God-bearers

Mary the God-Bearer 2009
Isaiah 61: 10-11; Ps 34: 1-9; Galatians 4: 4-7; Luke 1: 46-55)


God can take flesh in our lives.

A medieval abbot shocked his monks. He taught that we are supposed to be so radically open to the presence and action of God that the Word can take flesh in us just as the Word took flesh in Mary of Nazareth long ago. Within the last year a “supportive spouse” who does not come to church heard of our name for today’s feast—Mary the God-bearer—and said “But we’re ALL God-bearers!”

Ironic, don’t you think, that a medieval monk and a post-modern de-churched Portlander would be on the same page?

But maybe it’s not so ironic. Maybe the hunger of Saint Bernard in the 11th century and an intelligent, well-educated Northwesterner is the same—deep, universal, and always new. Every searching heart wants to know that we are not alone, that there is a loving will that threads its way gently yet powerfully through our lives, that we simply do not live, breathe, love, suffer, and die with no one to mark our coming and our going. We want to know, we want to trust that in our lives, in our searching, in the cries of the suffering and the poor especially, there is an echo in the divine heart. And the answer of the divine heart to these questions and these cries is not to manufacture answers for the head, but to birth new and astounding life in our bodies and in our souls.

It’s a tender and audacious faith. Tender and audacious hearts are the favorite dwelling place of God.

Mary of Nazareth was such a tender and audacious heart. I was taught a sweet piety about Mary that got pretty sticky at times. “Gentle lady, meek and mild…”, and the old Church held her up as a role model for obedient children and submissive women.

It’s a good thing we read the Bible with clearer eyes today. Mary was one in a line of outrageous women who let themselves be changed by the divine fire. Miriam prophet-sister of Aaron, Deborah the Judge, Judith the warrior, Hannah who never lost faith or hope—all were powerful and all were chosen by God to make a radical change for the better. One of my first Bible teachers said, “When the God of the Bible wants to flip things upside-down, God looks for a woman.” Taking on the frightening news of the Incarnation, and facing the scorn and possible violence of an outraged religious population, was not the act of a weak or passive person. Gentle yes, but the gentleness is of someone who is empowered to be gentle from a deep place of peace and trust. Think Desmond Tutu gentle…

She wears so many faces, does Mary the God-bearer. All those who are in deep need take her as their own. Medieval peasants made her their great Lady, more beautiful and powerful and kind than whoever was Queen reigning on the local throne. On the image hanging in our kitchen at home her skin is a deep black, as is the skin of her holy Child. Our Hispanic fellow-parishioners see her with rich brown skin and glossy black hair like an Aztec princess.

We all see her as our own, because she is our own. She is one of us and among us, and the “yes” she said to God is the “yes” she assures us we can all say to the transforming power of God in our lives. The “yes” we say together with her as the Church is the “yes” to God’s tender care for all those poor, all those abused, all those ignored or most forgotten.

Mary’s “yes” to God is always fresh and always new. Fresh and new is her invitation to us to join her in saying “yes” to God.