09/08/2024

Trinity 15 – Mary August in the life of the global church is the month most associated with honouring Mary mother of the Lord. In the Catholic church this month includes feasts of the Solemnity of Mary, of the Queenship of Mary, and of the Assumption of Mary. And there are many more minor feasts too. We focus today in our own church on the life and witness, the willingness and the example of Mary mother of our Lord. I was once in southern Spain with a friend, and she told us how she had looked up and seen out of the window Mary passing by – now don’t worry she hadn’t been overcome with a vision, it was in fact one of those amazing processions when some splendid statue of the Virgin Mary was carried in great pomp through the streets, beloved of many, and to the British eye perhaps a little bit much. And devotion to Our Lady can excite quite a response, we have all been to cathedrals and churches where Mary, who was in fact an ordinary, young and working-class woman from the Galilee region, is presented clothed in the finest silks and damasks, crowned with gold, and bejewelled, and it can seem a very long way from the biblical presentation of her, and has caused some Christians sadly to shy away from the important task of truly considering and valuing her unique contribution to the life of the church down the ages. Given that women, even the saints have in truth had little real role on the official life of the church, maybe this in part comes from a desire to compensate, even over-compensate for that, by making Mary so important, but in truth does all this do her any favours, and are we losing the real Mary and her importance in the round of devotions? Hers was an extraordinary life, in love with Jospeh, and yet only betrothed, she finds herself expecting a child, and in an obviously tough place. Visited by God’s angels she learns of His choice of her to carry his son, this very young, ordinary girl whose life must have seemed mapped out, now faced a huge dilemma. And yet her response to that is sung in churches every day at Evensong, and has been for two thousand years, The Magnificat, our Gospel this morning, and clearly in many ways inspired by the first reading from the prophet Isaiah where echoes of her later response are so clear. Mary’s response is extraordinary for its perception. Many women have been placed in positions where they have felt their lives were controlled by others, and not surprisingly this often and rightly has caused them pain and indignation. Mary however believes what she is told and sees it as a blessing bestowed on her by a God who is not seeking to control but in fact the bless and magnify her before the world. She rejoices in this utterly unexpected event and wonders how God has chosen someone so humble to carry this child. To Mary this self-same God who she trusts is the God who is merciful to those who trust him, who challenges the proud, does mighty works including bringing the mighty to heel. This God she knows feeds the poor and hungry, but the rich who have no need of him he sends away empty. And this God is faithful to His chosen people and is through her willingness about to reveal His final saving grace to humanity in the life of the child she carries. And as Jesus grew this life became no easier, for He was both her child and yet destined to be everything to everyone. She may not have always understood what was going on, but then that is true of many parents, but she remained close, witnessing His ministry at first hand, worrying for Him, and afraid for Him, and at the end waited at the foot of the Cross as she witnessed his cruel execution. She grieved her son, she buried her son, and yet she witnessed too the rising of her son. No-one could have had greater love or faithfulness to Jesus, and few could have suffered for their love of a child as she did. And Mary remained important in the life of the earliest church, her eventual death so troubled the believers that even to this day the western church prefers to believe she was bodily assumed into heaven as a mark of divine compassion, whereas the Eastern church believes she fell asleep as one day we all do. What is important to me is that we do not lose sense of the real power of Mary’s witness and response to God in the trappings of piety. When you see on the TV young women in Gaza or other violent places protecting and sheltering their children, look on, for they are more Mary than any be-decked Queen of Heaven. The very fact that God chose this young woman, these humble circumstances, this moment of tension and violence in human history mean something deeply important. One of the most moving things I have ever seen is the Pieta by Michelangelo in St Peter’s in Rome. There just inside the nave on the side it stands, a mother cradling. The body of her child, who in that moment must have thought her every nightmare had come true. It stands for all the vulnerability of parents who love and fear and try to protect their own down human history. For those who this morning are trying to find clean water, food, shelter and help, who fear every minute for those they love most deeply, who despair and can see no end to these cruelties. It is a true depiction of love and faithfulness, of devotion and sacrifice. To lose the essence of this in pious overkill is to some extent to miss the point. In the incarnation of Jesus God sanctifies and draws near to the real, imperfect world we all live in, joins it not in a life of privilege but one of real vulnerability and pain. Perhaps we find it difficult to allow this drawing near, we prefer to put people on pedestals, to want for them trappings of power and glory that in truth their lives didn’t contain. Well not in human terms, but in divine terms, Mary is so important because she lived out faithfully one of the great callings of life, to be a parent, to love at all costs, to risk everything, to never give in, and to believe in the good ness of God, which she herself lived to see made reality. So in her honour and for the sake of all who live today lives of mothering in the hardest places and times, we give thanks for her witness, her fidelity and strength and courage. She needs no ornament or extravagance, she brought to reality the importance of the everyday and ordinary which in truth are neither. And we pray for all who tread that path in the hardest times. Amen