A poem by Pesha Gertler:
Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
all the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones
those coded messages
that send me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say
Holy Holy.
Tonight, we celebrate the feast of the Annunciation.
Tonight we celebrate the feast of
the angel’s promise of the coming birth of the holy child,
the feast of God’s favor upon the lowly,
sung by Mary in the Magnificat,
in which the mighty are cast down from their thrones
and the humble are raised,
the feast of the hungry being fed abundantly
while the rich are sent away empty.
Most of all, this is the feast in which we celebrate Mary’s yes.
There are three things I want to touch on briefly tonight.
Mary the Virgin.
Mary and Joseph.
And the angel's departure.
First, Mary the Virgin.
There are many ways to think of that title: Virgin.
Many -- most -- think of a virgin as one without sexual experience,
or even one who has is lacking in experience generally.
But I think there is another way to think of virginity.
Mary is full of grace.
Mary is centered in her being and God's.
Mary is Virgin as one who in God has found that wholeness.
In this way we can all be virgins.
We can all be those who rely not on the our own efforts, strivings, energy,
but on surrender to the mystery of God.
We can as Virgins enter into something that is bigger than we are,
entering this mystery with all our body and soul.
Mary -- and we -- are full of grace whenever we say yes to God.
Not just yes, I'll say my prayers.
Not just yes, I'll go to mass.
Not just yes, I'll tithe.
But yes to the fullness of God abiding in me -- with all the consequences.
With all the life-changing consequences.
Some of us have done that -- sometimes more than once.
If we are baptized as adults, we most certainly have said it then.
If we have accepted the care of a loved one, a family member,
a child of Kosovo,
we must certainly have said yes then.
I hope you get my point.
Mary is whole, is complete, precisely because she said yes to God
in a way that changed her life -- and the life of the world.
Our deepest yes may not change the life of the world,
but it most certainly changes the life of those in the orbit of our lives
The second point: Mary and Joseph.
They go together.
Luke focuses on Mary; Matthew on Joseph.
Two gospels; two ways of telling the story.
But they go together.
The young, naïve Mary may have responded
in ways that were ever deeper as her life progressed,
pondering them in her heart.
But so did Joseph.
Joseph, before his dreams, was so in love
that he chose the problematic path of "putting Mary away quietly".
Joseph, after his dreams, took her as his wife.
Joseph shared in the upbringing.
We know from our own experience, the incredible importance of a father.
We know by that father's presence -- or his absence.
But we know.
Joseph must have been a good father for at least twelve years.
Simply look at Jesus.
Simply look at Jesus -- and his mother -- and his father.
They all go together.
The Annunciation has a context.
And that context is Mary -- and Joseph.
And Joseph.
Just so we have a part in the annunciation.
We share in the nurturing of Jesus the Christ within ourselves.
Paul cries out in agony and triumph,
it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
We can make that same cry.
We can thus become Mary and Joseph to the Christ in the world.
The third point lies in the departure of the Angel.
Margaret Gunther pointed this out in a meditation.
Most of us, I think, picture Mary as alone when Gabriel talked with her.
But that picture ends with that short phrase:
And the Angel departed from her.
Oh my.
What if Gabriel had said, instead,
See you later.
I'll be wilth you every step of the way.
I'll check in regularaly.
But no, the angel departed from her.
Mary is alone with a terrible secret.
She does not know what Joseph will do.
She is not certain how anyone will react,
except in the traditional terms of judgment and punishment.
So, she goes to another pregnant woman, Elizabeth.
She seeks spiritual friendship in the community of Elizabeth.
She seeks support where she knows she will get it.
Mary and Elizabeth are different in age, in circumstance of life,
perhaps even in how they felt about themselves.
But they are bound together as family
And in their response to God with a yes.
And us?
We, too need community and the spiritual support of true friends.
Here at St. Paul's we are quite diverse.
But we are bound together as family.
And in some way we have all said yes to God.
Mary did not know at the time of the Annunciation
all that yes meant.
Neither do we.
But, with help of our friends, we say it.
So, tonight we celebrate that we are all virgins.
We celebrate that we are all Mary/Joseph nurturers
of the Christ in this world.
And, since the angel departs from our conscious lives,
we are all part of a family of love and support;
a spiritual family that cares about the whole of us,
body and spirit.
It is a great feast.
Let us celebrate it with a renewal of our own resounding yes.
Yes, Lord,
let be it with me according to Your word.
