Day 15 • The Week of Joy

Scripture Readings:
Isaiah 61:1-4; 8-11
Psalm 126
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Luke 1:46-55

“He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.”
-Mary, the mother of Jesus

In the late 1850s, the United States saw a new Christmas song surging in popularity, especially around Christmas time. Yet, depending on where you were worshiping in the country, you may or may not sing the whole song in church. If you were worshiping in the North, you’d most likely sing the third verse, which said, “Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother, And in his name all oppression shall cease.” If you worshiped in the South, though, it was most likely forbidden. This song, of course is the hymn “O Holy Night.”

Songs and poetry of resistance that speak truth to power are often suppressed by those who benefit the most from the power being spoken against. Much like the horrible legacy of slavery and racism in our country, if someone benefited from these realities, such songs, poetry, and books that called for dismantling these things might just strike fear and anger in their hearts. They often then work ruthlessly to silence such voices. Yet the oppressed keep singing, keep speaking, keep writing, keep persisting, and keep hoping for the joy of freedom.

This is similar to the song we hear from Mary, the mother of Jesus, who sings in Luke 1:46-55. It is a prophetic psalm of joy, singing about what God has and will do for the oppressed, especially through her soon-to-be-born child. She sings about the world radically changing and the current structures of power being upended, which will be the result of the advent of Jesus. In her world, those on thrones abused their power and exploited the powerless and the vulnerable. In her world, the poor just kept getting poorer, and the rich kept getting richer. It is in this world that she, a peasant teenage girl, joyfully sings in the streets that God is coming to change everything for the better, especially for people just like her. God would turn the current ways of oppression upside down and bring about justice, peace, and abundance. She sang, “the mighty would be pulled from their thrones and the rich would be sent away empty!” all while someone like Herod, who was ruling her country on the throne with great wealth.

This isn’t a rare theme that is just here in the first chapter of the gospel of Luke either. No, it spans the entire Bible. Mary’s namesake, Miriam sings a similar prophetic song as the seas collapse on the Egyptians who once enslaved them in Exodus 15:1-13. Deborah, who ruled as a judge over Israel, also sang prophetically about justice for the weak in the face of exploitation by the mighty in Judges 5. Hannah sings a prophetic song against barrenness and violence in 1 Samuel 1: 2:4-7. These songs from brave women throughout the Bible reflect God’s intention for the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed.

We can find their reflection in reading from Isaiah today as well, which begins by saying, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” The observant reader will notice that this is what Jesus quotes in his first public sermon in Luke 4, like mother, like son, like the prophets. They all point to the radical reordering work of God to bring about justice for the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized.

Yet, if you grew up in similar churches as I did, these prophetic songs seemed to be minimized or even totally suppressed. I would hear countless sermons about personal sin, personal responsibility, personal repentance, and personal salvation, but I would have to wait until seminary to learn that God also cared about the current social and economic conditions of the poor, the powerless, and the oppressed. God’s salvation also included dismantling social injustice as well. Again, this is yet another example of when we benefit from the current status quo, we don’t want to hear and consider songs or scriptures that critique how they harm others. Even in places where we claim to want to hear from God.

What I have discovered is that white Evangelicalism, the religion of my past, saw itself as the oppressed and marginalized people group. When it read the Bible, it saw itself as the oppressed Israelites, when in reality, it had much more in common with the Egyptians or the Romans. The people group in one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries the world has ever seen. The people group who holds a lot of that wealth and that power. Whenever that wealth or power seems threatened, that is then labeled as “persecution” or “oppression,” all while denying the ways it is actually participating in persecution and oppression of others itself. A movement like this has little to no patience for songs of resistance from others that critique its structures of power. Sadly, this is why you will often hear prominent Evangelicals demonizing any critique of capitalism as “Marxist” and any call to liberate the oppressed as “woke.”

The reality is, if songs of liberation like the one we hear Mary sing fills us with fear rather than joy, that is when we know we have more in common with Herod than with Mary. We have more in common with the oppressor than the oppressed. I say this because I was once a person who was deeply offended by those in my country who called for a reordering of wealth and power as Mary did. When I would hear women, people of color, refugees, or other marginalized groups call for change, I saw these calls as a threat to what I believed as a Christian. Then, upon reading Miriam, Hannah, Deborah, Mary, and others in the scriptures like the prophets, they softened my heart and gave me a new perspective. Then, hearing Jesus preach that he had come to “bring good news to the poor” and “liberate the oppressed” convicted me to my core. I have moved from hearing these prophetic songs as a threat to seeing an opportunity to listen to the pain of others and even join in the joyful course of solidarity with my fellow human beings and sing, “Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother, And in his name all oppression shall cease.” There is great joy to be had when God reorders our world and sets the captives free. May we be the ones who hear this as good news rather than bad news.

Reflection Steps:

If you haven’t already, read Mary’s song in Luke 1:46-55. Then reflect on Isaiah 61:1-4, 9-11. What picture of God’s heart do you feel these words paint for you? When you look at the world around you right now, what “prophetic songs” are you hearing? Who is raising their voices for the poor, the marginalized, and even creation itself? How do these voices make you feel? What areas in your own life are you singing for God to come, bring order to chaos, justice to harm, and bring an arrival of joy?