Sermon: Mary, John, Uncertainty and Joy

Sermon. 11 December 2016. St Vedast-alias-Foster

Advent 3 (Gaudete Sunday).

Isaiah 35.1-10

Canticle: Magnificat

Matthew 11.2-11

The late and I would say great composer John Tavener once preached on Mary and the Annunciation in Durham Cathedral. I wasn't there. But a friend said to me that the highlight and good summary of the sermon was...

And Mary said YES [shouts].

I've often wanted to do that for years. Sorry that it happened on your watch, and if it woke you from gentle sermonic slumbers. His point was of course that Mary was a woman of great courage and confidence. Providing, that is, we understand that neither courage nor confidence means she was without fear. For it may well be that her own 'How can this be?', and her pondering things in her heart, had the quality of bewilderment about them. But she was a believer before-its-time in the slogan 'Feel the fear and do it anyway'. And so she could say 'Yes' [soft] to Gd and change not only her life but the world. Not only the world, but her whole life.

In today's Canticle, the Magnificat, we again see Mary as courageous and confident. With or without trepidation, she sees - she really sees as a prophet sees - the world being turned upside-down. The great and the good thrown down and the humble and overlooked raised up. We can have all kinds of discussions about how political the message is really, and what political consequences the Church should draw. But there is no doubt that the Magnificat is revolutionary. It is about a new order already breaking in, to displace, indeed to smash the old order. And, by the way, in this she stands in a tradition with other biblical revolutionary women – I say again, biblical revolutionary women – such as Miriam, Hannah and Judith.

Gd changes the world.

Gd has changed and is changing the world.

It is happening, it is real, it is evident, it is unavoidable.

Mary is confident.

The gospel proper for today says something a little different. Let's be blunt. It says that John, a prophet and more than a prophet, who also saw into the nature of things, was not sure about Jesus. He had to get his disciples to ask whether Jesus was the one to come or not. Jesus indeed gives an answer that (like Mary) says that the world is being turned upside-down. He relates his miracles to certain texts in the Hebrew Bible, principally from today's reading from Isaiah. The blind see, the deaf here, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. But – we are not told if this answer convinced John. The silence is deafening.

For John, Gd's actions in the world he knew were ambiguous, and the difference Jesus was making was open to different interpretations. Some people were healed by Jesus. But there are other healers in the world (as Jesus knows). Some people even receive their dead as alive again. But others have experienced that already in the biblical story. Think Elijah. Think Elisha. Other – very many other – people remain blind, deaf and dead.

And all this in the context were the People of Israel, of covenantal faith were still oppressed by an alien and godless power (as John has good reason to see it). Jesus, then, on this reading, may stand in a long tradition of the renewers of hope in Israel, with acts that are healing, glorious and symbolic. But it cannot easily be said that the whole world has been manifestly turned around.

This line of argument is of course that articulated by Jews to this day. Jesus cannot be the Messiah because – look around you – this is not the Messianic Age, which by definition is of global peace, justice, freedom, devotion and feasting. We may have a counter-argument. But we cannot say that this position is simply implausible. It is plausible.

And where are we? By which I mean of course: Where are you? In the middle of Advent hope... and in the middle of parochial hope. Which is to say you are in some senses still in a place of uncertainty. You are looking for renewal. You are on-the-point-of. You are at the threshold. What is ahead is not unclear. Will the world be turned upside-down? Will there be some kind of revolution, such as Mary sang? Or will there emerge a steadier process of renewal, which takes some careful discernment, some process of interpretation, such as John was trying out.

I have no answers for these questions, not being a prophet who sees through to the nature of things. I will share my intuitions – nothing more than intuitions – that the link with the Moot community is a creative one. And that you are, given all the uncertainties and frustrations you have had to deal with over so many months, a community in good health. Resilient. In any event, I pray with and for you, for a good renewal. That Advent hope flourishes into Christmas joy. Speedily.

Today is of course the day to pray that Advent hope flourishes into Christmas joy. It is Gaudete Sunday – Rejoice Sunday. Just as we have a chance to lessen our Lenten fast in the middle of Lent – Mothering Sunday - so also in the middle of Advent, we can moderate that Advent fast we are all keeping (ho! ho! Ho!), and rejoice.

I am not going to seek to 'explain' anything about this rejoicing to you. Except to make one important point that bears repeating: spiritual rejoicing is not the opposite of sadness or depression. It's about an orientation towards joy - which may come naturally to us, or may be hardest thing. But we look for joy.

The word 'Gaudete' comes from what used to be the Introit for today. How else to finish...

'Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. Lord, you have blessed your land; you have turned away the captivity of Jacob.'

To that, let us all, in the spirit of Mary say: Yes [soft]. Amen.