The gospel writer Luke introduced us to Mary the mother of Jesus in what we read last week. You may recall that I made a big deal about how unremarkable she was. In what we read the week before we met Zechariah and Elizabeth. Luke told us they had perfect pedigrees and that they were upright and holy in all respects. They would go on to become the parents of John the Baptist. By contrast Luke tells us nothing, absolutely nothing, about why God chose Mary. We are left to conclude that what made Mary special was simply that God chose Mary. God’s choice was God’s choice because that’s what God chose. It’s a perfectly circular bit of logic! But Luke does not let Mary’s character go completely undeveloped. In what we read today her personality explodes into the storyline. Quite likely, however, we missed it. And I am saddened to say that many western biblical interpreters miss it too.
It
starts with the very first line of what we read, “In those days Mary set out
and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country…” (Luke 1:39)
Okay, so what’s so remarkable about that? Here’s where our lack of geography and social
customs fails us.
That
journey, which it appears Mary takes all by herself, is a journey of at least
70 miles. 70 miles! When was the last time you set out on a 70
mile walk? And, remember, Mary is
probably 13 years of age! Forget 1st
century Palestine. Think about
today. How would you feel about a
13-year-old girl just up and walking 70 miles to visit a relative!?! It’s not safe! In fact it’s downright nuts! And 21st century America is far
safer than 1st century Palestine.
So, it turns out 13-year-old Mary
has got some guts! She’s either very
brave or she’s crazy, or probably some mix of the two.
There’s a second issue. Consider these thoughts from commentator Joel
Green, “As a young girl, Mary would not normally have left her home without
accompaniment – either to browse her hometown or (especially!) to travel some seventy
miles to the hill country around Jerusalem.
Until she entered the bridal chamber, a girl lived in seclusion in her
home.” (New Interpreter’s Bible
Commentary, Luke, Pg. 94-5)
Said differently, Mary is thumbing
her nose at societal expectations of a girl.
And, according to Luke, she goes of her own accord. The angel doesn’t tell her to go see
Elizabeth. The angel tells her about
Elizabeth’s pregnancy but nothing more.
Mary, all on her own, in complete
disregard of all social propriety, and with disregard for the physical dangers,
goes on a 70 mile journey.
When I think of Mary the mother of
Jesus the first image that pops into my mind is someone along the lines of the
way the Christmas carols speak of her.
Mary… sweet, tender, meek, mild.
Mary… obedient, accepting, vulnerable.
That is NOT the way Luke describes
her. Who knows what her attitude really
was, but based on this trip she’s a strong woman and she’s got guts!
I often envision Mary telling Joseph
of her pregnancy with fear and trembling in her voice. I imagine her scared out of her wits that
Joseph will reject her and that she will have to live a life of shame and
humiliation. But based on this text I
imagine her striding up to Joseph, poking him hard in the chest with her finger
and proclaiming, “So Joseph, this is how it is.
I’m going to give birth to the Son of God. You’re going to marry me anyway. That’s just the way it is because God said
so. If you’ve got a problem with that
then take them up with God!” And then
Joseph, shrinking from this little firebrand of a woman, nods his head in
visible agreement.
Pants hadn’t been invented yet so
this image doesn’t work, but it’s quite possible that Mary was the one who wore
the pants in the family!
Going a bit further into the text we
find Mary’s bold actions are echoed in the attitude behind her words. Mary’s song, often called The Magnificat,
may sound sweet in our ears. But we read
it with the ignorance of 21st century white American church culture. Read The Magnificat from the point of view of
a black person, or a third world person, and you get a completely different
feel.
We interpret her words as
sweet. But I invite you to sit down and
read it carefully sometime. Realize that
what Mary says could quite possibly be a religious terrorist manifesto. Consider:
“[God] has shown strength with his
arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their
thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and
sent the rich away empty.”
So, the powerful will be brought
down. The lowly will be raised. And notice how boldly Mary speaks. Notice the tense of her verbs. She does not use a future tense. She does not say, “God will show strength with
his arm… he will bring down the powerful...
he will send the rich away empty.”
No, she uses the past tense. She
is so certain of God’s promised future actions that she speaks of them as if
they’ve already happened!
This girl’s got faith! And bold confident faith at that! As Luke portrays Mary there is nothing meek,
mild, or tentative about her.
The content of what Mary says in the
Magnificat will come up over and over again and be developed further as we go
further into Luke’s gospel. We’ll be revisiting
those themes many times. For this week
again though, we keep our focus on this character Mary.
Mary is a superb model of
feminism. She seems to know who she
is. She is strong. She thinks and act on her own.
However, she is not an aggressive
fire breathing man hater either. She is
not disobeying social customs because she wants to be a rebel. She is not doing dangerous things because she
is a daredevil.
Let’s make sure we understand her
actions fully in context of Luke’s gospel.
What we see here is a person who is confidently and boldly inspired by
God’s promises of action that that is what is going to lead and shape her
life. Nothing is going to get in the way
of that. What remains key is that it is
God’s prompting. It is God’s action. It is the coming of God’s kingdom that is
driving Mary. Indeed she is being bold,
and probably careless, but she is doing it in faith. Anything done in faith is going to be done
with integrity, authenticity, and humility.
I came across this quote from Mark
Twain last week, “Each man is afraid of his neighbor’s disapproval – a thing
which, to the general run of the human race, is more dreaded than wolves and
death.”
I suspect there is far more truth to
that than we want to admit. I suspect
that in our subconscious we fear disapproval from others far more than anything
else. I suspect getting approval from
others is the number one motivator in our lives. We will say what we have to say, we will do
what we have to do, we will shape our lives the way we have to shape our lives
in order to get approval.
Sure, we know we can’t please
everyone all the time. We know there are
people who are going to like us and there are people who are going to dislike
us, maybe even hate us. We know we are
individuals and there is lots of room for personal expression. But for the most part we conform to societal
norms. Assuming those norms are
basically honest and decent and life-affirming there’s nothing fundamentally
wrong with that. But that is still
missing something. We see that something
in Mary.
Just like we saw last week, God is
shaping Mary. God’s actions and God’s
promises drive her life. God defines
her, not other people. That is the way
to true confidence. That is the way to
true authenticity. That is the way to
fullness of life.
Perhaps you think that is all fine
and good for Mary. But what about
us? And that is a good question. It is not a question I’m going to answer; at
least not today. I’ll let the gospel
writer Luke bear that task. For now,
that is exactly where he wants us to be as his readers. The answer is going to come in the remaining
23 chapters. And he will pick it up
again in the 28 chapters in Acts.
Mary’s life was an adventure. So is what Luke wrote in the Bible. And we are a part of that adventure too.
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