Sourton, Germansweek (and by proxy, Bridestowe), 1/1/2012
We gather together at the start of a new year. And we consider Mary, pondering, at the start of a new life.
We are with Mary, pondering. In the aftermath of the birth of Jesus, following the visit by a group of very excited shepherds, who had left rejoicing after meeting with the special child, and broadcasted the news to everyone they could find, as Bethlehem subsequently buzzed with amazement, Mary treasured all the words that were being spoken, and pondered them in her heart.
The shepherds must had told Mary what they were telling everyone: of the host of angels appearing to them in the field as they watched over their flock, of the angel of the Lord standing before them, and the glory of the Lord shining around them, and of their terror at this turn of events. Mary treasured the words that the angel then said to the shepherds, ‘Do not be afraid; for see - I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And Mary pondered in her heart the vision with which the shepherds concluded their tale: of the choir of angels standing among them, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace; goodwill...’
So today we are with Mary, pondering these things. Pondering why God would entrust his only Son to the care of a plain ordinary couple in a plain ordinary Palestinian town. Pondering why God would entrust the broadcasting of the news of the arrival of the Saviour of the World to a group of simple shepherds. Pondering just how the arrival of this child would bring about the peace and goodwill of which the angels spoke.
As we ponder them now, there seems no reason to these events. But as the spiritual writer Madeleine L’Engle once put it, in a profound four-line verse:
This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child. [1]
What Mary was filled with was a deep love for her God, a deep desire to serve him obediently, and Mary’s pondering was in no way passive. Our carols and received images of Christmas too often portray a ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, we accommodate images of ‘the little lord Jesus no crying he makes’ whilst we understand in reality that if that child was truly human then he would have been as loud and needy as any other; and so too our received images of Mary as quiescent, inert, one who simply let all these things happen to her, is an unrealistic picture of one who in reality had strength, dignity and - above all - a lively and active faith, in abundance.
No, Mary’s pondering was part of her very lively and active involvement in what God was doing with her. ‘Mary treasured all these words, and pondered them in her heart.’ - this verse carries echoes of a text at the very heart of the people of faith, what we now call the Commandments, words of Moses which we ourselves repeat most weeks in worship. In Deuteronomy Moses tells the people, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.’ (Deuteronomy 6.5-6)
Moses begins with ‘love God’, and ends with ‘keep the commandments’. He nicely juxtaposes love and keep the commandments. The writer Walter Brueggemann says that this is because ‘doing the will of the beloved is the way we enact love.’
Moreover, he says, commandments are to be kept “in your heart”, that is, they are not extrinsic, imposed, or coerced, but inhaled and embraced as one’s own will and intention. [2]
No wallflower, Mary, but an example to us of a person who fully embraced the will of the one she loved - who took his commands into her heart. Her heart was full of him, her desire was all for him, she delighted in the activity of fulfilling in her life the desires of her God. Her pondering was not ponderous, but rather her pondering was a discipline she followed as a person embracing her role as a participant in God’s great plan.
Mary would have known Psalm 19, and we can see that she fully embraced its revolutionary words:
The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure
and gives wisdom to the simple.
The statutes of the Lord are right
and rejoice the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure
and gives light to the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean and endures for ever;
the judgements of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
more than much fine gold,
sweeter also than honey,
dripping from the honeycomb. (Psalm 19.7-10)
Mary was obedient to the law by taking her baby to be named and circumcised on his eighth day. And what Mary modelled for us, in her pondering, was a subversive obedience to her God. Obedience, because she fully embraced the law of the Lord, his statutes, his commandments, his judgements, seeing them to be the source of all goodness, joy and perfection; obedience because her heart’s deepest desire was the desire of her God.
And subversive, because this was not the way of most people in her day. We do not hear of the shepherds or the rest of the people of Bethlehem again, treasuring the words of God in their hearts, playing any further part in the unfolding story of the revolution of the kingdom of Heaven as announced and demonstrated by Jesus. Clearly for them the story of the angels and the child in the manger soon lost its edge as they almost certainly went on to embrace some other local excitement to keep the streets of Bethlehem buzzing awhile. They are in this respect not dissimilar to the people of our culture today, driven from one cause of excitement to another, but aching at the emptiness of their hearts.
Obedience - to an other, even one who is your heart’s desire - is not attractive in a culture like ours which values autonomy, independence, above all (though that is an impossible goal); obedience - in living out the disciplines demanded by the one who is your heart’s desire - is not attractive in a culture like ours which prefers to be promiscuous and self-indulgent with time, effort and energy.
But Mary, pondering, is a model for us this new year. Her subversive obedience to her God challenges us to re-embrace our membership - by baptism - of the revolution of the coming rule of God, and to accept the disciplines which that membership demands - to order our lives around prayer and fasting, around helping and healing others, about practicing the values of the kingdom of Heaven in the here and now. Mary's subversive obedience to her God encourages us to re-affirm our baptismal vows which speak of our true desire - ‘our eagerness to be with, commune with, delight in‘ [3] God. The writer of Psalm 73 says,
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you. (Psalm 73.25)
How powerful, how liberating, are those words today, in our ‘promiscuous, self-indulgent society that prizes autonomy’ [4]. So, on New Year’s Day, with new-found intensity, shall we treasure these words, and ponder them in our heart?
NOTES
[1] Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season, HarperOne, 1984
[2] Walter Brueggemann, Subversive Obedience: Truth-Telling and the Art of Preaching, London: SCM, 2011, p.20
[3] Brueggemann, Subversive Obedience, p.19
[4] Brueggemann, Subversive Obedience, p.1
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