{"id":535,"date":"2005-12-08T06:58:28","date_gmt":"2005-12-08T06:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/mary-and-elizabeth-4.html"},"modified":"2005-12-08T06:58:28","modified_gmt":"2005-12-08T06:58:28","slug":"mary-and-elizabeth-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/mary-and-elizabeth-4.html","title":{"rendered":"Mary and Elizabeth 4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For Mary, Christmas end the beginning of the end for systemic violence (1:51-55).<br \/>\nA student told me the other day that Christians don\u2019t believe James 1:26-27 (pure religion is taking care of widows and orphans). In my mind, I went to Mary who was the mother of James and she was a widow, and his older brother, Jesus, was big on caring for widows.  James must have thought of her when he wrote those words. <!--more|inline--><br \/>\nMary believed what both of her boys would teach and preach: Christmas means the beginning of the end for systemic violence. I sometimes use <em>The Liturgy of the Hours<\/em> for private prayers, and every evening has this canticle of Mary, the Magnificat, as a prayer. I can\u2019t get over it. For Mary, Christmas meant liberation from oppression and, what some forget about, the establishment of justice, God\u2019s will on earth.<br \/>\nGod has performed mighty deeds with his arm (power).<br \/>\nGod has scattered the proud.<br \/>\nGod has ripped unjust rulers from their thrones.<br \/>\nGod has put the humble into a position of justice.<br \/>\nGod has filled the hungry with food.<br \/>\nGod has sent the rich away empty \u2013 the oppressors of the poor, no doubt.<br \/>\nAnd all of this, according to Mary, is consistent with the covenant God made with Abraham \u2013 though not a word about liberation is really found in Gen 12, Gen 15, Gen 17, or Gen 22. Or at least, that is not the central concern there.<br \/>\nGod&#8217;s covenant is a covenant that establishes justice.<br \/>\nChristmas is more than presents; Christmas is a day when we, we Chistians, pray with Mary and celebrate that in Jesus, and in the community of faith around him, the long-awaited justice will be established.<br \/>\nIt is, again, the beginning of the end of systemic violence and injustice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For Mary, Christmas end the beginning of the end for systemic violence (1:51-55). A student told me the other day that Christians don\u2019t believe James 1:26-27 (pure religion is taking care of widows and orphans). In my mind, I went to Mary who was the mother of James and she was a widow, and his&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mary and Elizabeth 4 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/mary-and-elizabeth-4.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mary and Elizabeth 4 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For Mary, Christmas end the beginning of the end for systemic violence (1:51-55). A student told me the other day that Christians don\u2019t believe James 1:26-27 (pure religion is taking care of widows and orphans). 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A student told me the other day that Christians don\u2019t believe James 1:26-27 (pure religion is taking care of widows and orphans). In my mind, I went to Mary who was the mother of James and she was a widow, and his&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/mary-and-elizabeth-4.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2005-12-08T06:58:28+00:00","author":"xscot mcknight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/mary-and-elizabeth-4.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/mary-and-elizabeth-4.html","name":"Mary and Elizabeth 4 - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-12-08T06:58:28+00:00","dateModified":"2005-12-08T06:58:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/mary-and-elizabeth-4.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/mary-and-elizabeth-4.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2005\/12\/mary-and-elizabeth-4.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mary and Elizabeth 4"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0","name":"xscot mcknight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","caption":"xscot mcknight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/xscot-mcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}