No one mentions courage

Today many Christians celebrate Gabriel’s announcement to Mary: “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.” I am part of a Christian tradition that, in Lent, focuses particularly on Jesus’ salvific choice to turn his feet towards Jerusalem, to obey God, and to live a life where worldly power is renounced. Other traditions see the moment of incarnation as decisive. In the Orthodox tradition the following hymn of St. Athanasius reminds worshippers of the centrality of the moment where God becomes a human being. 

Today is the beginning of our salvation,
And the revelation of the eternal mystery!

Focussing on the moment of incarnation, emphasizes Mary’s choice, her participation in God’s greatest work. This is beautifully expressed in Denise Levertov’s poem The Annunciation: 

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily.

      Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.

       The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.

        God waited.

She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.

As Mennonites we have focused on a very particular pathway to participation with God: following the stony road trod by Jesus’ self-sacrificial love. We are a church deeply shaped by an ethics of obedience and our birth in martyrdom. Mary also is an example of obedience. As Levertov insists, however, it is not just meek obedience. Mary’s choice occurs before it is possible to literally follow Jesus. “Let it be with me, according to your word.” Her obedience is an act of co-creation with God, and it is revolutionary in Sprit.*

The world that she reimagines as being created with God is one where the proud are scattered in the conceits of their heart; where the mighty are pulled down from their thrones; where the hungry are filled, where the rich end up with empty hands. It is a vision of a new world that is beyond just the biblical concept of Jubilee. I reflect on these concepts this morning as we confront a global pandemic where it seems that the common good requires that we take the kind of bold actions that Mary proclaims in order that we can all live in safety together. We are at a moment of global annunciation. As Levertov notes there are moments of annunciation in each of our lives.

Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?

        Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.

More often
those moments
      when roads of light and storm
      open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from

in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
                                 God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

I am not by nature a courageous person, and yet one thing that is becoming more and more clear to me as I get older is the necessity of courage as a virtue. It is the virtue that make the other virtues possible. I think as Mennonites we can sometimes confuse pacifism with quietism. The reason that we do not participate in wars should not be because we are craven, but because we have been captivated by the brand new world that God began to recreate in and through Mary’s obedience. When we follow in the steps of Mary we might look meek and gentle, but engendering courage must burn within us. If we do not want the pathway to God’s new creation to vanish before us we mustn’t ever lose our commitment to a world where the poor are lifted up and the haughty are brought down …. even when—especially when-- our quiet virtue has made us rich and fast friends with those who are haughty. Our yieldedness must be the yieldedness of Mary and not the complacency of the preservers of the status quo. 

I will confess something. I am a Mennonite, but I sometimes ask for Mary’s intercession. I have a small statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe. For me this particular story of Mary visiting human beings resonates with how and where I believe that Jesus Christ shows us in our world.  This is incarnation! 

May we each be open for the moments of annunciation and incarnation in our own lives. 

*I confess I don’t know as much as I would like to know about the theology around the annunciation. There are Mennonites who have done great work on this—I would commend Susie Guenther Loewen’s work on Mary.