The Magnificat: Dangerous Words

December 12, 2010

As a child I imagined God as Robin Hood who cast down the mighty from their thrones and filled the hungry with good things. Utopian thinking makes for wonderfully entertaining stories like Robin Hood. The Gospel, however, is not a utopian fable intended for our mere pleasure. However, we get to choose living fables or into the world-altering potential of the Magnificat.

Father Rick Milsap reminded me recently that the Guatemalan government in the eighties arrested people who recited the words of the Magnificat in public. Fortunately, you and I in this country enjoy religious freedom. Yet in the absence of such public threats how do we access the radically world-altering nature of the Magnificat?

The Guatemalan police well knew that the words of the Magnificat were potentially world-altering and fully realizable. To alter the world in this way is a subversive act that risks the marking of a revolutionary.

Stay with me.

The word, “subversive” offends our law-abiding natures. We might be inclined to limit subversive activity as falling under the umbrella of Wikileaks or anarchy inciting chaos. A Gospel text or ministerial action is subversive when it or we go against the dominant worldly norms of society’s unity and order.

There is no easy way around the Magnificat not being subversive. Judge for yourselves.

Do worldly powers look with favor on the lowly?

Do worldly powers cast down the mighty from their thrones?

Do worldly powers fill the hungry with good things?

Do worldly powers send the rich away empty?

By unpacking some of the language of the Magnificat, I want to help recover some sense of its edgy character by pointing to its world-altering visions.

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. My Spirit rejoices in God my Savior; for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.”

“My soul magnifies the Lord” is the original translation of the Magnificat’s opening line versus the new version that says, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord”. We are called to magnify God’s power and proclaim God’s word. “My soul magnifies the Lord” because God has made me in God’s image. The first step is to find God’s image in our selves so that like God we can look with favor on the lowly.

One of the spiritual practices in the recent Trinity Church spiritual basics series was to stand in front of a full-length mirror. I instructed participants to pray for the grace to see themselves as made in the image and likeness of God. To magnify the greatness of God we must live out of God’s image and not out of self-centered worldy images of self-reliance. In our self-centeredness we are not likely to look with favor on the lowly and we fail to proclaim the greatness of God.

For many years, in the morning, as I shaved I would look in the mirror but not see myself. I looked past myself. As a spiritual director I know that this experience is not just something uniquely odd to me. When we see nothing or only our flaws, we miss the potential of God’s image in our being. To work against this now each morning as I look into the mirror I say as a mantra to myself, “Joe, you are made in the image and likeness of God”. I don’t just say these words, but I encourage myself to accept the gift and power of this image. In the spirit of the Magnificat you might say, “My body magnifies the greatness of God”. Try this tomorrow morning and make note of how you feel.

I share this spiritual exercise with you because I believe that if we were thoroughly convinced that we are made in the image and likeness of God than our bodies, minds and spirits would have a greater likelihood to magnify and proclaim the Good News of the Lord.

Mirror gazing is far from a naval gazing narcissistic exercise. Be careful though as it is exactly this kind of thinking that can quickly become subversive. Mirror gazing becomes subversive when our spirits rejoice in God our savior. Then we trust the power of God working through us as we abandon ourselves to the transforming vulnerability of world-altering ministries.

The mirror gazing exercise is the beginning of a life-altering, world-altering process. We cannot alter and change the world unless we change ourselves first. In a Pauline view of magnification we become less and Christ becomes more. As we become less, it is not the Magnificat’s intention for us to become passive and whither away into a false humility. When Christ becomes more then we are more likely to magnify and proclaim the greatness of God. In this way the words of the Magnificat are intended to transform us into God bearing vessels of radiant love that transforms ourselves, so we look with favor on the lowly.

“He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly”.

The newborn child to come that the Magnificat anticipates casts down the mighty from their thrones, as those mighty ones rely not on being made in the image and likeness of God, but they are self-sufficient and rely on themselves, on their own worldly power. The world’s powers do not look with favor on the lowly nor do they wish to lift up the lowly.

So how do we make this shift from worldly thinking to practice the liberating message of the Gospel?

In Ignatian spirituality there is something called the “three degrees of humility.” The three degrees of humility are intended to assist us in examining our lives to self-assess our progress in authentic humble living.

The three world-altering visions that I have highlighted from unpacking the language of the Magnificat coincide with the three Ignatian degrees of humility.

The first degree of humility and world-altering vision is for us to look upon the lowly with favor as God does.

The second degree of humility and world-altering vision is to lift up the lowly one by acting out of God’s power not worldly powers.

The third degree of humility and world-altering vision is to find God’s power within ourselves when we go beyond the impediment of our self-centeredness and disturb the order that oppresses and enables oppressive injustices.

Our progress towards these world-altering visions embodied through Christian ministries flowing out of our Baptism begins with that which we first desire and practice for our selves.

As we look into the mirror and see the image and power of God manifested in our being, do we find it any easier to look at the lowly with favor as God does?

As we look upon those the world considers lowly with favor, are we also willing to work towards a different world order and not just feed the lowly, but advocate for their needs in ways that lift them up to share in worldly privileges?

It is the lifting up of the lowly that makes Christians effective vessels of God’s love in the world. Lifting up the lowly reveals the subversive nature of the Gospel. There are lots of good Christians who look with favor upon the lowly. That is not to say that looking with favor on the lowly is a small accomplishment. The world does not look with favor on the lowly. Looking with favor on the lowly does not however risk altering the world in ways that benefit lowly ones. Looking with favor on the lowly lets us rest in the comfort that we will always have the poor and lowly with us.

The late Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero thought otherwise and gave the world a glimpse of the cost of doing more than looking with favor on the lowly. Romero did not just look with favor or even just feed the world’s lowliest. Romero taught the lowly of El Salvador their innate value as human beings and called them into a life-giving solidarity that made those with worldly power very nervous.

Therefore, it should not come as a surprise to us that the Latin American police once arrested people for public recitation of the Magnificat. Nor should it surprise us that Romero was assassinated. Public arrests and even Romero’s assassination were signs that people were beginning to believe in the liberating power of the Gospel, specifically the embodiment of the Magnificat. The Latin American government saw the Magnifcat as a threat to the unity and peace of their order. In worldly ordered societies the rich and powerful are looked upon with favor and the lowly are to be kept silent, subservient and forever grateful for the scraps from the tables of the wealthy.

Today we savor in the awesome beauty and majesty of the words of the Magnificat. The good news is that world-altering Christ-like presence is not magical like fables but presume a lifetime of self-effacing work. Our individual spiritual practices and community building of churches such as this are one of the key means to nurture our becoming Christ-like. Yet two life-altering choices face us every morning.

Do we wish to aspire to embody the compassion of Christ who looks with favor and lifts up the lowly?

Alternatively, do we prefer to let the Gospel be as powerless as the child’s fables?