Overshadowing Mary: Disrupting Traditional Readings of Luke 1
Mary's Song of Praise: The Magnificat Under Erasure
Interpreted from Luke 1:46-56 (ESV). Inspired by the work of Antonia Terrazas with Holy Blacked Out and the piece “Annunciation under Erasure” by Mary Szybist, in Incarnadine (2013).
Michaela Silvis
The Gospel narratives invite readers to embrace the beauty, pain, and rich history of the life and teachings of Jesus. Each account slightly different from the last, yet all enhancing and enriching the experience of the story with each turn of a page. The Gospel of Matthew and Luke are the only two that include in their retellings, accounts of Jesus prior to his ministry and life alongside the disciples. However, the differences between these accounts is important because one focuses on the role and faith of Joseph, while the other writes concerning Mary, the Virgin Mother. While the Gospel of Luke includes Mary clearly in the storyline, it fails to center her role, perspective, and personhood. The announcement of Jesus’ birth, and Mary’s role within this, create a binary that places people in inferior, insignificant roles while others remain elevated.
Luke 1:26-38, Jesus’ Birth Foretold, is typically read and retold as a sweet story of God calling upon a young woman to bring about the Savior into the world. Yet, the language that is used consistently undermines Mary’s humanity and importance within this account. Additionally, the ways this text have been traditionally interpreted have been used to further agendas and to make assumptions upon the text that may be present. While this story shows the presence of the lowly being raised up, it is done in a way in which the traditional understandings of status are maintained, even at the expense of the people whom God has called. This reading deserves a critical analysis of how Mary’s role has been interpreted with alternative readings that disrupt traditional norms, provide an inclusive interpretation, and offer a new perspective to view the story that dismantles the categories that have been placed upon these people and the story.
Similarly to biblical scholar Dr. Lindsey Scott Jodrey, I plan to take a sociocultural approach to this reading in the hopes of bringing my unique perspective to this new interpretation. Dr. Jodrey defines a sociocultural approach as such that “values the diverse social locations of readers and invites readers to bring their embodied experiences with them as they engage texts.”[i] Through this sociocultural approach, I plan to do a queer reading of the text, but maintaining that in doing so, I too bring my own limitations to a queer interpretation as I do not identify as queer. My hope is to bring my experiences as a young, biracial woman to this reading, which allow me to understand what it feels like when one’s story is overlooked, like that of queer folk and that of Mary. My specifics of these situations are quite different, but the feelings and associations that accompany it allow me to relate my experiences to the experiences of queer folk, without taking away from what they have gone through.
Additionally, I feel that my experiences as biracial have forced me to understand what it is like when people decide that you must chose who you are, you do not get to occupy the fullness of your identity. In experiences with friends of mine, and in mainstream culture, this often happens to queer identifying people who are forced to chose between being who they want to be and who society tells them they should be. An example of this can be seen within the binary model of gender found in heteronormativity.[ii] Drawing upon Michel Foucault, Dr. Jodrey defines heteronormativity as “the belief that a person’s genetic sex determines (or should determine) many other facets of their life and being including their behavior, appearance, and sexual orientation toward people classified as the opposite gender.”[iii] The binary model classifies gender within two opposite and distinct forms–masculine and feminine–and typically, it is assumed that these classifications are meant to match one’s “biological sex–male or female–which is usually assigned at birth based on anatomical characteristics.”[iv] I cannot identify with the struggle that comes with opposing the binary model of gender, but my experiences being mixed allow me to understand what it is like when others decide who I get to be.
Those who identify as queer or biracial can identify with experiences of people telling them who they are, which mirrors Mary’s experience within the Gospel of Luke. Being a woman in that culture meant that she was a nobody, identified and known only by the men in her life. David Jeffrey comments on how in Luke 1:27 “Mary is described simply as ‘a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.’ That is all.”[v] Her status as a virgin, as betrothed, and the house from which her future husband is a descendant of are more important to introduce first than even her own name. Mary is told who she is and how she must act. In this culture, “a Jewish betrothal involved two steps: the formal engagement including a contract and exchange of a bridal price, and then about a year later, a wedding.”[vi] This all being done on her behalf by her father, basically selling her to the highest bidder in price and status. She is to conduct herself in a certain way to preserve her virtue and the image of her family. That is all.
This is the focus of who Mary is in traditional readings of this passage. Mary is a virgin, betrothed to Joseph, a young woman and that is all. Her significance in society is nothing next to that, which is often how we read Mary, as nothing; a nobody. Yet she called to be used by God. Modern scholars have noted these very facts to support that Mary is to be viewed as a proper woman of faith. Darrell Bock writes that “Mary reflects the proper response of anyone who has been called by God with no credentials other than availability and a responsive heart.”[vii] Bock states that Mary reflects the “proper response of anyone” yet this cannot be read outside of the historical context of their culture. Mary is a young woman. While her response may be proper, did she truly have a choice in this response? Another “proper” and faithful response found in the Bible is that of David defeating Goliath, but no one would have questioned David saying no, or not showing up at all to battle. He was also young, but a shepherd and a man. He was able to chose where he went and how he would act. More than Mary, he had agency over his own body. Mary did not. Now imagine strange man comes to her and tells her, he does not ask, that she is going to give birth to God’s son; did she have a choice? I would argue she didn’t.
The norms of interpretation have told readers that this is all beautiful and that Mary responded with true faith. This may be true, but a queer reading of this passage allows us to disrupt those traditional interpretations and offer an alternative. A queer reading allows us to be inclusive of not only our social location, but the social location of Mary herself and a queer reading lets us looks at this passage in a different way. Now, Mary still did verbally agree to this arrangement, “Behold, I am a handmaiden of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”[viii] Mary’s consent is critically important here, but it is a failure on modern interpretation to read her consent absent-mindedly of her cultural standpoint. Even given all of this, a critical lens on Mary’s “choice” to bear Jesus does not take away the profound nature of this passage. Mary was chosen by God, but her virginity and her status are not the only reasons God chose her.
Even in modern accounts of Mary she is reduced to the title of the “Virgin Mother,” her name being stripped from her and replaced with an identity category. She is a virgin, that is all. Biblical scholars have used this to point in the direction that God uses the most unlikely of candidates to fulfill God’s will. Bock draws the conclusion that through Mary “God shows [God’s] greatness by working with anyone on the street who is willing to be used by [God].”[ix] However, is this how God wants us to see this event? As God using Mary? Another random bystander on the street, chosen with no intention but simply because she was willing to be used. I find this language difficult to agree with, because I do not believe that God uses us in the way this can and has been interpreted. Using people and things has been conducted in haphazard ways that cause pain and neglect and focus solely on what that person or thing can give, rather than who they are and where that gifting comes from. God does not use us, rather God equips us, calls us, invites us. There is care and mutuality in this, but when we read this using the tradition interpretations of this narrative as God using Mary, then there is a lack of regard for who she is. The focus is on what she can do and give, and not on her, which is contradictory to God’s character.
God sent Gabriel to Mary, of all the choices God seemed to have, God chose her. David Jeffrey notes that “Mary is perhaps to all outward appearances quite ordinary, but in the divine perspective she is to be revealed as extraordinary on a level yet unimagined in her culture.”[x] Yet, even though we know that God chose Mary, there are many hesitations to give her praise. She is only extraordinary because God called her. Yet, God created all in God’s image, so the extraordinary lies within everyone from the beginning. It is not something that is revealed through “proper” responses and “right” faith, but something that indwells. In The Godbearing Life, Kenda Creasy Dean and Ron Foster highlight this account and draw attention to a response from Frederick Buechner from Gabriel’s point of view:
She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child, but he’d been entrusted with a message to give her, and he gave it. He told her what the child was to be named, and who he was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. “You mustn’t be afraid, Mary,” [the angel] said. As he said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great, golden wings he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of a girl.[xi]
This reading remains trapped within traditional interpretations of the text, placing our hesitation of Mary not only on ourselves, but upon a heavenly angel. We focus on all the identity categories that we feel are unfit for this request, rather than focusing on the invitation that God is extending to Mary because God sees the holy stirring within her. Even our interpretations turn an angel of the Lord to fear for what Mary can and cannot do. We focus more on how Mary was nothing, and still God chose her, rather than focusing on how when we couldn’t, God saw the extraordinary in Mary. And that is why God chose her, called her, equipped her, and invited her. Reading this passage in this way, with a different view that disrupts the traditional, invites the fullness of Mary’s identity into our interpretation, rather than the categories we have since placed her in. This queer approach to the annunciation ultimately wants to disrupt these categories, offer new perspectives and allow for all people to be able to own the fullness of their personhood.
A queer reading disrupts the norms of how the biblical text should be read, it elevates those whom are often forgotten within the text and it renegotiates the norms and standards that are placed on those people and these readings. When one reads the biblical text in a queer way it allows for a revitalized perspective into a text that has traditionally been used to reinforce harmful ideas and has inflicted pain. To queer the biblical text is to bring the biblical text to life in a way that has been forgotten. Mary was forgotten. She was a nobody, raised to be nothing. However, God saw her and called her favored. God elevated her, an insignificant young woman, and through her accomplished the impossible. Yet, the significance of Mary is not that she was a nobody, but her significance came from God calling her.
God alongside Mary chose to disrupt the oppressive norms of culture, create an inclusive faith with an inclusive God, and allow readers to look differently at this text. We do not need to read with rose-colored glasses. There is pain and abuse even within our sacred Bible, but when we read through a queer approach, we are able to give space for the fullness of each story and truly allow the people it is representing to speak for themselves. After Gabriel departs from Mary she goes and visits her cousin, Elizabeth, and it is recorded that she gives a song of praise to God. Perhaps, though, the praise is not only meant for God, and if we read this a little differently, with a slight turn of our heads, we may hear Mary praise God, while God rejoices in her.
Bibliography
Bock, Darrell L. Luke: The NIV Application Commentary from Biblical Text…to Contemporary Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House. 1996.
Dean, Kenda Creasy and Ron Foster. The Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul Tending for Youth Ministry. Nashville, TN: Upper Room Books. 2010.
Jeffrey, David Lyle. Luke: Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press. 2012.
Jodrey, Lindsey S and Alicia D. Myers. “John 1 Beyond the Binary.” In Come and Read: Interpretive Approaches to the Gospel of John. Lanham, MD: Fortress Academic. 2019.
[i] Lindsey S. Jodrey and Alicia D. Myers, “John 1 Beyond the Binary,” in Come and Read: Interpretive Approaches to the Gospel of John (Lanham, MD: Fortress Academic, 2019), 2.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Ibid., 3.
[iv] Ibid., 2-3.
[v] David Lyle Jeffrey, Luke: Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2012), 26.
[vi] Darrell L. Bock, Luke: The NIV Application Commentary from Biblical Text…to Contemporary Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House, 1996), 57.
[vii] Ibid., 60.
[viii] Luke 1:38 (RSV).
[ix] Bock, Luke: The NIV Application Commentary, 60.
[x] Jeffrey, Luke: Brazos Theological Commentary, 27.
[xi] Kenda Creasy Dean and Ron Foster, The Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul Tending for Youth Ministry (Nashville, TN: Upper Room Books, 2010), 48-49.