Now imagine a three-legged stool. Most of us like to feel the balance between the three legs.
But in my youth I had a strange priest friend who did not trust the traditional leg. He tried to more or less balance himself on the other two.
This naturally led to some odd behavior. For one thing, he distrusted vestments, so he might appear with his stole worn deacon-fashion, or none at all. Likewise liturgical colors–he might wear the wrong one, and when this was ponted out, announce that this doesn’t “really matter.”
On the whole in fact he seemed to think the Church Year was rather superfluous. And the Book of Common Prayer itself was a necessary evil: he liked the Good Book, not the Prayer Book.
He celebrated the Eucharist with his hands held down like this because he thought this [Orant: hands up!] was a catholic gesture. He despised the Daily Office. Except when used as the Main Service. And so forth. We had great fun being so different, and found something much deeper than fun when we could agree.
But above all, minimal tradition. If it was not in Scripture, he had no use for it.
Now here comes the inconsistency. When he did say Mass–or rather “led the Communion Service,” and came to the climactic words “bring us with all your saints into the joy of your heavenly kingdom,” he always said, “with Our Lady Mary and all your saints.”
“Our Lady Mary”– It was as though Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church decided to change its name to “Notre Dame de New York.”
This was so out of character, so inconsistent with everything he had to say, that the first time he did this one of the adult acolytes looked at me with an expression of worry: is he coming unglued before our very eyes?
No, he wasn’t coming unglued.
For me, his liturgical devotion to the Blessed Virgin, calling her “Our Lady” and mentioning her every time he presided, is a life-long symbol of the sheer power of the person who moves to center stage now as the drama of Advent draws to its final act.
Countless Christians of course have felt Mary’s magnetism. They have given her a blue mantle (because she is Star of the Sea and Queen of the Heavens), they have given her the lily for purity, the violet for humility, and the rose for beauty– the single flower left over from Paradise given a thorn to protect it in a fallen world. They have insisted upon her perpetual virginity, they have discovered that her Conception was Immaculate (which I was telling some students a few weeks ago men pledged themselves ready to die for at one time, which got their attention), they have realized that she was Assumed into heaven almost like Enoch and Elijah. They have placed her son in her lap after his Crucifixion. They have given her parents names–Joachim and Anna–and unearthed the story of her betrothal to Joseph. (Which you can see in our Holy Family Chapel reredos, painted in 1925).
My friend believed none of the above, however, just as you and I probably believe most or all of it. As I said he was a Christian Sadducee: just as they would accept nothing unless it were spelled out in Torah, so he would believe nothing that was not explicitly in Scripture. And none of the above is explicit in Scripture. In fact it takes a little ingenuity to find it implicitly there. All this is that other Pillar of Anglicanism, Tradition, the Pillar our friend did not trust very much.
Yet he could not help but feel Mary’s strength. Her spiritual magnetism. This is what is so impressive. Practically all he believed he knew about her was the Gospel reading we just heard: the Annunciation story. Scripture tells us, in its usual tantalizing way, very little–she was betrothed to Joseph, she visited her older cousin Elizabeth, and above all she experienced the Annunciation.
The Angel Gabriel (he too by the way will have a very great deal added to his legend) brings the message, hail favored one, the Lord is with you, and you shall bear his Son.
What my friend felt was the power of that moment–the same power that at one time made paintings of the Annunciation far more frequent even than depictions of the Crucifixion. All those paintings of the Angel and Mary you have seen (and I’ll guess you will see on a Christmas card before the season ends) were not just made to decorate homes and churches. They were made as catalysts for devotion. The devotion that made March 25 for many years a much bigger occasion than December 25th–because of course March 25 is when it happened, today we are once again flexing time a bit. The same devotion that made my friend say “Our Lady Mary.”
Feminist theologians have for decades now been reminding us that Mary’s power has something to do with acknowledging the sacrality of women in a masculine religion. Historical theologians have told us she has something to do with nostalgia for the great Women Goddesses of the Ancient World–the Athenas, the Aphrodites, the Demeters, whose worship lies behind the name Demetrios. Certainly. Those are reasons many churches 800 years ago were named Our Lady.
But I don’t think these are the reasons our Protestant friend felt her power. I believe it is deeper. Or more central.
The radical truth of the faith is this: Mary was the person in whom, literally in whom, the Word was made Flesh. Mary became the locus for the Incarnation. Which is with the Resurrection one of the two radical essentials for Christianity. At the heart of the Creed.
Why? There have been three great answers to that question.
1. A divine plan to outwit the Devil and free us captives–to Ransom Captive Israel, in the words of the Great Antiphon for Advent. The idea was that God Incarnate was the great ransom paid this kidnapper of souls–who then would discover the Divine identity of the one he had taken as ransom.
2. This was the moment when God and sinners are reconciled, in the words of the great hymn for Christmas eve. An inevitable Sacrifice to an outraged God the Father. A sacrifice, St. Anselm said, that only one who was a member of the human race and a member of the Holy Trinity could make.
3. A perfect counterweight to the Fall of Humankind: Mary is the New Eve, as Irenaeus, building on Sat. Paul’s great teaching of Christ as the New Adam. The Word was made flesh, said Clement, so that you and I could learn to be made Divine. A see-saw: and Mary is the fulcrum. The balance point.
Advent comes to a climax this morning: all four candles are lit now, defiant in winter’s darkness: welcoming the One about to arrive. Culture in shock has made Advent especially precious. And we bring Mary into focus. My friend believes nothing about her that he cannot find in Scripture, nothing except what we hear this morning.
Nothing, that is, except the most important thing of all. Scripture presents a Prediction. In the 3rd Gospel, Gabriel is informing Mary: You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be called great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. We will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Period.
But you and I hear something more. So does our friend from Geneva. We hear something St Justin was the first to mention. We think it’s there in the Gospel According to Luke. But it isn’t. We do not hear a period. We hear a question mark. We hear the Angel ask a question. We don’t hear him make a Prediction. We hear him deliver a Proposal. The Proposal of God the Father Almighty. And Mary says yes.
Every Christian has echoed that Yes down twenty centuries, and every Christian has sought to make his or her own Mary’s song, our Offertory Anthem and our Communion Chant: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my salvation...he has cast down the mighty from their thrones, he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
And you know, I did check the service at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church this morning. I found something I felt as truly joyful. I guarantee you that fifty years ago the service at Little Church and the service at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian were very, very different sorts of things. But today, well, today they too are marking the Fourth Sunday of Advent. They too are reading Luke 1: 26-38. They too are singing O Come Emmanuel, and the Magnificat. They too are doing a confession–and their confession asks God to make them more like the Blessed Virgin Mary.
And their leaflet begins with an exquisite quote from one of the great Anglican teachers of the past century, the venerable Massey Shepherd, who kindly answered my questions about Worship decades ago: the Magnificat is the loveliest flower of Hebrew Messianic poetry, blossoming on the eve of the Incarnation.
A beautiful ending to a beautiful season.
