December 14, 2025 · Rev. Derek van Gulden · Luke 1:26-56
On the Advent Sunday of Joy, Rev. Derek van Gulden takes Mary down off the pedestal: a poor teenager in an occupied land who says yes anyway, and whose Magnificat is a protest song about scattering the proud and filling the hungry. Which church, the sermon asks, would welcome Mary if she walked in today?
Transcript
A reading from the Book of Psalms, Psalm ninety six, verses eleven to thirteen. Let heaven celebrate. Let the earth rejoice. Let the sea and everything in it roar. Let the countryside and everything in it celebrate. Then all the trees of the forest. Two will shout out joyfully before the Lord. Because he is coming. He is coming to establish justice on the earth. He will establish justice in the world rightly. He will establish justice among all people fairly. Thanks be to God for these words.
People of God, would you join me in a moment of prayer? Gracious and holy God, this morning I ask you to move the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts by your loving hand, and help each of us this day not to be the instrument of our own or anyone else's oppression, but to be an instrument of peace in every step, in every breath, and every moment of every day. Amen.
Recently, a young person said to me, now we hear what you say before you preach every Sunday. It's our warning that it's time for a nap. Verbatim. But the words that you talk about in that are very. It takes a lot of work. Yes, peace takes work. A lot of work.
Today we are celebrating, as you've heard many times, the Advent Sunday of Joy. And we heard in Scripture, Liz read those powerful words that you can find in Luke the story of Mary, A young woman not married, most probably a woman of color. She lived in a part of the world that was occupied by the Roman Empire occupied, meaning soldiers were there to maintain the peace. Then is. And now we know that in occupied areas, people aren't always safe. Women and children mostly.
Mary. The Mary that we hear in Scripture is different than the Mary that we see and hear in carols. We have Mary up on our creche. Now. She's a person of color, driftwood. But everywhere you go, and I can say this throughout the world that I've traveled in. You see, Mary, in that light of this holiness held up on a pedestal, something that brought something. The person who brought the Christ into the world.
In reality, Mary was a young woman somewhere between the age of thirteen and sixteen, depending on who you read. She was a woman of color because everybody was in that part of the world and still is. She was poor, so she has a couple of things going against her. She's a woman, she's young and she's poor and she's living in an area of occupation, which meant there were riots, there were uprisings periodically. And then you had the occupying forces that try to enforce the peace by abusing the young and females and quite often killing the males. This is the reality of what she grew up in. This is Mary. And most of us have probably seen Mary in that light much more than we have seen Mary in nativity scenes.
This day and age in this country and other countries that. Violence to women. Brought in the name of peace still exists. But Mary was special because she lived in that time and in that era and knew what it meant to live in that space she was in. And some would say in every way you could think possible.
When the angel comes to her and tells her that she is pregnant. I can't even imagine what her response must be like. Wow. But all the stuff that the angel tells her, Mary says yes, Yes. When she did that, she added a couple other things to that list of not being accepted into the norm of culture, the norm of society. That day she became an unmarried pregnant woman. So she was just pushed out farther out to the side.
Now, in that day and age, the rule was if a young person gets married and they're not, or if any woman has a child or gets pregnant that is not married or with somebody other than their spouse, they would be stoned to death. And Joseph would have been the first one to throw the stone, I believe. Usually it starts that way. And Joseph didn't go that route. But Mary with all these things says yes.
And then after a while she writes this beautiful song, the Magnificat. But if you listen to those words that Liz said. And because I can't do it verbatim or by memory. Thank you. I want you to hear these words. And think about where Mary's coming from. My soul proclaims the greatness of God, and my spirit rejoices in you, my Savior. If you have looked with me upon you, look with favor upon your lowly servant. She is placing herself in the cultural norms of that day. And from this day forward, all generations will call me blessed. For you, the Almighty, have done great things for me, and the holy is your name. Your mercy reaches from age to age. For those who fear you. You have shown strength with your arm. You have scattered the proud in their conceit. You have disposed of the mighty from their thrones. And raised up the lowly to the high plains.
So this is a song of justice. This is a protest song. You may not have heard that before, but the Magnificat, Mary's Song of Songs is a protest song. And it wouldn't be much different than you hear these days. People protesting a variety of things. You have filled the hungry with good things and you have sent the rich away empty. You have come to the aid of Israel, your servant, mindful of your mercy. The promise you made to our ancestors, to Sarah and Abraham and their descendants forever.
We've been walking through a series during advent called what Child is this? Based on the poem, which became a well-known hymn, we've been trying to learn what it was like at that moment, in that culture, in that time in history, for Joseph, for Mary. So we have walked through and learned different aspects of what's going on so that we can truly understand what this meant in that time and day. How can we relate it to this day?
A number of years ago, I was visiting a community, and every Sunday and Wednesday I went to a different place to worship in the community. All of them were different. But on this one day, halfway through the service, a young woman of color entered through the back door. Well, there wasn't really a door. There was a place to walk through. And she came in and she sat in the last pew, and the only reason I could see her is because I'd been invited to take part in the service. So I was looking out and one of the greeters walked up to her, whispered something into her ear, pointed to the door, and it wasn't hard to figure out what just went on. That was a Wednesday. Sunday I went to a different church. Much smaller, a bit different. That same young woman showed up about the same time in service. She was shown to a seat. She was given a bulletin and her hands were shaking and she was welcomed.
Which Mary would be accepted at which church? And it happens to regularly. May we remember Mary and what she brought to the world, and what she knew and saw that was happening before it did justice. Amen.