Sermon.
20 December 2015. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford.
Advent
4 (Year C)
Canticle:
Magnificat
Gospel:
Luke 1.39-45.
Just
yesterday someone stopped me in the street and said: 'If you're based
at St Michael's, you'll know my Mary'. I said there's more than one
Mary at St Michael's. So I'd need more to go on. It occurred to me
that this is not an unusual position. Indeed, when I was a curate in
Lincoln, in one of my churches I had this policy: if in doubt about
someone's name, just call them 'Mary'; I'd still be right more than
I'd be wrong. While this led to some perturbed looks from some men,
it still made sense.
And
another thing I have learned this week. A Cornish friend has said
that, at one time at least, there was a tradition in Cornwall of
calling the mother of Jesus 'Auntie Mary'. Does that sound
over-familiar? Well, it's worth remembering that in some African
cultures it's utterly normal to address any friendly woman as
'Auntie'. But if it does seem too informal, here is something that is
more 'proper': in your standard, classic Church-of-England parish
church, it is likely that there will be a side-chapel known as the
Lady Chapel. That does not mean and never has meant a chapel for the
ladies. It means a chapel named in honour of Our Lady, Mary.
So
Marys are important to us, and St Mary is important to the Church.
Even if you consider our own Church of England to be 'Protestant'
(and let's not go into that just now), we still have a number of
Feasts of Mary: her conception, birth, visiting Elizabeth, giving
birth to Jesus, taking him to the Temple, and her falling asleep. And
with them, supremely, the day once known as Lady Day, marking the
Annunciation, when Mary said a huge, universe-changing Yes to Gd,
such that in her own body she conceived and carried Gd the Son.
Of
course, if we were Catholic, we'd have all these Feasts of Mary, and
more. The 1st January, for example, is the Feast of Mary
in her title as the Mother of Gd. And if you were Eastern Orthodox,
you'd have other commemorations. One important Festival you might
never have heard of is the Presentation of Mary in the Temple.
(That's not the Presentation of Jesus by Mary, but of Mary herself,
as a young girl.) But, truth to tell, in Catholic and Orthodox
traditions, there are also any number of commemorations of Mary,
marking her believed appearance at various locations, like Lourdes,
or her image in various icons which are held to be miraculous or
otherwise specially worthy of honour.
And
today – as we have heard and as must now be painfully evident –
today we have another chance to focus on Mary This completes our
Advent themes: from the ancestors, to the prophets, to John the
Baptist... and now to Mary - as the climax of the story which brings
us up to the birth of Christ. Mary, the climax of that story, is that
important!
Or is
she? Why is Mary so important in Christian thinking and
through the Christian year? One answer was once radical but is now
rather commonplace. It says this: it is because so much of the rest
of Christian teaching is so very male. If we worship Gd called
'He', and further speak of that Gd as 'Lord' and as 'Spirit' but
especially as 'Father' and 'Son', then it's all rather biased
towards the male. However much we teach (as we do) that Gd is beyond
gender (this argument goes), the maleness of Gd is still reinforced
through our prayers, hymns and thoughts. With Mary (I say again: so
this argument goes), we have an element of balance.
I think
this argument cannot be dismissed. Far from it. But the question may
be: is it as simple as that? Does that say all that we need to say
about the importance of Mary? I rather doubt that.
But
there is one rather strong, and very obvious objection to treating
Mary as quite as important as she seems to be from what I've
presented. This is the insistence that in the New Testament itself,
Mary does not figure especially prominently. She is present, not only
at the beginning of Jesus' life (of course), and in his childhood,
but also, crucially(!), at the end. She visits Jesus during his adult
ministry, and in John's gospel they are both invited to the wedding
at Cana, where Jesus performs his first 'sign'. And... and... that's
really it.
It
follows that we don't have enough to go on to determine her
personality. She is not explicitly called especially loving, or
motherly, or uniquely holy.
So, why
is Mary so important, if the New Testament treats her as of
significance, yes, but not compared to a Peter or a Paul or the
Beloved Disciple in John's Gospel? Some would insist that we look at
the particular texts where Mary is mentioned, especially in Luke –
as we have this morning – and John. But actually it goes deeper
than any biblical texts.
I
believe that Mary is important because the Church in her wisdom took
seriously - actually increasingly seriously - the humanity of Jesus.
Not only was Jesus human (adjective), looking human and made of human
stuff, but he was a human being (noun), a human person, just like you
and I are human beings, human persons, save for sin alone. And if
Jesus was a human being just like us, then he was 'brought up', just
like you and me. He had to be 'brought up' as a baby, infant, and
child to adulthood. Then, in his humanity (a humanity just like
ours), he learned right from wrong - from being taught. And he
learned love - from being loved. To deny this is to deny that Jesus
was a human being like us.
You can
see where I am headed. The New Testament says that Jesus was brought
up by Mary and Joseph. But the bond with his mother is stronger than
with his father/step-father. This is for all kinds of reasons, not
least because of the time in Mary's womb, and because Joseph drops
out of the story altogether. So we find that we must say that Mary
taught Jesus, taught the Son of Gd Himself, how to love. And so,
if ever there is an imporant saint anywhere, Mary is important.
I for
one am actually very pleased that the gospels do not contain detailed
stories of Mary and Jesus loving each other. Imagine:
Mary:
I do love you, son!
Jesus:
And I love you too, mother!
I am
so glad you are so very loving!
Mary:
But, son, you are a nothing short of a miracle
in
your very being, and so easy to love!
Horrible,
no? Just imagine how sickly-sweet Christian liturgy might be, if we
had such texts. We don't. We are spared that.
But
we do still have the assurance - the reassurance – that, however
she did it (Mary's way of being a loving mother might be quite
different from what we'd expect or hope), Mary loved Jesus into
becoming the loving human being who, as Gd's Son, loved the world to
his death, and through death to a new creation.
We
actually have no reason to think that Mary was meek and mild in the
sense of mousey. She who said YES to Gd and the Angel Gabriel, she
who sang the fierce battle-cry of the Magnificant (read it again if
you wonder why I put it that way), was not some shy, retiring
creature. But it is true that much of her story is hidden from us. We
see its effects, in Jesus' life, but we do not know the details. As
the poet Philip Larkin said, albeit in a very different context, for
all of us, 'what will survive of us is love'.
What
will survive of us is love. On that note, how can I not end with
reference to another biblical Mary – Mary Magdalene. Magdalene,
whose name becomes... Madeline. As we as a community still mourn the
death of our own beloved Madeline, whose funeral was just two days
ago, we know that much of her story is hidden from us. That's the
nature of church life; we can share much, but not all. But what is
not hidden, what is absolutely visible, evident, and powerfully felt
by us, is her love. What will survive of her is love.
Madeline,
Mary
Magdalene,
Mary
the Mother of Our Lord,
other
Marys
... even
people with names that don't begin with M...
however
hidden our lives from public view and record,
we
too can bear Gd, even after the pattern of St Mary, by loving.
By
choosing and going on choosing to love.
Let
us do so. Amen.
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