Sunday morning I preached on the Magnificat, the poem Mary recites shortly after learning she’ll become mother of the Son of God. The passage reflects Mary’s celebration that she, a peasant girl, is to be blessed with such an honor (Lk 1:46-55):

My soul magnifies the Lord
And my spirit exults in God my Savior,
For he has looked upon the humility of his slave-girl.

Look: from now on all generations will regard me as blessed
Because the Mighty One has done great things for me;
Holy is his name,
And his mercy is from generation to generation
for those who fear him.

He has done a mighty deed by his arm;
He has scattered the haughty in the thought of their heart;
He has pulled down the powerful from thrones,
And has exalted the humble.
The hungry he has filled with good things,
And the wealthy he has sent away empty.
He has helped Israel his servant,
Remembering mercy,
just as he announced to our fathers,
To Abraham and to his seed
Forever and ever.

I’ve been talking with my fiancee Beth (who’s Roman Catholic) about Mary as a model of spirituality, so I wanted to reflect on how we’re supposed to read toward that end.

One point I decided to press is that when we use Mary as a model for our spiritual lives, we should also consider another model alongside her: Paul. This might seem odd, and I could imagine Catholics and feminists being irritated that I brought Paul into the discussion. The two figures are quite different, in particular that Mary was a peasant girl and Paul was an educated Pharisee. But since a lot of us are more like him than like her, I think we could be misled by focusing on Mary’s example in Luke without considering Paul as another angle on Christian spirituality.

A key theme of the Magnificat, especially as it relates to Mary, is God’s lowering of the mighty and exaltation of the humble and lowly. Mary reflects this humility, both in her attitude and in her station in life. The danger for us is that we’ll try to imitate the first half of her example (the attitude) even though the second half (our station in life) is wildly different than hers. That is to say, if we put all our emphasis on Mary, we’re liable to think that God is satisfied if we simply change our attitude. I think that’s a half-truth that ignores what Luke really has to say about Jesus.

When you read the teachings of John and Jesus in Luke, it’s clear that the call to repentance goes well beyond changing one’s attitude. Jesus has a few things to say about how we feel about money, for example, but more often he gives specific instructions for us simply to give money away. The reason this is important is that it allows us to actually participate in the kind of reversal that the Magnificat proclaims. The reason we should take it literally is because it’s exactly what Paul does, giving up status for the sake of the gospel.

Probably the most famous passage where Paul addresses his loss of status is 2 Cor 12:7b-10:

So that I wouldn’t become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to strike me so that I wouldn’t become arrogant. I begged the Lord three times about this, that he would take it away from me, but he said to me, “My grace is enough for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Accordingly, I enjoy boasting in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can rest upon me. I am pleased with weakness, with insults, with needs, with persecutions and distresses, on Christ’s behalf. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I think that when people read about Paul’s strength in weakness, they usually assume either that he’s being humble and “staying out of God’s way,” or else that he’s acknowledging his feeble human abilities that God overcomes to allow him to write great letters.

I think this is missing Paul’s point. When he talks about weakness, Paul talks a lot more about his suffering, and about the embarrassing things that have happened to him –– things like being flogged, which left real scars that people would see if he ever had his cloak off. In the ancient world, people who had status in a city or community had their rights protected by that community; people without status weren’t guaranteed the same kind of protection. A strong person could avoid suffering or persecution; only a weak person or a slave would have to submit to floggings and danger. That’s what Paul accepted willingly for his ministry.

Paul gave up being respected and cared for by society. Weakness, in this sense, means losing some of the ability to control your own life and call your own shots –– the opposite of having power, which means being able to do what you want. Being genuinely weak means making your life less convenient and putting yourself at the risk of sufferings that are no longer under your control, leaving yourself at the mercy of God and other Christians to get you through things. That is what so few Christians ever do, even when it puts us at risk of becoming “the last,” by Jesus’ own words, when he returns.

Other parts of Scripture make a different point, and as I’ve said, there are plenty of passages that call us to have humble attitudes. But I think that Mary’s poem reflects what Christ will do to us unless we do it first. In other words, the way to avoid being knocked from our thrones when Christ returns is to surrender those thrones ourselves, while we have the freedom to do so.

In the incarnation, God didn’t just change his attitude in order to understand how we might feel; instead, he took on flesh and became human. The change didn’t keep God from still being God, but it was still a real change. Paul didn’t lose everything –– he still had his education, for example, that helped him write powerful letters. But he wasn’t content to just try for an inner change. If we want to live up to the teachings of Christ, I would argue that our loss of power and status needs to be real and external as well.

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