Occasionally I have had a dream so vivid that I wrote it down
in order to ponder it and see what it was saying to me.
Let me share one of these dreams with you
because there is that liminal space between sleeping and waking
where mystical things can happen.
In this dream I saw the figure of an angel,
much like the angel of the annunciation in the fresco by Fra Angelico.
It was in the crouching position of a genuflection
in a swirl of flowing robes with arms crossed over the chest.
The angel said, “Open the door.”
And then I awoke.
“Open the door.”
These words are simple, but also pregnant with so much meaning.
So today, since the focus of the Gospel is on Mary,
who opens the door to the Angel Gabriel,
I will say a few things about the Mother of our Lord.
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 about her.
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.
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 just one, but the One who would give life to all.
Open the door to God –
where there is openness to God,
then transformation and healing can come.
This is a spiritual principle I see at work all the time.
But what is it that brings the openness to God?
because as logical and as practical as that may seem,
I encounter great reluctance for opening the door to God.
For good reason, I think.
If you open the door to God, then watch out.
Things are going to change!
If things are going okay in our lives
I may not want that disruptive change.
But it’s when things aren’t so fine
then one is more likely to open the door for divine intervention.
We actually have a spiritual opportunity here.
Now, you need to realize
that Mary was not just some sweet, innocent, pious girl
disconnected from the realities of the world around her.
She lived during a time of despair for her people,
stuggling under foreign rule,
oppressed and without the 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 as a woman in a patriarchal culture,
which itself was subject to domination by a stronger power,
Mary was lacking in any significant political or social influence.
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 alien living among us.
And so her heart was open.
When there is pain and suffering,
when there is violence on any of various levels,
when there is war and natural disasters and famine and contagion,
when there is death and loss and grief,
then, in the midst of acute suffering
the heart in desperation breaks open to God.
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 at creation
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;
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.
Open the door.
Mary opened the door and her body became a mansion,
and what emerged from that open door in Mary
was the Light of the world.
Open the door.
The Holy Spirit, the Resurrection Presence of Jesus, the Holy Divine
whispers to us, “Open the door.”
And we too become a dwelling place for the Divine
and our humble bodies too can grow into mansions.
And from our open doors Light pours in
and Light can stream forth.
Leonard Cohen sang of this:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
This whole world is cracked.
It’s been a rough year for so many.
But here is the hope.
That crack in your life and in mine is the door.
Let it open, even with the pain and grief and sorrow.
And the light that gets in is a healing light
that turns a hovel of a stable into a mansion
and gives birth to new life to fill the world again with Light.
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