It Could Have Been Bertha, Advent 4-B, Luke 1:26-38, 12/21/14
An angel went from God to a town called Nazareth to a woman whose name was Bertha. The angel said to her, “Rejoice O highly favored, for God is with you. You shall bear a child and his name shall be Jesus, the Chosen One of God Most High.” And Bertha said, “Say what??? You got to be kidding. That train ain’t going down this track. No way I’m having a baby.”
The Annunciation from Marty Haugen’s Holden Evening Prayer is, of course, much truer to the Biblical witness I read a few moments ago than my variation on the text. But I offer you my version to illustrate one simple thing: It didn’t have to be that way. When Gabriel showed up on Mary’s door the encounter could have been very different than it was. Many hearings of thistext have perhaps dulled us to just how outrageous it is. In my more whimsical moods I imagine poor Gabriel going door to door in Nazareth,appearing in front of a host of potential mothers with the same offer to birth the Christ child—and being rejected, laughed at, or dismissed as a little nuts by all of them until he got to Mary.
We misunderstand the Annunciation if we hear Gabriel saying that whether Mary likes it or not, God has conscripted her into his cosmic drama. As C.S. Lewis so eloquently says, as a being of pure love God can not ravish or coerce; he invites, he woos. When the angel comes to Mary he is announcing that god is prepared to do an amazing thing through her—and for a moment Gabriel must have held his breath, wondering what she would say. It did not have to turn out the way it did; the incarnation, the coming of god into the world, happened because this young woman was willing to trust God and play her part.
These days there is often a lot of focus on Mary’s virginity and the sexless conception of Christ—as though being born in the normal way would somehow diminish the importance of Jesus. Some want to make belief in her virginity a litmus test for faith. Whatever you think about Mary’s sexual history, the real miracle is that she was willing to be used by God, willing to believe that God could do something amazing through her.
When Gabriel meets her he says, “Greetings favored one, the Lord is with you.” Most Christians have agreed that Mary is special but not necessarily on why that is true. Some, notably Roman Catholics, have held that God chose Mary because she was special. Because she was singularly pure, pious, and prayerful, they reason, God selected her for the great honor of birthing the Christ child. Doctrines such as her immaculate conception have served to set her apart from the rest of humanity.
But it seems to me that Mary is worthy of our attention precisely because she is so much like us. Though ordinary, she does the extraordinary. We actually know very little about Mary from Scripture. We presume she was an early teen, the conventional age for marriage. She was from a tiny town in an obscure corner of the Empire. Nothing in the New Testament suggests she was particularly smart, devout, or holy. Indeed, during Jesus’ public ministry she shows up, thinking he might be deluded, and tries to take him home. She was not perfect, but she was open.
When Gabriel calls Mary most favored he does not mean she is inherently special; he means she has been singled out for an honor, for an opportunity. She has been chosen by God. But that can feel like a mixed blessing. There is a wonderful scene in Fiddler on the Roof in which Tevye commiserates with God and reflects on his life and the challenges of being Jewish. Finally, he cries out to God, “I know, I know we are your chosen people. But every once in a while can’t you choose someone else?”
Mary would have understood. Being singled out as God’s favored one meant that she would endure social stigma at her son’s birth, confusion when he began his ministry, and the heartbreak of watching her son tortured to death. There must have been many days when she wondered what it would be like to be less “favored,” to be the mother of an ordinary child, doing ordinary things. It was hard for her to be the favored one—and it can be hard for us.
Growing up, whenever I was ready to lower the boom on my aggravating little brother my grandmother would often say something like, “Bill, what would Jesus do?” She and I both knew the answer—but I kind of wished I didn’t. Then in good conscience I could have just returned tit-for tat. Knowing God’s love called me to act differently than I might. When we grow up the implications of being favored by God just get bigger: it affects how we spend our money, how we supervise difficult people, whether we stick our necks out for the unfairly treated. The payoff for being favored by God’s love is not always obvious; indeed, it sometimes feels like there is a very real cost in following where Jesus leads.
When you read today’s gospel lesson you are struck by how Mary is alternately described as favored, afraid, perplexed, questioning, and resolute. To say it again, she is just like us—confronted by the call of God, she is not at all she has what it takes or even wants to have it. And that is the reason generations of Christians have looked to her a model of discipleship. Despite her reservations she is willing to consider the possibility that all that the angel is saying just might be true. Despite her confusion, she is willing to believe that God has a plan in which she can play a part. Despite her awareness that she is very ordinary, she trusts that God is ready to do something extraordinary using her simple gifts.
You can read interpretations of Mary which portray her as totally passive before God’s inexorable will, a shrinking violet who had no choice. Others, citing her great hymn, the Magnificat, in which the mighty are laid low, see her as the model of a liberated woman. I think of her as more like a great actress presented with the role of a lifetime. She brings her unique skills, great and small, to the task of bringing the script to life. She does not make her preferences and desires the focus; she does not call attention to herself. Instead, she asks how she can use her gifts to communicate the playwright’s vision and purpose.
The question for this 4th Sunday of Advent is, “Are we?” Ordinary as we may be, are we willing to offer what we have to the service of the one who comes seeking bring hope to the world. For finally, I think that is why we read this story; it puts before us a model of discipleship with the implicit invitation to respond as Mary did.
In the early centuries of the church Mary was given the title “theotokus”—God bearer. The literal meaning of that title is obvious; in a few days we will celebrate that reality on Christmas Eve. But there is a sense in which each of us is also called to be a “theotokus,” one who bears Christ into the world through a hundred daily encounters. Gabriel may not show up in our den or kitchen, but make no mistake the invitation comes each day. God says, “I love this world so much that I want to transform it; I want to touch it with care and heal its wounds. Will you bear Christ into the dark places? Will you allow the Holy Spirit to descend upon you and change you in ways you will not always find comfortable. Are you willing to endure the pain of pushing the new life of Jesus Christ out into the world?”
Long ago Mary heard those questions. She carefully weighed her words, took a deep breath, and with the mixture of fear, awe, and hope which always accompanies discipleship she finally said, “Let it be to me as you have said.” May we do the same.