Birthing God: Like a Mother
Buddy Summers, Christ Church Uniting,
Introduction
“Take the Virgin Mary seriously,” some of you said. In four pre-Christmas sermons under the theme “birthing God as spiritual practice,” I am asking---
“How can the Virgin
Mary, as we encounter her in Luke’s Gospel, help us understand what it would be
like were we called to bear God’s love and grace in our 21st
century?”
From a reflection upon Gabriel’s visit to Mary, we came to understand that when our Gabriel visits us, heaven holds its breath, that much is at stake.
And from Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, we learned the importance of remaining grounded in the big picture, stopping to assist someone else in need along the way, and being ready to go home again without knowing what lies ahead.
Mother Mary
Last Sunday we had an unexpected
visitor and important stranger. She was
Rashell Hunter, a Presbyterian pastor from
“In my body.” Alarms go off. “Yeah, not a woman, sure, but don’t we all have masculine and feminine traits? And child birth, well, I saw two of my children being born. OK, it’s not the same. Well/ah/you see, I’m not presenting the material that way. Oh gosh! Look what time it is.”
That was last week. Today the Mary journey continues---O little town of
How can Mother Mary, as
we encounter her postpartum, help us interpret our experience when we find
ourselves pregnant with God’s love today?
Some Words About My Approach to Mother Mary
Mary, Queen of Heaven, has been all but invisible among Protestants. This arose from the sixteenth century Protestant angst to get back to Jesus and scripture. Anything that appeared to stand between the individual believer and Jesus (whether church authorities, traditions, sacraments, saints, even Mary herself) was brushed aside. Protestants rejected the notion that Mary intercedes for us with God. In Protestant thinking, that role belongs exclusively to Jesus. This is why we often end our prayers---“in Jesus’ name.”
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” Don’t you know that Calvin, Knox, and not a few others in the great cloud of witnesses got chicken skin when I gave voice to the “Hail Mary” prayer two weeks ago? While I am indebted to my theological heritage, this is not a burning issue for me. I say better to connect with and pray to God through Mary than not at all.
There are those who reject the representation of Mary as Ideal Woman, especially when she is said to be simultaneously Sexless Virgin and Selfless Mother. While there may be subtleties here of which I am unaware, I simply agree that lifting up as an ideal an image which is impossible to attain on the one hand (virgin and mother) and dehumanizing on the other hand (sexless and selfless) is demoralizing at best, cruel at worst.
By asking “How does Luke present Mary?” rather than focusing upon traditions which have evolved over the centuries, I am taking the Protestant “listen to the Bible” approach. And by expecting scripture to reveal itself in the light of archetypal human experience, I am employing an approach to interpretation that makes sense to most of us.
I want to suggest some ways that thinking about Mary as Mother helps us understand our own experiences as the bearers of God’s love into our world. Since the experiences of mothering are only available to me second-hand, I’m enlisting the aid of a biblical interpreter with mother credentials to guide me in reading Luke’s Mary as a mother, mother of Jesus.
What I’m about to say arises from
my reflection upon the article “Pondering All These Things” written by
Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, “Pondering
All These Things”, pp 97-114, Blessed
One: Protestant Perspectives on Mary, ed by Beverly
Pondering Invites Consideration of Mary’s Maternal Experience
When Gabriel greeted Mary, she “pondered what sort of greeting” it might be. And today, when the shepherds had reported their news, “Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” Rather than limit his readers’ appreciation of Mary by putting words in her mouth, Luke simply says that she “ponders these things.” He is thereby suggesting and inviting respect for this young woman’s reflective depths.
Luke’s choice of the word “ponder” resonates with Dr. Miller-McLemore’s own experience as a mother. It sounds to her like that thing (or rather, those things) that mothers do and feel. Pondering, particularly maternal pondering, suggests “prolonged consideration, often inconclusive.” For the mother, so much is unknown and unknowable. Humility is needed.
Maternal Attention
Further, pondering suggests to Dr.
Miller-McLemore the sort of expectant and gazing attention that a mother finds
herself paying to the newborn. This new
life, which for months was internal to mother, has now emerged. That it has a life of its own is more evident
than ever. And yet, it is utterly
dependent upon (M)other for survival. What are you feeling child? Hungry, tired, poopy?
Paying attention matters hugely, and mother does. It must be admitted here that while it was apparently the case that loving attention was paid to the infant Jesus---he grew in stature (according the scripture) ---this is not the case for every child, and for various reasons, (some of which, like lack of universal access to health care, we can do something about) for various reasons, they do not grow, they do not prosper.
Yet, contrary to the image sometimes lifted up as ideal of the mother whose only life is to care for her children, utter selflessness on the part of the mother endangers both mother and child. Mothers and persons on God bearing missions must maintain their spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical health if the “baby” is to survive and prosper.
Did you see “March of the
Penguins?” Filmed on the frozen icescape of
Father penguin hatches the egg. If mom does not return weeks later to feed the newly hatched chick, the chick will die. As soon as mom returns, dad must go feed, or he will die. Self Care and Caring for Others stand together or not at all. Balance. And for penguins, at least, partnerships. Get it?
On the Edge of Anguish
Under the heading of maternal pondering, Miller-McLemore also includes the maternal experience of anguish. I don’t think she is talking about, or only about, what is, for some, a perfectly natural postpartum depression. It doesn’t take too much imagination for me to correlate the mother penguin’s loss of 50% of her body weight with some kind of let down and carryover in a human mother’s post delivery experience.
Giving birth itself begins a process of leave taking and separation from the child which extends well into the future. I can imagine Mary wondering when her son’s precociousness will carry him beyond the bounds of safety. Reading Luke’s gospel story backwards from Jesus’ crucifixion, we can appreciate that Mary’s life might have been lived on the edge of anguish. Jesus would never fit the status quo.
Whoever, like Mary, bears God’s love and grace into the world, journeys on the edge of anguish. Established interests and settled arrangements are always challenged and threatened by God’s love and grace regardless of the way it shows up. The Gospel in word and deed always brings new opportunities. Good news always invites change.
We can expect to experience anguish, even fear, while we are taking or supporting new initiatives for truth telling, peace or justice. Such feelings should never be regarded as a sign of either failure or punishment.
Nor, I should say, will the anguish last forever.
Those who sow in tears reap with shouts of
joy.
Those
who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy.
[Psalm 126:5-6]
Threshold of Awe
The last thing that Miller-McLemore reads into Mother Mary’s pondering is the maternal experience of living on the threshold of awe. So much of what Mary has heard and experienced is simply astonishing. So good, so wonderful. Just as a mother is moved by something a child says or does or by an unsolicited blessing or affirmation, so too was Mary filled with awe. And you will be too (and probably have been, already.)
When you have been surprised by your angel, when you have consented to embark upon a journey of birthing God, be advised: there will times of pure joy, sheer delight, and overflowing gratitude to God for the opportunity to be involved in such a wonderful and ultimately world transforming thing.
The new thing which is being carried within you, which has been born from you, is nothing less than God’s love and grace being borne into the circumstances of our lives. It is an awesome thing.
Conclusion
Mother Mary, theotokos [Greek, God-bearer] reminds us of things that mothers already know: that bearing God’s love into the world brings a new focus to one’s attention and that such work includes experiences both of anguish and of awe.
Now remember that important
stranger from
It’s not much, but I know now---how it feels. At least, I know what I want to say---
In 1957, another fourth grader, a girl whose name I don’t remember, and I narrated the Christmas story from Luke and Matthew in the Mitchell Elementary School Christmas pageant.
I still remember that Mary’s response to the shepherds’ testimony---that she pondered their words in her heart---touched me deeply even as a child.
It was a little
scary and a little awesome and yet somehow, in my nine year old body, I felt
the Word within stirring me to life, demanding attention: words
treasured, God’s Word pondered in the heart.
I feel them today:
Here in the Body
God words
treasured and pondered
for Christ’s sake.
