In Praise of Fierce Young Women
The Magnificat to a revolutionary beat | Advent 4, Year C
On evenings, when the days get dark early, and there are still hours after dinner until bedtime, my family will sometimes hold an impromptu dance party. My role is DJ, drawing from my Spotify library and YouTube searches to keep the tunes coming. It was in research for my DJ role that I came across a song that would become a family dance party favorite: Ana Tijoux’s “Somos Sur.” With brass and drums, rapping in Spanish and Arabic, and a video full of joyful, swirling colors—“Somos Sur” is great dance music. But when I searched for translations of its lyrics, I found that this is also a song of solidarity and rebellion—a call for joyful resistance to the forces of empire and global capitalism.
Somos sur means “we are the South,” and the song is an anthem of all those in the “Global South” who have experienced the exploitation of colonialist economies. Tijoux is a French born Chilean rapper, the daughter of parents exiled after the 1973 coup that brought the right-wing dictator Pinoche to power. Reflecting the politics that uprooted her family, she raps:
We dream big that the empire may fall
we shout out loud, there is no other remedy left.
This is not utopia, this is a joyful dancing rebellion
of those who are overrun, this dance is yours and mine
let's rise to say "enough is enough.”
The video features a dance of people dressed in a colorful array of traditional costumes in what looks to be a street party. The energy of the song and its dance is full of life and joy, and yet the message is a radical challenge to the systems of exploitation. “Neither Africa or Latin America are for auction,” Tijoux raps, as she calls on “All the silenced..All the neglected…All the invisible” to join in this work of resistance. To see young women raising their voices against injustice with joy and beauty is a powerful thing. And whenever I watch their rebellious dance, I cannot help but think of Mary.
Mary in her blue, the acquiescing Yes to God’s plan of salvation: it is easy to imagine her as a quiet type, ready to step into the background, there to care for us when we need her. Do an image search for “Mary” and most of the returns will be a young woman looking down, her eyes invisible, hidden behind demure eyelids. She is a comforting, not challenging presence; a glowing, maternal other removed from the gritty world of politics and the concrete hope for revolution. But Luke, if we listen to his witness of Mary’s song, won’t let us have such solace. If Ana Tijoux had sung the Magnificat, Mary’s song, the result would have been no less radical than Somos Sur.
Here’s how Luke tells it:
Mary said,
“With all my heart I glorify the Lord!
In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior.
He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant.
Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favored
because the mighty one has done great things for me.
Holy is his name.
He shows mercy to everyone,
from one generation to the next,
who honors him as God.
He has shown strength with his arm.
He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.
He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty-handed.
He has come to the aid of his servant Israel,
remembering his mercy,
just as he promised to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.”
Here is the song of a fierce young woman, a teenager ready for a radical change in the world. Mary is calling for the mighty to be pulled from their thrones, for the wealthy to be sent away empty-handed, for the oppressed to be vindicated. Think of the lifetime of oppression she witnessed: the late night conversations of her parents, burdened by taxes, exploited by the wealthy in the far off cities. What violence had she seen, day to day, as men with swords came after the young men of her village and forced young women into unspeakable things? Mary sings this song as one of those anawim, the poor ones of Holy Scripture, who long for the reversal of the world order that only God can bring. Mary’s yes to God cannot be removed from her desire for such a change, concrete and political, economic and thus even ecological. Her yes is an agreement to join in God’s revolution, the expectation that fills her very body is for a new order to be unleashed upon the world.
In many churches, like my own, the Magnificat will be sung this Sunday. I doubt it will come with a hip hop beat. That’s fine, but it can be easy to hide the challenge of Mary’s song behind the placid tunes of a choral setting. If we want to honor Mary, it won’t be by venerating her as a woman with a bowed head. Instead, we should listen to the words of her song of rebellion and be ready to join in her hope.
And there’s the challenge for most of us. I am not lowly, my belly is full, I am among the powerful who will be brought low when God’s reign comes in fullness. I have to wonder, then, if I really want to sing this song with Mary, if I can really share in her hope. Better to make it a thing of sentimental beauty than a fierce song of faith in the God who is mercy, but also justice. Yet, no matter its setting, I cannot ignore its truth. If I really listen, Mary’s song gets at the very essence of our call as followers of the Way of Jesus. God has come and is coming to set the world right. The question for us is: can we join with Mary in celebrating this advent of God’s reign? Will we welcome the revolution, even if it means we have to lose our place of power, when if arrives?
I’ll be pondering these things as I turn up the brass and bass and imagine Mary in the dance of the oppressed, ready to welcome the child who will change everything.