Today we are celebrating the Feast of St. Mary. We glory in our patron saint and all that her life has meant to the world. We can only imagine what it might have been like for a young girl to be visited by the Angel Gabriel and be told that she had been chosen by God to bear God’s Son. Her calm, quiet life would never be the same. Mary had no way of knowing that Joseph would fulfill his contract with her family to marry her, if she was already with child – no matter whose child it was. She faced potential condemnation – her family, as well as Joseph, could have thrown her out and refused to support her or her child. What a level of trust it must have taken to say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word. The miracles continue…

Today we are celebrating the Feast of St. Mary.  We glory in our patron saint and all that her life has meant to the world.  We can only imagine what it might have been like for a young girl to be visited by the Angel Gabriel and be told that she had been chosen by God to bear God’s Son.  Her calm, quiet life would never be the same.  Mary had no way of knowing that Joseph would fulfill his contract with her family to marry her, if she was already with child – no matter whose child it was.  She faced potential condemnation – her family, as well as Joseph, could have thrown her out and refused to support her or her child.  What a level of trust it must have taken to say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.

 

The miracles continue…Mary travels to be with her cousin Elizabeth, who in her old age has conceived for the first time and is carrying the child who will be John the Baptist.  When Mary arrives, the child leaps in Elizabeth’s womb.  Elizabeth exclaims, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.  And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?”  Without knowing Mary’s story, Elizabeth knows on a deeper level, that Mary, this young, poor, humble, anonymous young woman has been chosen by God to bear this child.  In choosing Mary, God has already begun the good news that Jesus will bring to the world, that God is looking out for the poor, the lowly, the outcasts.  God is not as the world has painted him – God is not even as the Jewish leaders have said God is.  But rather God’s intentions are to heal the sick, to give sight to the blind, to make the deaf hear, to feed the poor, free the prisoners, work for justice in the world.  And God begins this chapter of the story by choosing humble beginnings for his incarnate Son. 

 

The Western Church has often become stuck on finer parts of the Marian story.  Did she remain a perpetual virgin?  Did she and Joseph remain married without ever experiencing any sexual relations?  There is nothing in the Biblical stories that says that Mary remained a virgin after Jesus’ birth.  As a matter of fact, we are told that Jesus had brothers and sisters.  I don’t think that God has as much trouble with our incarnate selves – the fact of our humanity and our bodilyness as the church traditionally has.  God created us – body and soul – and I find it unlikely that God would expect us to deny our creature-hood – or to be married in name only. 

 

The Orthodox call Mary, the Theotokos – the God-bearer – and don’t get hung up in the debate over the issue of her perpetual virginity.  I love this – God-bearer.  Such a beautiful, elevating name to remember the one who not only bore the Christ, but raised him, watched him go into the world preaching God’s word, and who watched him die on the cross.  Didn’t Mary bear Jesus – not only in her womb, but also in her heart, as she watched her first, special, holy child experience the unthinkable? 

 

But we are not at the end of that story yet.  Today we celebrate in Mary’s song, all the wonder and the joy, all the expectation of the possibilities that are before her and her child – and not only for the two of them alone, but for the whole world. 

 

“My soul magnifies the Lord.” 

Mary has experienced a spark of the holy and she feels it glowing and growing within her.  All of this joy, all this wonder is too much to contain.  She is about to burst with the fullness of this grace. 

“And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

 

How often have we been touched by God’s grace?  How often have we felt the spark of God’s inspiration within us?  How often have we been full of the joy and the wonder of God and God’s gifts?  When have we heard God calling to us?  And what was our response? 

 

Because God chose to send his Son into the world, born of a woman, then Jesus was able to experience, to know what it felt like to be fully human.  Jesus did not spring onto the world as fully formed, adult – a God who had only taken on the form of a human.  No, Jesus experienced birth, growth, learning.  Jesus knew what it was like to learn obedience – first to his earthly parents before he took on the even harder task of being obedient to his heavenly father.  Jesus was not born knowing all that he would ever need.  If we were to have read the assigned readings for this Sunday we would have heard the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman who, when she begged Jesus to heal her daughter, was told that it was not fair to take the children’s food and give it to the dogs.  In this encounter, where her daughter is eventually healed, we are presented a story where Jesus presumably learns that he has been sent to everyone in the world, and not just to the Jews. 

 

Because Jesus was born like every other human child, and grew up, just like every other human child, then we receive the adoption as children of God, also.  As children we are also invited to grow, to learn – to learn even obedience.  The image of God as father is not just a sentimental metaphor meant to lull us into complacency.  This image of God, our Father, is rather meant in all of its complexity.  Father as teacher, father as one who teaches us obedience, one who cares for us, the one who sometimes needs to be stern in order to be kind.  We would not raise our children letting them set their own limits, allowing them unbridled freedom in decisions and rules.  We know that it is part of our job to help them become all that God intended them to be, and that sometimes requires hard work, discipline.  When all is said and done, just as our fathers loved us, just as we love our children, God loves us.  God forgives us when it is necessary.  God hopes that we will have learned our lesson and do better next time. 

 

Mary was not only the mother of God, she was also an obedient and joyful child of God.  Without the risks that she took because she trusted God, it is likely that our story would have turned out quite differently.  Even as Mary ventured into the unknown with her acquiescence and continued as she watched Jesus go in directions she could not have imagined, we are invited to follow her lead – to follow God’s call for our lives.  The path may appear crooked and illogical, but we can only see from our perspective.  Part of the mystery of God is that he is able to see a larger picture than we are able.  One of the alternate words for faith is trust – and we are sometimes called to trust that God is able to see from an entirely different perspective than we can.  When we are able to answer God’s call with, “My soul magnifies the Lord” then we are able to make God, our father, smile the smile of pleasure and pride.  Like Mary, we join the ranks of God’s chosen ones. 

Thanks be to God.