First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Luke 1:26-38
December 14, 1997
Given my lineage (as I detailed in Steeple Notes), I could just as easily have been a Roman Catholic. My Irish Catholic grandmother could have joined forces with my Slovenian Catholic grandmother and made it happen. They didn’t, of course. So what you see is what you get….a Protestant with “hints of Rome” in his blood.
In that same Steeple Notes story, I told you about Catholic weddings, Catholic funerals, Catholic crucifixes and Catholic prayers. I did not tell you about Father Earl, my wife’s uncle, who was a priest. Neither did I tell you about Sister Mary from St. Brigid's, who first taught me how to play the violin. As a violin player, I was pretty good….once….in part, because Sister Mary occasionally rapped my knuckles with a ruler.
One of the songs I played in those years was Ave Maria. I recall at least two versions….Bach-Gounod and Schubert. I much preferred Schubert. I could probably play it still, save for the fact that I haven’t practiced since 1979. Over the last 18 years, rust has formed in the fingers where brilliant vibrato once resided.
But, as I mentioned, Ave Maria is making a comeback. I often hear it on Saturday afternoons as a wedding solo in this sanctuary. Robyn sings it. Iris sings it. Russ sings it. Even Matt sings it. They sing it because brides request it, even though they do not know what to do with it once they hear it. That’s because Ave Maria is something of a “bridal sauntering song,” where she leaves her groom, strolls to the side altar and dedicates a bouquet to the statue of the Virgin Mary. Except that we have no side altar. And no statue of a virgin, either.
But weddings are not the only place where Mary is suddenly popular. All three female candle lighters talked about her last Sunday, reflecting upon how awkward it would feel to be nine months pregnant and riding a donkey. Which it would be, of course, except that the Bible never mentions a donkey….anywhere….at least in conjunction with Mary. You can look it up.
Moreover, my wife recently received an invitation to a female-only Christmas tea. The invitation included Madeleine L’Engle’s beautiful verse:
This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.
Which is true. And to which I will return….in time. But for now, suffice it to say that renewed Protestant interest in Mary, while noteworthy, pales before the “Marian revolution” among our Catholic brothers and sisters. They have always been devotees of Mary. But never with the passion (or the politics) of the present.
A few weeks ago, a box arrived at the Vatican addressed to His Holiness, John Paul II. It carried a California postmark. But it contained petitions signed by persons from every continent in the world, save one. The petitions included 40,383 names, with each signee asking the Pope to exercise papal infallibility (which has not been exercised since 1950) to proclaim that the Virgin Mary is “Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix of All Graces, and Advocate for the People of God.”
Now lest you think that one box of names from California shouldn’t constitute anything to write home about….let alone write the Pope about….let me tell you that the last four years of the Pope’s mail have produced nearly 4.5 million similar petitions, all requesting the same thing. They have come from 157 countries, including a signed petition from Mother Teresa before she died, and petitions from 500 bishops and 42 cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church. Papal insiders are quick to add that these petitions are most welcome in Vatican circles, given that this is something the Pope very much wants to do and is simply waiting for a groundswell of public opinion to justify his taking action.
“So what?” you say. So this, I tell you. If adopted, this will elevate Mary’s status to that of Jesus Christ, himself….effectively changing the Holy Trinity to something of a Holy Quartet. But this will also oblige Roman Catholics to accept a pair of extraordinary ideas:
1. That all gifts and graces that come to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ….such as mercy, pardon and eternal life….will be granted only after Mary pleads with Jesus on our behalf.
2. That all prayers and requests from we (the faithful on earth) must flow through Mary, who will then bring them to the attention of Jesus.
In other words (to be crude, but descriptive), the “good stuff” will not flow….one way or the other (heaven to here, or here to heaven)….without Mary’s action upon….involvement in….or endorsement of it.
Protestants, of course, reject the idea of multiple mediators. To the degree that anyone parcels out our bounty….or pleads our cause….it is Christ Jesus, himself (I Timothy 2:5). And there are some of us who saddle up the horse that Luther rode and question whether any intercessor is necessary for us to come to God, or for God to come to us.
But this doctrine will tilt things in precisely the opposite direction, widening the gulf that separates Catholics from Protestants, while deepening the division between Catholics who want to draw closer to us (Vatican II remnants within the church) and Catholics who would rather shut the windows that Vatican II so refreshingly opened.
Will it happen? It very well may. Will it further put asunder what many have tried to bring together? There’s a pretty good chance.
It’s not that Mary hasn’t been honored before….recognized before….adored before. As Kenneth Woodward writes (somewhat cryptically): “Religiously, Mary is far more than just another pretty face.” To her, builders have erected some of the most beautiful churches in the world. In her, poets and musicians have found inspiration for their talent and genius. And of her Annunciation (when Gabriel appears before a startled teenager), more oils have been splashed on more canvases, by more artists, than of any other scene or subject.
But such has always been the case. Paintings….poems….piano compositions….even Proscenium arches….none of these are new. But other things are. New, that is. Things like videotapes, television programs and computer software. Did you know that Mary now has her own web site, complete with chat rooms so that people can discuss the meaning of it all?
And shrines. Lots of shrines. Most of them constructed in response to over 400 apparitions (appearances) of Mary….almost all of them in the last 150 years. Lourdes (1858). Fatima (1917). Medjugorje, Bosnia (1981), where six children claimed to have seen her as a beautiful young woman calling herself “The Queen of Peace,” leading to visits by 20 million pilgrims in the last 15 years. And Bosnia is not exactly a safe destination. And to think it all began with a wisp of a peasant girl, about whom the Bible says extremely little.
Clearly, Mary was Jesus’ mother. As to the gynecological mechanics of how she got to be that way, the church falls in silent reverence before a Holy Mystery. God was in the work. God was in the birth. God was in the family. But so was Joseph. As to how much can be attributed to whom (and to what degree), the Bible wrestles….the church wrestles….the scholars wrestle…. and individual believers wrestle. I see no point in re-wrestling any of that here. If you are interested, we’ll set up a seminar and do our wrestling there.
But a bit of a history lesson is in order. It was in 431 AD (at the Council of Esphesus) that Mary was first declared to be the mother of God (“Theotokos”), whereupon her name was also incorporated into the “prayers of the people.” But it was not until 1854 (December 8) that Pope Pius IX declared that she became “the mother of God” by Immaculate Conception….even though Thomas Aquinas, Catholicism’s greatest-ever theologian, passionately argued against it. And it was not until 1950 (November 1) that Pope Pius XII declared that, upon her death, Mary was “assumed” (taken up) into heaven, immediately and without bodily decay. This decree, called “The Assumption of Mary,” was the last utterance of papal infallibility made by the church. Until now.
Why all of this official activity since 1850? I think I can explain that. But you’ll have to work with me. In the early years of Christianity, there arose a heresy suggesting that Jesus was not really human….as you and I are human….but that he only appeared to be so. Which heresy others protested, coming to the defense of the humanity of Jesus. They claimed that he was human “in every way as we are.” Meaning, of course, that their rebuttal had to stress his birth…. from the womb of a mother….suggesting that how he got here is how the rest of us got here.
But, over time, Catholicism wanted to say something else, too. Catholicism wanted to say that Jesus was human (as you and I are human) in every way but one. He was without sin. But not only was he sinless by choice, he was also sinless by birth. Meaning that he inherited no sin. Not the sin of his father. Not the sin of his father’s father. Not the sin of anybody’s father. Especially, he did not inherit the sin that the church called “original.” What were they talking about? They were talking about the sin that everybody had….that everybody has….that everybody always will have….namely, Adam’s sin. For it was the belief of the church, you see, that “original sin” was passed from generation to generation through fathers. Therefore sinlessness for Jesus (in the eyes of the Catholic Church) meant that there could not have been an earthly father.
But what the church did not know (and could not have known, since nobody knew) was that mothers also bring a genetic component….a biological component….a human (and, therefore, sinful component) to the embryo of a child. That’s because it wasn’t until 1827 (just 170 years ago) that a Russian embryologist named Karl Ernst von Baer confirmed that….in the process of reproduction….the female contributes as much to the makeup of a child as does the male. Prior to that time, it was assumed that the male provided “the totality of the seed,” while the female “was merely the soil in which it developed and grew.”
Hence, by the mid-1800s, the church knew that any child born of Mary….with or without Joseph….could not, by customary definition, be sinless. Which explains why the church began the process of “elevating Mary” by other means. So when it was declared that Mary went immediately to heaven (without bodily decay)….“the Assumption of Mary” (1950)…..it was Catholicism’s way of saying that Mary was no mere mortal. She could not have known sin…. otherwise why would she have been so “uniquely raised.” And so it was that the study of reproductive biology contributed to the “High Mariology” we presently experience.
As a Protestant, I suppose I am a “Low Mariologist.” Still, I want to go further than Mary Corita Kent (a Roman Catholic nun, turned artist), who once wrote: “The nice thing about Mary is that her boy turned out so well.” And I find myself wanting to know what there is about her….apart from her umbilical connection to Jesus….that ought to occasion my devotion. So I have listened to what others are saying.
· She’s young, some say. Therefore, let us adore her for her innocence and purity.
· She’s poor, some say. Therefore, let us adore her as a means of remembering that God dwells among the poor, chooses the poor, and may (as some theologians suggest) even have “a preferential option for the poor.”
· She’s disenfranchised, some say. As an unmarried pregnant woman, she had no power in her society….or in any other society. Therefore, let us adore her for her song (the Magnificat) wherein she sings of “scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful, and elevating those of low degree.”
· She’s maternal, some say. Therefore, let us adore her as the feminine expression of God ….meaning that the cry “Mommy I hurt, Mommy please help me,” might be our last cry, as well as our first.
But I am not young anymore….poor, anymore….disenfranchised, anymore. And I am certainly not virginal or maternal anymore. So what is she that I could see….or be….in ways that might make a genuine difference?
I think I know. And what I think I know is this. She is obedient. That’s right, obedient. Which is not a word we use much anymore. And which is not a word we like much, anymore. Because it smacks of submission….supplication….surrender. Which few of us want to do. Certainly not to tyrants. And probably not to spouses, either. Let someone say “Jump”….and when was the last time you heard anybody ask, “How high?” Today, when someone says “Jump,” the rest of us say, “No way.”
But as I read and reread the Annunciation story, I don’t recall Mary being asked. Instead, I seem to recall Mary being told. And after raising a couple of questions (for purposes of clarification, I presume), she says: “Have it your way.” Or, to be accurate, she says: “Let it be with me according to your word.”
* * * * *
I work at that. I mean, I really work at that. So indulge me a closing reverie, will you? When I was young, I tended to see God as something of an IRS agent. I saw God watching me…. auditing me….trying to catch me adding up the numbers wrong….interpreting the laws wrong…. getting the bottom line of my life wrong.
And then I guess I saw God as the President of things. I saw God looking after the big picture…. laying down the grand strategies….cooking up the big policies. God was someone you could admire from a distance.
But then things sort of shifted on me. I saw God and me as being together on a tandem bike…. me in the front (steering)….God in the back (helping me pedal).
But I have come to realize something. The times when my life really works like it’s supposed to work, and the times when I really feel like I think I’m supposed to feel….well….those are the times when (for some reason or another) God and me just sorta trade places on the bike. I mean, He goes up front, while I move to the back. And when God takes the lead, sometimes it’s all I can do to hang on. That’s because we get going at breakneck speeds through some pretty weird places. But all God ever does is look over his shoulder and cry, “Pedal.”
When that happens, I sometimes lose my trust in God. I think God’s gonna wreck my bike. More to the point, I think God’s gonna wreck my life. But God knows bike secrets. Like how to take sharp corners, cross deep valleys and climb high hills. And some of the places I’ve seen….some of the people I’ve met….some of the baggage I’ve dropped….I mean, I wouldn’t have gone there, seen them, or done any of that stuff (if it were just me).
Still, I sometimes figure I’ve had enough. Which is when I want to ease it off….lay it down….pack it in. And do you know what God says every time I get like that? God looks over his shoulder and says: “Pedal, Ritter. Shut up and pedal.”
* * * * *
“O God, let it be with me, according to your word.”
Note: The initial idea for this sermon was generated by a multi-page article in the August 25, 1997, edition of Newsweek Magazine entitled, “Hail, Mary” by Kenneth L. Woodward. Woodward’s article brought several issues into public consciousness which had previously been discussed only in religious journals. This explains why several preachers are talking about Mary this Advent season.
I am also indebted to Raymond Brown’s significant opus, The Birth of the Messiah, and Andrew Greeley’s book, The Catholic Myth: The Behavior and Beliefs of American Catholics. My friend, John Stuart, supplied no small amount of historical detail, including technical information about human reproduction from Asimov’s Chronology of Science and Discovery. John Stuart is the finest lay church historian I happen to know. Ben Bohnsack provided the image of the “tandem bike” for further chewing. Bud Keye and Jerry Patterson were kind enough to corraborate medical information contained in the sermon.
