“Boundless
Love”
Sermon for MCC
New Haven
December 23,
2012
Rev. Brian
Hutchison, M.Div.
Who
was this woman, Mary, the mother of Jesus? And with so little written about her
in the Christian Bible, how have Christians around the world come to know her
as the Virgin Mary or Virgin Mother, the Mother of God, and the Queen of
Heaven? How have millions of Catholics and others come to pray to her daily? I
think we can all agree that within and beyond what Scripture tells us, “There’s
something about Mary.”
From
historical records, we know very little about Mary. We know that she was a
Jewish peasant girl, probably only around thirteen years old when she finds herself
pregnant out of wedlock, which was punishable by stoning. But a man named
Joseph promises to marry her, therefore making her his property and
responsibility instead of her father’s. Notice how Mary’s parents are nowhere
to be found in any of the gospels. Perhaps they had shunned the young Mary so
that she would not bring shame on them with a bastard child.
But
Mary knew that she could go to her relative Elizabeth, who was pregnant with
John the Baptist. Mary knew that in her trouble, she had to trust those who
loved her unconditionally, not those whose love ran dry when it was found out
that she had broken the law- and in a very serious way. Even girls who were
raped in that time were blamed for the act. We know that blaming the victims is
a millennia-old sin. Those of us on the margins know too well what it means to
be loved conditionally and to be
blamed for misfortunes like hate crimes happening to us.
Mary
went “with haste,” the Scripture says, to Elizabeth’s house. She was deeply
afraid for her own wellbeing and for the wellbeing of her unborn child. But
Elizabeth showed radical hospitality
and took this unmarried pregnant teenager into her home- for three months. And
according to Luke, Elizabeth’s unborn child danced in her womb at Mary’s voice.
There’s no way we can take this as a historical event, but it is essential to
the story, because Elizabeth is convinced
that through this shameful circumstance, God is at work.
Other
gospels not found in our Bible add to the story. In one Gospel, Mary’s parents
are named: Joachim and Anne. And according to Catholic tradition, Mary was the
product of an “Immaculate Conception,” meaning that she was not born with
original sin. The story goes that Joachim and Anne were perfect in their
obedience to the law and free of personal sin, so Mary was blessed without
original sin. This, not the virgin birth of Jesus, is called “The Immaculate
Conception” and Mary is sometimes called “The Immaculata.”
In
yet another gospel not found in our Bible, Mary’s midwife checks Mary to make
sure that she is a virgin before she gives birth to Jesus. (In other words, she
checks for her hymen.) Even in this ancient Christian literature, we are given
the graphic details of the human body. Fundamentalists to this day teach that
the virgin birth was absolutely essential for God to be incarnate.
But
for progressive and New Thought theologians like myself, none of this really
matters. In MCC, we profess in the words of Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox, we are born
in “Original Blessing,” not original sin. We profess that from before our
birth, God has called us His children, Her beloved. Not a single infant that
comes into this world is inherently evil, no matter how much they may make
parents unhappy with constant crying and soiling diapers J.
But
to those who wrote our gospels in the first century, virgin birth was a common
narrative about important people such as kings and emperors. In Greek and Roman
mythology, gods regularly impregnated women. Julius Caesar was said to be a
child of a god. So to say that YHWH impregnated a woman was not completely
absurd to people in the Greco-Roman world; it was just absurd to the Jews to
say it about YHWH.
Of
course the very fact that Mary was the mother of Jesus of Nazareth is enough to
make her an important figure in the Christian tradition, but there is something
much deeper than that in human history that makes Mary as a divine figure much
more meaningful. And that something is not often spoken of, something scandalous, indecent even.
In
essence, the various traditions of Mary or what is called “marianism” are all
rooted in indigenous faiths that worshipped goddesses or “the Divine Feminine.”
Most Christians are taught growing up that God is masculine. At times, it even
seems that “He” is a holy name for God. Yes, YHWH was considered masculine most
of the time in the Jewish tradition. And yes, Jesus did call God “Abba,” which
is an endearing Aramaic term for Father such as “Papa.” But from the beginning
of the Jewish tradition and throughout the Christian tradition, the Divine
Feminine has not disappeared.
Modern
archaeologists have found a plethora of goddess statues at the sites of ancient
Jewish cities. And in the Christian tradition, as I will go into more detail
about, the character and image of Mary become very goddess-like. So regardless
of how patriarchal Judaism and Christianity have been, Jews and Christians have
still longed for that mothering figure, that feminine energy in their idea of
the divine.
For
those of you who grew up Roman Catholic or have spent time among Catholics
probably know the most well known Marian prayers. The first is the Hail Mary:
“Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for
us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” Notice that this prayer is
modeled after the scripture that we read from the gospel of Luke today. The
first line is exactly what Elizabeth says to Mary. Catholic tradition then
named Mary “Mother of God” since Mary birthed Jesus, God in the flesh. And they
also hold the belief that the saints are intercessors for the living who pray
to them for help. Protestant reformers considered this idolatry and forbid
praying to anyone but God. But Catholics and others still pray the Rosary
daily, which is based on the Hail Mary prayer.
The
other prayer is called “Hail, Holy Queen”. I will spare you the details of this
prayer, but its historical significance is that since the Mesopotamian era
(nearly 7,000 BCE, 9,000 years ago), the name “Queen of Heaven” has been used
for goddesses.[1] So we can
safely say that the veneration of Mary today is primal. In the depth of our
psyche, we long for the feminine.
Today’s
Advent theme is “Love.” And this theme fits perfectly with our focus today on
Mary. Sure, Mary was probably a very loving mother. But beyond that, for the
first 1500 years of Christianity, she was the primary symbol of God’s love. Few
people know this, but the Cross did not become the primary symbol of God’s love
in the Christian tradition until the Reformation when the printing press
allowed printed pornography to sexualize the breast. Before that time, it was
the image of the nursing or lactating Mary that Christians looked to in seeking
the love of God.[2]
Mary
was called “Maria Lactans” in Latin or “The Wet Nurse of Salvation.” She was
often portrayed in art as giving Christians her milk as the expression of God’s
love. Saints were even pictured suckling at her breast. Today, we may find this
strange. Mothers in our society are encouraged to hide their breast while
breastfeeding in public. Since the breast has been so sexualized and since we
still hold to the sex-negativity of our Puritan ancestors in faith, the
beautiful meaning behind the lactating Mary has been nearly lost.
The
sins of sexism and misogyny have stripped Mary and indeed all women of their
sexuality and ownership of their own bodies. The sexual revolution of the 1960s
has allowed American women to express their sexuality more openly after the
Victorian era of sexual suppression, but it has also opened the way for women
to become sexual objects. On the spectrum between denying the body completely
and objectifying the body lies a holy Middle Way that we in MCC profess. We see
the body and mutual, loving expressions of sexuality as holy. We recognize the
functions of the female body as sacred. And last but certainly not least, we
reclaim the Divine Feminine, recognizing that the Great Mystery and Ground of
Our Being in whose image and likeness we are made includes the essence of
Woman.
Because of the way many of us have been
indoctrinated, such assertions may seem like blasphemy. But from our social
location as a queer people, these affirmations meet us right where we are, at
the core of our lives, in the center of our experience.
Today,
hear the song that Mary sang in the Gospel of Luke as a song for your liberation:
“Our souls
magnify the Lord, and our spirits
rejoice in God our Savior, for God has looked with favor on us, God’s Rainbow
People. Surely, from now on all generations will call us blessed. For El
Shadai, the Almighty Breasted One, has done great things for us. God’s mercy is
for those who honor God from generation to generation. God has shown strength;
God has scattered the bigoted in the hateful thoughts of their hearts. God has
brought down the powerful from their seats of power and has lifted up the
marginalized. God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the greedy
away empty. God has helped His queer servants, in remembrance of Her mercy, according
to the promise God made to our spiritual ancestors and all their descendants
forever.”
Saints,
you are descendants in a long line of bold prophets of liberation who have
transcended boundaries and embraced a wider vision of the sacred. I know that
some of you may always see God as only masculine. I affirm you in your
understanding of God. But for those of us who feel that pull of the Holy Spirit
within to hold a wider vision of God, we can believe without fear, for in the
words of the Gospel of Matthew (23:37), God gathers us as a mother hen gathers
her chicks under her wings. Amen.
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