A Vessel in the Dark
John Shuck
First Presbyterian
Church
Elizabethton,
Tennessee
December 14, 2014
Qur’an
19:15-21
“And mention
in the Book Mary, when she withdrew from her people to an eastern place. She set up a screen to veil her from
them. And We sent her Our Spirit, which
appeared before her as an immaculate human.
She said:
“I take
refuge in the All-Merciful from you, if you fear God.”
He said:
“I am but a
messenger from your Lord, to bestow upon you a son most pure.”
She said:
“How can I
have a son when no man has ever touched me, nor am I an adulteress?”
He said:
“Thus did
your Lord speak: ‘It is a matter easy
for Me. We shall make him a wonder to
mankind and a mercy from Us—a decree ordained.’”
Luke
1:26-38
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
he 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 for ever, 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.
On this third Sunday of Advent our attention turns to
Jesus’s mother, Mary. She is called Theotokos, bearer of God or Mother of
God. The Council of Ephesus in 431
declared Mary to be Theotokos, birth-giver
of God, because her son, Jesus, was both God and human.
My seminary professor , Karlfried Froelich, didn’t like that
term, Theotokos, Mother of God. He
thought the title was a bit over the top.
Mother of God? Mary was the mother of Jesus or the mother
of the Christ. But who could mother
God? If he had a vote in that early
council he told us he would have voted for Christotokos,
Mother of Christ.
But he didn’t get a vote and the mother of God team
won. Like it or not, Mary is mother of
God. So it is written. So it shall be done. Live with it.
I kind of like, theotokos,
birth-giver of God, bearer of God, mother of God. Granted, I will concede the theological
arguments. Once you start debating the
nature of God, my eyes glaze over. I
think talk about God is really human beings talking about themselves.
If it is true that God-talk is really Human-talk, then when
these members of the council were calling Mary mother of God in 431, what were
they saying? Sure they were talking
about the debates over Jesus and how he could be both God and human and
whatever. And patriarchy limited them
to think that women played no role in the formation of the child
biologically. Women were not believed to
contribute to the child’s identity. In Mary’s case, she was a vessel or a vase to
hold Divine Spirit. She was an oven to
warm the bun but she did not contribute to the makeup of the bun. To use another metaphor, she was mother
earth for the divine seed. Because Mary was a virgin, Jesus was thus untainted by
human “sin”. All that said, still…
…I like to think that those who saw Mary as mother of God
were trying to elevate the human. They
were trying to find a way to relate to God.
Perhaps inadvertently, but perhaps poetically, they were suggesting that
human beings can give birth to the holy, to God. Mary and you and I can be vessels for all
that is holy, beautiful and life-giving.
If Mary could, then perhaps you and I could be theotokos as well.
I think they saw in Mary’s story a spiritual posture that inspired
them and touched their hearts. Mary is
God-bearer because she is able to trust God or Life or the Universe or her
Deeper Intuition or whatever word is meaningful for you. She is able to allow something new to work
within her even though it is frightening and unknown.
She doesn’t allow her fear or her doubts about herself or
her circumstance keep her from saying these famous words:
Let it be with me according to your word.
Let it be with me according to your word.
This is the treasure that we find on the via negativa. We discover a resilience and a courage we
didn’t know we had. This doesn’t come
because of some sort of special virtue or superhuman power. We may not feel super at all, in fact,
anything but. It comes because we have
been hollowed.
Another image comes from Hinduism. Krishna is depicted as blue and playing a
flute. Why does he play a flute? One explanation is this by Dhananjaya Bhat:
If you get rid of your
ego and become like a hollow reed flute, then the Lord will come to you, pick
you up, put his lips and breathe through you and out of the hollowness of your
heart, the captivating melody will emerge for all creations to enjoy.
These spiritual traditions, from Hinduism to Christianity,
recognize the human need to be a vessel.
There are times when we are creative actors. The light is bright and we name things and we
do things and we accomplish things. As
we say on the farm, we make hay while the sun shines. That is the via positiva, and I am glad for it.
But there is also the path of the night that winds its way
through the dark places of our inner space. I find this path to be at least as
valuable. It is perhaps more valuable
than the via positiva just because we
have tended to push it away. Theologian
Matthew Fox complains that the West does not have a healthy via negativa. Letting go and letting be lacks commercial
appeal. We tend to ignore those dark
spaces in our lives or rush through them because we equate the light with good
and with God and we want to get there fast.
But God is also found in the dark. God is found in the letting go and in the letting
be of our egos, our accomplishments, and our vitality. Our bodies age, our minds become less quick,
our losses accumulate. But this is what
is. This is real. The spiritual path of recognizing and
accepting this has its rewards.
Carrie Newcomer, the singer-songwriter and poet, spoke with me on Religion For Life about her
dog. Her dog taught her to accept limits
without pining for what was. The dog
gets older and cannot run as much, so she walks and sniffs and experiences life
as she can without the angst of what she is not experiencing.
In life, the dark is present as much as the light and it is
good to learn to walk in it.
While the text doesn’t say it, I have often had in my mind’s
eye that it is night when Gabriel appears to Mary. In art, The Annunciation is sometimes
portrayed as happening in the light of day and at other times at night. I tend to like the night versions.
Mary, according to the legends of the Bible, is acquainted
with the night. She gives birth at
night in a stable or a cave. She flees
to Egypt by night with husband and child.
She is at the foot of the cross when her son dies and according to
legend, Earth is shrouded in darkness.
She has been an inspiration, confidante, advocate and
strength for those whose sorrow is deep and for those who suffer. Growing up Protestant, I never appreciated
Mary as much as my Catholic friends. I
went to Catholic high school and was introduced to Mary, a divine figure who is
feminine, the mother of God. I learned
this prayer:
Hail Mary, full of
grace.
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou
amongst 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.
Mary is also an inspiration for those who struggle against
injustice. Her song, called by the
Latin, the Magnificat is a radical song.
Theologian, Robert McAffee Brown, calls Mary’s song “a call to
revolutionary action.” She mixes music,
politics, and prayer:
“God has shown
strength with God’s arm,
has scatted the proud
in the imagination of their hearts,
put down the mighty
from their thrones,
and exalted those of
low degree;
has filled the hungry
with good things,
and the rich has sent
empty away.”
As we think of Mary as a vessel, we should not think of Mary
as demure or weak or uninterested in political things. Mary is a rabble-rouser. Her strength comes through the via negativa. She is the inspiration today for
liberationist movements in Latin America and throughout the world.
Her song, called the Magnificat,
that begins in Luke 1:46 when she is visiting her cousin Elizabeth, is a song
designed to start a revolution. It is
about the powers of this world, political, military, economic, being overthrown
and replaced by the people. What is
being born in Mary is a new creation. It
is a vision or re-ordering of life according to justice and peace for the poor
and the hungry. No matter the obstacle, no matter the
circumstance, no matter the fear and the angst, no matter the uncertainty, no
matter the opposition, Mary says, “Let
it be with me.”
We honor Mary today.
We honor Mary, the figure in the tradition, but more importantly, we
honor Mary within and among. Mary, theotokos,
the one who gives birth to God.
I am pleased to have been able to serve for these past nine
years a Mary church. I don’t know if I
could give a higher compliment than that.
It is not that you need a compliment.
You know who you are, who you have been, and with whatever new
adventures await, you will say,
Let it be with me
according to your word.
Amen.
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