Sunday 17th December, 2017

The Story for the Day
 
Reading: The Annunciation (Luke 1: 26-38)
 
And with these words, we meet a very dangerous woman.
 
Dangerous? How can this be?
 
Meek, mild, submissive – these are words which probably more readily come to mind when we think about Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.
 
So how can I say she’s dangerous?
 
Well, I’ll offer you a couple of thoughts.
 
The Protestant tradition has made Mary virtually invisible. We hardly talk about her. For centuries, she’s been pushed aside, only spoken of once a year, her sole purpose, seemingly, to be pregnant and give birth, a necessary means to an end.
 
The Catholic tradition, on the other hand, has done something different. It’s put her on a pedestal, held her up as an unattainable ideal of perfection. It has emphasised ideas of purity, of virginity. It has praised her submission, her meekness, her innocence, her youth.
 
In both traditions, she is almost completely silenced, a woman to be either ignored or venerated, but not heard. And even when we do hear her words, they are often gently spiritualised, robbed of their shocking radicalism.
 
Why is this? I think it tells us more about the Church than it does about Mary. It is about patriarchy, about men and power, about men being fearful of the power of women. The treatment of Mary shines a light on the insecurity of the patriarchy.
 
But not all men have been scared. Luke tells us more about Mary than any other Gospel. And yes, he tells us about a dangerous woman.
 
Reading: The Magnificat (Luke 1: 39-56)
 
Sermon
 
Every year, Time Magazine declares a person of the year. This year, it is not one, but many. They are the women called the Silence Breakers, women who, in the judgement of the magazine, are the people who most influenced the events of the year.
 
It started in Hollywood. Harvey Weinstein was the first. It spread to other countries, to other industries, to politics. Suddenly, men were made aware of what women have always known. Inappropriate, coercive, unwanted sexual contact is endemic. And it’s about power. The power men seek to wield over women.
 
Now, there will be men here thinking – I don’t do that. And I’m sure you don’t. There are millions of men who would never dream of ever doing anything sexually coercive or inappropriate. But I think all of us, both men and women, are complicit, to an extent. Complicit because society is still profoundly masculine and we often do not notice just how masculine it is. Complicit because our language, especially in church, is still so gendered. Complicit because we all live in a society in which women are routinely underrated, overlooked, discounted, silenced, objectified.
 
A wee example: people in the church are saying, isn’t it good we are having a female moderator next year to mark the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. But I’m saying that the Church needs a female moderator the year after and the year after that, and the year after that, until we reach the point when a female moderator is no longer the exception, no longer something to be remarked upon.
 
A more serious example: when the whole Weinstein story started to emerge, I asked Why is this leading the News at Ten? Surely it is just celebrity tittle tattle? But I was wrong. It was systemic abuse of power, but I had fallen into the trap of thinking such things were normal, and I’m ashamed of that. And I’m ashamed of the times I’ve put an arm round a woman’s shoulders in a way I intended as friendly, but which was perceived as an invasion of personal space. And I’m ashamed of the times I’ve lent in for a continental-style kiss on the cheek when a simple handshake would have been the appropriate greeting. I’ve listened to the testimony of women, from millionaire Hollywood actresses to minimum wage waitresses, describing the comments they get, the parts of their bodies which men grab, the disturbing situations they are forced into, the sexual assaults they endure, and I’m ashamed because I have been largely unaware of just what a dangerous place the world is for women, and it is men with power, even a tiny amount of power, who are making it dangerous.
 
That’s what I mean by complicit. It is not just about doing, about touching, feeling, grabbing; it is not just about accepting that that’s the way the world is; it is about not even noticing. It is about not noticing that men and men’s ways are the norm, in politics, in industry, in business, in the professions, in sport, even in the language we speak and it is about not noticing that, in so many ways, women are the exception. There’s the World Cup, and there’s the Women’s World Cup. Need I say more?
 
Against this background, we read of Mary.
 
First, let’s list the lies that have been told about her.
 
She’s meek, mild and mindless. Not true.
 
She’s submissive and passive. Not true.
 
She’s very young. There’s no biblical evidence for that.
 
She’s a virgin. Well, the word Luke uses means very specifically that she has not yet borne a child, not the meaning commonly attached to the word ‘virgin’ now.
 
Why do this? Why tell these lies while at the same time building an image of purity and perfection?
 
Because, for the patriarchy, she’s a scary, dangerous woman, and nothing scares the patriarchy as much as women’s sexuality.
 
The lies are told to neutralise her, to preserve the patriarchy, to diminish women, to say to women – You can do pregnancy and motherhood, but leave the rest to men.
 
But the truth of Mary is this:
 
She’s strong, neither submissive nor immature.
 
She’s full of grace – and her grace is seen in her courage, her boldness, her grit, her convictions about justice. She doesn’t submit to the angel but stands up to him. What kind of greeting is this? How shall this come about, since I have no husband?
 
She’s independent and decisive. She doesn’t need a man, a husband or father or priest, to control her body. She makes her own reproductive choices, and there’s no shame in her decision.
 
She’s bold and adventurous, so often travelling, like all the prophets before her, alone.
 
She’s tough. Giving birth in a barn can be no picnic, and that’s just the start of it.
 
And she’s political. Mary chooses to be the mother of a holy child, to align her life, her soul, her body with the purposes of God, purposes she proclaims publicly in Elizabeth’s house – to scatter the proud, to bring down the powerful, to lift up those who are oppressed, to fill the hungry with good things, to send the rich away empty.
 
She’s a dangerous woman, in partnership with a dangerous God. A dangerous woman, like the Silence Breakers, women who have spoken out, women who have battled not being believed, women who have scattered some of the proud and have brought down some of the powerful, who, with sisters and sympathetic brothers the world over, have much, much more to do.
 
But the thing that makes Mary most dangerous, most scary, is that she is announcing a new kingdom, a kingdom unlike any other. A kingdom for the powerless, not the powerful. A kingdom for the poor, not the rich. A kingdom for the dominated, not the dominators. A kingdom where God is, where the “us” in “God with us” Emmanuel, are at the margins, not the centre, are the abused, not the abusers, are the victims, not the violent.
 
Let her words ring long and loud. If what you want from God’s son is a little comfort, a little reassurance, for things to stay much the same, then think again. Mary knew this – that the child she chose to bear was already changing everything. She was the first to believe in him, to believe in this dangerous faith. Mary is not only the mother of Christ. She is the mother of all who put their faith in her Son to destroy all that is evil and change the world for good, the mother of all who rally to her call for justice and equity and who give their lives to the struggle.
 
Amen.