Lent Bible Practice | Day 3
Luke 1:26-56

We often think of this story of Mary as so spiritual and surreal: young woman, possibly virgin, suddenly pregnant. Is she drunk? Delusional? Making it all up so that she can feel important or justify her misbehavior that may have led to this pregnancy? We misread the story. It's not so much about her and her justifications, it's about the big picture, almost a call to jihad for the global work of justice - of turning the world upside down: the rich going away hungry, the poor being lifted up. It's actually a radical expression of hope, maybe even a political manifesto. We think snowglobes and hallmark card, yet the text is talking more like Che or those that stormed the Bastille: at last hope and liberation for the long oppressed poor of Israel - the people on the margins. It's not a Thomas Kincaide sort of God, more like the God of Karl Marx. It's not the destruction of one class/race/culture at the imperilaistic hands of another. Rather the reversal of the world order for the wholness and benefit of all: true peace. I wonder how we (in general as society today) would take in the story if we heard it more as the call to justice, that we are called to enter into today as well?