Today is the 4th and final Sunday of Advent, and – believe it or not – it is the ONLY Sunday on the entire church calendar when we put our focus on Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Even though she is a very important person in the life of Jesus, she rarely appears in our lectionary readings on Sunday.
In fact, she only appears in the Bible four 4 times. That’s it!
Mary is mentioned more times in the Koran – the Holy Book of Islam – than she is in the Bible.
Muslims have great reverence for Mary, more than most Christians do.
Many Christians today only seem to think of Mary when they take out their Nativity sets at Christmas. The rest of the year, they forget about her.
If you were with us back in May, you may remember that I briefly spoke about Mary during our Mother’s Day service.
Although she wasn’t mentioned in the gospel reading that Sunday, I thought we should honor and remember her on Mother’s Day, because Jesus loved his mother so much, and it’s okay for us to love her, too.
And, I’ve told you before: I think I know why.
There seems to be this belief among many Christians that “Mary is just for the Catholics.”
I find that many Christians are wary of Mary, or at least they’re wary of the Catholic devotion to Mary which they believe overshadows Jesus and borders on idolatry.
Most of you know that I grew up Catholic, and in my 20’s, I entered a Catholic monastery. And, the order that I joined is called the Marist Brothers, a group of religious men who are devoted to Mary.
The motto of the Marist Brothers (in Latin) is “Ad Jesum Per Mariam,” which means “To Jesus Through Mary.”
Every morning and every evening, we would join together in the monastery to say prayers to Mary, who was our way to Jesus.
And, though I am no longer a Catholic, to this day, I still have a great devotion to Mary…not just at Christmas-time, but throughout the year.
For me, she represents the feminine nature of God, the Birther of the Cosmos. The One who gave birth to the Light of the World, and continues to make all things new.
For far too long now, the Christian church (and our world in general) has been dominated by the masculine voice. For centuries now, the feminine voice has been repressed and stifled.
But, right now, we need the feminine voice. We need it now more than ever!
Rob Bell has a great quote in his book, entitled What We Talk About When We Talk About God. He says, “When the female voice is repressed and stifled, the entire community can easily find themselves cut off from the sacred feminine, depriving themselves of the full image of God.”
The full image of God, my friends, is both masculine and feminine. God is both father and mother.
And, so, I’m so grateful for Mary in my life, for she shows me the face of the Divine Mother.
But, who was the real Mary?
We’ve come to see her as the meek and mild handmaiden, the obedient and perfect submissive virgin, but that’s all a myth.
In reality, Mary was tough, bold, courageous and radical.
In the time and place where Mary lived, she was at the lowest place in society. She was poor, and a woman, and a Jew, and an unwed pregnant teenager.
Religiously, socially and politically, she was oppressed, outcast, marginalized.
Yet, God chose her of all people to become the mother of the Light of the World.
In our “Call to Worship” this morning, we heard the words of Mary’s Magnificat, her song of praise to God.
But, the Magnificat is not some pretty, little, innocuous, love-song.
The Magnificat is a subversive song of resistance….a manifesto, if you will, of liberation and revolution.
The Magnificat is Mary’s protest song. In it, Mary is proclaiming a New World Order.
She says: “God has looked with favor upon me, a lowly servant, and from now on, all generations will call me blessed. God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly. God has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”
God is establishing a new world order – a new Kingdom – where the mighty and powerful will be pulled down from the thrones, and where the lowly will be lifted up high, and the hungry will be filled with good things.
That’s what Mary is proclaiming in the Magnificat, and those words over the centuries have been unsettling to those in power.
The British government during its occupation of India, deemed it unlawful to sing the Magnificat in church. Argentina, during the oppressive regime of Juan Peron, banned the Magnificat from being read aloud. And, during the 1980’s, the Guatemalan government did the same, because it stirred up the impoverished masses.
Mary’s message to world proclaims that change is coming.
That’s why I see the Spirit of Mary today in all courageous young women who are advocating for change: young women like Greta Thunberg (the Climate Change activist) and Malala Yousefsi (the Nobel Prize-winning Pakistani activist for women’s education) and Emma Gonzalez (the young activist for gun reform).
I see the Spirit of Mary today in all the brave women who have spoken out in the “MeToo” and “TimesUp” movements in recent years, courageously speaking their truth after years of being silenced by men in power.
I see the Spirit of Mary in the young migrant mothers who – like Mary, (herself, a refugee) — have traveled a great distance, fleeing their homeland to find a safe haven for their children, only to be denied room.
Ryan Kuja, Christian author of the book, From the Inside Out, recently translated Mary’s Magnifcat into more modern language:
I can’t contain my excitement about this!
Out of all people, God noticed me, a poor, pregnant teenager!
Everyone will call me blessed from now on.
God’s love is so much greater than I can even imagine.
God shows for everyone, even those society despises.
All the people who are seen as less than human, God knows and loves. God invites each of us to the table to speak and tell our story, to be heard and known. The power-hungry perpetrators who care only about their agendas don’t have the last word! I can sense God’s presence holding me and all God’s children close, faithfully liberating us all, just as God has promised.
So, timely, right? The Magnificat is timeless.
We, my friends: We, like Mary, are part of God’s plan to give birth to a new kingdom (a new kin-dom), a world where all are one.
But in order for us to do this, we, like Mary, must have the courage to say, “YES.”
If we are willing, God is calling us to birth the Christ Light into world.
The 13th Century Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, said: “We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.”
That’s what the Season of Advent is all about. It’s present tense!
We don’t say, “Christ was born,” we say, “Christ IS born.”
When we welcome the stranger, Christ is born. When we feed the hungry, Christ is born. When we lift up the lowly, Christ is born. When we pull down the rich and might from their thrones, Christ is born.
When we care for the planet, empower women, and speak Truth to the powers that be, Christ is born.
That’s what Advent is all about: A time of preparation for us, in which we allow ourselves to become pregnant with the Light, so that we can give birth to it during this time of great darkness.
Therefore, I hope you will find time between now and Christmas to do as Mary did: to rejoice in the “Good News” that God has chosen YOU to birth Light into a world of darkness.
And, I invite you, to call upon Mary often – not just at Christmastime, but throughout the year. Don’t be wary of her.
She’s not just for Catholics. She’s for all of us.
Let all of us – like Mary – have the courage to magnify God’s Light, and to shine it for all the world to see. May it be so.