She Said, "Yes!"

Preached at Prescott Memorial Baptist Church

December 23, 2012

Luke 1:39-55

If Mary, the mother of Jesus, wondered why she was chosen to be the mother of Jesus, (and she did) the angel Gabriel said it clearly: “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

So that—when Mary’s friend and family member, Elizabeth, asks, “Why has this happened to me, that the mother of our Lord comes to me?” we already know the answer. God is in charge and the tables are starting to turn. The winners and losers will no longer be determined by the culture but by the presence of a loving and living God among us.

And then Mary sings this song: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior …”

Several years ago the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville sponsored a sermon writing competition. The men in their academic offices were thinking that too many good sermons get preached and then get no notice from esteemed colleagues. It was determined that good work should be rewarded with praise, public recognition and some sort of cash prize. The request for submissions was published and the deadline drew near.  Submissions would be anonymous.

Sermons came in from far away and from only a few miles distance. The sponsors of the competition read the sermons and put the best ones to the side. One sermon came to the top in every man’s pile. It was clear, powerful and effective.  The men were happy to be in agreement on the winner and they laughed and slapped each other on the back as they gave the winner a call. 

A woman answered the phone. "Hello?"

“Yes! This is Dr. Significant from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Can we speak with the reverend, please?” 

“Yes! This is Reverend Somebody Too. Can I help you?”

So it turns out as you have probably already guessed that the writer of the award-winning sermon was a woman. Her name is Rev. Molly Marshall and she has preached for this Prescott congregation in the past.

This winning sermon was a problem for the significant Southern Baptist academics and church leaders. According to the Southern Baptist understanding of the Reign of God, women cannot preach and they certainly cannot receive awards for sermons that compete favorably against sermons written by some of the best men preachers around the country. 

It’s not just Southern Baptist men who have problems realizing the power and potential of women for good in this world. There is a Hebrew prayer: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has not made me a woman.” 

And Mohammed stated, “When Eve was created, Satan rejoiced.” 

The writers and leaders of the Christian faith created an institution and assumed the same pose of contempt for the female. Paul wrote in his letter to Timothy: “Let the woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to hold authority over a man. She is to keep silent. For Adam was not deceived but the woman was deceived and became the transgressor.”  

Church men have continued to do their best to use religion to lock women further into the role of passive and inferior beings, and thus the more easily controlled property of men. 

The women talked together and visited in Elizabeth’s home. Two women visited in a Judean town in the hill country. As soon as I say that women were talking there is an immediate assumption (not by all but by too many) that whatever was being said was not significant. Some of us, men and women, will inwardly shrug, dismissing the talk between women as meaningless. What could Mary have to say that would be worth remembering two-thousand years later?  She was fifteen and pregnant. Not married and pregnant. You can hear the neighbors tut-tutting for shame for shame. And what could Elizabeth have to say that we would be interested in hearing even now? She was an older woman, past her prime and now she was pregnant too. The same neighbors tut tut  for shame, for shame. Women stand vulnerable to all passing opinions and judgments cast by neighbors. 

Women feel that lack of value and they begin to blame their bodies. They are too fat. They are too thin, too tall or too short. Their skin has blemishes. Their faces are wrinkled. They are too hairy. They cannot be on the cheerleading squad so they might as well crawl into a corner and let all their hopes and dreams die.

We have been trained to think that girls and women are less rational than men and therefore less likely to say anything of significance.  Female bodies are objectified and valued while female voices are silenced as men talk over them, dismiss their words or fail to invite them into the important discussions.  And every young woman feels the challenge. She can accept the dominate culture’s attitude toward her and be submissive. She can rebel against the dominant culture and be labeled strident or worse. Or she can choose to stop reacting to the culture around her; she can choose to respond to the power of God’s redeeming love in her longing to be whole and free. Mary said, “Yes!”

This is amazing to me. 

Where did a fifteen year old girl get that kind of courage, faith and self-assurance? Maybe it was the longing within her own heart to be recognized as a person of power and significance in God’s eye. God respected the longing in the young girl’s heart. And God responded to the longing in a young girl's heart by saying, "Yes!" in return.

Joan Chittister is one of my sheroes. A Benedictine sister and best-selling author, she is also a well-known lecturer. She points out that too many religious people think that to be holy is to be set apart from this world and its longings, its desires, its pleasures and power.  St Augustine’s theory of original sin required the rejection of the world as a vital element of the spiritual life. Joan Chittister calls this a theology of negation and wonders why Jesus came to earth and became flesh if all things earthly and fleshy are something other than holy. *

She remembers an experience when the Catholic sisters were changing from the traditional habit to contemporary clothes. Joan found herself in an elevator with a charming middle aged man who made conversation with her, riding down to the lobby from the fiftieth floor.  

“And what do you do, young lady?” he asked as they approached the lobby level.

“I’m a Benedictine sister,” she said quite easily. 

The man’s face changed; his brow furrowed. When the elevator door opened he stood and blocked Joan’s exit. “Do you realize,” he faced her with anger, “I could have made a pass at you! Why aren’t you dressed in a habit?” 

A much younger Joan Chittister looked straight into the man’s eyes. “And what difference does a habit make? Are you married? And if you are then why would you be making a pass at anyone at all? And if you are not married then why would you treat a woman on an elevator as if she were an object for your consumption?” 

He stalked across the lobby and did not look back. Joan stood there and watched him leave the building. She was thinking about all the women in the world who have been raped while the men who raped them have gone free from any charges because of “what the woman was wearing.” The length of a woman’s skirt has become an object of morality just as great as or even greater than the immorality of sexual assault. 

“What was she doing wearing that skirt if she didn’t want to be raped? What was she doing out so late at night if she didn’t want to be attacked?”

The women I work with in the county jail know that they are up against that kind of prejudice and injustice when they report a rape. They know that their fathers, brothers, husbands, neighbors, teachers and preachers can easily take advantage of them. They know how hard it is to find someone who will believe them when they say, “I am being abused.” These are ordinary women, many of them poor. Many of them addicted to drugs and accustomed to working the streets for a living. Who would believe them or treat them as significant? They are ONLY women and poor women too, easily silenced by power.

Mary would listen and believe them. She respects her poor sisters and so does her son, Jesus. That’s what Mary’s wonderful song is all about: the turning over of the tables. Those who have not been heard, believed or valued will be chosen and lifted up to places where their deepest longings are met with divine respect, God’s partnership. 

Mary wanted something more for her life. She longed to have her courage and her great faith put to good use. And she partnered with God to make something good happen to elevate the status of all women for all time. 

Redeeming love came into this world through the body and flesh of a woman named Mary.

So it is that we are not surprised that it is the women in Jesus’ life who had the necessary courage to stay with him at the cross while he suffered and died. It was the women in his life: Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James who walked boldly to the tomb and found that it was empty. The women took the news to the men and the men, Luke tells us, thought that the women were telling an idle tale and they did not believe them. It is ONLY women talking. Who cares to listen?

In their unbelief those men set up an institution that would silence women.

Yet we hear the voice of Mary singing: “For the Mighty One has done great things for me!” The mighty one, the Mother God, embraced a poor ordinary girl and respected the longing of her heart. “Let me make a difference in this world,” Mary prayed to a God of inclusive and compassionate love.  

The star that burned brightly over a stable in Bethlehem led the way for wise men to find the Christ child. But the light in that star had already led the way for a young girl to discover the power of God’s redeeming love and power in her longing to be Somebody. 

Amen

* Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir, Joan Chittister, Sheed and Ward, 2004