Today is the Feast of St. Mary. Actually, tomorrow is the Feast of St. Mary, but the Prayer Book gives us a wonderful opportunity and even encouragement, that when a church is named for a Saint, their Feast Day can be moved to a nearby Sunday so the whole community can gather to celebrate their namesake. So that is why we get to celebrate St. Mary, our namesake, a day early.
I have a confession to make to all of you. Before I came to St. Mary’s fifteen years ago, Mary didn’t mean a lot to me. I know there are people who adore Mary, there are a lot of images about Mary, prayers about Mary, and there is a sub-field of theology called Mariology. I knew all that existed, but it didn’t do anything for me. I guess you could say I didn’t really notice Mary when I was reading the Gospels. I knew she was part of the Christmas story, but I didn’t really focus much on Mary. When I came to interview at St. Mary’s, I fell in love with the community, but the name not so much.
But over the years as I began to worship here, surrounded by all these images of Mary, preaching sermons on Mary Sunday, I started paying attention to her. I started noticing how often she shows up in the Gospels, not just on her Feast Day or Christmas time, but at other times, too. I began to realize she is a remarkable person.
She is actually the most fleshed out character in the Gospels, other than Jesus, of course. All the other characters in the Gospels are like foils for Jesus. They show up in the story or we learn something about them because of what Jesus and his story is doing. Some really important people get their name mentioned at best. There are Feast Days for Saints and all we know about them is their name. We try and tease things out to try to understand who they were, but we don’t find much.
Except for Mary. It is remarkable how much of her character is fleshed out because she shows up so much. She is there before Jesus in the story of the Annunciation, she is there after Jesus exits the scene after the Ascension, and she is there many times in between. We know a lot about Mary. The portrait that Scripture paints of her is a person with a deep and strong faith. We can infer that from the fact that God selected her to bear Jesus into the world, but we see it throughout the entire Gospel with all the stories about her. Mary is a person with an active, courageous, and present faith.
What do I mean when I say Mary has an active faith? She is not a passive participant, but actively involved in what God is trying to do in this world. Take the story of the Annunciation. I think there is a misreading of this story when Mary appears as a passive character when the angel proclaims to her what is about to happen. But that is not the story that the Gospels share with us. The Gospels, in the Annunciation, show a woman who is very active in that story. It begins with her pushing back against the angel, saying no, you are wrong. This is not how it is going to go. It is not possible. Then there is the point when she consents, she agrees, she says yes to what God is doing. We can imagine that she could have said no, but Mary says yes. She is an active participant in what God is doing in this world.
We see that level of active participation again in the story of the Wedding at Cana, which is depicted here in our church in a stained glass window. It is a wonderful story of Jesus’s first miracle when he comes on to the scene and shows his power to everybody. But he wasn’t going to do it. He says, it is not my time. I’m not ready, yet. This is not the moment. And Mary says, yes, you are. Son, you are going to do this. She is actively participating in what God is doing in the person of Jesus Christ.
There is a theological concept called the Missio Dei. It is a Latin term and means the mission of God. It is a theological idea that we, the church and members of the church, do not have a mission in this world. This goes against everything we learn about corporate culture that defines an organization’s mission. We have no mission in the world. God has a mission and we can choose to join it or not. If we look at the history of the Church, we can see the Church has not always joined in God’s mission. But God is always actively involved, doing something, bringing about the dream, the vision that God has for this world, and we can choose to join in it. We see in the story of Mary that time and again she chooses to join in with what God is doing. To this act of liberation, this act of salvation that God is trying to achieve throughout time in history, Mary says yes. I am going to be a part of that.
Courageous. We see her courageous faith in the Annunciation story. It says that she is afraid when the angel Gabriel appears. For good reason. When angels show up it is usually not a good thing. But the angel says, don’t worry, Mary. This is one of those good times we show up. So the fear of an angel appearing is one thing, but there is so much more for her to fear. What God is asking her to do is a dangerous thing. Childbirth is dangerous. It has been throughout history and still is today. But Mary says she is willing to do it. On top of that, Mary is not married, and this could be a very dangerous thing in first century Palestine. Mary is courageous. Courage is not the lack of fear. Courage is acting in spite of it. She is afraid, but she acts.
We see that courage again in the Annunciation that we heard a few minutes ago when Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth. Mary says, My soul magnifies the Lord. The Magnificat is a poem, a proclamation of God’s vision, God’s dream for this world. These are prophetic words that Mary proclaims, much like the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Elijah and Elisha and Amos and Micah and Obadiah, and all the others. Mary is joining with those Prophets to proclaim what God wants to see in this world. That is a dangerous thing because the prophets say that God wants the mighty cast down from their thrones. We know that the mighty on thrones don’t like to be cast down, and they have the means not to let that happen. And remember what Jesus said about prophets? They go to Jerusalem and they get killed. And yet Mary is willing to proclaim that.
We see that courage in Mary’s flight to Egypt when she becomes a refugee to escape Herod. She, Joseph, and her son go to a foreign land, leaving their land and everything they know. That is an act of courage to be a refugee.
We see that courage in the story when Mary goes to confront Jesus. Early in his ministry she hears that he is saying some things that is stirring up some trouble. The family go to him to try to persuade him to come home. This is a story in which Mary does not do the right thing, a reminder that Mary is not perfect. She has an imperfect faith, just like all of us. She tries to interrupt what Jesus is doing, and Jesus asks, who is my mother and my brothers? It is a story of Mary not getting things right, but it is a story of her being courageous because she does try to stand up to Jesus.
But the most important story of courage is Mary at the cross. When almost all the disciples have abandoned Jesus in fear for their own lives, Mary is there, standing by her son with that courageous faith.
Present faith. What do I mean by that? I mean that Mary shows up. She shows up there at the cross, she is present. We see Mary showing up in a remarkable number of stories of her going to the Temple. We see that she shows up in the story after the Ascension when the Disciples have no idea what to do, Jesus has gone, the Holy Spirit hasn’t come yet, and they are praying. Mary joins them. She shows up. She shows up to God and shows up to the community, the people of God. She is present. Mary shows a deep and strong faith that is courageous, active, and present.
This active, courageous, present faith is a model for us, we the people of St. Mary’s. We would do well if we would join with her in what God is doing in this world. This courageous faith that is willing to act despite our fears, this kind of present faith that shows up to each other and shows up to God.
This active, courageous, present faith is a model for us, and I think right now we need this faith more than ever. In this moment of late stage pandemic as we rebuild our lives and our faith as we come back together again, we need this kind of active, courageous, and present faith. We need to keep Mary before us. We, the people of St. Mary’s, need to remember that she is our model for how we should be acting, how we should be strengthening and deepening our faith. An active faith, a courageous faith, a present faith.
AMEN.
