Luke 1:46-55
New Revised Standard Version
(NRSV)
Mary’s Song of Praise
46 And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of
his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for
me,
and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him from
generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has
scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their
thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and
sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance
of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our
ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
“Come to
the Victory Party”
Mary recited or sang this song after God revealed to her
that she would give birth to Jesus.
This text is commonly known as “The Magnificat,” Latin for “My soul
magnifies.” This scripture,
however, is not just the sweet song of a happy mother to be, it is a
revolutionary section of scripture that speaks of liberation from tyranny.
Notice that in “The Magnificat,” that Mary is not
proclaiming what God will do, but she proclaims what God has done (and is doing). God has freed the lowly, and God has brought down the
powerful from their thrones. God
has conquered hunger. God has sent the rich away empty – most likely those who
became rich in a dishonest and exploitive manner. God has scattered the proud
in the thoughts of their hearts.
In other words, they have become so consumed with their greed that their
thoughts consume them.
God has done all of this. But, it doesn’t take a genius to see that there is still
tyranny in the world. It doesn’t
take a political expert to see that dictators rule in places like Syria,
Rwanda, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, North Korea, and other
places. Anyone can see that the
political parties in the United States are sold out to corporations rather than
to the lowly citizens who vote them into office. With all of this being the case, we have to ask ourselves, “Has God done what Mary proclaimed?” If
God hasn’t, was Mary lying? Was she uninformed? Will God do what she said?
We can look around the world and see evidence that is
completely contradictory to what Mary said. In Rwanda, while Kigali looks orderly and clean, the nation
is ruled by bloodthirsty dictators who hold their citizens hostage by convincing
them that only they can keep them from another Genocide. Anyone who disagrees
with their leadership is accused of Genocide Ideology and promoting Genocide.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the majority
of the people there have not known a long period of peace, and . If they were
not being attacked by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF – the once militia, now
Ruling Party/Army of Rwanda), they are attacked by Rwandan supported proxy
militias such as the M23 militia.
They are also victims of a dictator, Joseph Kabila who is an inept ruler
who does nothing to care for his people. The DRC is one of the richest nations
in the world in terms of mineral wealth, but because of poor governance and
international exploitation, the majority of citizens live in abject poverty. They are constantly fleeing their homes
because of wars and battles. The people of the DRC cannot even trust their own
military because members of their own military rapes and subjugates the women
of their own nation.
Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, is touted by the world as
the savior of Rwanda who stopped the Genocide in 1994. The truth, however, documented by the
United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, clearly show
that Kagame most likely started the Genocide as a rebel militia general, but even
if he did not do that, he took part in the further killing of refugees and
starting the two Congo Wars which killed more than 6 Million people. Why does the world say he is the hero?
Victors write the history books. Kagame won the Rwandan Civil War and narrated
his version of the Rwandan Genocide and renamed it the Genocide of the Tutsis,
thus making it a crime to say that Hutus (another tribe within Rwanda) suffered
in this horrific event. His version, of course, is a lie, but for the world to
deal with it, would mean that the world would have to face their inaction
during the Genocide.
So, what do we make of Mary’s words in the revolutionary
“Magnificat?” What is liberating in this text? In the face of so much
corruption across the world, is this text even relevant? Is the question, ‘is
God still relevant?’ something we should consider? Those are all fair questions and they all make sense! In fact if we go by what we see now, we
are led on a road of despair. We
see the elite destroying the weak. We see the system hurting the innocent. We see starvation, murder, war.
What we see, however, is not what we get. There are forces at work that dominate
our planet, no, our universe that we may not see, but are so personal that
these forces know us by name.
These “forces” are God. As
I write this, God is at work reconciling the evil of the world to the way God
intended it to be. Look at South
Africa. Yes, they have a ways to
go, but look at where they were approximately 25 years ago. The majority African population was
oppressed by the White minority population. That is a simplistic explanation of
a complex issue because the division did not fall simply on racial lines. But,
for our purposes, that example will work.
Rather than a long Genocidal civil wary, peace came through the vote and
through the political process.
Yes, there were martyrs.
Yes, there was violence.
There was, however, a spirit that prevailed that is unexplainable. There was a spirit that held the nation
together as Nelson Mandela was elected the first ever African President. This once 27 year prisoner was now the
leader of a nation. His movement
defeated not only racist rule, but it also defeated the powers of racism,
hatred, death, destruction, and ignorance. Among themselves, the powers of revenge were defeated. While
the world would have said that Mandela’s rule would have been justified in
seeking revenge, instead, he held out the hand of peace. Archbishop Desmond Tutu formed the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
This group worked on reconciling the wrongs as well as serving
justice. Was it perfect? No. Did
it work? Yes.
God is at work right now in other war torn areas. As Mary sang of the proud being
scattered in the thoughts of their hearts, it’s evident that the dictators of
this world are beginning to crumble.
They are so consumed with their idolatry of power and might and control
that they have ceased to realize that they lead real people. They have ceased
to realize that there is real risk and benefit in ruling.
As these dictators grab further to their “control,” and seek
to create narratives that are not true, or seek to redefine history, we can see
them fall from their thrones. Yes,
people are still suffering, but this suffering will not last forever. Liberation is just around the
corner. These power grabs are the
final screams of a dying demon.
Rather than go down in history as Hitler, Idi Amin, Charles
Taylor, and others, why don’t we Christians invite these dictators to renounce
the powers that hold them captive just as Archbishop Desmond Tutu did when his
church was stormed by the Apartheid Forces of South Africa during a sermon he
was giving. Rather than stop in
fear, in his calm, and even humorous voice, he stopped, looked out at the
crowd, and said, “Join us. You’ve
already lost. Come to the winning side.”
Let’s invite these dictators and oppressors to give up their
oppression and become one with the oppressed. Let’s invite them to make right the things they have done
wrong. Let’s invite them to the
Victory Party!
On December 13, 2013, Victoire Ingabire was sentenced by Rwanda's "kangaroo" Supreme Court to 15 years in prison on politically motivated and trumped up charges including "conspiring to form an armed rebel group," "spreading false rumors," and "genocide ideology"[a] (a catch-all term in Paul Kagame's Rwanda used to jail anyone with the slightest disagreement with his regime). This sentence came as Ingabire, leader of the United Democratic Party, was appealing her previous 8 year sentence.
