December 21, 2014
Fourth Sunday in Advent
Rev. Amy Welin:
Who gets to be Mary?
In some parishes, that question generates a great deal of competition. Little girls and their mothers posture for the honor of being asked to play the Virgin Mary in the annual Christmas pageant. Everyone wants to be Mary because it is considered an honor to portray the Mother of God.
But in the scripture, it seems that even Miriam of Nazareth (that is probably her real name – it is changed in the Greek of the gospels) is not so sure that she wants to be Mary.
At best, Mary is surprised and puzzled by the message of the angel that she shall bear a son by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. She wonders out loud, how can this be? The translation today says that she is much perplexed. The reality of her own era was that the unexpected pregnancy of an unmarried girl would be an enormous shame for her family, sometimes with immediate and disastrous consequences for the young woman. In another gospel, Mary’s fiancé Joseph considers divorcing her quietly, because he knows the child is not his. We can imagine the conversation among his family members. How can this be? Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
Mary is young: scholars believe that she was a teenager, maybe fourteen or sixteen. She is religious enough to understand what the angel means when he speaks of the Most High and the Son of God; and she is faithful enough to trust him when he offers her the sign of her cousin’s unexpected and blessed pregnancy. And she is courageous. Mary agrees to help God out and bear the child, who the angel says will be a great ruler of an eternal kingdom.
To be fair, the statements Gabriel makes are entirely within the context of the Hebrew prophecy about the Messiah. In the Jewish tradition, the Messiah was to be a descendant of David, and we heard this morning the prophecy in 2 Samuel about the eternal kingdom. Not only is Mary Jewish, she is in the lineage of David (although she is a poor relation, she is of David’s line – see Luke 3.23-31). Still, this was just so unexpected! And inexplicable.
Yet nothing is impossible with God. God has a dream. Mary says yes – and the whole world is changed.
I think that most of us are sufficiently jaded that we might look around for the hidden camera if an angel approached us with a message from God. We might smirk. Or wonder out loud if the angel needed his meds. Or perhaps we would just walk away, without making eye contact.
But what if we really encountered an angel, a messenger sent by God, asking us to do something only we could do? What if we could be God’s agents for change and blessing in the world? What would we say then?
I do not suppose we see angels every day in Waterbury. I do not expect one to show up in my family room or in the office, and I might be frightened if one did. But on a cold morning, a few days before Christmas, I think the sort of people who still go to church are the sort of people who might believe in angels.
What would we do with an angel offering surprises that were completely unexpected and not necessarily wanted?
Would we trust in God enough to say yes, although we might wonder why God didn’t ask someone more rich, famous or well connected to get something done? (Waterbury is surprisingly similar to Nazareth).
Would we let go of our fear and imagine that God really can do impossible things, using us as the agents? (Can anything good come out of Waterbury?)
Would we be humble and trusting enough to agree to do God’s will, even if it required labor that could be painful, even if we did not understand how things would work out? (Can we be part of the dream of God?)
We did not notice the visitation of any angels this week in the office. But our God is often a God of surprises and the message of the gospel is fairly clear.
By our baptism, we all get to be Mary. Not the Mary of mythology – of blue veils and piety, silently smiling, pure and lowly, virgin mother undefiled. We get to be the Mary of the gospels – the faithful person of strength and insight and courage. The one who has the nerve to follow Jesus as he preaches, and asks him to do something when there is no more wine at the wedding. The one who believes in Jesus, who repeats his story even after he was crucified. The one who is willing to bring God into flesh, into the world. The one who labored for the sake of God.
We are all invited to join Mary as she sings the Magnificat, that wonderful hymn (Luke 1.46-55) that testifies to the power of God to bring about reversals of fortune in a very broken world. Mary’s song is like a beautiful descant that hovers over the gritty harmony of her people’s poverty, failure and discouragement. In the shadow of danger, Mary celebrates. The Mighty One has done great things for her, and for us, too, lifting up the lowly, offering mercy, continuing to promise restoration and redemption.
This ancient text speaks to our world today. Carolyn Sharp of YDS says that “Mary’s courageous song of praise is a radical resource for those seeking to honor the holy amid the suffering and conflicts of real life.” [Magnificat for a Broken World, Huffington Post, Dec 14, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carolyn-sharp/luke-13956-magnificat-for_b_1146988.html].
In a season of budget cuts, anxiety over the future, and looking for someone to save us, there is no one better than Mary to show us what to do and how to do it.
The angels hover around us all the time, bringing us messages from God. The yes was said for us in baptism, and we repeat for ourselves several times a year. God needs St John’s and God needs us. We are the people who can bring the mercy and redemption of God into this corner of the world. And through us and through what we do, people may see the face of God. It may be the only glimpse they ever receive. I pray we do it with half the grace of the young girl from Nazareth.