A Meditation on Luke 1:26-38
Sunday, November 17, 2024
The Third Sunday in Early Advent
1.
Saying ‘no’ is always an option. Sometimes saying ‘no’ is even the soul-protecting, spirit-saving thing to do. Sometimes saying ‘no’ is the only life-affirming thing to do. So saying ‘no’ is always an option. But here Mary says ‘yes.’ When a messenger of almost unimaginable hope appears. When she’s invited to join a resistance that will make the first last, and the last first. When her body is the temple within which that resistance will organize and grow. Mary says ‘yes.’
You see, Advent isn’t just four calendar weeks in December. Advent is a spiritual practice. Advent is a way of hopefulness in a hopeless time. Advent is the promise of a ‘yes’—and the Holy Spirit’s relentlessness is setting that promise before us, and within us. Not only in Mary’s body, but in ours. Even though the days seem to be darkening. Even though the warriors seem to be winning. And that’s why—in this Early Advent season—we draw near to Mary. We listen for Mary’s courage, for her faith. We draw life and hope and grace itself, from her ‘yes.’
2.
So Gabriel shows up in Nazareth—a rather nondescript village in occupied Palestine—and he shows up unannounced in Mary’s home and unauthorized by the priests or powers that be. Gabriel’s just there. Face to face with Miriam, with Mary. A young woman, in a culture shaped in almost every way by patriarchy and patriarchal power. But Gabriel doesn’t ask permission of her father, or of any male guardian or would-be husband. Gabriel simply and shockingly enters her home, and the room where Mary’s staying. And Gabriel says: “Good morning!” Or, in other words, “This day is God’s day.” This is gonna be God’s day.
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| "The Annunciation" (Jackie Nourigat) |
And in every other biblical moment—where an angel or a messenger or a prophet announces a pregnancy or celebrates a birth—in every other biblical moment, that news is delivered to a father-to-be first, or a male protector first, or a governing patriarch first. But not now. Not here. Not in Nazareth.
This time, Gabriel steps into Mary’s life, into Mary’s home, into Mary’s imagination—and there is no protector giving him permission or showing him the way; and there is no father-to-be taking credit; and there is no priest, no patriarch interpreting the message for her. And Gabriel says to Mary: “Good morning! You’re beautiful with God’s beauty, beautiful inside and out! God be with you.” Or, in other words, “This is gonna be God’s day.”
Rabbis and scholars through the ages have noted that the very name, Gabriel, means something like the “power of God.” The power of God! So isn’t it possible, then, that Gabriel’s unannounced, unauthorized visit that day intends to engage Mary in God’s own revolution? In God’s own project of blessing, renewal and even redemption among the peoples of the land? Mary’s not simply an ancillary character, a bit player, a useful womb, in another savior’s story. Mary is invited, urged, blessed, loved into receiving Gabriel’s greeting as her own call to ministry, partnership and power. Power! “God be with you.” She’s facing—with her family, with her community—an occupation that stifles the spirit and siphons off resources and bullies indigenous peoples. But Gabriel says, “God be with you.” Mary’s invited, urged, blessed, loved into participating in God’s saving energies, God’s healing purposes, God’s power in the world. God’s power in the world. There is no gospel apart from this moment. There is no gospel apart from Gabriel’s blessing and Mary’s yes.
You see, the power of God is not (and never has been) the same as the power of the fist, or the power of the tyrant, or the power of the bully. If Gabriel is an emissary, or an angel, of the power of God, Gabriel comes with a counter proposal, an alternative offer, a way beyond the coercive ways of empires and armies and patriarchs. Gabriel comes with God’s gospel: “You’re beautiful with God’s beauty,” he declares, “beautiful inside and out!”
So the power of God—the power that may well heal what’s broken among us, and reconcile the warring families of the planet, and restore us all to a just and joyful relationship with the earth—the power of God is discovered first and foremost in divine blessing and affirmation. How often religions across the ages have tried to rule by shaming us. How often priests and prophets have tried to enforce control by sowing seeds of fear and anxiety in our hearts. There’s no doubt that that kind of religion is powerful stuff—but not the power of God! Not the power of the One who creates us for communion. Not the power of the One who creates and redeems us for ministries of blessing and service.
The power of God is discovered first and foremost in divine blessing and affirmation. So Gabriel says to Mary: “You’re beautiful with God’s beauty, beautiful inside and out!” Divine power is always, always infused with lovingkindness, revealed in blessing, free from patriarchal shame and the violence of empire. Free to receive life and love and breath and body as pure gift, unauthorized glory, to embolden the human heart, to be shared with the human family, to be offered back to God in unabashed thanksgiving.
Decades ago, the great Christian mystic Thomas Merton discovered in the writings of al-Hallaj, a 9th century Sufi, the idea of the ‘virgin point’ in the human heart. Merton called it ‘le point vierge,’ in French. The ‘virgin point.’ And this ‘virgin point’ is something like the irreducible, secret center of the human heart—stripped of illusion, free of all fear and shame, accessible only to God and God’s love. For Merton—and al-Hallaj long before him—this secret center (this ‘virgin point’) is forever untouched by the cruelty of others or the despair of current events or accumulated disappointment and shame. ‘Le point vierge,’ he called it.
And your spiritual practice, then, is one which reveals this ‘virgin point’ in your heart, and invites you to celebrate it and revel in its wonder and beauty. Your spiritual practice (and that’s prayer and worship and contemplation, and community and service and reflection)—your spiritual practice draws you deeper and deeper into the mystery of God’s grace and the secret center where your life and God’s life are one life. Where your dream and God’s dream are one dream. Where the first are last, the last are first, the hungry feast on good things, and nations study war no more.
So I want to offer this possibility this morning: that Gabriel and Mary (together) are exploring the regions of the believer’s heart; that Gabriel and Mary (together) are peeling back whatever fears or whatever shame may cover the secret center of hers; that Mary is, in this sacred and holy text, returning to ‘le point vierge,’ to the ‘virgin point’ where she can and always will know God’s life and God’s power as hers, where she can and always will see God’s dream and God’s future as hers. From this point, she will be tested. There is no doubt about that. She will be tested. But she has heard Gabriel’s greeting, and she has found the place in her own heart where it resonates and lives: “You’re beautiful with God’s beauty, beautiful inside and out!” And living out of that deep and inviolate place of blessing, she can offer everything she is and everything she has to God’s partnership, to God’s project of healing, reconciliation and blessing.
4.
But let’s not miss, let’s not forget what happens next.
Because what happens next in the Gospel of Luke is just as crucial to Mary’s story, and just as consequential for ours. And as soon as Gabriel departs the scene, before the screen door has even banged shut, Mary is on the move. On the move. Mary is seeking out Elizabeth, her cousin. Mary is off to build a community that can safely and joyfully shelter this unimaginable hope she’s discovered, this commitment to resistance that swells now in her flesh.
Spiritual practice, you see, draws on friendship. We know this. Faith requires community and partnership, even intimacy, to mature and survive in the world. So Mary will ramble the hills, seeking out Elizabeth, finding and staying with a sister, a cousin, a partner whose own dream mirrors hers, whose own faith nurtures hers.
So whether it’s planning for another thrilling Christmas Fair in December, or whether it’s orchestrating another sweet supper at the Dover Friendly Kitchen, or whether it’s organizing the resistance with and for immigrants in a new administration that will seek to deport and criminalize their very existence—in all these ways, in all these circles, Mary will need Elizabeth, and you will need one another, and our resistance will fueled not only by God’s blessing, but by the many ways we revel in it together.
I’m struck this morning by Gabriel’s language in speaking with Mary, in calling hope and chutzpah out of her heart. Remember how that goes? She says, “How can this be?” A reasonable question, if ever there was one. And Gabriel says, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the Highest will hover over you.” Or some translations say, the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
I want to say, my friends, that this is happening to you and to me, all the time! All the time. The Holy Spirit comes upon us. The power of the Highest hovers over us. And yes, the Most High overshadows us always. And—and we can and we must show up for one another in ways that reveal this mystery in plain view. We can and we must show up for one another in ways that dissolve the accumulated shame of a lifetime, in ways that liberate our hearts from despair and rage, in ways that reveal the wondrous partnership of the Holy Spirit in our life together.
In other words, churches matter. This church matters. This beloved community matters. Where angels show up to announce blessing. Where children dance free of judgment and resentment. Where sisters protect brothers from deportation, and brothers celebrate the strength and voice of their sisters’ witness. Mary’s ‘yes’ opens chambers of our hearts long closed. Mary’s ‘yes’ opens doors we can walk through. Mary’s ‘yes’ brings you to me and me to you, and us into holy partnership. So let it be. So let it be.
Amen and Ashe. And let it be.
