Sermon Archive

"Mary, Servant of the Lord"

Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be..." (1:38a)

"Here am I"— the same affirmative words the patriarch Abraham spoke when God was calling him up the mountain (Genesis 22:1); the same affirmative words the young man Moses spoke when God was calling to him from a burning bush (Exodus 3:4); the same affirmative words the boy Samuel spoke when God was calling him to become a prophet (1 Samuel 3:4); the same affirmative words the youth Isaiah spoke when God was calling him to prophesy (Isaiah 6:8); and now the affirmative words the young woman Mary speaks when God, through Gabriel, is calling on her to bear the Savior of the world. "Here am I." (cf. David L. Bartlett, in New Proclamation, Year B, 1999-2000, Advent through Holy Week (Augsburg Fortress, 1999), p. 25)

There's an old legend in Christianity that suggests this: Mary was not the first fourteen-year-old to whom the angel Gabriel had come, presenting God's offer of quite a unique pregnancy prior to her marriage. No, Mary was not the first fourteen-year-old to be approached by Gabriel. But she was the first of them to respond by saying, "Yes! Here am I. Let me help it happen!"

Building on this legend, the New York City author Madeleine L'Engle has offered us this imaginary, but rather realistic, version of the "No!" that Gabriel had been hearing from the various fourteen-year-olds he'd approached, before his visit to Mary. L'Engle imagines them replying to God's offer in some such way as this:

"'Are you sure you mean— but I'm unworthy— I couldn't anyhow— I'd be afraid. No, no, it's inconceivable, you can't be asking me— I know it's a great honor but wouldn't it upset them all, both our families? They're very proper, you see. Do I have to answer now? I don't want to say no—... But I can't commit myself to anything this important without turning it over in my mind for a while and I should ask my parents and I should ask my— Let me have a few days to think it over.'"

And L'Engle concludes:

"Sorrowfully, although [Gabriel] was not surprised to have it happen again, the angel returned to heaven." (And It was Good: Reflections on Beginnings (Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1983), pp. 250-251)

But then Mary said to Gabriel, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be..." "Let me help it happen. I consent!"

Mary's consent must have entailed for her, however, some difficulty. Gail Anderson Ricciuti, a Presbyterian pastor and seminary professor, has observed: "Life is mysterious enough when you are only ... fourteen, as [Mary] may have been; childhood no longer fits. Nothing fits exactly right. You are arms and legs and feet, with a face part girl and part woman, and a body shape-shifting out of control, inhabited by longings that fill you with both ecstasy and fear." So Mary's bodily circumstances must have intensified her sense of fragility and risk. "But recognizing this to be God's plan, not her own, [Mary] gives her consent: 'Let it be with me according to your word.'" (in The Abingdon Women's Preaching Annual, Series 3, Year B, compiled and edited by Beverly A. Zink-Sawyer [Abingdon, 2002], pp. 26-27, 28)

You know, this fourteen-year-old Mary "is being asked to do what is wholly against her religious tradition and social upbringing[-becoming pregnant before marriage]. She is [being asked] to sacrifice her social standing and expose herself to society's disapproval. She is being asked to put the plan of God above her [own] social and religious expectations." (Mercy Oduyoye, Who Will Roll the Stone Away? [Geneva: WCC Publications, 1990], p. 69) And yet she responds, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord."

So "�she le[aves] pure behind. She le[aves] safe behind, She le[aves] proper and comfortable and secure far behind�, and trade[s] them for a vision of God incarnate..." (Anna Carter Florence, The Abingdon Women's Preaching Annual, Series 2, Year B, compiled and edited by Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, p. 31) Mary responds "Yes!" to God, in fullness of faith and without constraint. She agrees to become a co-worker with God in fulfilling God's plan. She tells the angel Gabriel: "Here am I, the servant of the Lord."

Ah yes, that phrase, "servant of the Lord!" Now, this morning's First Lesson is one of the passages in the book of the prophet Isaiah that's often referred to as "a Servant Song," a song about one who is filled by the Spirit of God and anointed to a set of tasks that are crucial to God's purposes, crucial to God's plan of salvation.

In this lesson, the prophet is proclaiming that the same Spirit who at the beginning of time blew across the waters of chaos to create the ordered world, the same Spirit who later parted the waters of the Sea to liberate the Israelite slaves from captivity in Egypt, that same Spirit is now coming into our world for the purpose of empowering people to play vital roles as servants of the Lord—vital roles in transforming "the way things are."

When Laura Jervis offered her meditation on this same passage from Isaiah at the Wednesday evening Candlelight Vesper Service a week and a half ago, she urged us to read these words not only as a description of the role that Jesus fulfilled during his life and ministry, but also as a description of the role that each of us as a child of God is called to fulfill during our lives and ministries, as we respond in the affirmative to the call from God to become agents of God's reign, to become "servants of the Lord."

Yes, each and every one of us is called to be "like Mary." For, as we have seen, when Gabriel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you," (vs. 35a), she showed to each of us how we, too, should respond. Having been called by God to a particular task, she took the risk of answering: "Here am I, the servant of the Lord."

Now, unfortunately, too many commentators over too long a period of time have contended that the role model Mary offers us here, as she takes for herself the title "servant of the Lord"—that the role modelshe offers us here is one of a woman's passive submission to male authority. And this has been contended both by those who favor such a role model and by those who very much object to it.

But this interpretation of today's lesson is dead wrong, for at least two reasons. It is wrong in the first place because here in this passage Mary simply does not behave passively. She actively and willfully accepts quite a risky role in God's plan. She freely consents to it, without constraint, saying: "Here am I. Let it be...."

And the interpretation that Mary's role as "servant" is here portrayed as a woman's submission to male authority is wrong in the second place because the title "servant," "servant of the Lord," "servant of God," which Mary claims for herself in this passage, is not one that the Bible assigns to characters who shrink into the background passively and subserviently. Rather "servant," "servant of the Lord," "servant of God" is a title that the Bible assigns to figures who advance freely and actively into the forefront of God's service. It's a title assigned to such bold and authoritative figures as the patriarch Abraham (Gen. 26:24; Ps. 105:6, 42); the prophet Moses (e.g., Deut. 34:5); the leader Joshua (Josh. 24:29); the prophet-to-be Samuel (1 Sam. 3:9); the king David (Luke 1:69); the prophet Isaiah (Isa. 20:3); the disciple Peter (2 Peter 1:1); the apostle Paul (Titus 1:1); the apostle James (James 1:1); and, of course, the Messiah himself, Jesus (e.g., Acts 3:13).

So "servant of the Lord" simply does not function in the Bible as a title connoting passive submission. No, "servant of the Lord" functions as a title used by biblical authors when they want to affirm: "Here's a person whose active service to God should also serve as a role model for us, as an authoritative role model. Here's a real 'servant of the Lord.'"

Robert Fulghum—you know, he's the fellow who in 1986 wrote that best-selling book of wisdom entitled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten-Robert Fulghum tells this story. He once placed alongside the mirror in his bathroom a picture of a woman who wasn't his wife. And every morning as he stood there shaving, he looked at the picture of that woman, who was small, humped-over, and dressed in old sandals and a simple blue sari. But all around her in that photograph were "important-looking" people dressed in tuxedos, evening gowns, and the regalia of royalty. That photo was a picture of Mother Teresa receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Fulghum tells us that he kept that picture there to remind him that, more than any leader of a nation, more than any pope, more than any chief executive officer of a major corporation, that woman had authority-and she possessed that authority precisely because she acted toward God and humankind as "a servant of the Lord." (recounted in Homiletics, November-December, 2005, p. 70)

Yes, upon hearing God's word, the "servant of the Lord" named Mary freely consented to helping it happen (cf. also Luke 11:27-28). And it was this faith-filled act of consent by Mary that enabled God to be born on earth.

And so it is that this fourth and final Sunday of Advent—the Sunday we Protestants sometimes call "Mary Sunday"—this "fourth and final Sunday of Advent rushes [onward] toward Incarnation" (Ricciuti, p. 26). It rushes onward from this day, when we remember that Mary freely chose to enable the Creator to take flesh and dwell among us—it rushes onward from this day toward Christmas Eve, toward the very night of Incarnation itself, toward the night of the Christ-child's re-birth, when we ourselves are called to become "servants of the Lord" by giving birth in our own lives to God's presence in the world.

Yes, here at the end of Advent we, too, are being asked by God to join with Mary in responding, "Here am I, a servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Here, at the end of Advent, we, too, are being called to offer the kind of faith-filled acts of consent that will enable the joy and peace and love that is God to be born into this world again and again through our lives.

Yes, let us consent to give birth again to the joy and peace and love that is God. Let us help this happen!

Please join me in prayer:

O God, prompt us to consent to being Your servants, so that through us You may again be born into our world. In the name of the Christ-child, we pray this. Amen.