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Magnificat- 12/12/05 2005 Archive - 2006 Archive

Several years ago during Advent, I spent a considerable length of time pondering what Mary’s encounter with Gabriel had to do with everyday human existence (Luke 1:26-55). How can we relate to Mary’s encounter? How can we fathom her response? Where can our faith, such as it is, connect with hers?

It occurred to me that, in our world of instant gratification and information overload, where TV crimes are all solved in one hour (including commercials), popcorn takes less than 3 minutes in the microwave, and e-mail can be transmitted across the globe in milliseconds, we might be led to believe that Mary’s contemplation and response was as equally instantaneous and simple– that Gabriel showed up one day, popped the question and Mary, having never given God much thought, asked one simple question, then exuberantly acquiesced. Such an assumption would extend the chasm between the first and twenty first centuries, as well as between us and Mary, causing us to altogether miss or dismiss Mary’s humanity, as well as her faith journey.

Without her humanity, Mary becomes an ethereal being whose circumstance and choice have nothing to say to our own personal and corporate encounters with the call of God. Without the struggle of her faith journey, her response appears to be one of desperation, whimsy, or even ignorance. Without the acknowledgment of her humanity and the trek of her own lived faith, we can dismiss her story as supernatural glitch or divine happenstance, and excuse our own stories of failure to engage and respond to God’s call because Mary was disengaged from the human condition that we know so well. Our failure to experience the in-the-fleshness of Mary and her faith journey may very well stand in the way of our ability to comprehend the in-the-fleshness and life story of Jesus.

After that extended ponderation, I wrote a Blues song for Mary, but it was lost in the great computer crash of 2004. Last week I revisited Gabriel, Mary, and Elizabeth. Here is what I heard Mary singing, between the lines:

Gabriel’s Pronouncement Blues

Angel Gabriel, he done told me
I’m birthin’ God’s own son.
He’s got to be mistaken.
How can I be the one?!

My baby won’t have no daddy
to walk the face of this earth.
I’m just another teenage girl
who ain’t got no worth.

I got the blu-u-u-u-u-ues.
I got Gabriel’s pronouncement blues!

Cousin Lizzy came to greet me;
her baby jumpin’ all ‘round.
Don’t know why I came to see her,
I just had to leave that town.

My head is spinnin’ so fast;
don’t know what I’m gonna do.
Never had an angel visit;
tell me child have you?

I got the blu-u-u-u-u-ues.
I got Gabriel’s pronouncement blues!

Until your angel visits
you just don’t know what it’s like.
‘Fraid to tell my boyfriend,
‘cause he’ll tell me to take a hike!

Lizzy said God blessed me;
blessed the fruit of my womb.
But when I tell my Joseph,
he’ll send me to my tomb!

I got the blu-u-u-u-u-ues.
I got Gabriel’s pronouncement blues!

What kind of God is this,
who flips the world around?
Liftin’ up the lowly,
an’ bringin’ the mighty down?

The hole that was within me
seems to have been filled.
The craziness inside me
has finally been stilled.

Maybe it’s not the blu-u-u-u-u-ues;
just what it’s like to let God choose!

God has made a promise
to fill the hungry soul;
to gather in the scattered,
an’ make God’s people whole.

The mercy that I’m feelin’
is holdin’ me up firm,
to carry God’s own baby
an’ bring him to full term.

It’s not the blu-u-u-u-u-ues.
just what it’s like to let God choose!

© 2005 Todd Jenkins