Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary 
19 August 2012
Preached at Church of Our Saviour, Killington VT

Do you remember waiting out the advent of Tropical Storm Irene? It’s a weird thing to know this THING is coming right at you, and there’s little you can do about it. I remember waiting for one to hit New Jersey in the mid-1980s. The five other teachers with whom I shared a house and I sat in the living room watching the pulsating pink or purple blob on the television screen. We didn’t know how bad things would get; all we knew was that school had been cancelled for the next day. The storm’s approach was inexorable and while it was exciting (and for a bunch of under 30 teachers, wonderful that we had no school the next day), it was also a bit unnerving. Last year on Saturday night the 27th, I was more enthralled by the complete emptiness of Grand Central Terminal in New York City and worried about my parents and brother who were without electricity, smugly thinking that Vermont was just going to get a little bit of rain. Little did I know.

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The Feast of the Theotokos, the God-bearer, Mary, Mother of Jesus, is normally observed on 15 August. I have always celebrated her feast, largely because of being at Saint Mary’s Northfield for so long, but also because I love Mary. I ask your indulgence for transferring her feast to today.

Gabriel’s coming to Mary was, in a word, a hurricane that entered into her peaceable life. Unlike modern-day hurricane watchers, she had no warning whatsoever before her life was torn apart and the world she had known was thrown into a state of upheaval. When I think of Mary at this point of her life, I connect with her the words to the last stanza of hymn 661 which state, in part, ‘The peace of God it is no peace….’ Her life became anything but peaceful. Emotional gale-force winds hit her with Gabriel’s innocent-sounding, ‘Hail, o favoured one.’

God, by way of Gabriel, came to her, announcing that she would be the God-bearer. In a way, God was saying to her, ‘You must do something for me. You must trust me and know that all will be well. I will take care of everything for you if you just listen to me and do what I am asking you to do.’ She, of all women, would give birth to God’s only begotten, the Christ, Immanuel, God-with-us. God’s message to her was about change, big change, change that would not only turn her life upside-down but that of humankind. Gabriel’s opening words to Mary, ‘Do not be afraid,’ tried to convey a sense of stability for Mary, and the sense that God would be watching out for her… that is, after changing her life.

So what is Mary’s response to Gabriel’s unheard-of, otherworldly announcement? Not one of fear, not one of trying to run in the other direction, but rather, one of strong confidence.

Mary responds with words that lie at the basis of my life: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour.’ In her hymn of praise, similar to one of the oldest hymns in the Hebrew Scriptures, the song of Hannah, Mary describes the hope of an age when all are blessed because God, through Christ, will bring God’s promises to completion. The Magnificat describes God’s actions in everyday life that will bring about the fullness of God’s reign. It truly is a song of hope.

As a person of the land, one of the oppressed of the day, Mary’s proclamation of massive societal reversals in God’s name takes courage to utter. One gift Mary gave us by her person is the gift of courage. She accepted the risk of unwed motherhood in a society that would have stoned her to death if they really knew what was going on, and she did so with conviction.

How was Mary able to utter ‘Yes’ to something so earth-shattering, something that would alter the course of history as people knew it? A ‘Yes’ to something that endangered her own life? Yet in those simple words of ‘Here am I’ that precede the Magnificat in Luke’s gospel, Mary makes clear she will go where God asks her to go and do what God asks her to do.

How many of us can do the same without trying to wiggle out of God’s proposition? How many of us would first say, ‘I can’t do this’ and then need many more reasons from God telling us why we can?

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So often the focus of my prayer lies in this question: ‘Just what is God calling me to do?’ I can be just like Jonah who, when God called him to be a prophetic voice to the people of Nineveh, turned and went in the opposite direction. I can be like the little child who thinks that by putting my hands over my ears and not hearing what God is telling me, then whatever God is saying is not true or does not exist. But it doesn’t work that way. God’s small still voice, like a small stream of water finding its way through cracks of the earth, pierces through my hands, into my ears and heart. Other times, God is utterly silent and I just have to hang in there and trust in God’s silence.

What is God fundamentally calling me to do? Simply to say ‘Yes’ to what God asks me. Do I know what God is asking? Not always. But I know deep in my gut that I am called to listen, and be ready to say ‘Yes’ even when doing so can turn my life upside-down. And that is not an easy prospect.

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What about the people of Church of Our Saviour this morning? Today marks the first Sunday in a new adventure that is going to unfold over time. We have said goodbye to Diane and Margaret and now it is time to figure out, ‘What next?’ It is really easy for congregations entering a period of transition to panic, to go into fear mode or to tread water, waiting for the next ordained person to tell them what to do. Somehow I don’t think — and pray — that this will not happen here. Mission Farm has wonderful leadership and you can thrive as you find new ways to say Yes to God’s nudgings.

During communion, Melissa is going to sing John Lennon’s famous song, ‘Let It Be.’ We know well its words. ‘When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, “Let it be.” And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be. For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see, there will be an answer, let it be.’

Many people, I think, interpret the song as saying, ‘Accept what is going on. Let it be. Don’t fight it.’ I think otherwise. Mary was no doormat. When liberation theologians have approached her, they see a woman who stuck her neck out, and did not accept the status quo that, ‘Let it be,’ implies. Mary may not have explicitly kicked against the goads, but she stood at the foot of the cross, a sword having pierced her heart, yet remained faithful to the end. In her own way, she stood up for change and did so without fear even as her entire world collapsed around her.

Mary, then, can serve as a good reminder of several things: how to embrace change without fear, how to say ‘Yes’ to God even when one does not know what that yes entails and how to be faithful. I pray that these characteristics will infuse your lives at Mission Farm as you move into a new chapter while remembering and incorporating the past chapter just finished.

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If we look to our mother, Mary, gift-giver of hope, courage, and conviction, we will find the capacity to say ‘Yes’ to God’s outrageous demands. And we’ll even be able to proclaim, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord,’ even as God demands heavy costs for we know that all will be well, all will be well and all manner of thing shall be well.