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When Elizabeth was six months pregnant, God sent Gabriel to Nazareth in the province of Galilee. Gabriel had a message for Mary, a young woman engaged to Joseph, a descendant of King David.
Gabriel came into the house and said, "Pleased to meet you, Mary. You're a special person. God thinks highly of you." But Mary was nervous, trying to think what it was all about.
So Gabriel said, "Nothing to worry about, Mary. God is your friend. You're going to have a baby boy, and you're to call him Jesus. He will be famous and known as 'God's Likeness'. God will make him the true successor of David, his ancestor. He'll have the permanent care of God's people, and they will go on increasing more and more."
Mary said, "I don't see how that can be. I'm not married yet." Gabriel said, "God's Spirit has it all arranged. She will be responsible. 'God's Likeness' has to be very special.
You'll also be pleased to know your cousin Elizabeth is pregnant. It’s going to be a boy! Everyone had given up hope, but she's now six months gone. There's no limit to what God can do!
Mary said, "Here I am then, ready to help God all I can. May your words come true! "
Then God's agent left.
In 89 I spent a summer living in Nazareth – I was working on an archeological dig on the outskirts of town and we stayed together near the town center. I loved being in Israel, especially Nazareth. I was working with people who were Old Testament scholars and biblical archeologists. They knew so much about the history of the holy land, but the spiritual charm of the biblical narrative had long since evaporated for them.
I wanted to wander the winding narrow streets of the SUK – the market, Imagining how maybe Jesus would go pick up figs for Mary at the fruit stand near the entrance. My challenge of course was finding an escort. Culturally, women were not supposed to be out on the street alone. There were all kinds of hassles for breaking the local custom, so after a few trying encounters, I toed the line and recruited walking buddies. Les, a Franciscan monk, became my most regular walking companion.
He was a middle-aged polish American Jesuit monk from Chicago who was an Old Testament professor in a catholic seminary. He had participated in this particular dig for years; he knew the Nazarene points of interest like the back of his hand. He was gruff, and very kind. We’d be taking a loop through the market and have to detour around a tour bus dumping 40 white sneakered Americans onto the sidewalk for a photo opportunity.
“EHH, the don’t even know what they are seeing, that’s not even the real site. No one knows of course, but the smart money is on the foundation around the corner (he’d take me over to it), see the pattern of the stone, how it changes, this is the stone work from that era…
There is an endless debate on where exactly the “holy” sites are in the holy land. Tourists and visitors like me, thirsty for a physical encounter with the land where Jesus trod demand particular locations, which are really quite unknowable. This isn’t a new development. The faithful pilgrims have been doing this for centuries.
Take the annunciation narrative, today’s text. In Nazareth there are two cathedrals both claiming to be built over the site where the angel Gabriel had his conversation with Mary. – One catholic and one eastern orthodox. As we wandered around them both, Les told me that there is really no way to know, the foundations of both churches date back to the first century….
The bonus was that he had more pull at the catholic one, so we were able to get below the soaring modern sanctuary, down 3 levels to a stuffy, cave like space and he was allowed to open the tourist bars, say a mass there with a small group of us. I was in heaven, trying to breath in the very essence of what might have transpired there. The layers of stone and stained glass above us melted away, as I found my connections to young Mary blinking at the angel’s words – all which was set in motion by that encounter.
We don’t know what Mary’s parent’s home looked like, but we can be sure there wasn’t a cathedral built over it with a sign out front instructing the tour buses where to park. She was just a regular girl, who lived in a regular home, in a regular little village in the sticks.
I find myself appreciating how God worked it all out – the whole birth of Jesus narrative really– for me it underscores the authenticity of the incarnation, the earthiness of it all, the very idea that God would take on flesh and dwell among us – not all glossy and perfect superman, but rugged and rough – like the Star Wars movies – do you remember the first Star wars, it was the first time “the future” was depicted as rickety, dusty, with a scrappy scoundrel of a hero.
In the same way, in this morning’s text God is entering the human condition, not by booking a reservation for afternoon tea at the Ritz – but by way of a poor teenage girl in rural Palestine.
God chooses a rugged and rough moment in history – in terms of the big picture; the people of Israel in Palestine are being crushed by the brutal Roman occupation. PAX Romano exacted a high price from the people of the region. The people of Israel are trying to survive on the margins. Hoping, praying that God will break the years of silence and remember the glory days of the King David and send a savior, send someone to set things right. But their prayers seem to have bounced back unanswered and the political, economic situation had gone from bad to worse.
On the other hand, the small picture is relatively ordered. Rome’s policy of permitting conquered nations to retain their basic social structures had left Israel’s religious laws and customs fairly intact. The tribes of Israel preserved their lineages, marriage was basically a contract arranged by the families. Mary, as a young women 12 years old or so, probably wouldn’t have been allowed to study scripture or have any formal education. The role that she had been groomed for all her life was to be a supportive, obedient woman of God who brought honor to her family by serving her husband .
We understand from todays text she was engaged to Joseph, which means the marriage contract was signed; it was just a matter of the wedding feast and consummation. At this point, I imagine she was pulling together what she would take with her to her new home, learning the domestic skills she would need to keep her new husband happy, maybe daydreaming about a cute little house in the suburbs, with a picket fence – kind Joseph beaming at their children frolicking around the garden.
The Angel Gabriel’s announcement pretty much shattered that daydream. Its shocking enough to have an angel from God show up at your house, never mind that the angel says that you are going to become pregnant. But to get the full impact that the angel’s message had on Mary, we need to get a better sense of the religious laws of her time.
There was no room in the social or religious order of her day for an unwed pregnant teenager. A pregnant girl in the household destroyed the honor, credibility and social standing of the whole family. Her family’s reputation would be trashed. Her pregnancy would void the marriage contract, it was beyond imagining that Joseph think of honoring it. The religious law actually said that unwed pregnant women were to be stoned to death in order to preserve their family’s honor. In an instant her cute little house in the suburbs turned to ash and crumbled.
The angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary isn’t the only angel-human encounter recorded in the bible. Over the years, others had received such heavenly visitors – Abraham – the angel telling him pick up and move, Sarah – overheard the angel tell her husband that she will have a child in her old age, she laughed, Zachariah – another birth announcement, he doubted as was unable to talk until the baby was born.
Mary, for a young gal of 12, holds her own in the line up of people who have encountered angels.
It was shocking that the angel acknowledged and greeted her. Mary like any young woman would have been routinely ignored and dismissed by visitors to her home.
It was surprising that the angel assuring her of God’s favor for her – this wasn’t a mad angel, coming to bust her for some unconfessed sin.
And what stunning news that her communities hope and dreams would be answered by a child that she would bear! The angel’s message is that she, a girl from no where really, would have a son who would be the answer to everyone’s prayer for a ruler to pick up where King David left off
– Shocking as that all must have been, Mary had enough spunk to ask the angel about the logistics
How can this be? I haven’t had sex – I’m not married.
God has it all worked out, the angel Gabriel assures her. And he gives her a sign that everything he has told her is true – your cousin Elizabeth, everyone knows she is too old to have a baby, but she is 6 month’s pregnant – nothing is impossible with God!
In those moment’s so much can flash through our minds…
– Mary remembering her dear older cousin, longing for a baby, every month the heartbreak of her barrenness renewed. Here’s the promise that God has heard their prayers and at last she’ll have a child
- Mary remembers the adults talking into the night around the dinner table, the candles burning low - the grown ups crushed at every turn by the Romans, barely able to give voice to their hope that God would send a savior
- She remembers her mother’s rebuke, cover your hair, hush, don’t try and talk with him, stay behind the partition, honor your family, honor your God in heaven
Maybe Mary’s a fool of a child – Maybe she is wise beyond her years, but we read it today. Mary takes in the Angel’s message and responds with grace and courage – let it be as you have said. I am ready and willing to serve God.
It’s impossible for her to know how it would really work out – her family’s reaction? Joseph’s reaction? Would she be killed? Would she have to run away? Where would she go? The angel didn’t give her an instruction book on what to say, or how to work it all out, there was never a guarantee that she would be protected, but Mary had the grace to recognize God’s hand in it all. And the courage to step up to embrace her part. Maybe being an uneducated teenager freed her from getting bogged down in the rules and social norms that the angel Gabriel shattered that day. Maybe her youth enabled her to resonate with hope being fulfilled.
It reminds of a conversation we had with some of the confirmation class members. We were unpacking what it meant to confirm the vows of our baptism – one person pointed out how young they were and noted that the future was uncertain, how could they be sure they would be able to live out these vows, no matter what happened – maybe it would be better to wait until I’m older, until I know more about life, then I could respond with certainty. Another class member had a different point of view, even though I’m young, I still know myself and know God and even though I don’t know exactly what will happen, I know enough to be able to say yes to the vows. It’s a tension that we all wrestle with – how much do we need to know of ourselves? Of God? Of life before we can respond to God’s invitations in our lives.
The angel leaves her and I wonder how the day after was. Did she think it was just a crazy dream? Did she ponder every twitch in her stomach and wonder if it was the baby to be? Did she get violently sick in her first trimester and pretend it was the stomach flu? Did she tell anyone about her visit with Gabriel? The details are missing…but
Luke does tell us that Mary went to see Elizabeth and all that the angel had told her was confirmed. Elizabeth’s belly was full with a sweet baby and Elizabeth saw it all the angel had said written on Mary’s face and the baby in her womb leapt as they embraced. Mary fell into her cousin’s arms broke out in a song that has comforted us through the centuries.
Mary gave her assent to the Angel’s terrifying prophecy – it’s a heroic and stunning response – so much so that its tempting to put her on a pedestal, to romantize her, to deify her – such a sweet innocent girl, living in holier times, her response becomes part of a script and then, today’s text creeps into the position of having very little to do with us and our life with God, its only a sweet statue we keep carefully on the shelf by our bed.
Or maybe we react out of our Euro-centric protestant reformation roots and it seems like the church’s response to Mary over the years has been a bit overdone and we feel like our lack of response would begin to bring some balance to the situation. Maybe all of the speculation of virgins being overshadowed by God’s spirit makes us uncomfortable and we’d rather gloss over the whole encounter and get on with Joseph and his angel dream.
If our relationship with God is to be more than a charming heirloom, or something we avoid out of discomfort we need to find the invitation that God has for each of us in Mary’s experience.
Mary takes Gabriel’s prophecy in stride – that is to say she keeps her balance while receiving some life changing news. She asks for clarification, getting the information she needed to formulate her response. Her example illustrates to us that God (and God’s agents) welcome a dialogue. God is a God who can take Q & A – Mary’s questions weren’t understood to be impertinent or indicative of disbelief – she expressed her curiosity.
Then Mary consents – We could spend all kinds of time parsing out what this means in terms of did she really have a choice?
Had God chosen her and this encounter with Gabe was just FYI?
Or was her answer key in the whole process, would Gabriel have gone on to house number #2 if Mary had opted out?
I think the most productive ground for our reflection lies somewhere in the middle. God continues to invite us to participate in the in-breaking of heaven to earth. Sure there are examples of Divine fiat, but most often we find God working through who people are, not in spite of who they are – people who thrive on conflict fight for God’s justice to roll down, people who like to crochet are delighted to create blankets for new borns at County-USC hospital, people who are delighted how numbers add up and balance give their time to work on church finances
With God, we get invited to participate with the fullness of who we are, God doesn’t invite us to be a doormats, shutting down who we are, limp and lifeless in God’s hands.
Remember, God is the potter, we are the clay – its not we are the oatmeal. In order for the potter to have something to work with, the clay has to yield, but it also needs to have fiber and character in order to maintain its shape.
So Mary says yes, let it be as you have said, but she turn into a puddle of oatmeal, she didn’t go to bed for 9 months, she high tailed it out to her cousins to investigate what the angel had told her, she ended up being Joseph’s bride and accompanied him to Bethlehem. She kept being fully herself and fully available to God. She’s not some Barbie of a girl, pleasant smile and vacant eyes – she’s real. Her response to Gabriel is real. God’s invitation to us to do the same is real.
So how do we get there? Do we try and google Mary’s parent’s Nazerath address? Do we cling to that and refuse any distraction until we can knock on their door? Would standing in the exact spot open us up in a new way to God’s invitation? It just doesn’t work that way.
That summer in Israel, no doubt about it, I loved going to the holy sites, pressing my hands onto the ancient walls, lighting the candles, jostling with the faithful pilgrims from around God’s world…
But my most memorable encounters with God were in the ordinary places.
Out on the dig site, after 2:00 or so, the sun was blazing and it was too hot to work. I’d take a break and explore the ancient foot paths that criss-crossed the site. I’d often run into boys from the community running household errands for their mothers.
Out there, on the rolling hills, it felt timeless, the sun’s heat pressed down on me as I climbed the hills, just like it has on everyone else who had ever climbed that path, the dust covered my shoes and legs, just like everyone else who had walked there, and in that solitude, God met me there, just like God meets all of us – when we’ve put away our maps and our certainty about how things need to work.
When we’ve opened our selves up to the possibility that God has a way of sorting it all out and all that is needed from us is that faith-filled response - Here I am then, ready to help God all I can. May your words come true.
