Luke 1:26–38
Mary’s song of justice, commonly referred to as the Magnificat, does not accept the status quo. The powerful are brought down low. The rich are sent away empty. Mary’s words prefigure the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man later in Luke 16.
The song is powerful and convicting, but the words of Mary hinge on her ‘yes’ to God in our Gospel reading for this week. God is going to shake some things and break some chains. An angel comes to Mary, a messenger of the Lord who probably looked more like a steampunk villain (with wheels and heads and strange words) than a glowing figure with white wings. Mary is scared but she does not run. Mary is confused but she does not doubt. She doubts in herself, not in God. She asks the angel “How can this be?”
And then we have the answer that comforts Mary and should open our eyes to the radical possibility of prison abolition and society being remade. Gabriel starts with giving the deets about the Holy Spirit and Elizabeth and then says, “For nothing is impossible with God.”
This, at its heart, is why abolition is a faith issue. Prisons and jails and the justice system from the top down exist in an immanent continuum where the only justice is ours, where institutions are fixed, and where the imagination is limited by what we have seen before. As a society, we continually find ways of saying ‘no’ to God that only could come down to a lack of faith. We say ‘no’ or ‘not yet’ or ‘let’s be reasonable.’ We say, ‘what about so-and-so,’ describing the horrors that have happened in many people’s lives without questioning the system of justice that perpetuates horrors just as heinous. We perform whataboutism to God, like God is some online poster and we are internet trolls.
Mary does not. Mary says yes to God. Mary says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
May it be so with us all. May we see a world beyond the status quo where we can say yes to God. Where we see the powerful torn down, and the captives go free.
Rev. Wilson Pruitt is a Methodist pastor and translator in Spicewood, Texas.