4 Advent 2014
Today, based on the number of
shopping days left for Christmas, is the 4th Sunday of Advent. And
as some of you may also know, it’s the 3rd Sunday of Advent which is
traditionally known as “Rose Sunday.”
Traditionally, Rose Sunday (or Gaudete
Sunday) was a day of refreshing during the penitential season of Advent.
Apparently, there is also one such Sunday in the Season of Lent—but we’ll worry
about that then.
Anyway, Rose Sunday, in Advent
became known also as “Mary Sunday,” and is likely because it was also the day that
the lectionary reading recounted either Mary going to stay with her relative
Elizabeth (the mother of John the Baptist); or, like today, the story of the
Annunciation.
Well, as you may remember, last
Sunday’s Gospel reading was not about Mary, the Annunciation, or any of those
things—it was about John the Baptist. And lest we become more confused by this,
I decided to save the rose color for today…
Right! So, Rose Sunday—Mary Sunday…
Honestly, many people who have grown up with a Protestant background probably
are not really sure what to do with Mary… Certainly, she has an important role
in the birth of Jesus, and the Nativity story (which is convenient). So, like
Santa Claus, Mary shows up for many of us only around Christmas time.
Only, I would imagine there are
many Protestants who are more comfortable with Santa Claus than they are with
Mary…
And this is probably due to any
number of things. That rugged Protestant sensibility that demands evidence of
Mary’s importance in Scripture. As inheritors of Martin Luther’s Sola Scriptura (or Scripture alone),
anything which might fall outside of biblical narrative (even Church tradition)
is cast in suspicion.
However, for some of you who have
come from a Roman Catholic tradition, you may fell you’ve had a bit too much of
Mary. After all, in some places in the Roman Catholic world, Mary is spoken of,
and venerated in ways that sometimes seem to obscure devotion to God. In fact,
in some circles Mary is spoken of as a co redemptrix(which refers to Mary’s
role in the redemption of humanity, but as you can imagine could get pretty
murky, theologically speaking).
Anyway, there are obviously some
very different feelings about Mary in the Christian faith, and with that some
very strong feelings which often cause division. But, as one of my colleagues
from Ohio said in one of his sermons, we have to be able to talk about Mary
without the threat of breaking into Protestant hives… Because, after all, there
really is a lot about Mary which is important to us, and our lives of faith.
But, then, how do we strip away
years of distrust; or even centuries of indoctrination to try to get at some
meaning from the life of this woman who understood Jesus in ways we can’t
possibly comprehend? How do we, at the very least, begin to unravel so much
mythology about Mary, so that we can begin to understand why she did take on such a prominent role, even
in the earliest time of the Church?
Well, to start, I think we need to
begin with Scripture to begin to get a picture of who Mary is in this context.
Now, as you well know, the Bible
doesn’t say a whole lot about Mary. Much of what we have about her comes from
the birth narrative in Luke’s Gospel, followed by small vignettes of her
interactions with Jesus. But even in these small glimpses, we can learn a lot.
We know she was betrothed to Joseph
(which is even more binding than our modern understanding of engagement). We’re
also told that she is devout in her faith, and by context, we can assume she
was relatively young. So, if we can put aside the two-dimensional, greeting
card version of the Annunciation; we might be a bit more surprised at Mary’s
response to the angel’s request to bear the Son of God…
From other accounts in the Gospels,
Mary seems sort of unclear about the meaning and identity of Jesus. She seems a
bit surprised that he would wander into the Temple away from the family. She
seems to miss the point when Jesus refuses to leave his disciples and return
home with her and his brothers… So, we may wonder where so many claims about
her devotion come from.
Well, considering that no one
really knew what to do with Jesus in the Gospel narratives—I suppose we should
cut Mary a little slack. What’s more, I think that, whether she realized the
full import of who Jesus was to be, or not—it’s my sense that she did what any
mother would do, and tried to keep her son out of trouble.
Besides, there are a number of
other things that speak very clearly to Mary’s insight. Obviously she knew
Jesus well enough to know he could do something about the wine running out at
the wedding feast in Cana. (In fact, she doesn’t even give him an option to
refuse to do anything…she just tells the servants to do whatever he tells
them). More than this, Mary is one of the few people willing to follow Jesus
all throughout his Passion. She follows Jesus along the way as he carries his
cross; later she stands with a few other women who were close friends with
Jesus—as well as John—at the foot of the cross watches her son die. She even
receives his body after Joseph of Arimathea has paid to have it taken down from
the cross…
In some accounts, she is with the
other women who go to the tomb to prepare the body of Jesus, only to find that
he has burst forth in resurrection glory… And, finally, Mary is among those who
is in the Upperroom on the Day of Pentecost (after Jesus has Ascended back to
the Father). There, along with the closest of Jesus’ disciples, Mary received
the Holy Spirit.
Tradition tells us then, that after
the events at the cross—where Jesus commends Mary to the care of John—that she
and John retired to a quiet place in Ephesus. And even if that’s true, we could
imagine that she was the source for any number of stories of Jesus, as well as
an important figure in the Early Church.
As to Mary’s preeminence in
subsequent centuries—this came mostly from the Early Church councils which did
their best to figure out what Jesus meant
to our understanding of God… And, if Jesus is the Son of God…well,
naturally we can reason that Mary would have some pretty important role, as
well. And once the councils had (for the most part) settled into the idea that
Jesus is both fully human and fully divine; in 431, the Council of Ephesus
affirmed Mary as the Mother of God—a title which still gets some people a
little squirrelly.
Now, admittedly, some Marian
devotion has gotten out-of-hand. During the Late Middle Ages, during times of
plague, famine and war; many people throughout Europe began to believe that the
Church was being punished. So, because Jesus was angry and wreaking havoc
throughout the known world—many of the faithful began to turn to Mary as a
Mediator to her Son. Likewise, Mary took on any number of qualities and
patronages which previously had belonged to pagan goddesses, and before anyone
knew it, Mary had become something of a cult unto herself…which isn’t good. But
this is to say, that if we through her out with all of the conjecture and
legend that has grown up around her, we lose a lot.
After all, in Mary, we see what a pure
devotion to God can mean—this doesn’t mean that God will send an angel to tell
us we’re going to get pregnant our of wedlock—but it does show what God can do in the world when we’re willing to say
“yes.” And in Mary’s case, she was willing to say “yes” to God when humanity
often responds with “no.”
Likewise, Mary is an example of
stalwart faith. Even after the disciples have abandoned Jesus, Mary risks a lot
to follow him on the road to Calvary—and it’s likely that in this more related
to her motherhood than her faith in Jesus. But, even in this, we learn how to
love very well.
Finally, looking back, we can see
that Mary was present at most all of the important turning points in the life
and ministry of Jesus. She seems to affirm his divinity, but always—always is
the reminder of his humanity—the fact that while he is the Son of God, he still
very much belongs to us…
And while I don’t know whether or
not anything that I’ve said here has changed your thoughts about Mary; I will
say that when we try to figure out how we’re supposed to live as examples of
Jesus—I think that either we can become discouraged at how impossible a task it
feels. But, then, if we were to perhaps try to understand our lives to be lived
a bit more like Mary’s…well, we might still feel that it seems a pretty high
calling—but, if nothing else, we might learn that living a faithful life to God
begin most simply by saying “Yes.”
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