Mary Mother, Not So Meek & Mild

 Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, La., Advent 4

My grandbabies are about to be born! Yes, you heard correctly: Babies! My daughter-in-law will deliver twins—a boy and a girl—probably by C-section, right after Christmas. I couldn’t be more excited. 

 

I don’t need to tell most of you that becoming a grandparent is fun. And part of the fun of it, at least for me, has been watching my son—the kid who wasted untold hours playing video games, who had to be nagged incessantly to make a walking path through the mess in his room, who couldn’t be depended on to take out the garbage until the can was overflowing—that kid! Watching him become a dad before my very eyes has been a delight. He’s a good one already, full of anticipation and love for his “munchkins." 

 

But he’s had to learn a few lessons along the way, not only about being a dad, but about being husband to the mother of his children. I’ll never forget the day he reported that he couldn’t argue with his pregnant wife about anything anymore. No matter what his complaint or concern, she would say, “I made organs today. What did you do?” 

 

He laughed ruefully and conceded, “There’s just nothing you can say in response to that.” I would sum up the lesson my son learned as "you mess with pregnant women at your own peril."

 

  

Today’s Gospel story is about the powerful, spirit-filled meeting of two pregnant women, Mary, the mother of our Lord, and Elizabeth, her cousin and the mother of John the Baptist. We know the story well. The messenger meets the message. John the Unborn leaps in his mother’s womb. He recognizes Mary’s Unborn, just as John the Baptist would later recognize Jesus the Son of God on the banks of the Jordan River. 

 

There’s a 15th Century English Christmas carol called Mary Mother, Meek and Mild. I was surprised when I searched on YouTube yesterday for a recording of it, that all I found was two versions under the title “Maiden Mother, Meek and Mild.” 

 

I have no idea what inspired that title change, but if you search via Google for the lyrics, you will find them:

 

    Mary mother, meek and mild,

    From shame and sin that ye us shield,

    For great on ground ye go with child, 

        Gabriele nuncio. (Gabriel’s messenger.) 

 

Much art and much popular culture tends to think of Mary in those terms. In most representations, she sits or stands with her head bowed and canted slightly to the side. Dressed in the white of purity with a cloak of calm, serene blue, she is the very picture of submissive, demure womanhood. 

 

She said “yes” to God. Her response to Gabriel, when he tells her she is pregnant, is mild indeed. I cannot image myself—or any woman I know—being quite so calm under the same circumstances. She refers to herself in her song as “lowly servant.” 

 

So Mary comes by the “meek and mild” description somewhat honestly. She does say “yes” to God, even when it means a tough road ahead, and that’s an important lesson for all of us. 

 

But if we leave it there, we have done Mary a disservice. We have ignored an equally important aspect of this story. We have downplayed the absolutely subversive aspect of what is happening here. 

 

Diana Butler Bass is a prolific author of books to inspire, challenge and support people determined to follow Jesus, come what may. And she is one of a handful of contemporary Christian leaders who skillfully employs social media to counter the negative forces of divisive politics and Christian nationalism. 

 

So yesterday I paused during sermon writing to check my own Twitter feed, and came across her take on today’s Gospel story. “The only Christmas action movie I want to see,” she wrote, “is about two pregnant women plotting to overthrow empire.” 

 

“Plotting to overthrow empire”? Well, yes, if you take Mary’s song seriously! 

 

The Rural Women's Farmers Association of Ghana gathers often to exchange seeds and farming tips. Photo: Global Justice Now

See, we read the Song of Mary every year—every single year—on Advent 4. It is also a required piece of Evening Prayer. So if you do Evening Prayer with any regularity, you read the Song of Mary often. Suffice it to say, we are familiar with the Song of Mary. 

 

Perhaps too familiar with it. So familiar with it that the words roll off our lips without a thought about the implication of them. So let’s hear them again, but without that disarming bit at the beginning about being a “lowly servant.” Indeed, let’s get to the heart of it. Mary sings,

He has shown the strength of his arm, *
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he has sent away empty.

Notice that Mary does not put these subversive actions in the future. She does not say, “He will scatter the proud…,” or “He will lift up the lowly…” Rather, she says, with this pregnancy, God has already done these things. And, indeed, that is exactly what Jesus taught and preached and stood for: lifting up the lowly, challenging and rejecting the proud, self-righteous, and powerful. 

As for the rich, recall the rich young ruler. When Jesus declined to give him the excuse he was looking for, he went away, sad but empty, for he valued his wealth more than following Jesus. 

 

This story of two pregnant women and a babe leaping in the womb of one of them, in recognition of the Holy One in the womb of the other, is a call to us. It is a call to make space for Jesus the Christ to come alive in our hearts. 

 

But more than that. Brothers and sisters, no matter how hard we try to make the Gospel message an affirmation of the status quo, we cannot. To sing the Song of Mary is to say that the Gospel message resists and rejects the status quo, and the relationships of power and wealth that so dominate human societies. 

 

Yes, we should be good church people. We should come to church, study the Bible, break bread as siblings in Christ, love one another. But that’s the beginning. It was precisely the good church people of his time that Jesus was most critical of and with whom he argued the most. 

 

So be subversive! See Christ in everyone. Love them. Share what you have. Seek the common good. Consider the most powerless, poorest person you know and walk a mile in their shoes.

 

When you make room in your heart for Jesus the Christ to come alive and leap for joy, you will also know joy. It will change your priorities. It will change how you view your neighbors. You will not be able to help yourself. 

 

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN

Choose Joy

 Grace Episcopal Church, Monroe, La., Advent 3

You brood of vipers! Do not even try to make excuses for yourselves! God knows who you are; he made you. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 

 

So John the Baptizer preaches. Having grown up in a deeply protestant, rather Calvinistic religious tradition, I’ve heard many a sermon like that. The surprise here is that Luke, our observer of this sermon, concludes his account on an upbeat note. 

 

So, with many other exhortations, Luke says, he [John the Baptizer] proclaimed the good news to the people.

You know, if that’s the good news, I think I’ll pass on the bad new! 

Today is the 3^rd Sunday of Advent, the “Joy” Sunday. We celebrate this departure from the solemnity of Advent with a pink candle and pink vestments.  

 

Of course, there is good news—and cause for joy—in John’s sermon and I will come back to that. But for the moment, “joy” is a lot more obvious in our other lessons for today. 

 

Take Zephaniah: Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! 

 

Listen to Paul writing to the Philippians: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 

 

Now, you might think from these passages, that Zephaniah and Paul were living in hunky dory times when they wrote these words, right? Everything must have been right in the world for them to experience such joy! The stock market was performing, the economy booming. The nations were at peace. Politics was all polite debate and cooperation. Unity abounded. No culture wars. Right? 

 

But of course, wrong! That’s not how it was at all. Zephaniah was a prophet. His main job was to preach God’s judgement to the Israelites—who at that point in time were divided into two nations that each seemed to be trying to outdo the other in terms of sinfulness. 

 

As for Paul, things were far from hunky dory. He most likely wrote his letter to the Philippians from a Roman jail. 

 

Joy is an emotion, and we humans have a strong tendency to think of emotions—like joy, happiness, contentment—as things we experience in response to… well, other things. Our lives are going well, so we are content. Our grandchildren are born, or about to be born as in my case! And we experience joy. Our families gather for the holidays and we are happy. 

 

Moreover, we come to depend on these other things to bring us joy or happiness or contentment. We look to the world around us and wait for the feelings to happen. 

 

Brothers and sisters, consider the possibility that joy is something we must choose, and we have good reason to choose it—regardless of what’s happening in the world around us. 

 

Here’s how I came to that realization. A number of years ago—probably at least 16 years ago—I went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. We met a woman missionary there who had arranged for us to work for most of a week cleaning and painting and getting an Episcopal day school ready for the school year. 

 

This Episcopal Day school was a very plain, basic school—small classrooms, a bare courtyard for a playground, no technology, no air conditioning, no closets stuffed with crayons, construction paper, markers, and more. In comparison, Grace Episcopal day school is quite luxurious. 

 

But then one day toward the end of the week, we finished our work early and our host took us to tour the community. And she took us to the most utterly poverty-stricken neighborhood I had ever seen, and to this day have ever seen. We drove down dirt streets. Trash was everywhere. Children played in the dirt and trash and weeds in front of houses built of scrap wood, rusty sheet metal, cardboard. Emaciated dogs scavenged for food. Open doorways and windows but no doors, no screens, no window panes. 

 

I was haunted by what I had seen. We finished our work in the next day or two and caught our flight back to the U.S. But I couldn’t get that neighborhood out of my mind. I had not the slightest idea how to help, and I still don’t. 

 

Oddly enough, very shortly after getting home, I was asked to speak at a worship service over at St. Thomas’. A group of folks—lay folks—were, at that time, meeting Sunday evenings for what we called a “praise service”—an informal worship comprised of singing, prayer, and sharing experiences of God in our lives. No clergy necessary, although a priest occasionally came by. 

 

And within days of getting back from that mission trip, I was asked to speak at that service. I did not know what to say. I was still haunted by the utter poverty of that neighborhood. It weighed on me. I did not feel like singing. I did not feel like praising God. If anything, I wanted to chew God out for letting that happen—as if God were responsible for the messes created by human societies. 

 

I did not feel joy. And so, I told the story, and then I said what I am saying to you today: We must choose joy. Joy is not a feeling we get when good things happen, when the stars align, when our children behave and our spouse gives us just what we wanted for Christmas. Joy is a choice we make. Regardless of what is going on in the world, we must choose joy. 

 

Listen to Creation

And why? Why must we choose joy? 

 

Zephaniah tells us: The Lord your God is in your midst, he says, and he says it not once but twice. He goes on to speak about God’s forgiveness and mercy—things to be joyful about, for sure. But the cause for joy, first and foremost, is—simply—that God is in our midst. In the midst of our sinfulness. In the midst of our political conflict. In the midst of our mess. 

 

St. Paul says basically the same thing: Rejoice…the Lord is near. And how about Isaiah? Look at the last verse of Canticle 9, the First Song of Isaiah: Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy, for the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel. 

 

We choose joy because God is with us in this troubled and troubling world. We choose joy because no mess we humans have ever made is beneath God’s presence. We choose joy because we know that God has never and will never give up on us. We choose joy because we are God’s beloved, and that is enough. 

 

Does that mean we are always going to feel joyful? Of course not. Does choosing joy let us off the hook of caring for a hurting world? Relieve us of responsibility for cleaning up the horrific messes we humans have created? Of course not. I’m not preaching this sermon to let us off the hook! 

 

So here’s where I want to look back at the good news in John the Baptizer’s sermon. He preaches repentance in no uncertain terms, and indeed people repent. And they say to John, What then should we do? 

 

And John answers: If you have two coats, give one to your neighbor who has none. Share the food you have. He does NOT say, go create world peace. Solve the problem of world hunger. Fix the broken political system.

 

See, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the troubles of the world. It is possible to be frozen in our tracks by seemingly insurmountable problems. It is tempting to do nothing because we know we can’t do everything. Sometimes we decide that we didn’t cause a situation therefore it’s not our job to fix it. 

 

But where is God in that? Those are truly human—but truly joyless––responses to a hurting world and to our hurting neighbors. But where is God in those responses? 

 

Choosing joy is choosing something deeper than the transitory emotions that come from external events and situations. It’s remembering who we are and who we belong to—in spite of what is going on around us, and then sharing that good news in whatever ways we are able––individually and corporately. Choosing joy is making God’s love known to our neighbor however we can—remembering what Jesus taught us: That of those who have much, more is expected. 

 

Brothers and sisters, do not sit around waiting for the feels. Choose joy, for the Lord our God is in our midst.

  

 In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.