Mary, Assertive and Strong

While I highly respect Mary, the mother of Jesus, I don’t consider myself a devotee.  After thinking about this for a while, it think it has more to do with how she is promoted (especially within the Roman Catholic Church) than not acknowledging her unique and important part of our Christian story.  Indeed, without Mary’s willingness to accept the mantle of motherhood, all else would be naught.

My issue with the way Mary is portrayed by the Church is that she becomes the paragon of feminine virtue being eternally a virgin (this theology is not promoted by the Episcopal Church, as we believe the Gospels refer to his biological brothers.).  The innocence and subservience of that nomenclature demands that Mary be seen as “gentle,” “meek,” and “mild.”  That is ridiculous.  And when the Church wants all women to emulate Mary in this way, it denies any vivacity or assertiveness from being positive feminine qualities.

I know I stand on the shoulders of many strong women who fought for the right to serve God in the institution of the Church in the same way that men can.  Because of my position, my annoyance seems unjustified, except for the fact that many women around the world, and even in this country, are taught that women are physically, and ergo, spiritually, inferior to men, and they use Mary (and Eve) to justify how they understand the world to work.  This makes me heartsick, not only for the women who are caught up in those systems, but also for enfeebling one of the strongest women every to have lived.

The Mary the Church promotes thinks nothing of herself and points only to her son.  This Mary is always prayerful and never angry.  She is quite and humble, doesn’t talk back and never raises her voice (it is amazing what 1000’s of years of art can convince people of!). 

But that is not how I see Mary at all.  She stood toe-to-toe with the Angel Gabriel and questioned what he wanted her to do. She was given a say in how her body was used, not just taken over, that is her agency was not ignored.  She stood up to her own son and told him it was time to offer the miracle at Cana.  And she held his dead body after it was taken down from the cross, crying her eyes out.  This is a passionate, Spirit-filled woman who has much to teach the Church today, if we let her.

Mostly this involves being aware of the images and words we use when referring to Mary, noticing when she is being treated like a porcelain doll rather than an empowered woman who was asked by God to do the one thing God couldn’t do - bear a human child.  When we see the inequity of women being supported by an impossible standard of Mary’s subservience, we can proclaim her strength and courage for standing up to a system that wanted to debase her for having a child “out of wedlock”.   We can accept that women can not and should not be silent when defending their personal rights for health care, education and employment opportunities.  This should be Mary’s legacy, not one of passive humility.

As the annual celebration of our Savior’s birth draws near, I pray we can all find our inner Mary, the assertive and strong parts of our souls, that will empower us to transform our world to be God’s Realm on earth.  Let us empower all people, especially women, to use their gifts and talents to offer equal opportunities to all people regardless of their gender.  And may being like Mary actually be a threat to the Institution rather than supporting the status quo.

With Advent Blessings.

Rev. Valerie+