Sermon by The Rev’d Neil Fernyhough, preached December 23, 2007 (Advent IV)
Readings: Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25
“[Mary] was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” – Mt 1:18
Today’s Gospel presents us with the timeless story of the Annunciation…to Joseph. I always find this part of Matthew amusing: The fiancé is being told of the pregnancy – and unless he shared this information with his betrothed, one wonders what she must have concluded about how pregnancy happens.
Despite this properly patriarchal take on what is more familiar to us from Luke’s version, for me, the Fourth Sunday of Advent will always belong to our Lady, the Blessed Virgin, the mother of Jesus – Mary, the prophet of liberation. As you can see, she goes by many names – because she does, after all, have many faces. To some in the church, she is merely the fortuitous receptacle of God’s holy seed; to others she is the specially appointed bearer of God in Christ and co-mediator with her son of creation and redemption. But to me, she represents the best in humanity through her ability to integrate radical personal independence with humble submission to the will of God.
This may be why popular views about Mary are so conflicted, sometimes heatedly so. To some, her submission and forbearance make her the ideal symbol of womanhood and motherhood. To others, these same characteristics cast her as an icon of oppression – an unattainable model of purity in her impossible state as both virgin and mother. And still to others, especially in places like Latin America, she is held up as a subversive figure – a marginalized peasant woman who overcomes her subjugation to forge a special relationship with God, bearing in her womb the divine liberator of the oppressed.
We do well to focus our gaze on this remarkable woman as we plunge into Christmas, the celebration of the incarnation of God in her holy child. Many in the Church over the centuries have worked hard at domesticating our image of this complex figure, re-making her to fit a certain model of womanhood, a model which encompasses the spoken or unspoken assumption of woman as subservient to man. But she’s not some impossible ideal or theological oddity. She was a real flesh-and-blood human being. Indeed, she is a model for us of courage, autonomy, and holiness – and in these qualities, she embodies the message of this season.
In her bearing the child of God, Jesus, Mary became a herald of good tidings—a herald beyond the prophets of the Old Testament; a herald greater than even John the Baptist. For it was she who partnered with God to bring the Word of life and salvation into the world. And in sparking the light of liberation, she participates in the liberation of the world. In assuming the motherhood of our Lord she became the mother of us all. Yes, Mary lived in a patriarchal society, one in which the very being of women was defined in terms of their male relationships. But she lived in no man’s shadow, she was not cowed. Rather, she was a model of strength, courage, and emancipation.
The message of Christ, consummated in his resurrection, is one of liberation from sin and death. But we often forget that this liberation is not just a spiritual one—it’s about everything. The ministry and reign of Christ is about political and social liberation, focussed on building the realm of God. And so the New Testament is full of declarations of reversal: the poor will be fed, the powerful will be brought down, the outcast will be embraced. Do these words sound familiar? They should, for they are hers, sung in what has come to be known as the Magnificat. She sings this proclamation which Christians worldwide have chanted daily for centuries at Evensong or Vespers, and which we sung last week. It has to mean something to us, I suppose, or we wouldn’t be doing it.
Mary’s proclamation is not of words alone, for she is a woman of action. For her, the Word of God is not just an utterance. In Hebrew thought and vocabulary, rbd, which means “word,” is not a passive concept. The Word of God has the force of creation—and, like the Word which creates the heavens and the Earth, God’s Word, spoken to Mary, enacts. Mary’s “yes” in response to God set off a chain reaction, a new creation, which is still unfolding to this day.
When the angel conveys God’s announcement to Mary, there is no whiny arguing with God, like Moses; no constant digressions from the path, like David; no flight, like Jonah: No. There is acceptance, pure and simple: “let it be with me according to your word.” By her decision to, like Jeremiah, consume the scroll of God’s command, she becomes a prophet. She becomes a prophet, first, by bringing the Son of God into the world. She is a prophet, also, in making this choice cognizant of her child’s fate – “a sword will pierce your own heart,” she is told by Simeon in Luke’s Gospel. Nonetheless, Mary shares in the sacrificial path of her child, because she sees it as an escape out of the darkness, a trapdoor opened to all. Mary is a prophet by her witness at the Cross, while others skulked off. Finally, she is a prophet through the leadership she provided the early Church, which another of her sons, James, led after Peter’s arrest. By her very being, Mary exemplifies what it means to be a prophet, which is to reveal the Word of God.
The Fourth Sunday of Advent is one of those days when we have an opportunity to celebrate Mary, and to acknowledge the “yes” that changed the world. As an unmarried woman in first century Palestine, deciding for pregnancy was indeed a risky “yes” to give, but Mary saw in it the seeds of liberation for many like her, through her child. Jesus, who embraced the dishonoured, the scorned, and the abused, is the product of that “yes,” which echoes through the ages. And it is a “yes” which still resounds, for Mary continues to be mother of the Church, and an intercessor for the afflicted.
For us today, Mary stands as a model of liberation and of affirmation. She has made possible for us an active intimacy with God—a possibility we can either seize or squander. As we approach the end of another year, the world seems ever more a cold and frightening place. The flame of liberation burns very low, indeed. War, starvation, disease, and environmental catastrophe continue to ravage untold millions. Under such conditions, Mary’s affirmation is a “yes” to love. That “yes” emboldens us to blow on the flickering embers of love whenever and wherever we might find them – here in this parish, in Sechelt, and around the world.
During this Advent season, I have spoken to you about preparation and about proclamation. I have asked you to consider the meaning of these in your life of faith at this time. On this, the final Sunday of Advent, I ask you reflect on what “affirmation” means to you. God is inviting you to respond to God’s call for discipleship by saying “yes.” To do this, we must first “renew our minds,” as St. Paul said, by which he meant we must pray for the discernment of God’s will, and for the strength and courage to act on it. Mary, discerning the will of God, acted. And that made all the difference.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
© Richard Neil Fernyhough, 2007
