In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This morning, beloved in the Lord, I want to reflect with you on the song of Mary. You just finished hearing the song of Mary. In fact, where is the deacon? Oh, there you are. He actually chanted it this morning—didn’t you? [That’s right.] Since it is a song. He did sort of a duet with our Lady this morning. [Laughter]

In the year 1557, William Wittingham became the first biblical scholar to introduce verse divisions into his English translation of the New Testament. The division of the Bible into chapters… Who remembers from adult Sunday school when that started? [Inaudible] Very good. [Inaudible] Oh, excellent. Excellent. [Laughter] Somebody was paying attention in Sunday school. Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, did that. Before he was Archbishop of Canterbury, he was a professor at the University of Paris. Later on, he became Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton. Probable author, by the way, major hand in Magna Carta. He’s the one who divided the Bible into chapters. The division of the Bible into verses did not take place until the invention of printing, so it’s a fairly recent thing. The first time it was introduced into an English Bible was in 1557 by William Wittingham.

Today’s gospel reading from the first chapter of Luke, Wittingham divided it into 18 verses, 11 of which contain the song of Mary, popularly known from its first word in Latin as the Magnificat. Magnificat anima mea dominum: My soul hath magnified the Lord. These 11 verses are by far the largest record of what the Mother of Jesus had to say on this earth. Luke elsewhere speaks twice of what Mary pondered in her heart, and these 11 verses retain some context of the contents of that heart.

Now, concerning the Magnificat, I ask your indulgence to let me read a few lines from a letter written to Frederick, the Duke of Saxony, on March 10, 1521. It is the exhortation of a man who was a fairly famous priest, who writes to instruct the duke on the proper responsibilities of a Christian leader. Here’s what he wrote:

Therefore all rulers, since they need not fear men, should fear God more than others do, should learn to know him and his works, to walk diligently, as St. Paul says, “He that rules, let him do it with diligence.” Now I do not know in all the Scriptures anything that so well serves such a purpose as the sacred hymn of the Blessed Mother of God, which indeed ought to be learned and kept in mind by all who would rule well and be beneficial lords. Truly, she sings in it most sweetly of the fear of God, of what manner of Lord he is, especially what his dealings are with those of high and low degree. This pure Virgin well deserved to be heard by a prince and lord, as she chants her sacred, chaste, and salutary song. It is a fine custom, too, that this canticle is sung in all the churches daily at vespers…

That’s the way they did it in the West, and still do it in the West. In the East, it’s in matins; in the West it’s vespers.

...and in a particular and appropriate setting that distinguishes it from all of the chants.

He goes on and finishes up:

May the tender Mother of God herself procure for me the spirit of wisdom, profitably and thoroughly to expound this song of hers so that your grace, as well as we all, may draw from it wholesome knowledge and a praiseworthy life, and thus come to chant and sing this Magnificat eternally in heaven, and unto this may God help us. Amen.

Fr. Martin Luther wrote these words on March 10, 1521, exactly 66 days after his excommunication by Pope Leo X. I quote Luther on that point. I’m unable to find in the Orthodox faith a single thing that Martin Luther would have had trouble with, with respect to the Mother of Jesus. [He] refers to her as Mater Dei, Gottes Mutter.

Adopting this song of Mary, this Magnificat, as my guide, I want to share with you three reflections germane to today’s feast, the consecration of Mary in the Temple. First, Mary speaks of herself as God’s doule. You can transliterate that as d-o-u-l-e or -i. It’s an eta, long-e in Greek: doule. In most of the English Bibles known to me, this noun, doule—there’s a variant form, doula, which means exactly the same thing—is translated as “handmaid.” This is the second time Mary speaks of herself as God’s servant or handmaid. Exactly ten verses earlier, she had said to the Angel Gabriel, “Behold the doule of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to your word.” This noun, used twice by our Lord’s Mother in reference to herself, expresses her dedication and consecration to God, which is the whole point of today’s feast.

In the circumstances of Mary’s service to God, we recognize the principle St. Paul declared in his correspondence to the Corinthians. For instance:

God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame those things that are mighty; and the base things of the world, the things that are despised, has God chosen. And things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are.

The life of Mary was plain, not epic. It’s a place in a village, not a castle. Its setting was humdrum, not heroic. She had no ambition except the service of God. She was married to a workman, not a philosopher. Parenthetically, I don’t know about women that want to be married to philosophers, really. [Laughter] But I do recall Dorothea Brooke in George Eliot’s Middlemarch, who wishes she could be married to someone like Pascal so that she could devote her mind to big thoughts.

And why is the Mother of Jesus perfectly content with the simple life of the village? She tells us in her song.

The Lord has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly.

Second, Mary’s consecrated service to God was open-ended. She could not read the whole contract. Those who serve God usually only get to read the first page of the contract. She could not know very far in advance what he would ask of her down the road. His word was a lamp unto her feet, and a light to her path. Like all God’s servants, Mary carries a candle, not a flashlight. When first she declared, “Behold the doule, the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to your word,” there was no way to foresee herself standing forlorn beneath a Roman cross, watching her little Boy suffer and die.

I suspect, beloved, that Mary’s soul was often visited by a deep sense of personal inadequacy. Indeed, a feeling of inadequacy appears to be the constant companion of those who put the service of God first in their lives. It’s important that that be the case, because it is of the essence that we do not think highly of ourselves. It is imperative to resist any sense of personal achievement in the service of God. That is absolutely essential. Flee from that as you would from a fire. Regard that as one of the temptations, the big temptations, as serious as any other sin: to feel good about yourself in the service of God.

I am suspecting that that was the fall of the first choir director [Laughter]—a fellow by the name of Lucifer. [Child cries and is removed; Laughter] See, he’s very fond of the choir director. [Laughter] I often think of that, that the first fall in creation took place in the choir. That will always… It took place among the angels, who were charged with singing before God’s presence. I don’t have that in my notes, though.

It is imperative to resist any sense of personal accomplishment in the service of God. If you are tempted to look at what you’ve accomplished, stop it! As you would pornography: don’t look at it! Jesus warns us of this very thing:

And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he comes in from the field: Come at once and sit down and eat? Does he thank that servant because he did the things he was supposed to do?

At that point in the text of Luke, an early copyist apparently wrote in a marginal note, Ou deko, which literally is, “I don’t think so.” It found its way, by the way, that marginal note found its way into the Western manuscripts, including the Byzantine lectionary. But anyway, the Lord goes on:

So likewise when you give you God all the things prescribed to you, say, “We are duly achreioi, useless servants. We have done what we were required to do.”

Sweet people, I am persuaded that among those who serve God, a sense of self-satisfaction is to be avoided at all cost. Certainly there is no such sentiment in this song of our Lady. We magnify her, and we should. She does not magnify herself.

Third, this song of Mary provides an outline for the rest of Luke’s gospel. Many stories in the gospel, Luke’s gospel, illustrate the major themes of the Magnificat. Mary is the first of the several figures demonstrating God’s respect for poverty and lowliness: the shepherds of Bethlehem, old Symeon and Anna who welcome Jesus in the Temple, poor Lazarus contrasted with the rich man, the humble publican contrasted with the self-indulgent Pharisee, the repentant prodigal son contrasted with the successful older brother, and the repentant thief on the cross.

In this emphasis, we are justified in seeing, I think, the influence of St. Paul, for so much of his ministry, and certainly in the latter part, Luke was Paul’s missionary companion and personal physician. It was in the Lord’s measure from Paul that Luke learned that we carry this treasure in earthen vessels. The adjective, “earthen,” ostrakinos in Greek, denotes something made of clay. This is an implicit reference to Genesis, I believe, specifically to the second creation account in Genesis 2. The text says:

A mist rose up from the earth and moistened the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God shaped man from the dirt of the ground. Ayesay Adonai Elohim et Adam, afar min har adama.

Incorrectly translated [in] almost all English versions, as far as I can see. There’s nothing in there about dust. It’s wet ground. You don’t call that “dust.” It’s called mud! Mud! We’re not going to return to dust; we’re going to return to mud. That’s what the text says. In fact, I checked it down—because I don’t speak modern Hebrew—but I did check it down in a modern Hebrew dictionary, and afar does mean dirt; it does mean dirt.

The human substance is clay. We are creatures easily broken, and do not of ourselves amount to much. We are beings of great frailty. For this reason we often feel frail. This experience, too, is expressed in the Magnificat.

His mercy is on them that fear him, from generation to generation. He has shown strength in his arm. He has exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things.

Today is the feast of our Lady’s consecration to the service of God, the God she celebrates in her song. It is of this God that she declares:

He has come to the help of his servant Israel, being mindful of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever. Amen.