TEXT: Luke 1:26-38
Let it Be
This month was the 25th anniversary of the death
of John Lennon, founding member of The Beatles and half of the song writing duo
that penned the vast majority of their gold-plated songs. One of the last of those songs before the
band’s infamous split was simply titled Let
it Be. It was, to my musical
proclivities, a beautiful song – haunting in a way, or reverent; made even
moreso by my sense that it had to be religious, what with its reference to
“Mother Mary” speaking words of wisdom.
Any song about “Mother Mary,” I surmised, had to be religious.
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Singing words of wisdom
Let it Be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom,
Let it Be.
(John Lennon & Paul McCartney, Copyright © 1970 by
Northern Songs, Ltd., London England).
It wasn’t until later – I’m embarrassed to guess how much
later – that the more obvious and substantive religious connection finally
kicked in. It has to do with those
“words of wisdom” quoted straight out of this morning’s reading: “Let it be.”
“I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
Now, I have no idea how the Beatles came to zero in on this
passage; I never thought of them as a particularly “churchy” lot. And their application of Mary’s wisdom tends
toward the bleaker moments of life – “times of trouble,” “hour of darkness,” –
but then I’m not at all sure that Mary, herself, didn’t view her own situation
in precisely those terms. At the very
least, the angel’s announcement that she was to become pregnant outside of
wedlock, in a religious environment that often responded to such news with
stoning, at the very least must have seemed a mixed blessing – especially when
the best she would be able to say when pressed for the name of the father was
“the Holy Spirit.”
However flattering the idea may have been of being noticed by
God and set apart for this special role, neither the short-term nor the
long-term prospects looked very good.
“Times of trouble,” indeed!
So who is this girl, anyway?
The fact is we haven’t a clue. We
aren’t introduced to her family, her interests, even her presumably bellwether
devotion. We have an altogether
circumstantial clue about her age.
“Betrothals, legal and binding, were usually arranged between families
when women were quite young, still only girls” (Craddock, Luke, Interpretation Commentaries, p. 27)). Twelve to fourteen years of age we might speculate
– which makes it even less likely that Mary, by that tender age, had
demonstrated any particular credentials for the assignment being given her –
either spiritual or biological.
But then the story isn’t really about Mary; it’s about God –
and that with God nothing will be impossible.
Now, when the angel made that promise, I don’t really think he intended
to open the door to nonsense – as in nothing will be impossible, like spinning
straw into gold or making dogs fly or hog confinements no longer stink. We could debate God’s ability to accomplish
such fascinations, I suppose, but again, I don’t think that was the angel’s
interest.
I think what the angel was saying was that when God is
determined to make something happen, God will make it happen. We may puzzle over the how or the when –
maybe even the why – but God’s will,
announces God’s messenger, will be God’s way. And Mary, perhaps nowhere sounding more like
the child she probably was, replies
simply, and perhaps naively, “OK.”
It is quite breathtaking:
imagining all the questions that must have been going through Mary’s young
head; imaging all the whispers and difficult questions; wrestling in advance
with the biology, the legalities, the scandal; anticipating all the ways her
life was about to change; trying to comprehend all that has been said about the
child she would birth; and still, given all those considerations, ultimately
responding, “let it be.”
She certainly knew enough to know that it wasn’t the usual order of things, but she didn’t yet
know enough to disbelieve. She’d never
seen it happen that way before, but then again there was a lot she hadn’t
seen. So, “let it be.”
We have seen such things happen before, albeit in very
different arenas. I think of some of the
leaders who have emerged in AMOS – the metropolitan organizing strategy of
which our congregation is a part; shy people, some of them; back pew people,
most of them, a few of them, even, whose citizenship is a bit murky – as
unaccustomed to standing up in front of a crowd and chairing a meeting as a
virgin is to having a baby – calling us to order and moving us through the
agenda; because they have been called into possibility, energized into
vulnerability, and found the inner resources to simply respond, “let it be.”
In her meditative self-reflection titled, When the Heart Waits, author Sue Monk
Kidd observes that “a crisis is a holy summons to cross a threshold. It involves both a leaving behind and a
stepping toward, a separation and an opportunity.” She recalls that the word “crisis” derives
from the Greek words for “a separating,” highlighting the fact that “our crises
are times of severing from old ways and states of being,” and inviting us to
ask ourselves “what it is we’re being asked to separate from. What needs to be left behind?”
She goes on to observe that few of us know how to have a
crisis creatively; that we typically react in one of two ways. “We say that it’s God’s will and force
ourselves into an outwardly sweet acceptance, remaining unaffected at the
deeper level of the spirit. Or we reject
the crisis, fighting and railing against it until we become cynical and
defeated or suffer a loss of faith.”
But there is, she notes, a third way to have a crisis: “the way of waiting. That way means creating a painfully honest
and contemplative relationship with one’s own depths, with God in the deep
center of one’s soul” (pp. 87-88).
As, perhaps, does this betrothed and virginal Mary when faced
with the crisis that is to be her decisive, creative, threshold moment.
“Let it be,” Mary responds – as she will not simply over the
9-months of waiting before her, but throughout the years of frightening,
devastating and glorious years of mothering that will follow. “Bring it on.”
If this story is to be more than simple history – even
spiritual, theological history, sooner or later we must get around to wondering
about the angel visitations and invitations in our own experience. They will almost certainly come to us less
dramatically, but will just as certainly catch us no less by surprise. What new birth is God asking us to carry and
bring to full term? What is the
impossible wanting to be possible within you?
For what instrument of change or transformation or grace is your life called to be the womb? And what will be the cost of carrying it and
giving it birth – to your lifestyle, your relationships, your reputation, and
the way you see yourself?
It does, after all – as Mary quickly discovered, as will we –
cost something, if only the price of our credulity, trust, and comfort. Annie Dillard recalls a neighbor lady from
her childhood, who “lived alone in the big house across the street. She liked having me around,” Dillard writes; “she
plied me with cookies, taught me things about the world, and tried to interest
me in finger painting, in which she herself took great pleasure.”
On a certain day one summer, “Miss White and I knelt in her
yard while she showed me a magnifying glass.
It was a large, strong hand lens.
She lifted my hand and, holding it very still, focused a dab of sunshine
on my palm. The glowing crescent
wobbled, spread, and finally contracted to a point. It burned, I was burned; I ripped my hand
away and ran home crying. Miss White
called after me, sorry, explaining, but I didn’t look back.
“Even now,” Dillard goes on to reflect, “I wonder: if I meet God, will he take and hold my bare
hand in his, and focus his eye on my palm, and kindle that spot and let me
burn?
But no,” she concludes.
“It is I who misunderstood everything, and let everybody down. Miss White, God, I am sorry I ran from
you. I am still running, running from
that knowledge, that eye, that love from which there is no refuge. For you meant only love, and love, and I felt
only fear, and pain. So once in
What would it mean to honor our fears, submit them as an
offering, and stand firm – not, this time, running away; but instead receiving
the burning light of grace-filled possibility?
What would it mean to take within us as a seed Gabriel’s promise that “nothing
will be impossible for God,” trusting its gestational, transformational power,
and innocently, confidently reply, “I am your instrument. Let it be with me according to your
word.”
Just imagine what it would mean.