"He raises up the lowly"

At Ash Wednesday Vespers, we traditionally recited the Song of Mary (Magnificat). Each time this canticle comes my way I am increasingly convinced of God's purposes in "raising up the lowly."

It's way too easy simply to apply this concept to the maiden of Nazareth and leave it at that. However, Scripture repeated tells the story of how God calls the outsiders, those whom the world has marginalized, to play a significant role in the salvation of the world. As far back as Sarah (a barren elder woman) who bears a child of promise (Isaac), Ruth (the foreigner) who mothers the Davidic dynasty, Moses (the adopted Egyptian) who led Israel to freedom from oppression. Among these, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth, conceived out of wedlock, who consorted with prostitutes, tax collects, and heals the lame and the blind (who were thought to be cursed by God because of sin).

Abagail Nelson said it well: "For those who have been consistently ignored, marginalized and even forgotten by the world, the idea that God might choose the lowly to be heard, to be noticed, to be preferred is something that bursts into reality like a gift, a possibility for transformation." (ERD Lenten Meditations 2014)

With that said, consider the directions of American political society over the last three decades where the poor are again pushed to the margins, where the foreigner is castigated and denied opportunity for civic redemption, where those who seek to speak truth to power are named as traitors to "the American way."

Nelson concludes, "God does not choose the poor in order for them to remain quiescent in there secret preferred state. Scripture instead shows us that the Samaritan, the prostitutes, the exiled are called to act out God's love in faith in the world, and in so doing, become the leaders we all want."