conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

sermon: knowing mary

Well, this is the first of two offerings for the day. Follow the extended link to read the text. More to come!

Sermon: The Fourth Sunday of Advent, 2006
Community Church of Wilmette

Knowing Mary

Welcome to the Fourth Sunday of Advent…

I need to ask you all to do a favor for me if you can. I need you to hold on tight. Because, believe it or not, it is not yet Christmas. Some of us, maybe a precious few, are finished with our shopping. And for you, it may seem like God has indeed arrived! But for us as a worshiping body, it is still Advent. This is the fourth Sunday of Advent.

We have heard story upon story this season; stories of the end times, of a baptizer named John, of prophets and preachers. We have waited, pondered and prepared. Now it is Sunday, December 24th, the Eve of Christmas. We are so close, and maybe some of us want to dive in and open our gifts.

When I was a little boy we were allowed to open a single gift on Christmas Eve...in hopes that it would stave off the excitement for just a little while. Perhaps it would keep us from awaking our parents at four in the morning. As you can imagine, it never worked. So, I am asking you all not to open a gift early. I want you all to let the excitement build.

Hold on to Advent just a little while longer! There is one more story to hear, one more person to get to know...and she is a wondrous lady...Mary, the mother of Jesus.

What do we know about Mary? We know that she was a maiden, likely 13 to 16 years of age…and unmarried in a culture where her life was at risk because of being pregnant out of wedlock. Joseph could have abandoned her. Her family could have turned her out…even her cousin, Elizabeth. Simply making that journey to visit her cousin could have been dangerous.

Her entire country was oppressed, occupied by another nation...Herod is king...The Romans rule. And though her religion at this time in history is still allowed expression, she is decidedly a second-class citizen, a woman and an Israelite.

We also know Mary is the only person in scripture present at Jesus' birth, death and resurrection. She gives birth to him. She weeps at the foot of the cross. She witnesses the empty tomb.

We know that she has been the object of adoration and conflict. Some of what separates Protestants from the rest of Christianity is our comparative neglect of Mary. Some suggest we do not even know her at all.

So, then it is interesting to note that evangelicals in America are starting to take her seriously again. We are evangelicals, by the way, at least historically...if not in our current posture. Perhaps then we too should begin to reacquaint ourselves with Mary.

Questions arise for me. Is this inquiry is the fruit of ecumenism? Is this interest the result of the voices of the Emergent Church? Or is it that there is a hole in our theology? Again, though we are not particularly conservative, we are evangelicals. Have we missed something by our neglect of Mary? Is there a gap that getting to know Mary would help us fill?

We may be paying little or no attention to the witness of Jesus' mother, Mary. We loose something of the man Jesus by doing so.

Often, as our art and hymnody express, we think of Mary only at Christmas, as if her only function in the life of the church was the biological act of giving birth to Jesus. Once we journey away from the manger, her influence is over. We sing songs about how gentle and lowly she was, how sweet, meek, mild she was. We see images of her cradling the infant in her arms or in her lap in our artwork.

In the West we have this passive and submissive version of Mary...sweet and lowly, dressed in blue. We forget what other Christians express more clearly…her role as one of the apostles, as a teacher and leader of the church.

Father Patrick Reardon, an Orthodox priest and scholar, suggests something interesting about Mary and her history. He is curious about the historical origins of the nativity narrative itself. You see, the only scriptural narratives we have of the history of Jesus' life before his Baptism by John in the Jordan are found in the gospel accounts from Luke and Matthew. Thus, these two accounts are literary rarities. In Acts and in Paul's letters, all evangelical preaching begins the story of Jesus at the Baptism by John. No epistles mention an earlier period in Jesus' life. In no other place than the two Gospels do we find the nativity narratives. So, Patrick Reardon wonders, where do we get this information? Where did the stories originate? Perhaps, he suggests, from Mary herself. This is a generous interpretation, to be certain, but it offers us a wonderful portrait of who Mary was.

The Eastern Orthodox Tradition holds that Mary was the first Christian, the first follower of God, the first to accept Jesus for who he was, to open up her life in a profound and transforming way...She does so in accepting her role in the nativity narrative…

The girl who stood before her cousin and proclaimed the words sung for us this morning is the mother of Jesus. What we glimpse in the words from Luke's gospel this morning are the beliefs ascribed to Mary by an oral tradition she knew and shared in. These words are the core of Mary's teaching to the community. Luke remembers them for us.

He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.

These words are ascribed to the woman who would help teach Jesus to pray the Psalms, to go to the Temple, to be a faithful follower of God. These words are the words of the first Christian. At the very least, this is who the gospel writers understood Mary to be. She was the woman who would sing such a song as this. Getting to know Mary is to get to know the heart of Christianity. We too must learn to sing this song. My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord!

Many of us are likely familiar with the slogan "What Would Jesus Do?" Maybe we've seen it on bracelets or on bumper stickers. In general, the imitation of Christ is a laudable notion. The Gospel asks it of us. Many great theologians and saints of the church have spoken and written about it.

But WWJD gets parsed out to some ridiculous extremes.

WWJVF – Who Would Jesus Vote For?
- or perhaps more appropriate for the grammarians in our midst…
- FWWJV – For Whom Would Jesus Vote?
- One of my favorites: WWJD – What Would Jesus Drive

Now these slogans seem strange, foolish even. We atomize the faith, distort it, and turn it into a series of notions about what is right and wrong. In the attempt to remember Jesus, we end up setting aside the richness of the personality of God and resort to simple slogans and catch phrases.

But perhaps there is another way to look at this gimmick. Maybe we should be thinking about Mary instead…WWMB...or WWMS.

WWMS – What Would Mary Do? No. This misses the point and we fall into the trap of the slogans about her son.
WWMB – Who Would Mary Bear? Now we are getting somewhere.

You see, Mary provides an example for us all in the clearest way possible. She opens her life to God's mystery and desire for justice and mercy. She literally welcomes Jesus into her life, becoming willing to be transformed, to be the Christbearer for the world. This is an example we can follow. This is a spiritual metaphor for us. In our own way, each of us are called to bear Christ into the world.

This call is Incarnational…physical, fleshy. We are to put flesh on God. Mary's call is tenable, available to us now...And needs to be given voice now...there is no time when such a message should be silent. We are to advocate as Mary did, to bear Christ into the world...To bring forth the transformation that is wrought in us by God into the world.

True teaching about Mary leads to Jesus, bears up Christ, makes God's presence in the world real and true.

Micah Jackson, a preacher and scholar reminded me that one person who understood this was Jonathan Myrick Daniels. Daniels was an Episcopal seminary student in Cambridge, MA in 1965. He believed he was called to go to Selma, AL and assist with the reconciliation work going on there. His biography has this to say:

Conviction of his calling was deepened at Evening Prayer during the singing of the Magnificat, [The Song of Mary]. "'He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.' I knew then that I must go to Selma." [he writes,]. "The Virgin's song was to grow more dear to me in the weeks ahead."

On August 14th of 1965, Daniels life would come to an end. He was killed by a shotgun blast while protecting 16-year old Ruby Sales from a man who was trying to keep her from entering a convenience store. The call to imitate Mary can be dangerous...deadly. But this is because it is not a vain call, a lifeless call, or a utopian daydream. Mary is speaking living words...just as she bore Christ, the Word of God. So her words bear the truth.

Daniels was not the only minister moved by the Advent texts. Martin Luther King Jr., a good Baptist and evangelical, had a firm grasp of Mary's witness and the proper place of Advent in the world.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

He has shown strength with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever.

Can we see now that these men knew Mary? Their lives enfleshed God, brought God into the world?

Can we see that we are called to know Mary as well, to hear her teachings, to sit at her feet as an exemplary Christian and to work to change the world, to bring justice, to bear Christ into places where mercy has been silenced, and justice is ignored?

It may be difficult to imagine. These examples are so costly. But the call may be costly as Mary's proclamation is costly and dangerous. This is the example of the first Christian…the example of a woman, perhaps meek and mild and dressed in blue, but also a risk-taker, a prophet in her own right proclaiming the day of the Lord.

Knowing Mary gives a clearer vision of what Jesus asks of us.

Knowing Mary means that we cannot simply relegate Jesus to the realm of Good Ideas.

Knowing Mary means we too, the Church, must bear God's witness and give birth to it for the sake of the world.

To know Mary, is to bear Christ Jesus into the world. For God is our salvation, a merciful bringer of justice.

Amen.

Posted by tripp at December 24, 2006 06:16 AM