Reflections on Mary’s Song (“the Magnificat”) (Luke 1:46–55)

I have argued that the author of of Luke’s Gospel wants his readers to know or remember that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was an enslaved young female (click here for Bitter the Chastening Rod). In Luke’s Gospel, Mary twice calls herself a δούλη (enslaved young female) or a δούλη of the Lord/God (1:38, 48). The addition of the possessive phrase “of a Master/Lord” (τοῦ κυρίου) to “enslaved young female” (δούλη) does not negate the material significance and reality of Mary’s social status. In fact, the phrases “of the Lord” or “of God” spiritually mitigate and subvert Mary’s enslavement or oppression. The appendage “of the Lord/God” to “enslaved young female” constitutes a mechanism of survival and radical hope in the world, but it does not change the fact that Mary’s life as a δούλη was dehumanizing and physically, sexually, intellectually, and spiritually oppressive and violent, and even more so if her master was poor. Mary navigated life in society’s basement with a padlocked door.

Under the Roman empire, known as a slave society in the first centuries BCE and CE, both Jews and Gentiles owned enslaved persons. Of course, the most wealthy persons disproportionately enslaved other humans, but the poor or non-wealthy also owned enslaved persons. When Mary identifies herself as a δούλη or δούλη τοῦ κυρίου/ θεοῦ, the average first-century-CE person would not have assumed her status to be only, if at all, metaphorical but to indicate a violent material reality. That Mary was a δούλη (enslaved young female) makes her song in Luke 1:46–55 all the more powerfully and radically hopeful. Any son born to a δούλη, is born a δοῦλος, assuming the status of his mother. Mary’s predicament is similar to Hagar’s; they are enslaved women who gave birth to enslaved males with the radical hope that their children would experience freedom and flourish. In Luke, with God, humans can do, experience or transcend the impossible (1:37): “Not a word (πᾶν ῥῆμα) will be impossible with God (παρά τοῦθεοῦ). God has always been with us. The question is “how are we with God?”

Mary demonstrates the challenge of radical hope and labor for the enslaved, oppressed, broken, and traumatized, to labor to birth freedom and justice. By identifying herself as an enslaved female of God, she names the paradox of her hope, the limitation and the power! I am enslaved, yet I bear the seed of freedom and possibility! God has looked upon God’s humbled and humiliated δούλη (1:48). Many people will one day know and bless my name and the fruit of my life! As an enslaved Galilean woman with a poor master, Mary lives at the bottom where there is no ladder constructed for her to reach above ground, let alone to the top. How can the oppressed sing Mary’s song? I am not my oppression or who my oppressor says I am. My fugitivity from oppression starts in my mind and spirit and travels to my feet and hands. And I sing it! I conceived and I carry in my womb the promise of brighter days. I am the hope of the ancestors, the living, and the unborn.

The oppressors will not write the final paragraph in my story. I am more than victim; I am a survivor and a warrior. And I will flourish. I compose and sing a radical song of fugitivity, freedom, justice, flourishing and radical reimagining! My soul magnifies the God of my fugitivity and unmitigated freedom!

But why do the privileged sing Mary’s song? How deep is our praise? Is our praise anchored in abolitionist labor predicated upon radical hope and vision for the oppressed? Do our budgets, policies and curriculums reflect our praise or our privilege? How deep is our praise? Mary wants to know.