when Jesus was in the womb of Mary, and even in the womb, when John heard Mary speak, he leapt for joy.

The revolution that Mary was singing about was the kind of revolution that John started when he went into the wilderness baptizing people. Mary was singing about a revolution of repentance. That’s the kind of revolution we see God desiring throughout scripture, constantly warning the people that violent revolution is coming if you don’t repent of oppression. Violent revolution is coming, God warns, if your society doesn’t stop claiming to worship me while actually worshipping wealth and power. 

God’s desire is to break the cycle of violent uprising. God’s desire is revolution of repentance where the rich and all of society will turn away from their love of wealth and power and instead learn to love one another. That is what John proclaimed in the wilderness. That is what Jesus taught over and over again. That’s what Jesus gives us the power to do.

In our world today, we can’t go on as we are. A society increasingly ruled by wealthy oligarchs who push for rules to benefit themselves while almost fifty percent of people struggle to make ends meet. Society can’t go on that way.

So, we look to Jesus, to the revolution of repentance and love which he brought. We sing the song of punk-rock Mary, calling for and living for a revolution of repentance and love, rather than a violent revolution. That’s why Mary’s soul proclaimed the greatness of the Lord. God lifts up the poor and the oppressed. God turns our hearts to repentance and love to end oppression by breaking the cycles of violence and leading us to God’s kingdom of peace.