Mary, Mother of God
a sermons based on Luke 1:26-38; 46-55
by Rev. Thomas Hall

This morning I feel like an outsider.* I am a fifty-something white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant male. Thus, I stand outside Mary’s door listening to a young teenage girl about to say yes to a God who has wild plans for her life. Her story will include things still quite mysterious to us men: an unexpected pregnancy, a young woman’s body that begins to change with each month, the womb stretching and growing, the thumping and bumping of a living thing inside the placenta, the contractions, the dilation of the cervix, the final "push," and the unmistakable sputtering and gasping of a newborn trying to get its first breath. That’s what her story will include; it’s many of your stories, too. But I stand outside the room, an outsider to such earthy, mysterious things and I can only wonder.

I’m not alone in my wonderment. Artists throughout the centuries have huddled outside her door trying to imagine what this scene must have been like. If you’ve ever been to the great cathedrals like Notre Dame in Paris or Westminster in London or St. John the Divine in New York City you’ve seen what artists have thought of Mary. Somewhere in those great echoey halls of stone and vaulted arches you’ll find her forever preserved in wood and paint and glass. Can’t miss her--she’s always the perfect model of womanhood, dressed in yards and yards of rich brocade, wearing a patina or golden glow just above her head. Her hair is plaited like a crown and her nails are perfectly manicured. She looks so elegant and together that it’s hard to remember that Mary is just a girl--in her early teens--and a youngster who has very little experience with men or angels or the world.

Ever wonder what Mary was doing when Gabriel the angel burst in on her unannounced with his message? Artists have. They usually have her spinning or reading at her prayer desk or absorbed deep in thought--perhaps pondering a very uncertain future or maybe having a premonition of some tragedy that will befall her baby when he becomes a man. So she sits there in repose when suddenly from nowhere comes this angel dressed as beautiful as she, coming to Mary like a papal emissary. In his hand Gabriel the angel usually holds a lily, an olive branch, or a royal scepter--symbols of the purity, peace, and authority that he brings from above. He kneels before this queenly woman to await the answer that he, God, and all the rest of the world depend. He wants her "buy in," to this grand scheme, her yes to God’s wild plans for her life.

But did you notice that Mary doesn’t seem to get to give her answer. The angel does not ask her if she would like to be the mother of God. He tells her--that God has been gracious to her, that she will bear a son, and that this son will grow up to become the king of Israel forever. The angel does not ask how it sounds to her or whether perhaps she might like to try out for the leading role; no, he tells her--the Lord is with you--and Luke tells us that Mary is quite befuddled by his words.

"How can this be?" Mary asks. And that is all she asks Gabriel the angel. What other questions might run through a teenager’s head in a moment like this? Will Joseph stick around? Will my parents support me in this pregnancy? Will my friends stand by me? Will I be able to go back to school? For how long? Will I get dragged into town and stoned for sleeping around? Will the pregnancy go all right? Will the labor be hard? Will there be someone there to help me when my time comes? Will I know what to do? Will I make a good mom? Will it hurt much? Can I support this child? You say that my baby will be the king of Israel and the world? But what about me? Will I survive his birth? What about me?

Those questions never made it into our Scripture, but the concerns must have weighed heavy on Mary’s heart. According to Luke, she listened as the angel told her the general idea about how it would all work out. Then came her turn to speak. She gathers that this whole thing is a done deal, that it’s going to happen. But she still has a choice--whether to say yes to it or no, whether to take hold of the unknown life the angel holds out to her or whether to defend herself against it however she can.

Mary is the only one in the history of the world who has that kind of a decision to make. In fact, in the Orthodox Church, Mary is called "Theotokos," or "the God-bearer," the one who decided to carry, give birth to, nurse, and to raise the son of God. In a special sense we understand that Mary truly became our Theotokos, the one who carried our Savior for nine months. Yet Isn’t Mary’s story an awful lot like our story too?

Methodists stand solid on the awareness that we make and live with choices. We are not carried on the winds of Fate. Lot of talk these days about all the choices we have, and about how it is up to each one of us to choose our own lives. But isn’t it also true that sometimes the events of our lives choose us? Our best laid five-year plans are interrupted by life’s own plans for us: by sudden illness and surprise babies, by aging parents and the economy. Terrible things happen and wonderful things happen, but we seldom know in advance what will happen to us. Like Mary, our choices often boil down to yes or no: yes, I will explore this unexpected turn of events or no, I will not.

If you decide to say no, you simply drop your eyes and refuse to look up until you know the angel has left the room and you are alone again. Then you smooth your hair, adjust your tie and go back to your spinning or your reading or deep thinking and you pretend that nothing has happened. If your life begins to change anyway, you have several options. You can be stoic and refuse to accept it. You can put all your energy into ignoring it and insist in spite of all the evidence that it is not happening to you. If that doesn’t work, you can become angry, actively defending yourself against the unknown and spending all of your time trying to get your life back the way it used to be. Then of course you can become bitter, comparing yourself to everyone else whose lives are more agreeable than yours and lamenting your unhappy fate. If you succeed in this, in playing it safe, in going back to the familiar, your life may not be an easy one, but one thing you can count on--no angels will trouble you ever again.

Or you can decide to say yes. You can decide to be a daredevil, a test pilot, a gambler. You can set your book down and listen to a strange creature’s strange idea for your life. You can decide to take part in a plan you did not choose, doing things you do not know how to do for reasons you do not entirely understand. You can take part in a thrilling and dangerous scheme with no script and no guarantees. You can agree to smuggle God into the world inside of your own body.

So you say yes to the angel, you say, "Here I am; let it be with me according to your word," and so saying you become one of Mary’s people, one more Theotokos who is willing to bear God to the world.

"We are all meant to be mothers of God," Meister Eckhart once wrote. "What good is it to me," continued this medieval mystic and theologian, "if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and world? Let God be born again in us."

Greetings, favored ones! The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid. For nothing will be impossible with God. Amen.

__________________________

* I am indebted in the writing of this homily to the very fine work offered by Barbara Brown Taylor in Gospel Medicine (Cowley Publications: Cambridge, 1995), pp. 150-153.