One episode introduced the art of the Mash-Up – taking one or more old songs and cutting and pasting them together into a new work.  And as I read this morning’s gospel account from Luke, it was clear that is exactly what Mary is up to here.  Mary is singing a Mash-Up.  But she is so skilled in the art form, she doesn’t limit herself to just combining two old songs.  She sings into her magnificent song dozens of songs.  Nearly every phrase of her song samples from, borrows from her Bible – the Jewish scripture of the Old Testament.  

Mary is not the only singer this morning.  We, too, sing of Mary at this season.  Here is a sampling of some of the things our hymns say about her:  “Gentle Mary,”     “mother mild,”  “virgin mother kind,”  “But his mother only, in her maiden bliss, worshiped the beloved with a kiss;”  “The Virgin’s tender arms enfolding;”  “How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given.”  There aren’t really any carols in our hymnal that capture the kind of spirit I think Mary displays with this song.  Perhaps one, number 57, the aptly named The Snow Lay on the Ground comes the closest: “Twas gentle Mary maid so young and strong who welcomed here the Christ child with a song;” Young and strong, welcomed the Christ child with a song indeed.  Usually, when I picture the lovely manger scene – it is all Christmas card perfect, “still, still, still;” lullabies and heavenly peace.

But make no mistake.  This Mash-Up of Mary’s, this song she sings, is no lullaby.  It is more of a protest song than a lullaby, more of a fight song than a Christmas carol.  This Mary has much more of Joan Baez than Karen Carpenter; more of Woody Guthrie than Bing Crosby; more of Bob Dylan than Englebert Humperdink, more of Pink than Taylor Swift. 

She sings of the God of the Mighty Arm.  The God who reaches up and drags kings off their thrones, who brushes aside empires with a single gesture.  Whose outstretched arm brings powerful justice.  Certainly “Mary’s Smash Up” would have been an accurate sermon title as well – as she sings of a God who is about smash ups – and take downs.  But she also sings of the God of the Tender Arm, the loving arm who reaches down to lift up the lowly.  The arm which stirs the pot of soup and ladles full the bowls for the hungry, which sets the table for the feast.  The arm which reaches down like a mother’s arm, steadying the young one at her feet, taking hold of and strengthening him.

Mary does not sing the song of the God of history as some old story – she sings it as her own story.  This mash-up is not just the dozens of Bibles songs she samples and quilts in to her song. but it is the song of her life blending with the Great Song of who God is.  Mary, in that moment in Elizabeth’s home, has the audacity to imagine that God’s song is about her, that God’s activity for past generations, in times past, in places past, has something to do with her life, has everything to do with what God was up to here and now.  She sings not only of what God has always done through the ages for God’s people, but she sings of what God is doing right now for her and through her. 

So how do we hear this song?  It can be troubling to hear as a person of privilege and blessing – one who shares more with the proud ones who God scatters, with the powerful ones who are brought low, with the rich who are sent empty away in Mary’s song.  For most of us, myself included, our trees are up and glittering, there are presents aplenty beneath them (or will be when we get through the last round of shopping and wrapping).  A feast awaits us on Christmas Day.  Our wallets include the freedom of a driver’s license, the security of health insurance cards, enough cash for a celebratory lunch with friends even after we finally finish our Alternative Christmas shopping at Fellowship time.

But maybe those like me can hear the song as Elizabeth did.  We haven’t really spoken about Elizabeth yet.  As we read the story, we would be right to imagine that Elizabeth, not Mary, is the one who should be declared blessed.  Elizabeth is a daughter of a long line of priests and wife to priest, she comes from a celebrated lineage of her own as well as the one in to which she married.  Mary is no one, daughter of no people of note, from nowhere. Elizabeth is old and wise, a person of name and place and station.  Mary is so young and vulnerable, a teenager.  Elizabeth is miraculously pregnant through the intervention of God -- like Sarah the matriarch.  Mary is pregnant in a way that might bring much scandal.  And yet it is Elizabeth who declares blessing over Mary time and time again.  Perhaps there were days when Elizabeth, though so privileged, nevertheless felt so barren and empty.  And so Elizabeth bows at the feet of young Mary and declares her to be blessed.

Maybe some of you listen with Elizabeth’s ears?  Wondering about the point of one more season of Christmas Greedings, --with a D, not a T.  Craving a moment away from the obligation of cards unwritten, gifts unwrapped, craving a moment of wonder – to hear the song which tells you what God is up to.  Perhaps you are so glad to know God is doing an old thing in a new way.  God is coming right here, right now to your kitchen, to your life.  God is coming to shake things up and reorder them and teach us that old song of God’s that we might sing it again.  Or to learn a mash-up from Mary, that we might sing the song of our lives in a mash-up with God’s song – bringing our song into tune with God’s justice, with God’s mercy.  Blessed are you, bringer of good tidings, singer of old songs made new.

Perhaps some of us are not like Elizabeth, but like Mary – and we have no trouble singing with full hearts the full-throated fight song of Mary.  We delight in celebrating the God who lifts up the lowly, stands for and with the downtrodden.  We sing out of our own oppression – the oppressions of social outcasts in high schools, those shunned in the dining rooms of our retirement communities, those forgotten and never visited in the nursing homes. We sing as those with deep grief, no jobs, broken bodies, dark depressions.  Or we sing a protest song – in solidarity with those who are oppressed – longing for the day when we will all meet on a level plain.  When the rich will share their feasts, the kings their power, when the arrogant will listen and learn from those the world calls simple but God knows to be wise.

Jesus birth is surely about such reversals, about God turning the world right side up.  The Glorias we will sing in the next days are our expression of gratitude for that mashing up and changing; giving voice to our longing that our lives and world should be made aright.  We long to accept an invitation to take the song that is our life and let God do a mash-up – singing God’s song not over our own, but into it.  Singing our song into God’s song.  Mary sings no lullaby here, but it is no doubt a song meant for her son to hear.  I imagine it is one he continued to hear at her breast and at her knee, this song he hears from before his birth, his mother singing of God’s deeds, of reversals and setting things to right. 

People have always said how much Jesus takes after his Father, and that is certainly true.  But I think this morning we hear how he takes after his mother too.  Listen to his song:  “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.  Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.  Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.  Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.  But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.  Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.  Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”  Luke 8:20-26.

If we listen to the song of Mary’s son, he will sing us to ruin, and sing us back to wholeness again.  He will sing us down from our haughtiness and arrogant pride, and sing us up from the lowest places.  He will sing us from mourning and weeping to laughter and joy, and, too, he will sing our mocking, scornful laughter to tears of remorse.  He will sing us from war and turmoil to peace.  If we let him, he will teach us to sing as his mother surely helped to teach him.