Bible Study

BIBLE STUDY

Nael Cortez

The Magnificat as recorded in the Gospel according to Luke chapter 1 verses 39-56 provides the background material for our Bible Study in this Woman’s Workshop. I have read and re-read it several times and have decided to title it A Woman’s Manifesto. You may want to object to the suggestion that such a popular and harmless hymn which is always used for Christmas pageants and services may possibly contain such “explosive material” but I invite you to look it up again and read it and see why the assertion in this particular titling is being made.

LUKE THE WRITER AND WOMEN IN HIS WRITINGS

To appreciate what we are trying to drive at in this Bible Study, it is useful to have a brief look at the author of this Gospel. Luke was a Gentile, the only non-Jew among the four gospel writers. Traditionally, he is known to have been born and raised in Macedonia. It is generally known that Macedonians had a much higher regard for women than, say, the Jews. Luke was a learned man and in his effort to present a witness to Christ and help propagate the Christian faith, his pre-occupation was to speak of Christianity as a universal Church, as one gaining acceptance by the then known world and beyond the confines of Judaism. He wanted to reach the people of the Gentile world.

Now, in his writings, Luke showed a marked interest in women and he gave them prominence. For example, in writing about Jesus’ birth, he focussed on Jesus’ mother in contrast to Matthew focussing on his father, Joseph. Clearly, Matthew’s intent was to show that Joseph had the proper genealogy, but Luke seemed to be more concerned with the role of the woman in the Christ event. Luke also made mention of a string of women characters, if not heroines, in both his gospel and the Acts. Aside from Mary, the Lord’s mother, he wrote about Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother, Anna the prophetess, the sinful woman in 7:36-40, the woman of many infirmities in 13:11-13, Mary and Martha, at least two parables with women as central figures in 15:8-10 and 18:1-l0, and Mary Magdalene.

In the Acts, he wrote about Sapphira, Priscilla, Drusilla, Bernice, Tabitha, Mary the mother of John Mark, Rhoda, Lydia, the slave girl and Damaris. This was most refreshing as in those days, especially among the Jews, for among them women did not have such an exalted status. In fact, women’s position in Palestine was low. In the Jew’s morning prayer (male chauvinist, of course), a man thanks God that he was not made “a Gentile, a slave or a woman, and most probably in that order. Notwithstanding some examples of women heroines in the Old Testament, there was this latent prejudice.

The point is that Luke, with such a high and exalted regard for women, could have allowed the dialogue between Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother, and Mary to have taken place so that this expression of deep conviction on a woman’s role in the redemption of the world, would find space in the Gospel record.

In order to understand the “revolutionary” nature of the Magnificat or “Manifesto”, it is necessary to notice Luke’s emphasis on women and his preoccupation with accounts and lessons regarding the “poor” of that time. Some scholars would tell us that Luke’s gospel is “the gospel of the poor”. Accounts may be lined up to prove this contention: the rich fool in 12:13-21, Lazarus in 16:19-31, Zaccheus in 19:1-10, the injunction to sell possessions and to give them to the poor in 12:33, the invitation to the poor for dinner in 14:13, and also, the words of the Magnificat on the poor in 1:53.

THE MAGNIFICAT - A BACKGROUND TO THE TEXT

The Magnificat has been called “one of the great hymns of the Church”. The word itself comes to us as the first word in the Latin version of this hymn or psalm which means “declares the greatness of”. This entire hymn, if we call it that, comes from two sources in the Old Testament, one of them being Hannah’s Song in I Samuel 2:1-10 when the Lord has given to her and her husband, Eli, a son, Samuel.

But in the account in Luke, Mary allows that the Lord has regarded her “low estate” and one possible translation for this is: “for he has noticed his slave in her humble station”. In this, Mary is a declarer, one who proclaims or sings of the goodness of God. The subject of the hymn or the “Manifesto” is God, and the message conveyed is that in the past God has done mighty acts and for this he must be extolled, and for the future God’s act of redemption which is yet to be accomplished must be

anticipated. It was as if Mary was saying, even if the present is full of oppression and poverty, do not worry because in the future time (as it has been in the past) God is there (as he was there) and will fulfill what he has purposed.

Let us take a look at Mary for a while. Mary was, by all standards, an ordinary woman. She was like any other Jewish woman of her time. But the Lord saw fit to give her a special role in the Event which was to take place, as she was to be the bearer of the Messiah. The circumstances surrounding that auspicious event were not all to her liking. The truth was that, as we all know the account, the boy was to be born out of wedlock, that is to say plainly, she was to have a bastard- and that on both her side and Joseph’s there should be no questions. This constitutes to our limited minds, a scandal, which in church history and until today, the Church would like to cover up by talking of a virgin birth and that the Lord Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. But Mary handled this difficulty, this personal contradiction, by accepting her lot and by exploding into a song. A song which contains an expression of the extraordinary act of God in her body and for the world. A woman capable of containing this unusual act of God is capable of a revolutionary faith, as embodied in this extraordinary manifesto!

But, be this as it may, Christian tradition has succeeded in domesticating Mary. Fr. Tissa Balasuriya of Sri Lanka says that we have made Mary the comforter of the disturbed rather than the disturber of the comfortable. He continued to say that Mary’s words in the Magnificat “can be the inspiration for radical action, for change of mentalities, of persons and structures of societies. The Christian tradition has succeeded in diluting Mary’s message, almost negating it. It has assigned to Mary a domesticated and domesticating role. On the contrary, the Magnificat shows how she reconciles social radicality with personal service, a revolutionary message with inter-personal love. These show a powerful and pleasing combination of practical action, deep reflective prayer and personal concern. (“Mary a Committed Woman”, Logos, ‘74 and Praxis, ‘75)

THE MA6NIFICAT AS MANIFESTO

For our purposes I shall, take three main ideas from me Magnificat, verses 51, 52 and 53, which give us me core of the message found in the material under study, around which fruitful discussion may revolve.

I. It was with deep conviction and certainty that Mary indicated in verse 51 “He scatters the proud in the plans of their hearts”. Here, she points out that in the Lord, the proud are scuttled and routed. What does it mean to be proud? And, who are the proud referred to in this document? The Bible has many accounts of nations which the Lord destroyed or which destroyed themselves because of pride- and might - and power. In fact, the Lord has done this, too, several times in the life of his people, Israel as when he sent them into exile, or allowed them to be conquered. Character upon character in the Old Testament indicates lives of pride- and their end has always been destruction.

Contrasting with His unhappiness with the proud, there is the Lord’s express love for the humble-for example. His Son was born of a humble woman in a stable and wrapped in swaddling clothes. The Son of God did not have even a decent home for his birth and his life was the picture of true simplicity and humility.

Who are “the proud” of our day? One of the more monumental evidences I myself have seen is the huge Summer Place built under the inspiration and instruction of China’s former empress dowager, Tsu Chi. She diverted the energies of her people from agricultural production and even industry, to build a monument to her whims and caprices. A huge lake was built for her and a mountain made more prominent so that she could have a park wherein to entertain dignitaries of her day. When you look at the Summer Palace in China today on a tour, your guide tells you what a negative example that park has been and is for the masses in China. Today, the Chinese youth go there to learn how not to do thing?, instead of how things should be done. Can we think of ways in which in our own countries today the proud are building monuments to their whims and for -getting the people? Mary, in her Manifesto, has strong words to say, “He scatters the proud in the plans of their hearts”.

II. The second point in Mary’s Manifesto has to do, not with the proud, but with the mighty. She said, “He casts down the mighty from their seats of power. He exalts the humble.” In the context of mighty-humble relationship, the Bible has many examples of how God humbles the mighty and uplifts the lowly. There is the story of Israel itself. As a small nation, it has been able to defeat much larger ones, as indicated in our text: “He has ranged himself at the side of Israel his servant…” NEB. There is the story known by all of us about the

mighty Goliath being defeated by a small David.

I would like to invite you to see a modern application of how might, sheer might, alone does not help even a technologically advanced nation in a war against a small nation. I have just come from a World Council of Churches/Christian Conference of Asia Consortium meeting on Indochina, which met in Geneva. Once again, in several contributions, even by western persons themselves, it was said that, in the experience of Vietnam, technological and military might alone was not enough to fight a war. We know how men, women and youth of Vietnam prevailed over the mightiest power the world has so far known.

Who today are the mighty in our societies in Asia? Who hold political power? What percentage of our people have actual power? In the Philippines, it is said that there are only about twelve families who hold actual power- a combination of economic power transforming itself into political power, or what we call the political elite. When will the time come when the people themselves, the poor and the powerless will be the holders of power in our own national settings?

III. Finally, in the Magnificat, the last principle enunciated is one on economic justice. Mary said, “He fills those who are hungry with good things and he sends away empty those who are rich.” This is a most revolutionary idea. This is a manifesto, if you will, on social justice. In the study papers on the status of women in different countries represented in this workshop, we have found that, on a higher level than pure analysis of women’s oppression, we find the absence of distributive justice everywhere. We know how poverty is the key problem of Asian peoples. People in Asia are simply hungry, as they are poor. The data show that over 70% of the people in India live in state of poverty, in Indonesia, 55% of the population fall below the poverty line. We can document many figures on this and will still have the single truth: That Asian societies are in need of liberation from poverty.

On the whole question of poverty, the Church today not only in Asia but around the world stands accused^ our teachings and pronouncements are numerous, nut I am afraid also ineffectual. In my country, in the midst of gross poverty, the numerically strong Konan Catholic Church is one of the biggest landholders. Whatever one says, the ideal is still that the Church should divest itself of such earthly trappings, but would it? With every square inch the in-

stitutional church owns, so much is withdrawn from the poor, whom we profess to love.

When will God do what is said in verse 53 for Asia? When will God fill those who are hungry? Historically, it was not out of automatic charity of leaders, Christians among them, that people were delivered from hunger and poverty in China. It was the people themselves who delivered bread into their own mouths.

How do we sing the Magnificat, this Manifesto, in the Asian scene? This is the burning question.

ASIAN WOMEN AND THE MAGNIFICAT

Women around the world, especially in Asia, ought to find identification with Mary and her Magnificat. We say it is a manifesto because in it we find a charter, an anticipation of full humanisation, where the lowly, the humble and the poor are delivered from their hopeless situation. The transformation of women’s consciousness from domestication to assertion of their rights, alongside the oppressed in Asia and all over the world, marks the beginning of the long road to freedom and human liberation.

I suggest there are two ways of reading Mary’s Magnificat; one is a romantic hymn singing of the blessedness of women, and the other to take it up as a Manifesto towards Liberation.