Luke 1:26-38, Mark 3:31-35, and John 19:25-27Mary.
Mary the Mother of Jesus.
Mary the Mother of God.
Well, that's pretty strong language, isn't it? Mary, the Mother of God? But that's the language Christians in the fourth century believed was appropriate for this person.
After all, Mary is a Godbearer.
Mary is a vital part of our faith. We find her name and influence all over our scriptures, but we Protestants tend to neglect her. Well, we kind of . . . neglect her. . . We parade her around at Christmas pageants. We love to imagine her in that bleak mid-winter – snow falling, a frosty, sparkly topping to our crèche scenes. We like to think of her as our dear, sweet Mary – holding the baby that we love to sing Christmas carols about. But once that beautiful Christmas season is over, we place Mary back in the cardboard box. We stuff her in with the garland, glitter, and flickering Christmas lights. “Bye, Mary! See you next year!”
We treat Mary – this foundational witness of the Christian life- like one of our Christmas decorations.
But maybe we shouldn’t neglect her. Maybe we shouldn’t pull her out only once a year. Maybe we need to consider her life and witness beyond a timeframe on a calendar, because Mary has much to say to us about how we are called to live in this world. She certainly has a lot to tell us about the character of the God we serve. And she can teach us a lot about a beautiful spiritual practice of the Christian faith: Mary teaches us to bear God to the world and to bear one another.
You know, our introduction to Mary isn’t as pristine as our crèche scenes might like to imagine it. Mary was an unwed teenager. Can you imagine the stigma a fourteen year-old girl would have to endure in this situation? And her son wasn’t born in some stable of frosty delight either. We can’t fully know what the conditions of Jesus’ birth were, but this human being – this One whom the Gospel writers would come to call the Son of God – was placed in a manger at birth – a simple, profane feeding troth for animals! That’s no sweeping way to come into the world, is it? God comes into the world in and through a humble virgin? – an unmarried teenager? This socially stigmatized Mary bears God. Incredible, isn’t it?
And if Mary is a Godbearer, she certainly bears an interesting God to the world. After all, what kind of God is this? We might expect this God to come to us in a flash of lightning – to remain holy by staying separate, but this God chooses to become human flesh. This God chooses to be made known in a particular, human person with hands, feet, whimpering cries, and screams. This God chooses to be held in the arms of a mother who no one would expect.
What kind of God is this? This God grows to pray on humble human knees, becoming pledged toward creation. And this is the God who comes through someone as simple as Mary. This God proclaims a Kingdom where everything is turned on its head – where the last becomes first and the first becomes last. And this is the God who comes through someone as unexpected and last as Mary. This God honors the Sabbath by working, working to heal those who are in dire need. This God, this God born of Mary? What kind of God is this?
This God makes everything and everyone alive through sacrament - becoming baptized with tax collectors and sinners and breaking bread with the nobodies of this world. This is the God born of a fourteen year old teenager – someone considered to be a nobody, someone who broke bread with Jesus for years on end. This God remembers the covenant by living the spirit of the law anew – living into God’s dreams for creation, radically loving others no matter the cost. And the same God plays with simple children – “Let them come to me.” Jesus must have been influenced by his mother. Mary, what kind of amazing God did you bear to the world in human flesh?
This God transgresses every social norm if it will heal one who is desperate for care. This God came in the world, blowing apart a social norm right from the beginning in the life of this faithful young woman. This God acts in unexpected ways, choosing to live and to be found in the womb of an ordinary but profoundly faithful unwed Mother. That is an incredible miracle that we don’t need to celebrate only once a year.
Mary bears this God to the world. She bears this God to us. Thank God. It’s unbelievable.
And then, I’m so struck by the image of Mary standing at the foot of Jesus’ cross. There she stands, grieving – one of the only ones left who had the courage to stand by Jesus in his hour of greatest need. The other disciples have fled away in fear. But even here at the end – even in this scripture of death – Mary teaches us what it means to give life, to live in community as one who bears others. On the cross, Jesus unites her with another disciple, the person known as the “disciple that Jesus loved.” He says to her, “Behold, your son!” and to him, “Behold, your Mother!” Jesus unites the two of them and calls them to live in relationship with one another, and from that day forward, Mary enters the home of the disciple. We don’t know the rest of the story, but we can only imagine that they lived as family from that day onward. Again, how incredible! How amazing it is that God chooses to bless this woman named Mary as a Christian example of what it means to live the spiritual discipline of bearing, of giving birth. She bears God to the world and lives her life as a Lifegiver toward others. Mary the Mother of God. Mary, the Mother of Her Neighbor.
How do you bear God, and what kind of God do you reveal to the world? And how do you live in relationship with people, giving birth – giving new life – to those around you? We give thanks that God chooses us, just like Mary to be vessels that carry God and reveal God to others.
And to be honest, we’re not all that extraordinary. Sure, we’re good Presbyterians. We’re good students. We don’t smell too bad. But we’re just normal people. Just normal people. How amazing that God could use us like that?
How do you bear God, and what kind of God do you reveal to the world? And how do you live in relationship with people, giving birth – giving new life – to those around you?
Well, those might seem like big tasks, but it’s incredible to discover that they can happen right here. Again, we don’t need to look for a flash of lightning. We just look for God’s presence right where we are.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Madelyn Payne Dunham this week. She was the grandmother of Barack Obama who died only one day before the election. Some people voted for Barack Obama to become the next president. Some people didn’t. But I don’t think anyone can deny what an unlikely candidate Barack Obama has been. And like other presidents, he didn’t get to this moment in time alone. He was shaped. People bore him. A host of others gave life to him. As I listened to Obama’s acceptance speech on Tuesday night, I thought of his grandmother who raised him and died the day before. I thought to myself, “My goodness, this woman probably had no idea she was going to affect the entire world.” With the presidency comes a tremendous amount of power. We will have to wait and see how Barack Obama will use that power. But as I listened to that speech, I was reminded that when we love a human being, we have no idea how significant it might become.
How do you bear God to the world? And who do you bear in the process?
There’s a beautiful quote from the Talmud, which is Jewish commentary on the law. It says this: "Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world." That’s worth saying again. "Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world." I think this speaks volumes. First of all, it tells us that one human life is just as precious as the life of an entire world. It tells us that a particular life is worth saving. But when we invest in the life of others – when we bear them, when we bear God toward them – we’re not only impacting them but their children and all the people that they will influence. We are giving birth to a world.
And we don’t have to look to a flash of lightning from the sky to do it. We only have to look as far as here. Jesus said something so beautiful in that passage from Mark. Mary and his brothers and his sisters came looking for him. Now some may think that Jesus’ response was kind of smart-alec-y, but I don’t think so. I tend to think that he simply saw the occasion for a teaching moment with the people who were sitting right around him. “Who are my mother and my brothers and my sisters?” The text says that looked right at those who were sitting around him. That action was powerful when it was added to these words, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
Austin Agape, you are a community of faith. You’re also a family. You give birth to each other. Family is profoundly larger and wider than biology. And it need not be exclusive either. There are other members of our family who have yet walk into our doors. Mary has given us an incredible example of bearing God and of bearing one another. You can do that right here. Here is your mother and your sister and your brother. Right here! I think Jesus is always saying to us from that cross, “Behold, your child!” and “Behold, your Mother!”
Let God be born in you. Reveal that God to your mother, sister, and brother. Love deeply here and imaginatively invest in the lives of one another here. If you love one another, you are sure to impact an entire world.
How do you bear God, and what kind of God is revealed in you?
Who will you bear in the process?
- Renée Roederer, Campus Minister
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