In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her,
"Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."
Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her,
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God."
Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.
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There are a lot of ways to interpret this scripture, but I am afraid, we have settled on one, and stuck with it, perhaps beyond its usefulness and certainly into its misuse. We have come to believe that to read this text as anything but, ‘The Annunciation of the Immaculate Conception,’ is heresy, but maybe heresy is believing that these scriptures have only one story to tell. Maybe heresy is as simple and as common as Christmas cards with a peaceful mother gazing lovingly at her child. Maybe heresy is as as simple and as common as crowning Mary with halos in nativities and auras in paintings. Maybe heresy is as simple and as common as the carols we sing this day. But I believe this Mary story isn't as simple as, “With Mary we behold it, the virgin mother kind.” It shouldn't be as common as, “Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head,” and I highly doubt a pregnant fifteen year old is, “in her maiden bliss.” But these are our images, images that tell us Mary’s worth is defined by her womb, be it her perceived virginity, or her idealized motherhood, images that herald women for being meek, and mild, and kind, ‘servants,’ or ‘slaves.’ I happen to think these images are problematic, ‘The Annunciation of The Immaculate Conception,’ tragic, and for there only to be one interpretation - heresy.
For if we are to find ourselves in this ancient story, and our stories are as diverse as number of hairs on our head, then there must be more interpretations then we could ever count, more Mary’s then we could ever know, and one of them is standing here preaching. I am version of Mary. Now don't start picturing me with some vail and subservient answer; you know me better than that. But begin to picture a Mary who knows what is to have no choice over her own body, and there you will find the lens by which I interpret this scripture. For me this is not a feel-good-story, and as much as I have tried in recent weeks, and over the years, I can read this text in no other way.
So if you wanted this day a beautiful Christmas message, I apologize, but if you are willing to stay one week longer in this Advent waiting time, and peer into the darkness of the season, to the flesh of our own stories, then you just might find a version of Mary to which you can relate, a light in the darkness, the Word made flesh and dwelling among us.
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The scripture begins, “The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a virgin, engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary.”
I would like to think that Mary wanted this visitor, that she had been talking to God, and waiting at the window, hoping like a child for predicted snow, or a youth for her first date, or a homebound woman for a visit from a friend, but I am afraid it wasn’t like this. I am afraid Mary had no part in the plan, and I am afraid she was used to subordination. At fifteen, she was, “a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.” At fifteen her parents had already arranged her marriage and all we know about Joseph’s suitability is his name and linage, not if there was love, or compatibility, or even kindness. At fifteen she had no dreams of school, or job of her desiring, or of falling in love with the man her choosing. And I pray Joseph was only a couple years her elder, because some sources say he may have been as many as twenty, and just this week people have pretended that it was okay for a fifteen year old to be engaged to a thirty-five-year-old, ‘because that was culture of the time.’ I ask you what fifteen year old would you encourage to marry? What fifteen year old would you set up with someone older than me? What fifteen year old, across the ocean, would you place in a burka, banish from school, disallow to drive, and hand off to a thirty-five year-old-man? No matter the culture, no matter the time period, it wasn’t okay then, just as it isn't okay now. Just because its written in our Christmas story, lets not dress up a culture of pedophilia and women’s oppression, calling Joseph a saint, and worse yet heralding the plight of many women in our own time. This is not some pretty story, and no wonder Mary is afraid. Mary had no choice, no choice over her destiny, and no choice over her body.
The scripture continues, “The angel came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her,
"Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."
I wish Gabriel had asked Mary if she would like to conceive a child in her womb and bear a son. Shouldn’t a woman always have this choice? Shouldn’t a fifteen year old girl get to decide when it is time for her to become a mother, because I don’t know many fifteen years old for whom pregnancy is their intended decision. Across the globe, pregnancy keeps teens from finishing their education, limits their job opportunities, and can make them financially reliant and stuck - powerless - in relationships. I wish the angel had been a woman, call her Gabriella. Let her deliver the message, because maybe then Mary could have questioned more, could have said, ‘no,’ but I am afraid Mary grew up in a culture where you didn’t say no to men, where their word was final and law. Imagine if Gabriella had asked Mary what she desired, how might Mary’s answer differ? I wonder what were Mary’s dreams before this. What life did she imagine when she let her imagination run? Did she want to be a teacher like Michelle? Was she an aspiring writer like Kate? Did she have a great basketball game, like Kalli? We don’t know, because Mary’s side of the story isn't told, and perhaps, she was so steeped in culture of oppression that she didn't know she could dream. She didn't know she should have choices. So here she is, being told she will be pregnant, and bare a child, that she will carry this burden, and labor it forth. She is told what she will name her son, and what will be his destiny, and that, her own destiny will be governed by his kingship. “You will name him Jesus, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end.” We are supposed to think that Mary wants a famous son, we are supposed to think she wants to fulfill the prophesy, and therefore we assume that Mary can’t think for herself. But I tell you she is thinking on her feet.
Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?” We do not know if Mary was actually a virgin, but what we do know is that either way she had to say she was. That still today, outside the door of marriage beds, people wait for the stain. That hymen replacement surgery is a common, not only in the Middle East, but in America as well. This is not just a culture of masculine machismo, but a culture of feminine death, and threat, and fear. If Mary was not a virgin, she could have been the victim of an honor-killing, possibly by her own family, to assuage their shame of her loss of virginity. Likewise, still today, there are women who claim immaculate conception because their lives depends on it. And before we think that these examples are too extreme for us, let us look at our own colleges and the ways they too silence and blame victims who likewise had no choice over their own bodies. Let us look at the simple way that our culture raises its children. Having grown up in the South, the expectation is that, ‘boys will be boys,’ and girls are to, ‘save themselves.’ We actually use that language. Well, the thing Mary is saving herself from is death, and in the South, and perhaps here too, women are saving themselves from shame, if they can. We don't question whether they, perhaps like Mary, perhaps like me, don’t really find virginity all that important. Maybe what is important, is women deciding for themselves.
But in this scripture, it seems as if even God has made the decision to take away Mary’s choice. The angel said to her,
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”
I am not sure what could be worse than this Annunciation of the Immaculate Conception? ‘Mary you are used to being overshadowed, and now you will also be overshadowed by God. God will take away your choice over what happens to your body, and if you were a virgin you are no longer. If, by chance, your pregnancy was not divine, what will be taken away is the truth of your story, and the your words to share it. If you felt the pleasure of love, deny it and pretend your conception was divine, and if you were raped, say the same, call it God’s plan. These are your words Mary.’ The words of the oppressed, the Word made flesh, to dwelling among us.
Then Mary said, "Here am I, the slave of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." I don’t know if she said this with the utmost sarcasm. I don't know if she said this in tears of helpless grief, but I wonder if she muttered under her breath, ‘because I have been given no other choice, and no one asked what I would choose.’ I imagine at this point Gabriel gets it. Even the angel knows that what he has brought is not good news for Mary. So, having gotten what he needed, “the angel departed from her.” I don't know if Mary crumpled in pain, or if she was so numb to the plight of women that she just carried on as usual; maybe what remained was a spark of pride for her quick life-saving answer, the girl who outsmarted the angel. I don't know. We don’t hear Mary’s story, but I have heard enough stories to know that hers, and my own, are images of Advent we can’t ignore. They are the stories of so many Marys, and the story of the Mary that stands in front of you, but the difference between my story and hers, is I get to tell it, and perhaps, in the telling of her story, in the messy hardship of it, is the true annunciation.
Perhaps true annunciation is that no matter the how much we oppress, be it through images of a fair skinned, saintly,’ mother and child, or a theology that that turns human conception into divine assault, the versions of Mary with silenced stories, will still find their story, and perhaps their voice, in the telling of this ancient one. In so doing, we change the narrative, from Mary’s virginity being the reason that Jesus was divine, to her plight being the reason the divine came to Mary, that her story might be told, and ours with it. Because where else does God come, but to the oppressed, that they might be free, “Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay,” to the young like Mary and all of creation, “On this day, earth shall ring, with the song, children sing,” to the humanness of our lives, “Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing,” to the wounded and sick, “light and life to all he brings, risen healing in his wings,” to the hidden worrisome places, “Yet in the dark streets shineth, the everlasting light, the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight,” and this day, to the silenced that they might have voice, “Go tell it on a mountain, over the hills and everywhere.” Amen.
