Singing Mary's Song in the Right Key

“My soul magnifies the Lord. . . .” ~ Luke 1:46

The song Mary sings after her visit with her sister Elizabeth regarding the coming birth of the Messiah is traditionally referred to as the Magnificat.  It has received its traditional Latin title from the first words of the song, “My soul magnifies [glorifies] the Lord.”  Throughout the history of the Church, this wonderful poem has been set to music countless times: perhaps most famously by J.S. Bach, who captures both the delight and deep reflection in this important precursor to the birth of Jesus.

What We Think We Know: Focusing Upon the First Part

Even Bach’s interpretation of this passage tends to fall into a common trap: it focuses too much on the first part.  The song of Mary begins with these words:

My soul magnifies the Lord; My spirit rejoices in God my savior;
For He has been mindful of the humble estate of His servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
For the Mighty One has done great things for me,
Holy is His name!

Of course, we should not overlook the exuberance of this teenage mother to be, called by God up from the ashes of despair and given the opportunity to be the mother of the Savior of the world.  However, at first glance, this song can be a simple rehashing of the individualistic “prosperity Gospel” put forth by much of popular Christian media today.  

At first reading, especially if one stops here as many do, the message is: God wants us to be prosperous and healthy, and if He can do it for me, He will do it for you, too!  But this approach takes away the prophetic edge of this important song. 

This is not just a song of individual rejoicing.  It is also a proclamation of prophetic warning to all those who gain success and power on the backs of the poor and marginalized.  Finding this part of the message requires us to read (and sing) further.

A Closer Reading: Who is Singing the Song?

Theologian Robert McAfee Brown, writing about Mary’s song, asks readers this question: Who is more qualified to interpret Mary’s song: a middle-aged white male American theologian or a barely educated South American teenage girl whose family is fighting the government to stay on their land?  

Brown noticed that when people in the position of the teenage girl from South America read the Magnificat, they become excited about a different part of the story than most of their North American counterparts.  For them, the last part of the song is the most significant:

51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. 52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful 55 to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers.

As Brown notes, Mary’s son, the son of one who would be perceived as a “nobody,” would be called “Son of the Most High”, according to this song.  Through this lowly born child, even great rulers will be “cast down from their thrones.”  Through him, the poor will be fed but the rich oppressors will be “sent away hungry.”  Brown rightly asks: Can we trade our view of the “comfortably demure Mary” of our tradition for the uncomfortably militant Mary of the tradition of those around the world who even today are suffering oppression? *

Why Singing in the Right Key is Important

As often as this song has been proclaimed and sung, especially around Christmastime, it is too often sung in the wrong key.  The “key” that Mary sings in here is not the bright major key of ease and of personal abundance, but rather a more ominous minor key that warns those who oppress that, just as in the days of Moses, God has heard their cries and is doing something about it.  The One who comes to right those wrongs, to bring peace instead of war, to create a Body (the Church) that will become the hands, feet, and voice of God’s peace to those who are in physical and spiritual bondage, is what makes this song more than a prophetic warning.  However, it is not a funeral dirge.  The whole song represents a dramatic turn in all of human history.  Often what is bad news to one group is good news to another.  The powerful and those who ignore or (even worse) oppress those who are seen as “nobodies” may hear an ominous song of warning.  But the poor, the sick, those in need, those overlooked by the powerful hear a beautiful symphony expressing God’s victory over sin, suffering, and death in the world.  When we all start singing in God’s key – the key expressed by Mary as “May it be to me as the Lord desires” – then it becomes the love song of the Kingdom of God.

·         * For a further discussion of this, see Robert McAfee Brown, Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes (Philadelphia: WJK Press, 1984), chapter 5.  The entire chapters is dedicated to a detailed “re-reading” of the Magnificat.