Blessed Mary
Last week I talked about a group of middle school students who had been yelled at by their teacher, a teacher who told them how horrible they are, a teacher who said that they were “pure evil.”
And because of the way they had been labeled, the behavior of these students lived up to the expectation. Their reasoning was, “if we’re going to be called horrible and pure evil, then we might as well act that way.”
And their behavior reflected what had been said about them. Their behavior reflected the names and labels that had been placed on them…
Last week I also talked about Mary, and how she and people like her had been given similar labels by the Roman Empire and even by the elite religious leaders, those religious leaders who hoarded power and authority and lorded it over everyone else. These religious leaders made everyone else feel like they were less than worthy, that they would never be good enough.
Yet Mary was able to see through those names and labels, and discover a new name and label, one that came from God. We heard more of that scripture this morning; Mary said, “My soul rejoices, because from now on, all generations will call me blessed. Not evil. Not poor. Not a street rat. Not any of those other names. But blessed.”
And like Mary, we, too, have reason to rejoice, because we also are called “blessed.” We also are God’s “beloved.” Those are the names and labels given to you by God.
I’m sure you’ve been called lots of names, but of all the names you get called, these are the most important ones, because these are the names God calls you.
Blessed. Beloved.
And nothing you can do, and nothing anyone else can say about you, can change who you are in the eyes of God.
Beloved
Unfortunately, there are still today many powerful and influential religious leaders who want you to believe that you are less than worthy, that nothing you do will ever make you good enough.
They want you to know, first and foremost, that you are a sinner. That is the label they place upon you. That is the name they call you.
Now, they are almost right. We have all sinned. We have all fallen short. We have all missed the mark.
But that is not who you are. That does not define you.
A lot of today’s powerful and influential religious leaders are smitten with Jonathan Edwards, a colonial American preacher, and his famous sermon titled, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which he preached back in 1741. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God… There’s nothing like striking a little fear in a person to get them to commit to following Jesus Christ!
A lot of today’s powerful and influential religious leaders are hooked on the idea of original sin… the idea that we are born into sin, that sin is our nature; that we are sinful to the core; that sin is who we are.
Not what we do, but who we are. We are evil. We are wicked.
But not all preachers preach that; and I, for one, don’t see much difference between “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” and “Middle school students in the hands of an Angry Substitute Teacher.” If you tell someone that they’re a sinner, that it is their very nature to be sinful, to be evil, to be horrible… where does that lead you?
It leads you to a situation where people have internalized those labels, that they come to believe that they themselves are horrible and evil, which has a negative effect on their lives and on the life of society.
It leads you to a situation where people are angry and defensive and polarized against each other, where people feel bad about themselves so they try to make others feel bad to compensate. Sound familiar?
It leads you to a society in which hope, peace, joy, and love are all very hard to come by.
It leads you to a society in which it is very hard to feel blessed.
It leads you to a society in which everyone is looking out for their own self-interest, but no one is looking out for the common interest, because no one understands that what is good for society is also good for them.
This is what happens when you tell people that they are horrible, wicked, and evil, and they start to believe it…It affects their behavior in all sorts of negative ways.
And then, to say that all this makes God angry - that your very nature makes God angry - it makes God sound like a mafia boss. “You owe me. The debt has to be paid.”
What kind of a god is that? It’s no god I want to worship.
The Lord is Merciful and Gracious…
When I read the Bible, I encounter a very different God.
I encounter a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.
I encounter a God who so loved the world, that he sent us his son, so that whoever trusts in him may find their way to a life of peace and blessing and wholeness.
I encounter a God whose primary message to his people is, “fear not.”
I encounter a God whose very nature is love. God is love.
This is the God Mary believed in. This is the God Mary encountered.
When God’s messenger appeared to her, Mary was overwhelmed by God’s love, by God’s goodness; and she was amazed that God took notice of her when no one else in society did.
No one paid any attention to a poor, miserable person like Mary… certainly no one important, no one in any position of power or authority.
But God did. God noticed her, just as God notices every person who has been put down, who has been called names, who has been made to feel worthless.
God noticed Mary, and God blessed her, by choosing her to be the mother of God’s own son, one who would let all people know just how much they are loved; and who would lift up the poor, and bring lives of wholeness and abundance to all those who were suffering.
So, despite all the ways in which society tried to put her down, Mary was able to see past all that, and find her way to joy. She found her way to joy, because God had noticed her. She found her way to joy, because God had pronounced her “blessed…” and she believed it. She found her way to joy, because she knew that her son would present to the world a new way, a way in which the powerful are brought down and the poor and lowly are lifted up, and all people can share equally in God’s blessings.
And so, Mary rejoiced.
4. Defiant Joy
Now, to someone like a powerful Roman official or a religious leader with lots of wealth and power, Mary’s joy probably didn’t make any sense. What did she have to be joyful about? She had no wealth. She had no power. She had no influence. At this point in the story, it’s not even entirely clear that she had a husband, or that the one to whom she had been promised would stick with her, despite the fact (or, because of the fact) that she was pregnant.
In fact, maybe that’s why it appears that she went by herself to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Did women normally travel alone in the first century? Where was Joseph? Still trying to figure things out? Still trying to figure out if he should even follow through on his commitment to marry Mary?
If this were a movie, this is the point where Mary would stare off into a dark sky and sing a sad, “why me” type of song.
What did Mary have to be joyful about? It seemed like everything had conspired against her and left her in an unfortunate state. To anyone living in a palace, whose table was always full of food, it must have seemed laughable that Mary would rejoice.
But Mary was defiant in her joy. And Elizabeth was defiantly joyful with her.
I don’t know how you picture Mary, or what words you would use to describe her, but for me, defiant is at the top of the list. Mary was defiant.
The world told her she was poor, that her life was worth very little, but she resisted that description; she resisted every attempt to label her as worthless, as evil, as insignificant. She resisted the push to feel bad about herself, about who she was, and - despite all odds - she grasped on to the truth that her son would be a blessing not only to her but to all the world, and that she herself would be considered blessed by all future generations.
To have that kind of joy is a revolutionary act. To have that kind of joy in a world that purposely keeps joy just out of reach is a revolutionary act.
Our whole economy is focused on the idea of growth - and growth depends on the people thinking they don’t have enough, that they aren’t yet satisfied, that they always need more than what they have. That’s how you convince people to buy stuff they don’t need and grow the economy.
But to say no to that, to defiantly say, “Wait - I do have reasons to be grateful, and I will celebrate and I will rejoice in God and the blessings God has given me” - to do that is an act of resistance.
Mary realized that who she was, was enough. It must have been, because God had chosen her to be our Savior’s mother.
5. Rejoice!
And Mary rejoiced in God, because she knew that she was blessed. She knew that God rejoiced over her. God rejoiced over her just as the prophet Zephaniah said.
“Do not fear,” the prophet said. “Do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God… will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.”
We come to worship and we sing God’s praises, as is right for us to do. But as we sing God’s praises, God is singing our praises. When we sing to God, singing “holy, holy, holy;” singing, “Joy to the world…;” God is rejoicing over us with loud singing. God is singing our praises!
All this is not meant to puff up the proud. It is meant to lift up the lowly. And there is a big difference between “good” and “perfect.” We are not perfect. No one is perfect.
But we are good - we were created that way by God. We are blessed; we are blessed by God.
And so, like Mary, we can defiantly bask in that joy. Even when life brings us down, we can rejoice in God.
And we can claim for ourselves the identity given to us by God, that we are indeed blessed and beloved.
Even if it’s hard for you to believe, right now, that those words are true, that you are blessed and beloved… say it anyway. You’ve heard so many times that you are not enough, that you are not blessed, and it might take that many times hearing just the opposite before you believe it’s true.
So maybe we need to say it time after time after time, over and over and over again, that we are blessed and beloved. Maybe we need to say it defiantly, with hope, so that one day, we can say it passionately, with joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment