Today, the fourth Sunday of Advent we are met on the last stages of our journey to the manger by no less a figure than Mary herself, Mary, Mother of God!
Last year we met her as strong warrior, proclaiming from the home of her cousin Elizabeth, her song of promise for the downtrodden and the poor!
Her astonishing song, the Magnificat, sung Sunday by Sunday at Evensong. Do look again at its profound words, patterned on the Song of Hannah from the First Book of Samuel, in celebration of his birth.
Today we meet Mary with the angel Gabriel in the story of the Annunciation, that is, the delivering of the request from God, that Mary bear God’s son.
Story which has prompted so much exquisite art, particularly the Renaissance altar pieces we all love so much.
But this story is also, for some in today’s audience, problematic. For the feminist, what sort of God is it who asks such a thing – the deep shame of illegitimacy – asks this of a young woman, indeed a very young woman in today’s thinking, a girl probably around the age of fourteen or fifteen – what sort of God would ask such a thing of her?
What can justify such a request? Was it a request she could say No to? Then for those who want to engage critically with what the world tells them – can this story be understood as actual history?
These are serious questions – especially here in Hampstead, traditionally home of the intellectual. The Church is not meant to be a cosy club, offering the comfort of knowing everyone will agree with our way of thinking.
Sixty years ago the teaching of the Church concerned predominantly ‘salvation in the afterlife’, and in the particular part of the Church which I originally come from, saving folks from eternal hellfire!
There was little interest in social action – life before death! saving souls was all that mattered! Which meant that sadly, many individuals were persuaded into life choices for the sake of heaven, which – had they been more in touch with who they were, and supported in making their own decisions, were maybe choices they might have elected not to make.
Thankfully, I cannot think of any Anglican church now not engaged with the well-being of their wider community in various ways.
There are many spiritually hungry, those who have felt the gentle pulling of the Spirit.
Education has taught them how to think for themselves, they also have questions.
We, the Church, have a profound need for such people to come in and become part of us. We have much to learn from them, and the questions they ask. For we are always – not just in this year of Covid, we are always in some measure enclosed in our own bubbles, limited by our bubbles in our understanding – dare I say, missing out!
Back to Mary! Where does this story of Gabriel’s encounter with our young woman, and the understanding that she is a virgin and pregnant come from? When I was young it amazed me that all the Patriarchs’ wives were barren!
God had to intervene to give each one an heir! Pretty bad luck then! Except of course, that this is not, indeed it is far from, the point! These miraculous births were recorded as such precisely to signal to the hearer that the child to be born will play a significant role in the story, the history, of God’s people!
Thus not only Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, but Samson and then Samuel, all are conceived as a result of divine intervention! -480Is this history? Who knows? Does that matter? No!
The biblical text was not written holding in mind post-Enlightement parameters!
Divine conception was a commonplace concept in the Roman world, signifying the greatness of the individual about to be born! The ‘divine’ god-ruler, emperor at the time of Jesus’ birth, was presented to the Roman populace as child of an encounter his mother – not a virgin, has with the god Apollo.
So did the general populace believe this was historical fact? For the most part, this is not a question that would have occurred to them to ask. Thus at the time of Jesus’ birth there is already living on earth and come from heaven:
0a Son of God, Saviour of the World, the Prince of Peace!
Who is the bearer of these extravagant titles? The emperor Augustus! Though most of us are not aware of this history, it will not have escaped the awareness of first century Jews!
For me, hearing this history transforms my thinking about those early Christian communities! What strength of faith and courage must it have taken to claim those royal titles, already the preserve of an all-powerful ‘other’, claim them for a carpenter, tekton, from that wild land of Galillee!
Not only to claim those titles for the man from Nazareth, but to assert his superiority even, over the Emperor attested not only in divine conception, attested ever more powerfully in virgin birth.
Every reading of Scripture is an interpretation. We each bring to the text our favoured parameters, our particular hermeneutics.
God speaks through his Word to each one of us with individual nuance. Each of us will have aspects of our faith we prioritise, giving us unique understandings of the text and what it is God is saying.
Whether we choose to emphasize life before death, or future life after death. Whether we take the long view of Scripture, or like proof texts. Whether we prioritise purity, or compassion. All have their place. Together they form a whole greater than its individual parts. For some of us, that Mary was a virgin is integral to her story. For others, the virgin birth is metaphor pointing to a profound understanding of who Jesus is, his divinity.
As we sit still and wait on God with the stories of Jesus’ birth, we enter a new dimension, a mystical realm where God may speak to us in our inner spirit.
Speak personally into our own particular circumstances new understanding.
Unlike her cousin Elizabeth Luke gives us no clue as to why Mary is favoured! Grace is grace!
‘And with God nothing shall be impossible.’
As we draw to the close of this most strange and difficult year, this time last year, literally unimaginable, as of last night, our Christmas plans thrown awry, those words of the angel Gabriel can feel pretty trite. And no, it is not the case that if only we find the right words in prayer, all will be restored to us – even the impossible.
What it does mean is that as we stay with the grief that comes to all of us, pain we cannot circumvent, as we journey with it, allow ourselves to look at it, be honest with ourselves about it, explore it, in the presence of our loving God and Saviour, in mysterious ways beyond our own doing,
0we can begin to receive the hidden gifts which lie down the tracks, maybe a long way down the tracks, nevertheless gifts which can transform our lives and the lives of those close to us.
Stay safe. Take care. Amen.
If you would like to go deeper into the Christmas story, I highly recommend this book, ‘The First Christmas’ by Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan…. If your journey feels pretty dark right now, Barbara Brown Taylor,
‘Learning to walk in the Dark’.