“G-d bearer”
Saint Mary the
Virgin, transferred
18 August 2013
The Episcopal Church
of Our Saviour
Mill Valley,
California
Isaiah 61:10-11
Galatians 4:4-7
Saint Luke 1:46-55
INI
A Thousand Images
Last Thursday evening at the Church of the Advent in San
Francisco, many of us gathered along with Mother Lizette Larson-Miller to
celebrate the day in the Episcopal Calendar when the church is bidden to honor
the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was a remarkable evening. The church was packed, the choir sang
beautifully, Deacon Nancy Eswein preached an excellent homily, and we
remembered the Virgin’s Son, Jesus in the Eucharist. I was amused, however, that in the musical
selections for the evening, we collectively wandered from pillar to post,
wondering what it was that reformed catholics can say about Mary on such a
day. At some points her assumption was
mentioned, a celebration of her bodily assumption into heaven, not laid down as
dogma in the Roman Church until 1950. At
other points, her dormition, her falling asleep, in other words, her dying was
mentioned. In the Eastern Churches this
is the terminology that surrounds the Virgin.
Having visited both of her tombs, one in Ephesus, and one in Jerusalem,
I personally can see how this day can be confusing to some.
So why do it? That is
a very good question, which is worthy of our consideration today. Why do we honor her? Perhaps the question really is why do so many
Christians not honor her? Remember
the lines of demarcation between those who were Roman Catholics and those who
were not? It always seemed to center
about how we thought about or didn’t think about the Virgin Mary. The Romans did, and we didn’t. It is not that simple, however. The Protestantism that stems from the work of
Calvin in Geneva does not feel that the celebration of this day is worthy,
while the Protestants that follow from the English and German reformations
never forgot the huge role that Mary played in their lives or prayer and
remembrance. The piety that surrounded
the Mother of, that made its ways into the daily actions of life, this piety
was a comfort to the faithful, and a personal connection to Jesus. Luther, Cramner, and others did not give up
this aspect of their piety and prayer life easily. So what was it that they treasured?
Once on a trip to Florence, Italy, I began to register in my
mind all the images of the Virgin that I was seeing in parish churches, in the Uffizi,
in the Bargello, at the Pitti Palace, and in niches at street corners. They seemed to display a thousand images of
the Virgin Mary, sorrowful, joyful, as heaven’s queen, as a suckling mother,
pierced by swords, crowned by angels, a Byzantine queen, a humble young
girl. It began to become clear to me
that the power of Mary is that she was one of us. All of these guises and emotions linked her
to us – to how we live life – to what we have to survive. She seemed to me, at least, to embody my
prayer and my spiritual wants.
The Real Person
While I was still at Saint Mark’s in Berkeley, I would often
bump into professors and scholars whose work I admired. One of these came up to me one Sunday
morning, and said, “Father, you know I have not always been an
Episcopalian. I was raised as a
Baptist. I have learned to love the Book
of Common Prayer, the liturgy, the prayer offices, and the psalter. I love my life in this church, but what’s all
this stuff about the Virgin Mary. Didn’t
we give all that up?”
We had lunch several days later and we talked about her
“trouble with Mary” as she put it. I
dragged her back to Florence with me, and we talked about all of those
images. We talked about the images in
the readings for this day: Mary clothed
with righteousness in Isaiah, Mary in praise of G-d in the psalm for today, and
her prayers for the lowly and afflicted, Mary and the fullness of time in
Galatians, where G-d comes to us “born of a woman,” and finally in Mary’s song,
the Magnificat in the Gospel for
today.
The heart of Mary is the heart of her song. Listen to her themes and see if they don’t
apply in our day and age.
- My
spirit rejoices in G-d my Savior; he has looked with favor on (my) lowliness.
- His
mercy is for those who fear him
- He
has scattered the proud
- He
has brought down the powerful
- He
has lifted up the lowly
- He
has filled the hungry
- He
has sent the rich away empty.
- All
of this according to his promise.
As I have mentioned several times before, these aspects of
her song are very much a part of Luke’s outlook on life and what was needful in
the first century. There was suffering,
there was hunger, there was oppression, there were needs, and Luke places Mary
in the midst of them all – perhaps because she had experienced them all. And that is what attracts us to her. Confronted by an angel who declares that she
is to have child of some consequence she simply replies, “be it unto me as you
will.” This is the Mary who in spite of
all that she is portrayed to be is simply one of us – a handmaid, a servant of G-d.
My friend, the professor, seemed to understand this, but
mentioned that it would take a lifetime of prayer and action to embrace Mary in
a new way.
Another professor, of some renown, came up to me after my
second sermon at Saint Mark’s. It was
the Feast of Christ the King, and the Gospel was Luke’s crucifixion scene where
Jesus is enthroned upon the cross. I had
talked about how the crucifix, that image, had been suppressed among us – not
common in our churches at all. She came
up to me in the narthex, put her hand on my arm, looked me straight in the eye
and said, “We need to talk about the crucifixion.” And we did, some weeks later. Her contention was that there was a better
image that portrayed G-d’s love for humankind than the violence of the
cross. For her that image was of Mary
suckling the Christ child. In her mind
that was the image that spoke of G-d’s love.
Bearing Christ
One title that Mary enjoys in the Eastern and Western
Churches, amongst Anglicans, Episcopalians, and Lutherans is the title – Theotokos.
It means G-d-bearer. I am
hoping that you are musing in your own minds about why I have chosen to have us
celebrate this day, why I moved it to a Sunday, why I deem it so
important. And I hope that are wondering
what all of this has to do with life in Mill Valley, or Novato, or Ross, or
Marin City. The title is the clue. Mary is the G-d-bearer, or as some proclaim
it The Mother of G-d. I like the G-d-bearer
because, like all those images of Mary portraying her human needs and nature,
this title allows us to see what it is that we can do. Go through the images and the lines of the Magnificat, the points of contact are
many and approachable.
Feed a child – be like Mary.
Prayer for others – be like Mary.
Love Jesus – be like Mary. Feed the
hungry – be like Mary. See and feel the
sorrow and grief of others – be like Mary.
Remember G-d’s mercy – be like Mary.
Like Abraham, she is an example of the faith that needs to be more than
something expressed in our heads and minds.
Our faith, like hers needs to be expressed in the work of our hands, in
our prayers, and in our deeds.
On Thanksgiving, Arthur and I go to Texas, to Austin, to
visit and celebrate with his family. One
year we took my mother along. There she
met Arthur’s mother, now sainted, Pat Morris.
They spent some time together.
They were both faithful Christians – one a Catholic and one a
Lutheran. I am curtained that they
consoled one another about the lives of their children, especially their eldest
sons who were living life much differently than they had ever imagined. They left that conversation with a bond between
them. Pat gave to my mother an icon of
Mary – it was the image that united them, and my mother kept it at her bedside
until her death in January. The mothers
knew Mary the mother and it became a symbol of their own relationship and their
prayers for their families.
Mary, like other saints, is a touchstone. She is the human being we can look at and
perceive in her our own life, our own troubles, and our own victory in
Christ. Queen of Heaven? Maybe. The one who prays for and with us? Certainly.
The mother in whom we see all motherhood? Definitly.
The Theotokos – the G-d-bearer/
Unquestionably. Now the only question
that remains is, how will we be G-d-bearers?
How will we bring Christ from the Christmas crèche into the reality of
the life that surrounds us?
SDG
