Sermon for Advent 4 at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Mercer Island
Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation,
that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming,
may find in us a mansion prepared for himself. Amen.
[from the Collect for Advent 4]
Th Gospel for the fourth Sunday of Advent focus on Mary,
I want to say a few things about the Mother of our Lord,
and her witness of faith,
and the way we view her traditionally and biblically.
Throughout a couple thousand years of church history
the ecclesiastical institution has made assertions about her
that have been devotional in nature, or theological, or political
in order to emphasize one agenda or another
in a struggle for control, influence or power.
People respond or react to Mary.
It’s hard to maintain neutrality.
Protestants may be reactive to anything they see
as ascribing too much devotion to Mary
as “theotokos,” the God-bearer, Mother of God.
Or there may be reactions between one ethnic group and another,
such as suspicion about the attachment of Mexicans
to their strong devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe.
For much of the time the male hierarchy of the Church
has instructed the faithful about Mary in such a way
that she has been used to perpetuate
submission and subservience among women.
Although more recently in history
with a renewed engagement in biblical studies,
Mary has become an example and champion of liberation theology.
For instance,
in some Latin American countries her song, the Magnificat,
is considered to be subversive, revolutionary literature.
You see, everyone has to come down one way or another
in reflection about Mary,
all dependent on individual situations, cultures, and life experiences.
Mary is a lightning rod for our reactivity.
So saying all that, let’s look at this key text about Mary
and notice our own reactivity
and what that may say to us about our Lord and our relationship to him.
First,
the angel messenger was not sent to just any woman of child-bearing years.
There was an openness in Mary to God,
to receive what God was saying to her.
She was fertile ground
where the seed of God’s Word could sprout and flourish
and produce 30-, 60-, 100-fold,
or produce just one, but the One who would give life to all.
Openness to God –
where there is openness to God,
then transformation and healing comes.
This is a spiritual principle I see at work all the time
in the lives of those with whom I relate.
But what is it that brings the openness to God?
because as logical and as practical as that may seem,
I encounter great reluctance to being open to God.
For good reason, I think.
If you really are open to God, then watch out.
Things are going to change!
And, well, I don’t know if I want that,
especially if things are going along just fine.
But it’s when things aren’t so fine
that then comes the openness to God.
So maybe we are being given a tremendous spiritual opportunity here
for openness to God.
I would suggest to you
that Mary was not just some sweet, innocent, pious girl
disconnected from the realities of the world around her.
Mary lived during a time of despair for her people;
they lived under foreign rule,
oppressed and without freedom of self governance.
For these people the biblical stories of the past seemed distant,
the biblical promises of the prophets hopeless to be accomplished.
And in this context Mary, a woman in a patriarchal culture,
which itself was subject to domination by a stronger power,
was lacking in any significant political or social power.
So where could Mary go for any sense of hope?
Perhaps the only appeal she could make was to God.
After all the message of the prophets emphasized
God’s preferential favor for the disadvantaged,
the widow, the orphan, the poor, the oppressed.
And so her heart was open.
When there is pain and the suffering that results,
when there is violence on any of various levels,
the violence of crime, of war,
the economic violence of the rape of greed
perpetrated upon those poorer and less advantaged,
such as we see in the rise world-wide
of economic exploitation of workers as the new slavery,
or ponzi schemes that steel from investors and pension funds,
when there is death and loss and grief,
then, I would put to you, in the midst of acute suffering
is the heart more likely to be open to God.
This is not to say that suffering is good,
that evil should prevail so that it can drive people to God,
but that this is a crucial moment spiritually
when incredible encounter with God can happen.
So when the angel came to Mary,
the greeting it gave changed everything in her life
- and not just everything in her life,
but everything was changed for the whole world.
Mary, and what she would do, was key to all that would follow.
She would give her body, her whole being to be at God’s disposal,
and within her the very Word of God,
the One who was in the beginning with God and who was God,
through whom all things were created,
including Mary herself,
this very Word of God would become himself subject to creation.
And so the Spirit of God, who brooded over the waters of the deep
as described in the opening verses of Genesis chapter 1,
now came to Mary and enveloped her in the same creative brooding.
And the waters of Mary’s womb welcomed their own Creator.
If we were to give special rank or place
to any of the saints whom we hold up as Christ-like examples for us,
Mary would deserve the place of highest honor,
and it would be not just for being the mother of our Savior,
as significant and important as that is,
and certainly not because she is some sort of benign role model
for holy, submissive, gentle girls.
But it is for Mary’s obedience,
her willingness to take great risk as an expression of faith.
Mary looked at what the angel was offering her,
and we do not know how long she pondered the situation
before she said, "Here am I, the servant, the slave of the Lord;
let it be with me according to your word."
She looked at the risks and the danger, the potential and promise,
and she said yes - with an obedience to match Abraham
poised with his knife raised at Mount Moriah;
It is significant to note just who it is that usually gets chosen by God
for these kinds of jobs.
God has a way of choosing the poor and the humble;
this is God's preference in most all the biblical tales
- the poor and the humble and the most unlikely as God's representatives
and as God's partners in carrying out the great acts of salvation:
people like Moses - a murderer,
and Rahab – a prostitute in Jericho,
and one who was the youngest of 8 sons with the least to inherit, David with his wandering eye.
So at this time,
the most important key time in all the history of salvation,
God asked a humble peasant woman,
whom some say was no more than an adolescent,
to be the decisive agent,
to be the human partner -
in producing the divine child that would be our salvation.
Mary's agreement to being a partner with God
is our perfect example of obedience,
and, of course, this kind of obedience
is what God is asking of each of us.
This is not a matter of heroics.
For Mary from that moment of conception
the Holy Spirit was hovering over her, and her life was graced.
And so it is with us.
We are baptized into that same Holy Spirit.
We too are graced.
We too are called into obedience,
called not on the basis of our prestige or wealth or power,
but on the basis of our openness and willingness to risk faith,
our own obedience in making room within us for Jesus.
Mary shows us the way of opening
so that Jesus at his coming
may find in us a mansion prepared for himself.
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