This is the sermon I preached on Tuesday Night at the Celebration of St. Mary, mother of our Lord. I like it a lot, what do you think?
Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes, I feel like a mother, a motherless child
Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child
A long, long way from my home
When I first started thinking about this sermon, what to say and how to say it this song by a band called Hootie and the Blowfish, burst into my conscious. As I sat with it and let the words wash over me, I realized this song embodies the sense of the world and the people walking in and on it. There is despair and longing in those words, there is truth and even beauty in those words. They are a call to all of us, all of us gathered here today to remember this compassionate and courageous woman who did God’s will simply by saying yes, and with that yes was overwhelmed, and overjoyed by the glory of God. One of the Church fathers, Tertullian, has said, “The Glory of God is a human being fully alive.” Mary was fully alive, she was filled as no one has ever been filled before, she was full of joy and life, most of all with life. Life in her pregnant belly and new life in her own body and soul.
She could have been quite upset about being pregnant, she could have lived in fear that whole time, waiting for the knock on the door that would out her as an unmarried woman living in horrible sin and impurity. She could have even said NO to God and the whole history of Christianity and religion in the world could have been different. But she said yes, and she was filled with the spirit and rejoiced at the presence of the Spirit in the world. Even Elizabeth, pregnant with John, felt the power of the spirit within her, John leapt in Elizabeth’s womb and Elizabeth herself, according to Luke, was filled with the spirit. Sam Portraro, in his book, Brightest and Best, says, “The primary images of our human relationship to God are not images of husband and wife, nor even of father and son, for these relationships are known only to some of us. The inclusive and archetypal image of mother and child affirms our common humanity”. In this day and age, many people would have us believe that husband and wife is the primary image of human relationship, yet, with divorce rates as high as 50-70% depending on the sources one uses, and so many single mothers in the country, we must always remember that this image of Mother and child is one that we all, or at least many of us, have experienced and lived out to some degree of fullness.
But step away from that image, that single image of Mother and child and let’s look at the question of human beings in relationship and our common humanity. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams wrote a powerful piece about human beings in relationship and our common humanity that captures this need for all of us to recognize that we, as Van Halen’s song from the movie Twister states, “We are just human’s being.” Rowan Williams writes, “It is by what we say about humanity that we very often make clearest what we believe about God.” How else could we express our own belief of God but through how we see humanity how we see each other as humans being on God’s creation? How could Mary not rejoice with great pleasure and joy at this blessed event she was going to take part in? How could she not have filled people she met along her journey to the manger with joy and happiness since she also was filled with nothing but joy and hope for a future that was unclear but was bound to contain great possibility? Mary expressed her vision of humanity and her relationship with God by being filled with the Spirit by saying YES to God, by announcing her joy in song, “My soul doth magnify the Lord”.
Archbishop Williams continued in his piece asking the following question, “So, what do we mean by humanity? How do we as a Church show a new humanity? How does that humanity present itself in the world as something so compelling and attractive that it seems clear to people this is what it is to be human? ‘That’s a life I would like’, is the response we would like to hear from the world around: ‘I’ll have what they’re having’!” I love that image, how can we make the humanity we experience from day to day, week to week, year to year so compelling that people will simply be blown away by the life we live as Christians, not as Episcopalians, Lutherans or Roman Catholics but as Christians in the world, fully alive and filled completely with the Glory of God? We, as communities of faith, must live into that sense of being so powerful that when people walkthrough the doors of our churches, or into the communities that gather to celebrate Christ, they will never want to leave. How can we become so compelling people will say, I want what they are having!!!
My Liturgics professor at Seminary in Berkeley used to talk about the most important sacrament of all, not Eucharist, or Baptism, but rather the sacrament of presence, that sacrament of human relationship, the sacrament of being present to another human being, sharing with that person the glory of God fully alive in the person of one’s self. Christ was present in such a way through all the Gospels, before anything else, he was present to the people that needed him most, to the people who questioned him most, the people who were most willing to sit at his feet and learn. Jesus maintained a powerful sacrament of presence; one that was most likely instilled in him by his relationship with Mary, his Mother. He was formed in the womb and in his childhood as a compassionate, spirit filled human being, only because that is exactly what his mother was to him. He learned to say yes to God as his Mother did, he learned how to spread the joy of God fully alive within himself because of his mother. The compelling story and life that he told and led was one based entirely in the spirit filled person of Mary. Archbishop Williams continues saying, “Our position in the world is now what it was meant to be because we were made for intimacy. We were made for communion. We were made for meaning. And for all those things to come alive again in the presence and the power of Jesus, that is what life in the body of Christ makes possible. That’s why the Church is the pilot project for the new humanity”. All of it was made possible, yes, by Christ in his life, death and resurrection, but it started with a simple and very courageous YES, not my will, but your own, on the part of Mary.
Sing:
Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes, I feel like a mother, a motherless child
Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child
A long, long way from my home
So, from here we are called, we are pulled out into the world, bringing with us this Sacrament of Presence, this new humanity that in Christ and with Mary, we are able to tell a compelling story to those who feel as if they are lost, those who feel as if they are motherless children. From here we are able and willing to say YES to God and share the joy, the hope and the compassion that comes to us from that simple yes. May we tell out our souls, souls full of compassion, joy and hope, so that all people will fall into the embrace of the ever compassionate mother of Christ, mother to us all.
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